John McDonnell
MP for Hayes and Harlington · Labour · United Kingdom
“It is not a laughing matter—I am sorry for interrupting the flow of the discussion. It would be useful if the review looked at NATS’s long-term investment plans, particularly since its partial privatisation in 2001, which I opposed. I thank the Minister for meeting Unite this morning and thanking the workers, who have worked so hard.”
“On a number of occasions, I have raised the case of Lee Cheuk-yan, who many Labour Members will remember was the general secretary of the Hong Kong Confederation of Trade Unions and founder of the Labour party in Hong Kong. He was detained during the democracy movement five years ago.”
“I thank the Minister for his statement. NATS used to be in my constituency and then moved down to Swanwick. Of course, with Heathrow in my constituency, I receive—as I mentioned yesterday—a large amount of correspondence from a whole range of other MPs’ constituents, who think I am responsible for Heathrow airport.”
“I fully agree, and let me also say that wheelchair compensation is significant in this legislation. Most of us have dealt with cases like that. Going back to accountability in the process, a number of different organisations have provided us with notes on the legislation.”
“I apologise to my right hon. Friend; I should have checked this before the debate. The proposed new section 61G refers to priorities and objectives of the Secretary of State, which include a requirement for the Secretary of State to issue a document setting out those priorities and objectives for the CAA.”
“At the moment, when people in my constituency are faced with these problems, they do not know where to go; it is as simple as that. Finally, the debate that we will have on Heathrow expansion and the new policy statement will be interesting, given that we do not know what the flight paths will be. If I was a constituent of my hon.”
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“I have listened to Government Members arguing that the Conservative party stands for freedom of speech, support for the law, the rights of property, the democratic rights of this Parliament, local government and other agencies, devolution of decision-making, and support for the action on the environment and human rights. Let me turn to the amendments on freedom of speech. Amendments 28 and 3 prevent the Government introducing a gagging order on even just talking about this—having a debate about it. That is profoundly unconservative. I cannot believe that Government Members are not supporting those amendments. On the issue of rights of property, I say to the Conservative Member whose constituency I cannot remember that we are both members of the local government pension fund.”
“The important thing is to ensure that if we use this mechanism, it is used properly and fairly and that we do not discriminate against one particular country. That is what I have not done. I have called for BDS with regard to goods coming from the occupied territories and Iran because they are against the international order. Having sat in this House for 25 years and listened to speeches from Conservative representatives, I have learned a bit about conservatism, so what I find extraordinary is that this Bill is profoundly unconservative. Those on the Government Front Bench seem to be rejecting many of the individual amendments in front of us.”
“I chair the Iranian workers’ movement committee, which supports trade unionists campaigning in Iran, many of whom are unfortunately in prison. There is also the Uyghurs. On all of those, I have urged the use of BDS because when other representations and diplomacy fail, there are not many options left. One of the options, unfortunately, is the use of arms. In not promoting that, we have tried to find a middle lane, and that is economic isolation to try to influence. To be frank, it did work in South Africa. That is why we have tried to ensure that it is a mechanism that can be drawn upon. I agree, however, with my right hon. Friend the Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Angela Rayner) on the Front Bench.”
“Actually, a large number of Members on both sides of the House supported that. I also did so with regard to Saudi Arabia and its execution—tragically, it is still doing this—of members of the gay community. I have campaigned with others across the House with regard to Sri Lanka and the persecution of the Tamils, including the murder of a number of my constituents when they visited their families. I am doing the same at the moment with regard to Bahrain because of its imprisonment of the political opposition. It is the same with Russia. I was a founder member 10 years ago of the Ukraine Solidarity Campaign and we have been calling for sanctions against Russia for years—in advance of even the Government, to be honest. It is the same with Iran.”
“Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. May I echo the comments of my right hon. Friend the Member for Barking (Dame Margaret Hodge)? If we descend into accusations that those who do not support the Bill are antisemites, or that those who support it are Islamophobic, I think we are lost, to be honest. It is important that we are careful about our language. There is a profound misunderstanding about what we are debating. If this is about the BDS movement itself, there are mechanisms that the Government can use to proscribe an organisation. But the debate on this Bill should be about BDS as a method, a tactic. I have supported boycotting, disinvesting and sanctioning a whole range of regimes. I campaigned with and supported the anti-apartheid movement of BDS with regard to South Africa.”
“If there are arguments about the BDS movement, and I totally condemn some of the statements that I have heard from some of the leaders associated with it, that is a separate issue. This is about a method of trying to influence individual countries to behave in line with international law, protect the environment, and so on. It is about trying to set standards in other countries that we want to promote globally anyway.”
“One way forward is through the amendment that the Labour Front Bench has tabled to try to look at human rights in general to see how statements defining human rights can be made by Government, and that then influencing what happens in other decision-making areas, such as in local government, pension funds and so on. I believe that there is an opportunity for that, but what I come back to is that this is not the time to do something that in any way divides our communities. If the Bill is in any way amendable, let us just pull it. The Government have done that before. There has been a pause on legislation, allowing wiser heads to come together and to come back with something that actually might work.”
“When there have been rows on the Government Benches, it is often as a result of councils not having listened to their local communities, and sometimes I have agreed. These amendments simply enable the local community to express their views and for that to be taken into account. On environmental concerns, amendments 8, 10, 15 and 11 are simply reinforcing many of the policies that the Conservative party has been advocating in our attempts to get to net zero and protect animals at the same time. I have often heard Government Members saying that upholding the law is an essential part of conservatism. Well, that is what amendments 6 and 17 do. They are simply saying that the use of this mechanism can be helpful in upholding international law. This Bill is a bad Bill. I agree that there might be the potential to gain consensus on it.”
“I agree. I was chair of finance at that time. It was interesting because there was an awful lot of cross-party support on that, as we were then at the stage of the imprisonment of Nelson Mandela, and the worst oppressions that were going on, including what happened in Soweto. Let me go through the amendments themselves. On devolution and local decision-making, all that amendments 5, 16, 34 and new clause 2 do is ensure that local democracy takes place. The arguments that I have heard from those on the Conservative Benches on several occasions is that local councillors should have the right to represent their local communities and, above all else, they should listen to their local communities.”
“I know it is difficult to get exact numbers, but the calculations so far of wounded Ukrainian troops are anything between 100,000 and 120,000, as well as about 18,000 civilians. What support is being provided to Ukraine’s health services to help them cope with the wounded and injured? What support is being given with regard to specialist service link-ups between the UK and Ukraine, also to provide the best support that we can?”
“It is important, as we develop policy, to try to identify issues that might come up further down the line. As the Minister knows, in my constituency, large numbers of asylum seekers are being processed—I congratulate him on that. Most are gaining status—understandably, because most of them have come from war zones—and they will be seeking employment. On identifying possible issues down the line, has the Minister seen the report by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism in The Independent , which is based on the Home Office’s findings on the treatment of migrant workers? It identified wage theft, forced unpaid overtime, racist abuse, illegal charging of fees for jobs, and insanitary living and working conditions. Will he review the mechanisms for the monitoring of and enforcement against abuse of migrant workers?”
“We stand on the edge of the land invasion of Gaza, which will put at risk both Palestinian lives and the hostages’ lives. What estimate has the Prime Minister made of the potential number of civilian casualties there will be if the land invasion goes ahead? On a constituency matter, four weeks ago the Muslim women’s centre in my constituency suffered an arson attack, which was particularly distressing because the Holy Koran was burnt in the room that was targeted. What assistance will be provided to the Muslim centres that have been under attack in that way?”
“It is correct that the majority of landlords are good, but it is the rogue landlords that I fear the Bill does not address.”
“As has been said throughout the debate, as soon as people complain about the conditions or rents, the landlords bring in section 21. That is why it was right for the Conservatives to include the Bill in their last manifesto, and I welcomed it. Landlords always use the excuse that they are moving in a relative. We would need genetic link mapping to identify the relationship between some of the tenants who move in and the family. Landlords might say that they are selling the property but, as has been said, when we tour around, we see that in fact they have not: within days, the “To let” board goes up. They scam us all the time. My constituents live in fear of complaining at all because they know that if they do, many of them will lose their properties.”
“Basically, that means that people struggle to get a roof over their heads, whether from the council or rented, and certainly struggle for owner occupation. I do not know any firefighter, teacher or NHS worker in my constituency who lives there any more—they commute for miles because they cannot afford accommodation in the constituency. People live in my constituency in slum conditions: damp, cold, unsafe and mouldy, as we heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Putney (Fleur Anderson). I have the phenomenon of beds in sheds. In my office, we have a moral dilemma about whether we tell the council that someone is living in a shed, because we know that if we do, enforcement comes in and that person is then homeless, with nowhere to go whatsoever.”
“To go on the housing waiting list, they must have lived in the area for 10 years, and they have to prove that with documentation, which many people cannot. Once on the housing waiting list, they will wait between three and five, maybe seven, years. Their children will have grown up by then. Four thousand new properties are being built in the middle of my constituency, but there are barely any that my constituents will be able to afford, because the prices are so high and the wages in my constituency—despite high employment levels—are relatively low. Since 2010, rents have gone up on average by three times the rate of wage increases. In London alone, rents over the last year are up 15% on average. In some areas, they are up 20% to 25%.”
“As the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) and I know, always being called last means that we have the enjoyment of listening to the whole debate. Today’s debate has been extremely valuable across the House, going into forensic detail on the Bill. I want to make a plea for urgency, that is all. I welcomed the inclusion of this issue in the Conservative manifesto. In fact, I congratulated my then constituency neighbour, the right hon. Member for Uxbridge, on bringing it forward. I also accused him of plagiarism, because it was in our last two Labour manifestos. I congratulated him because, as many have reported today, my constituents are in a housing crisis. Most of the council housing has been sold off.”
“I hope the Committee will, on Report, bring back a significantly amended Bill that will scrap section 21—that is what both parties promised in our manifestos at the last election, and I believe that other political parties did exactly the same. There is unanimity in this House to scrap section 21, but we must do it with a sense of urgency and we must do it effectively.”
“In addition, if we are looking to local authorities to enforce, nearly 20 local authorities are under section 114 notices. In other words, they are bankrupt and do not have the staff to do the enforcement. To be frank, in many areas now the lack of access to basic legal advice—not legal aid, but basic legal advice—from local law centres is non-existent. My citizens advice bureau, bless it, works so hard, but it is rushed off its feet so it cannot provide sufficient advice on the scale that is needed. My plea is for urgency. We have had a really good debate, a forensic analysis of the Bill: the detail and the beneficial elements, but also the gaps and the need for change and amendment.”
“They have to bring their children into Hayes each day, which takes an hour and a half. Then there is temporary accommodation with poor conditions and hostels. We have children being brought up in temporary accommodation. I looked at the figures: 131,000 children are now living in temporary accommodation. I fully support the Bill’s getting rid of section 21, but the problem is exactly as my hon. Friend the Member for Blaydon (Liz Twist) said. The sanctions and conditions will render it totally ineffective. Landlords will simply take a three-month hit and then rent it out straight after that. And to rely on the court system! We have to be honest with one another. The Government have closed 300 county courts. There was a cut of 35% in the Justice budget over the last period.”
“Look, the major problem is that we are not building enough council houses. On the Conservative Benches a couple of Members referred to Harold Macmillan. Harold Macmillan took on from Clem Attlee a huge housing programme and built council houses. My family was a beneficiary of that. We moved out of a slum and into a council house. We just need to build more council houses. We cannot rely on the private market, because it profiteers. In my constituency, landlords can make a profit by leaving the property empty because the price will always go up, and sometimes they do not want to be encumbered by a tenancy. When tenants complain, they get kicked out and are made homeless. In my constituency, people have been pushed all around the country. I have people living in a Travelodge in Slough.”
“Whatever the outcome of the independent inquiries into what happened with the tragedy in Gaza yesterday, in reality Gaza is such a densely populated area that no matter what efforts are made, the effects of bombing will be indiscriminate. If the Government cannot go as far as calling for a ceasefire, will they at least call for the end of the rockets and the bombs? If they cannot go as far as to call for the end of the bombing, can they at least call on Israel to stop bombing the south, where refugees from Gaza City are going at the instructions of the Israeli army? A cease in the bombing could trigger the negotiations that enable the release of the hostages.”
“I declare an interest as an honorary life member of the Prison Officers Association. In his statement, the Secretary of State celebrated the fact that the prison population has risen to 80,000. When I was elected in 1997, it was a scandal that we were at the 40,000 level. Part of the problem is the lack of crime prevention, but there is also a failure of rehabilitation. The statement mentioned probation, but there was no mention of prison staff. There is a desperate need for adequate prison staffing if we are to secure the rehabilitation of prisoners. What will be the staff-prisoner ratio in our prisons following these reforms?”
“In some instances that annoyed people, and sometimes her persistence rubbed people up the wrong way, but for me, it made me love her even more.”
“I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way, and I apologise: I am speaking at a rally in a few minutes’ time, which Ann would have agreed with, so I will have to leave. The one thing about Ann was that she never gave up, and if you ever crossed her, she never gave up either. I was on a Select Committee last year that was interviewing someone—I will not go into the detail of it, but it was someone she had come across in the 1980s with regard to Vietnam and Laos. She noticed that we were interviewing this individual, so she sent me a 20-page briefing on them and all the subsequent offences, crimes and so on that they had perpetrated. She was not doing it out of spite or anything like that; she was doing it as part of her campaign to expose the injustices that went on at that time and all those who were implicated in them.”
“I thank the Secretary of State for her response. The CPTPP contains investor-state dispute settlement provisions which allow corporations, as she knows, to sue national Governments through a largely secretive parallel legal system if they consider that Government policies threaten their future profits. Of the new agreement member states, Canadian countries have used the ISDS particularly aggressively, bringing 65 cases, the majority of which have been brought by mining and fossil fuel firms against the energy and environmental policies of various Governments. Will the Government consider negotiating a side letter with Canada, as they already have with New Zealand and Australia, to disapply the ISDS provisions in order to ensure the UK Government’s right to regulate is not constrained by powerful investors and corporations?”
“In the statement, the Deputy Prime Minister very helpfully refers to the “erasure of dissenting voices” and the “stifling of opposition” under the new national security law in Hong Kong. In whatever dialogue now takes place with the Chinese, can I ask again that the cases of my two trade union colleagues, Lee Cheuk Yan and Carol Ng Man-yee, who were leaders of the Hong Kong Federation of Trade Unions, be raised again? They have been in detention since 2021, and are now facing lengthy prison sentences purely for standing up for democratic rights and trade union rights.”
“Soon after that report came out, a mosque was torched, and attacks and individual murders took place. That went on year after year, as reported. In 2020, as my hon. Friend the Member for Mitcham and Morden (Siobhain McDonagh) said, we produced a report, “Suffocation of the Faithful: the Persecution of Ahmadi Muslims in Pakistan and the Rise of International Extremism”, and at that point we raised the issue of education.”
“The problem with this debate is that it has a sad, grave element of déjà vu. I have brought along my file. Some other Members who were here way back in 2014 will remember that we discussed at that time the UN rapporteur on freedom of religion and belief. I will quickly quote what he said: “I am very concerned by the recent surge of violent attacks against Ahmadiyya Muslims by militant extremists. Such violence is fuelled by existing blasphemy legislation”. He urged Pakistan to guarantee the right to freedom of religion or belief”, and went on to suggest that it should “put in place protective measures to ensure…personal security”, and ensure that those who perpetrate such crimes are brought to justice. That was in the report that we debated almost 10 years ago, in 2014. Since then, we have had a litany of these debates, year after year.”
“Over this period, we have consistently made several demands, including that the Pakistan Government prosecute those instigating hate; offer urgent protection to Ahmadi Muslims; investigate the train of unprovoked violence; repeal the blasphemy legislation; and generally uphold rights. We have a specific role as a Government: the UK plays a specific role in relation to Pakistan. We now need to examine all points of pressure that we can exert. I do not want to be here in another 10 years debating the same issues once again.”
“That is exactly the point that we have made consistently. Every time there is an outrage, bringing it to the Floor of the House is important, because that is noted back in Pakistan. The view now is that the pattern has been consistent, and successive Pakistani Governments have refused to budge. There has been continuous censorship, a denial of voting rights, the ban on the publication of religious texts and imprisonment for blasphemy—three years just for an Ahmadi calling themself a Muslim. There are also the implications of what is happening in education. Numbers of people are on death row as a result of the laws that have been put in place. Everything comes back to the pressure we can apply.”
“I do not want to take up too much time, but the whole debate is about how we can exert pressure. Can I just put on the table the potential consideration of the use of Magnitsky sanctions against individuals involved in the persecution of Ahmadis in Pakistan? Many of them have links with this country, including financial links, so Magnitsky sanctions might prove effective.”
“I would be very happy to meet with his officials, Hillingdon Council and the local Christian centre to talk through how we can resolve this problem, but it is a matter of urgency.”
“The Minister will be aware that the cases in my constituency are being processed. From what I have seen, the vast majority are being given leave to remain. The Minister advised me that those people would then be given 28 days’ notice to leave the hotel but, last week, I sent him examples of cases where they have been given five, seven or nine days’ notice. That is creating a homelessness problem in my constituency, because the time is not available to set up the arrangements to house them. The local Christian centre workers have been housing them in their own homes as well, which is wonderful, but we cannot go on like this. I was to meet the Minister next week, but that meeting has been postponed.”
“I do not think that a simple amendment to set a time limit on children suffering in detention when they arrive in this country is an awful lot to ask of the Government. They often come from countries where they have suffered enough; we should not impose even more suffering on them.”
“David Cameron came forward heroically and said, “We will never detain children again,” and we legislated for that in 2014. We are now going back to detaining children almost indefinitely for some categories. We have not got the assurances that we need about where they will be detained or about the care, comfort and succour that they will have to support them. As a result, if we allow this legislation to go through, it will be a stain upon this House and upon society overall for a long time to come. I ask Members to think again. We now go back into ping-pong with the other House, which is calling simply for a realistic time limit on the detention of children so that they are not damaged beyond repair in the way they were 10 years ago.”
“It was like a large fostering unit, basically, and we took in children who had been detained in Harmondsworth. Even before it was of the prison style that it is now, those children were, I believe, scarred for life. I did not think that we would ever return to locking children up in that way. The children we looked after often came to us after they had been lost within the system while their cases were being processed over a long time. They were often separated from their families, who came through other routes. I think the damage was a scandal of this country’s treatment of human beings. That was why, from 2010 until 2012, we ran a campaign—across all religious groups, and with civil society organisations such as the Children’s Society—and published report after report.”
“We saw the reports of individual civil society organisations that assessed the mental health implications of the detention of children at that stage. So far, the Minister has told me that there is no Government intention to detain children in detention centres again, but, as I said to him before, intention is not good enough. We need legislation to prevent that from happening again. My fear is that, under pressure, Government Ministers will decide that there will be some appropriate decoration of some sections of Harmondsworth and it will be opened up for children again. I was a house father at a children’s home in Hillingdon. It was one of the traditional children’s homes, run effectively as a family unit. I pursued my own career, and my wife was the house mother in charge and I was the house father.”
“I want to apologise to you, Madam Deputy Speaker, because I do not think I indicated clearly enough that I wanted to speak. Thank you for your generous dexterity in finding time for me. I want to say one simple thing about the assurances given so far on the detention of children: they are not sufficient. There are large numbers of children who will be detained. The definition of age-appropriate and child-appropriate accommodation is not clear enough. I remind the House of my experience with Harmondsworth detention centre in my constituency before 2014, when we legislated to prevent children being detained in detention centres. That detention centre was also meant to be age and child-appropriate, but what happened? It simply had a wing with a school and so on, and children were locked up in there for months on end.”
“I am sorry to interrupt my hon. Friend when he is in full flow but, as he is developing his argument on the need for consultation and impact assessments, has he been able to clarify with the Government what happens if an employer refuses to comply? In London, for example, the buses are contracted out, and individual bus companies have had individual disputes. If the Government instruct there to be a minimum service level but the employer does not want to sour industrial relations in the long term and therefore refuses to comply, what then happens?”
“Will he make it clear to the chief executive of Heathrow that not a penny of taxpayers’ money will go into subsidising the profits of the overseas owners of Heathrow?”
“Well, that answer was succinct, if nothing else. The Minister will know that a new chief executive has been appointed at Heathrow Airport Ltd, and he will inevitably meet that chief executive. When he does, will he take him through the costings of any road and rail infrastructure associated with the proposed development of a third runway? Heathrow has offered £2 billion to cover the cost. The Government’s airports commission calculated the cost at £5 billion, but we now believe that, because of the tunnelling under the M25 and the road links and rail links—in particular, the rail links for western and southern access—the cost of the scheme could be between £10 billion and £20 billion.”
“I want the Minister to be explicit about the type of detention centre that we are talking about. For example, will children, whether unaccompanied or with their parents, be detained in detention centres such as Harmondsworth and Colnbrook? We agreed on a cross-party basis that they should never again be detained in those centres.”
“I hope they will hold to their amendments so that this appalling Bill can at least be in some way ameliorated.”
“I am worried that we are reverting to type; time and again, we have explained in the House that the Home Office accommodation that has been provided is inadequate, as we have seen as a result of the number of children who have gone missing, some of whom have not even been found again. I do not want to delay the House, because others want to speak, but I feel that the Bill is a reversion to pre 2014, and that is the result of the Government’s failure to take into account the range of views expressed in this House and elsewhere. It is the most vulnerable who need our support—our succour and our kindness—the most. The children are the ones who will probably suffer the most as a result of this legislation, and that is why I urge those in the other House to hold to their task of bringing some light of humanity to the discussion of this issue.”
“My worry is that, in that very vulnerable period of their life, a child will be detained and trapped in the system, and the issue then is, detained where? I raised the use of Harmondsworth with the Minister, and he gave me an assurance that that is not Government’s intention or the ministerial intention. I am sure that it is not this Minister’s intention, but Ministers and Administrations change. Unlike with the 2014 legislative commitment that we got, I do not believe that Government statements of intention are sufficiently strong to prevent us from reverting, unfortunately, to the detention of children in unsuitable accommodation and even detention centres. The reason we supported local authorities taking these traumatised children into care was that they have the range of expertise to provide them with the support they need.”
“First, I am concerned that we are bringing forward legislation that makes it inadmissible for unaccompanied children who come via the channel route to apply for asylum. Yet 96% of them, I think, actually get refugee status, which shows what need they have. I am also worried about what happens to children who are detained. I am concerned that we are potentially reverting to the brutal regime of the past. When children were detained in detention centres and even other accommodation, the mental health impact was gauged as extremely severe, and it was lasting. Today, we have seen the amendment that the Government have brought forward on the time limit for detention, increasing it from 24 hours to eight days—as others have said, it is eight days before someone can apply for bail to a first-tier tribunal.”
“I, too, want to focus on the issue of children. The hon. Members for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) and for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron) discussed the coalition Government effectively banning the detention of children in 2014, which we all welcomed. I was part of the campaign to achieve that ban, because of my experience of the detention of children in Harmondsworth detention centre in my constituency. I visited those children, and when we explained to the world what they were going through, how they were traumatised and what impact that was having on them and their families, the world recoiled. We decided we would never have such a regime again, but my fear is that, gradually and incrementally, we are reverting to it. That is why I support Lords amendments 8, 50, 51, 31, 33 and 89.”
“This is not only about funding constraints; it is about uncertainty relating to the resourcing to meet future challenges. Pay was mentioned by the right hon. Member for Bexleyheath and Crayford. The IFS warned—exactly as he said—that below-inflation pay settlements for college staff mean that the level of pay is not a fair reward for the skills of those educators, and that that exacerbates “recruitment and retention difficulties” in colleges. The problems are everywhere—this is national. There is not a college without problems in recruiting, and that is happening because the qualified educators that we need literally cannot afford to work in the colleges, because it does not sustain them.”
“As the Library briefing mentions, the IFS also stated: “Spending on adult education is nearly two-thirds lower in real terms than in 2003-04 and about 50% lower than in 2009-10. This fall was mainly driven by the removal of public funding from some courses and”— as my hon. Friend the Member for Stretford and Urmston said— “a resultant drop in learner numbers” overall. The Library states: “Since 2011/12, the number of learners on classroom-based education and training has fallen by 42%”, and “community learning”—let us think about that in a diverse community such as mine—has dropped “by 55%”. The National Audit Office report published in September 2020 detailed how “the financial health of the college sector remains fragile”, as we have heard today.”