Jeremy Corbyn
MP for Islington North · Your Party · United Kingdom
“In two minutes, I will do my best, Sir Desmond. I am proud to represent a very small urban area of Britain in which, over the years, we have managed to increase the number of parks and open spaces.”
“I grew up in a country area where we had a competition over who heard the first cuckoo in spring. It is that sort of change in understanding that we have to bring about if we are to win this debate on biodiversity and sustainability on our planet. The Government are pledged to the 30by30 target for the oceans.”
“We have to address the wider issue, which is the pollution emanating from our towns, cities and industries into our rivers and the water companies that do not deal with it. I have 13 seconds left, so I will simply say this: it is great that the House has come back to this issue and that so many Members want to speak today.”
“I congratulate the right hon. Member on becoming Prime Minister and on his stamina at taking questions for already even longer than the longest world cup match. He has said some helpful and useful things about housing, particularly on rough sleeping.”
“Surely the obvious answer is to bring in some kind of ceiling—a rent control of some sort—to the sector, and immediately look at not postponing the rise in the local housing allowance, but to bring real relief to people who are desperately up against it and subsidising their rent out of their benefits.”
“When the hon. Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman) introduced the debate, he quite rightly drew attention to the huge work done by our constituency and parliamentary staff. It is right that we should thank them on this occasion and also thank all the parliamentary staff for what they do.”
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Every one of 8,612 lines we hold for Jeremy Corbyn, in date order, each linked to its source. Free to read, in full, without an account. Page 2 of 173.
“For clarity, is the redaction done in Downing Street—in Government—and then sent to the right hon. and learned Gentleman’s Committee, or is it done by the Committee on grounds of national security and international relations?”
“He did not fulfil the requirements to divest himself and not to follow up those connections, and, as others in the debate have pointed out, he was very generous and free with his email advice to just about everybody, trying to set things up all the time.”
“Days later, on 5 March 2025, a partner in the silicon valley venture firm 137 Ventures—an investor in both Palantir and the defence company Anduril—emailed an invitation for Mandelson to attend the Hill and Valley Forum, a Washington gathering that brings together defence technology executives and Congress. The sender’s name was redacted, but the file notes that Mandelson was attending “with Louis”, who we understand to be Louis Mosley, the head of Palantir’s UK business. And so, this very tight connection of people goes on. According to Ethan Shone of openDemocracy, Mandelson’s security “mitigations” forbade such one-to-one meetings with former clients like Palantir—a restriction which, like divestment from Global Counsel, the former ambassador assiduously ignored.”
“That advice stated: “the retained role and interest in Global Counsel would have to cease”, if Mandelson were appointed His Majesty’s ambassador. But it did not. Mandelson carried on with that, as we well know. We also know that the Prime Minister met representatives of the firm with Peter Mandelson in Washington. That was the mysterious meeting that apparently nobody was at, although it did happen; of which there is no record, and yet everybody was there; and during which no discussion went on because nothing was reported, and yet we all know that it took place because they were filmed going into it. That took place only a fortnight after Mandelson had started the job.”
“Contained in the second tranche of the so-called Mandelson files laid before Parliament, the email is one of a series in which Mandelson personally connected the UK Government to Palantir, the data analytics and surveillance firm co-founded by Thiel, and to the wider network of investors around it, at a time when his own consultancy firm, Global Counsel, still counted Palantir among its clients. Is that corrupt or what? The ambassador to Washington owned a company whose client he was trying to introduce to the head of the British Government via a series of private emails using connections that he had obviously obtained through the Labour party over a very long time. Mandelson did not divest himself of his significant financial stake in 2024 despite official advice that he should do so before taking up his appointment.”
“As the hon. Member for Pontypridd pointed out, the victims here are known to be those young women who had such a terrible experience and terrible time at the hands of the rich and powerful. If we do not have such an inquiry and debate, there will be other victims of the rich and powerful further down the line. I know that time is of the essence, so I will just talk briefly about Palantir. On 22 July 2025—less than a year ago—Peter Mandelson sent an email to Morgan McSweeney. The subject was a name: Peter Thiel. Mandelson wrote: “This celebrated techie is in London til Aug 9. I don’t know whether you have been approached already,” saying it would be good for the PM to meet him—so the ambassador to Washington starts trying to set up meetings with a tech entrepreneur who happens to be a friend and supporter of Donald Trump.”
“In an earlier debate on this subject, I said that there has to be a serious and open public inquiry into the influence of business, money and corruption on our political system. I understand the limitations of the Intelligence and Security Committee and its work, which is why I intervened on the deputy Chair, the right hon. and learned Member for Kenilworth and Southam (Sir Jeremy Wright), earlier on. I am sure—he may well agree with me—that this will not be done and dusted by his Committee and that it will actually go on for a very long time, because it goes to the heart of democracy within our society. I hope that at the end of this, we do have an open public debate about money and politics, and a serious open inquiry that will get to the heart of everything that is going on, because if we do not, we will all be the weaker for it.”
“Member for Liverpool West Derby (Ian Byrne) and others pointed out earlier, that eventually ended up with Labour Together and the huge amounts of money it spent trying again to subvert the whole principle behind the Labour party. The results of all that are being paid for day in, day out—in hospitals spending 15% of their expenditure on private finance initiatives, in schools having to pay debts related to Building Schools for the Future and so on. The whole idea was that the state should become an arm of business rather than providing services that are necessary for the people of our society. Mandelson was successful in many ways in turning things away from their original purpose. All the contracts that are now being agreed upon are a consequence of that sort of philosophy and those sorts of political dealings that went on.”
“I remember, when Mandelson first appeared in this building as the media director of the Labour party, discussing him with Tony Benn in the Tea Room. Tony had met him at the meeting of the national executive, where he was introduced to the Labour party. I saw Tony that evening and asked him, “What was it like?”, and he said, “Well, this guy Mandelson is going to give us all a lot of trouble.” He then wrote in his diaries that evening: “I find Mandelson a threatening figure for the future of the Party.” Tony recognised that Mandelson’s whole objective was a political one: to take the Labour party away from its roots—away from its trade union connections and the working-class communities—and to turn it into a party of business. As the hon.”
“Surely there is an object lesson here about unaccountable power, unbelievable levels of arrogance, supreme levels of wealth, and the way in which politicians—probably less wealthy than Epstein and some of his mates—were seduced by the super-yacht, the private island, the private jet, the big dinner, and so on. All of that is a corruption of our political system. Unless we do something about the influence of big business, super-wealth and money in politics, then everything that Bernie Sanders says about the USA having the best democracy that money can buy will soon apply to this country as well. We have got to be much stronger about needing a purer form of democracy and accountability within our society. This is a debate on Peter Mandelson.”
“The victims were young women who were trafficked and exploited by very wealthy men who felt that they could get away with it. Even after Epstein’s initial conviction, those men carried on gravitating towards his golden light, the money and influence he exuded, and the way he made his money, which was all about helping the super-rich in the United States avoid paying tax by relocating their resources to the US Virgin Islands. The millions that Epstein made, and the millions that were not paid in tax by those very rich people, are millions not spent on health, housing, education and all the other things that working-class communities need. Somewhere along the line, Epstein was apparently almost forgiven for his crimes, and then they came back much later on. We can now begin to see the whole, horrible story unravelling.”
“I originally thought that a large number of Members would want to attend this debate, because it goes to the heart of so much about the political system of this country, and the power and influence of very wealthy people around the world. I am sure that this is not the only time we will debate the issue, and I hope there will be a more thorough public inquiry into it later down the line. We should also thank the hon. Member for Pontypridd (Alex Davies-Jones) for what she said in her speech, the way she put it, and the way she placed centre stage the victims—some of whom are nameless—of the depravity of Jeffrey Epstein and the whole golden circle surrounding him, as well as the fact that one of those victims took her own life as a result.”
“We are all proud of the NHS, but let us not destroy it by handing it over to the private sector. Let us not destroy the whole philosophy behind it by giving it over to those who will make money out of it rather than deal with the obvious health issues that so many people face. I hope that the lesson from all this is that when the political system becomes corrupted by lack of principle and the amounts of money made available to people—the private donations that are still made by private health interests and others to Members and the parties represented in this House—we are all the losers; democracy is the loser, and ultimately the price is paid by the poorest and most vulnerable people within our society.”
“Are we seriously saying that we, as a society and country, are incapable of setting up our own technology arrangement? I do want data sharing within the NHS. I want it to be the case that when someone goes to the doctor, they can access that person’s records quickly and sort out what is wrong with them. I want that technology in place for A&E departments, but I do not want those records to be shared with a company that is busy advising Israel on how it will go about its bombardment of Gaza and trying to get hold of other contracts all around the world Do we have to mortgage ourselves to an American multinational that will have control of and access to vast amounts of data? Surely to goodness, we have enough ambition and ability to develop our own systems within the NHS.”
“Palantir confirmed that it would invest £1.5 billion in the UK and expand its Ministry of Defence contract to £750 million over five years, replacing a £75 million, three-year arrangement. The deal was folded into the technology prosperity deal that Trump and the Prime Minister signed at Chequers the next day. In only a short time as ambassador, he embroiled us in all this stuff with Palantir and set up this technology agreement with the USA. As we all know, because we hear it from our constituents, people who use the NHS are alarmed that Palantir will get hold of their medical records. They are concerned that the company will get hold of the entirety of the NHS and social security records—in other words, crucial personal information on every single person that has lived or died in this country since 1948.”
“There are many ironies surrounding Peter Mandelson. The most useful thing he ever said was that he hated me, wanted nothing to do with me and woke up every morning trying to get rid of me when I was leader of the Labour party. I take that as a badge of honour, actually, because I wanted absolutely nothing to do with him and the politics that went with him. Mandelson managed to land a deal for Palantir. That was his achievement, and in his farewell letter to embassy staff, he singled out that one achievement. He wrote that the UK leaves the relationship with the United States “in a really good condition, with a magnificent state visit and the new US-UK technology partnership—my personal pride and joy that will help write the next chapter of the special relationship—set for next week.” Obviously the visit went ahead without him.”
“May I take the Minister back to the answer given to the hon. Member for York Central (Rachael Maskell) earlier? Palantir is a very big and very dangerous outfit. The Government are developing a close relationship with Palantir—platforming and so on. Could the Minister assure the House that everything to do with Palantir will now be paused until we can get to the heart of the matter of how it first became embroiled in Government contracts, how it gained them and what its influence over this Government is, particularly via Peter Mandelson?”
“Youth unemployment is now at 5%. On current form, it will rise to 5.8% by next year, which will mean a very large number of young people without work. What actions can the Chancellor take to ensure that young people get access to jobs and careers, and do not have the deeply depressing experience of being unemployed when they leave school, college or university? A disproportionate number of young people rent in the private rental sector, so will she also do something about bringing in much needed rent regulation in the private rental sector?”
“Yesterday I raised a point of order on the attack on Khan al-Ahmar and the brutality of the settler forces who are destroying lives there. That is now continuing all across the west bank, where settler violence is destroying Palestinian villages. The genocide in Gaza is continuing; the occupation of the west bank in its totality is continuing. The Minister talks about sanctions against Israel, but where are the sanctions that mean anything? Why are we still supplying arms and weapons? Why are we still supplying security information to Israel? Why are we still occasioning its military attacks against the Palestinian people? If sanctions are to mean anything, they have to do something to prevent Israel’s brutality against the entirety of the Palestinian people, be they in Gaza, in the west bank, or in refugee camps in Lebanon.”
“On a point of order, Mr Speaker. The west bank village of Khan al-Ahmar is under threat at the moment and is being forcibly evacuated by Israeli forces and illegal settlers. Will you advise me on whether there is some way that we can persuade a Minister from the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office to come to this House and make a statement about the Foreign Office’s attitude to those illegal forcible evacuations, and of course the continued military support for Israel that is enabling Israel to take those actions?”
“I welcome the hon. Lady’s call to take water back into public ownership. Does she agree that in setting the share price at which we buy it back, we should take account of the cost of pollution, of the money that is being paid to distant shareholders with no investment or interest in this country, and of the inconvenience caused to so many of our residents by constant leaks and the waste of water? Shareholders should pay the price of it, not our constituents.”
“Is the right hon. Member aware that the discussion held some months ago, when the former Secretary of State for Work and Pensions proposed big cuts in personal independence payments, caused unbelievable levels of stress and despair to often isolated people in receipt of PIP who have a carer who comes in to help them, and that the Government are still undertaking a review, the intention of which is to lower the personal independence payments bill? Does he agree that we should end that kind of debate and instead look at the needs of people with disabilities, particularly those who struggle to survive under the current system and especially those in receipt of PIP?”
“Can the Government not intervene and say, “We’re prepared to control food prices if they start going up at a ridiculous rate”? The Labour Government of the 1970s controlled food prices in order to control inflation, and I remember it being quite a successful policy. It was very controversial when it was mooted by Roy Hattersley, of all people—he was not on my wing of the Labour party by any manner of means—but he felt the need to do it.”
“A large number of people are in insecure employment, despite welcome changes in employment legislation, and because wages are so low and prices and rent are so high, so many people are doing two jobs. How does a parent doing two jobs spend time with their children? How do they help them with their homework? How do they take them to a club? How do they do any of the things that we all love to do with our families? That parent simply cannot, because they are tied down to two jobs, and in some cases even more. We have to recognise that we are bringing up a whole generation of children in this society who spend less time with each other and less time with their parents or carers, because of the economic stress and the cost of living.”
“Is it right that when we all walk into Parliament every day we could count so many homeless people on the streets of London? Who could count the number of people begging to try to get a bit of money to get into a night shelter? They then spend the rest of the day trying to get together another £17 to spend another night in a shelter. What a terrible existence those people have—and that is pretty normal across every major city. We all travel a lot, and we know that every major station is surrounded by people begging for money. What is wrong with us that we cannot recognise that something can and should be done about that? I wish that was the case. There is much else in respect of insecurity in society that has to be addressed.”
“If a person has access to DWP benefits, some of their rent is paid through housing benefit, but if the rent is above the local housing allowance—and it nearly always is—families on universal credit have to subsidise their rent out of their benefit because they simply cannot afford it, and they have to stay somewhere. If they become homeless, they get moved far away, and we have children making horrendous journeys because they do not want to lose contact with their beloved primary school. That is the normal story all over inner-city areas in Britain today. We can do something much better about that. I am sad that the King’s Speech does not address the issues in the clear way that it should. People are crying out for some degree of security, and housing security is fundamental.”
“I could see nothing wrong with it and much good in it, particularly the ending of section 21 evictions. It is a pity that the Government did not end section 21 evictions in July 2024, which they could have done—that would have saved a lot of tenancies at the time—but I am pleased that happened. Nevertheless, that legislation did not deal with the fundamental issue, which is the level of rent in our communities. It would cost at least £2,000 a month to rent a one-bedroom flat in my constituency. Roughly speaking, that is £500 a week. It is three, four or five times the level of rent for a council tenancy.”
“It is up to us to put it back there. Reform plays on many issues, the first of which is housing, which is in absolute crisis. Local authorities are unable to get the funds necessary to build the council housing they all want to build, because of a failed funding model that does not allow them to develop 100% of sites. For example, in London the mayor has said that major sites will now have only a 20% social housing requirement. In other words, 80% of the development will not be available for people on the housing waiting list, or the needs register, as it is usually referred to. That drives many people who cannot get council housing and cannot afford to buy into the private rented sector. I supported the Renters’ Rights Bill that was passed in the previous Session.”
“We have become a society of food banks and billionaires, with a tax system that encourages the growth of billionaires and restricts the opportunity of so many of the poorest in our society. Unless we address the issues of social injustice and inequality that are so prevalent in our society, the situation is going to get worse. It is a feeding ground for the cheap, nonsense, headline-grabbing stuff that the Reform party comes out with all over the country. People from Reform lack a solution to any problem other than blaming the nearest minority they can find and pretending that the great threat to this country is asylum seekers and refugees, when actually they are desperate human beings trying to survive in a very complicated world. By their very actions, people from Reform drive humanity out of the discussion and the political debate.”
“This weekend, there will be an appearance in London by Tommy Robinson, attended by a lot of people, some of whom presumably adhere to his worldview, and others who will be there out of a mixture of frustration and lots of other things. It is a very dangerous situation and a very dangerous time. Every Member of this House will have been out on the streets last week for the local elections, and they will have picked up the language and understood what is going on. We have to be absolutely united against racism and racist violence in absolutely any form. I, for one, will be on the anti-racist and Palestine march on Saturday to show my support for the anti-racist campaigns in our society. Behind all this lies an horrific level of inequality and the unrequited ambition of ordinary citizens in our society.”
“At the same time, there is a horrific growth in our society of far-right racism and intolerance—a horror show in our society—with the growth of Islamophobia, of antisemitism and of all forms of racism. There was an attack on a prayer room in Blackburn on Monday evening; precious little was said about it on any of the media. Shame on them for not reporting it. They rightly report on antisemitic attacks on synagogues; the same should apply to any community that is under attack if we are to succeed in bringing our communities together and to show that we need to stand up against racism in absolutely any form in which it rears its ugly head.”
“This debate is taking place in an almost surreal atmosphere. We have a psychodrama going on about whether the Prime Minister will be challenged for the leadership of the Labour party, whether he will still be Prime Minister by the time we come to vote on the motion, and whether the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care is going to challenge and take over. The Government have been in office for less than two years and seem not to be reflecting on the results of last Thursday’s elections. It is obvious that the Government lost a huge amount of support because of their perceived failure to deliver on the promises made in the 2024 manifesto, and their vote split asunder to independents and Greens or to Reform.”
“We should not just have the appointment of a national water company or regional water companies, where the Secretary of State decides who the directors are. We should include the workforce, the local trade unions, the local business community, the local authority—we should make it a matter of community pride to be part of the water industry and the water company.”
“We have had statements by every Secretary of State that I can remember for the past 35 years, saying that they will look at the regulation model to make sure there is proper control of what the water companies do. Yet every year the sewage pouring into our rivers and streams gets worse. The chalk streams are destroyed; the fish on our coastline are polluted and killed. It just gets worse and worse. It is surely pretty obvious that the private ownership model, where the motive is profit, not service, has absolutely failed. We should take the whole water industry back into public ownership. It was public ownership that cleaned it up, it was public ownership that constructed the reservoirs and all the infrastructure, and it is public ownership that will deliver clean water in the future. However, it also needs to be democratic.”
“I absolutely welcome the Erasmus scheme—indeed, I wanted to retain the scheme during the endless debates on the withdrawal agreement, because I can absolutely see the value of it. I also see the value of overseas students coming to this country; we should be encouraging them, but they are put off by the very high student fees. Something has to be done about that. Many colleagues have brought up issues with the services within our society. The water industry has come up many times. I am a London MP and therefore fall within the purview of Thames Water, whose record is appalling and atrocious at every conceivable level. The water industry as a whole has had more than £70 billion taken out of it in profits and dividends since privatisation.”
“They want to be part of our society too, not to be told that we are spending too much money on personal independence payments or on benefits. They want that support. Give hope to people. We cannot achieve everything that we want to achieve—at least, I guess most of us do—if we persist with the economic inequality within our society and the social injustices that follow from it. This King’s Speech is such a missed opportunity. It could have been so good. It could have put so much hope in so many people’s minds. The lesson of last Thursday is that if we do not give people hope, they can go off in all kinds of directions. We can end up in a very nasty and a very dark place if we take away any opportunity for hope within our society.”
“But those who have been to university all tell me they are saddled with massive university debts. They cannot get anywhere to live; they are sharing flats into their 40s or beyond because they cannot afford to pay off a student debt and buy anywhere, and they cannot get council housing because they are not eligible. Others are working in the gig economy, being ripped off by delivery companies that do not pay them properly. Many of them are in school but not achieving everything they could, because we are over-competitive in the way we run our schools, and we are not inclusive enough. Let us give some hope to young people; let us listen to young people, including young people with special needs and disabilities.”
“We need to look to the real issues facing this world—climate change, environmental destruction, global inequality and poverty, or the 70 million people worldwide who are refugees—rather than just the language of more and more money on arms and more and more preparedness for war. Can we not have an agenda for peace? If we cannot talk about peace when a war is going on, what is the point of ever talking about peace? I would hope that something could happen with that. This was supposed to be, the Prime Minister said, a speech for hope for young people. Well, fine—I want hope for young people. I admire the young people of my community and others for what they do, for the efforts they put into so much, and for the joy and music and everything that they bring.”
“Israel’s bombardment of the Palestinian people in Gaza is an act of genocide against the Palestinian people. It is abominable and appalling, and we as a country have maintained the arms supplies to Israel throughout that conflict. We have allowed the use of RAF Akrotiri. We have had the overflying of Gaza, so the RAF know exactly what happened in Gaza, because they took all the pictures of it. Would it not have been good if the Government instead had said they would join with the Hague group of nations in the UN, who are determined to adhere to the International Court of Justice and International Criminal Court decisions?”
“The same kind of language is used across Europe, and in other countries as well, including Russia, China and so on. Everyone is massively increasing defence expenditure, and that defence expenditure ends up in the wars and in massive profits for the arms companies around the world. It is a bit sad that the King’s Speech said nothing about funding the United Nations properly, or about peace initiatives to try to promote a ceasefire, difficult as that would be—I understand all that, but it has to happen—in the ghastly war between Russia and Ukraine, or the crazy war in Iran that President Trump has got us involved with. Despite the British Government telling us that they are not part of this war, in reality the bombing takes place from RAF Fairford and other bases in Britain. Surely we need an agenda for peace, not an agenda for war.”
“However, there is no public ownership of freight, and the retention of the principle of open access to our service is, to me, a sort of Trojan horse to bring the private sector back on to the railway network. Surely we need to look at that—and when the Government look at it, I would be grateful if they would also look at the ludicrous railway fares in Britain compared with any other railway anywhere in Europe, which are far cheaper and far more efficient to run. I have a couple of other things I want to say before I sit down. Last year the world spent $2.4 trillion on warfare and weapons. This year it will be more than $3 trillion. Pretty well every country in the world is spending more and more on defence. I have heard the Prime Minister say that he wants Britain to go up immediately to 3%, and ultimately to 5%.”
“Yes, the water authority obviously needs to be strengthened and we need to explore all the options. The hon. Lady has probably got the gist of where I am going on this issue: wanting a more democratic form of ownership. Involving local government in that would be the obvious thing to do. After all, the London County Council had a big say post the Metropolitan Water Board and so on. We need to think about how we improve local involvement, because local people are the best guardians of the water service, making sure that we do not pollute our rivers and streams and that we do provide good-quality, safe water for everybody. There are other areas of public ownership. I welcome the development of Great British Railways and the public ownership of the rail companies, particularly the train operating companies and the infrastructure.”
“The hon. Member is making an excellent and important speech. Is he aware that most of Labour Together’s supporters and, as I understand it, bankrollers had nothing whatsoever to do with the traditions of the Labour movement and that the organisation was merely using a name in order to try to change the nature of the Labour party away from its traditional socialist objectives?”
“Can I take the Prime Minister back to the question asked by the right hon. Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott)? She asked quite simply why the Prime Minister did not ask any questions whatsoever about the nature of the security clearing that Mandelson had achieved or why there was any doubt about him. Was the Prime Minister so obsessed with his determination to appoint that tainted figure to be ambassador to Washington that he ignored the rest, and the officials just went along with it? Why did he not ask the simple straight question?”
“We need a principle of housing as a right, rather than the idea that housing is all about an investment for your own future. Surely housing should be for housing needs; that should be the primary consideration.”
“I am delighted that such no-fault evictions will end when the Renters’ Rights Act 2025 finally comes into effect; that is a huge step forward. My deep regret is that they did not end in July 2024, because as soon as the Act and its contents were announced the landlords took advantage by implementing large numbers of no-fault evictions ahead of the time when they will not be able to. It is too late to do much about that, but I urge that there be some thoughts about that. The last thing I will say, in the 39 seconds remaining, is this: colleagues have talked about rising up the housing ladder and, while I understand the language and its use, the reality is that as a society we tolerate too much housing stress, homelessness and housing poverty.”
“That is often quite a good thing; for example, the Peter Bedford Trust, in my area, is a very good organisation that has done a great deal of work to help mainly, but not exclusively, young people with very profound and special needs. Sadly, a couple of weeks ago I learned that Clarion Housing Association is taking back a large number of its properties, leaving a large number of young, and middle-aged, people stressed and needing to find somewhere else to go. I hope the Minister can give us some indication of the Government’s thoughts on the democracy and accountability of the very large housing associations in particular, because there is a growing feeling of alienation from them. Evictions are happening in the private rented sector because of the implementation of section 21 no-fault evictions.”
“In the 1970s, they were promoted as a wonderful thing: co-operatively and locally run, responsive to tenants needs, and the other things that we would always want. These days, it is not even a little bit like that; we have enormous housing associations, owning thousands of properties across a very wide part of the country and the cities. There is very little response to tenants’ needs and, frankly, they are well out of touch. I spend a great deal of time representing the needs of tenants, particularly those of housing associations Peabody and Clarion Housing. However, the housing associations have in many cases leased properties to special needs housing groups.”
“I support the Renters’ Rights Act 2025—it is a big step forward, because it gives more security and power to the tenant vis-à-vis the landlord. However—and this is the big problem, particularly for London, the south-east and every other big city—the lack of rent control means that places become increasingly unaffordable, forcing young people out of these areas altogether. I hope, as a result of this debate, that the Government can give us some hope that they will be able to do something about young people’s housing, particularly in inner-urban areas. There is also the issue of the administration of housing associations. I was a councillor before I became an MP, and I remember when housing associations were thought to be the panacea for all ills.”
“Their whole life revolves around work, trying to pay the rent and the other costs that go with it. Their ability to access council or housing association accommodation is extremely limited, because there is an enormous waiting list with a terrible stress level and shortage of housing. Essentially, to be allocated council housing, a person must have quite profound special needs. I see the Minister nodding; he understands very well that this is an issue all across London. Communities are increasingly broken up because of the lack of access to anything that one could begin to call affordable housing. There are a number of things that we could do about that. First, we could increase the levels of control over the private rented sector, something I have raised before with the Minister.”