Mr Toby Perkins
MP for Chesterfield · Labour · United Kingdom
“The hon. Member for Bicester and Woodstock (Calum Miller) is absolutely right to say that what is behind this is the deep unpopularity of President Milei; it is not anything actually that the UK has done.”
“In Chesterfield, there will be unmitigated despair at the statement we have heard today from my right hon. Friend. For the authorities for which she is doing a review—the 14 that thought they had got their decision in July—could she clarify the basis of that review?”
“It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Desmond. I congratulate the hon. Member for Waveney Valley (Adrian Ramsay) on securing this debate.”
“The report spells out the link between degradation overseas and the impact here. The assessment lays out the consequences: food insecurity, economic insecurity, increased migration and refugees, increased interstate competition, conflict and geopolitical instability, all of which will threaten us here at home.”
“The Government are right to take their time and make sure that they get this right—we saw what happened when the previous Government did not do the work that was needed. This is a delicately balanced decision.”
“Thirdly, will the Minister consider bringing forward the fourth national adaptation programme? NAP3, published by the previous Government in 2023, was deemed ineffective by the Climate Change Committee. NAP4 is not due until 2028, but can we afford to wait two more years before we have an adequate plan?”
The complete record
Every one of 3,898 lines we hold for Mr Toby Perkins, in date order, each linked to its source. Free to read, in full, without an account. Page 40 of 78.
“If I have understood the hon. Gentleman correctly, he says that he is aware of what the policy of this council—which does not have any policies because it does not yet exist—will be on building on the green belt. I can only imagine that he says that because he knows what kind of people will stand for election for the Conservative party. If he suggested that people voted Labour at the next general election, there might be an Administration that was against building on the green belt, which might solve his problem.”
“T2. One of the most shocking elements of the whole Carillion fiasco was the fact that the Cabinet Office saw a letter from Carillion’s accountants in mid-December with a proposal that would have allowed £360 million extra to be put back into the public purse. Will the Minister explain what he did when he saw that recommendation, and why the money was not put back into public purse?”
“It is grotesque that the Americans are planning to block the independent investigation, but do we not already know that many of the people killed and injured yesterday posed no threat to the Israeli regime? Does the Minister not recognise that, by failing to come to the Dispatch Box and unequivocally condemn the murder of Palestinian citizens that we saw yesterday, he is actually strengthening in the minds of the IDF the idea that we will support the Israelis, even when we see this appalling slaughter?”
“I agree entirely with what my hon. Friend is saying about the postcode lottery. When I raised that on Second Reading, the Minister said that I was complaining about an issue that did not exist, but it has become clear from subsequent meetings with Women’s Aid that different local authorities are applying very different interpretations of the rights in terms of housing allocations and local connections, so I support her efforts to ensure more consistency across the piece.”
“I welcome the reassurance that the Minister has just given us, but the fact is that different local authorities understand the current legislation and their responsibilities to people fleeing domestic violence in different ways, so what possible harm would it do to include amendment 1 so that there would be no cause for any misunderstanding in future?”
“I am listening carefully to what the Minister is saying. It very much stands at odds with the Conservative party policy announced in the run-up to the general election, when it was going to impose right to buy on housing associations. How is it that the Conservative party is so happy to remove thousands of houses from the social rental sector when it comes to right to buy, but when it comes to legislation to protect domestic violence victims, suddenly the Conservatives feel that the private sector should not be touched?”
“That is a real disincentive to local authorities in making this provision.”
“I was shocked to hear from Women’s Aid that Devon County Council not only has no provision for refuges but gives no money towards refuges that Women’s Aid provides. In Chesterfield, we are so well served by the refuges provided by the Elm Foundation that we often provide for domestic violence victims who are coming from other areas. Many of the people who are going to use these services will not be local people. It therefore behoves all local authorities everywhere to make provision on behalf of domestic violence victims. Where there is that inconsistency of provision, the areas with the greatest provision of refuges end up taking more people on to their council house waiting list and then providing that housing, and so those who are best at providing refuges also see the greatest pressure on their housing services.”
“I did not realise there were any Tory party manifesto commitments still standing, so if it was indeed that, I welcome it. I do not remember the part of the general election campaign where the Tories told us that they were going to take away secure tenancies for all other council housing tenants, so I do not entirely understand how they committed to ensure for domestic violence victims something that they had not told everyone else they were going to take away from them. I support the amendments tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Great Grimsby (Melanie Onn). On amendment 1, recognising local connections within the Bill is incredibly important. There is real inconsistency not just in the way that different local authorities view their responsibilities towards domestic violence victims but in the provision of refuges.”
“I would like to start where the right hon. Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller) finished. I agree entirely about the importance of this Bill, which the Minister herself described as being so important. It behoves all of us to consider why somebody who has been through the appalling domestic violence that many of our constituents have experienced would then be willing potentially to stay in that relationship if their security of housing tenure was in danger of being lost. What does it say to all other housing tenants that something so crucial should be glibly given away by Government in their case? The fact that this Bill is so important makes a really vital point about the need for secure tenancy much more broadly. The hon. Member for Hitchin and Harpenden (Bim Afolami) said that this was a Tory party manifesto commitment.”
“Friend to press it to a vote, because we cannot talk about straining every sinew and still have a barrier of that kind in the way of domestic violence victims. There is a broader need for us to recognise the threat to refuges that exists not only because of local authority funding cuts but because of proposed changes to housing benefit. We must look at the impact that that could have on refuge provision. I urge the Government, if they are serious about supporting domestic violence victims, to make every possible representation to the Department for Work and Pensions with regard to implementing those housing benefit changes. I support the Government on this important Bill. However, I urge Members to support all the amendments, particularly amendment 2, because they will add further powers to the Bill.”
“I welcome the audit, but the question is what happens afterwards. I would like this to be a statutory service with a responsibility on local authorities to provide it. Will there be any move by the Government towards that? Having the information is one thing, but the next thing is what the Government do with it. On amendment 2, my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Jess Phillips) made an incredibly powerful point about the bedroom tax, describing the circumstances where domestic violence victims might lose their children and then find that they are moving into a small flat and are told by the family courts that they do not have appropriate accommodation to get their children back. I was not at all convinced by what the Minister said about why the amendment was not relevant. I urge my hon.”
“The agri-tech sector has tremendous potential in this country, but if we are to get all the manufacturing jobs out of it, as well as the innovation, we need to do something about the most expensive corporate property tax in the entire EU. Will the Minister tell us whether the Government are still sticking to their manifesto commitment to have a wholesale review of the business rates system, so we can have a competitive system for the agri-tech sector?”
“The Minister will not be surprised to know that I fully support the Government in bringing this change forward, as I am sure all Labour Members do, given that we have been asking for it for some time. On the subject of sanctions, will the Government publish the names of those who have been sanctioned under the Bill, notwithstanding what subsection (2) of new clause 3 says about not risking damage to “national security or international relations”?”
“My right hon. Friend is absolutely right to pay tribute to Members from all parties, including the Conservative Members who bravely supported her even when the Government attempted to buy them off. On behalf of many Members from different parties, may I say how grateful we are for the tenacity that she has shown and the excellence with which she has pursued this campaign? It shows Parliament in a good light, and the measures that the House is set to approve will do a great deal of good.”
“On a point of order, Mr Speaker. I made the hon. and learned Member for Torridge and West Devon (Mr Cox) aware, as is the convention, that I intended to raise a point of order about the fact that he spoke very passionately in favour of the Cayman Islands when he has clearly, according to his own entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests, done a lot of work on their behalf. That seems to have given him the opportunity to respond in advance to my point of order. Can you advise me, Mr Speaker, whether, on drawing the attention of the House to a particular entry, it makes any difference if a contribution is an intervention or at the start of a grandiose speech?”
“My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Brampton Primary School in Chesterfield got in touch with me on Friday to say it has had a £130,000 budget reduction this year. That school has one of the few autism units in the area. Spending on special needs has been halved. The most vulnerable pupils in the schools that most desperately need funding are the victims of that broken Tory promise.”
“I want to help the Secretary of State make good on his promise. He made a commitment that no school will see a cut in funding. What is the strength of that guarantee? If it turns out that a school has had a reduction in funding, will he consider it a resignation matter?”
“I am grateful to the Secretary of State for asking the question. Is he guaranteeing that no school will lose money? Is that his commitment? If there is no such commitment, he should say so, and if there is, he should not hide behind councils.”
“It is true that we are being told by schools that there is a real-terms cut. Was my hon. Friend as alarmed as I was by the fact that, even in the Chamber, the Secretary of State was unwilling to offer the guarantee that no school would lose money?”
“The petition states: The petition of residents of the United Kingdom, Declares that fibromyalgia should be considered a disability; further that individuals with the disease struggle daily and often do not receive the medical help or support that could and should be provided; and further that other nations such as the United States of America, are leading the way in fibromyalgia research, but the United Kingdom is not following suit. The petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urges the Government to recognise fibromyalgia as a disability at last. And the petitioners remain, etc. [P002141]”
“I rise to present a petition relating to the recognition of fibromyalgia as a disability, the need for greater research into the causes and treatment of fibromyalgia, and the need for greater awareness of fibromyalgia. The petition was started by my constituents Adrienne and Leann Lakin and has been signed by 1,379 people from across the United Kingdom. The petition should be seen alongside the Change.org petition of the same title that has been signed by 104,551 people—the number is going up all the time—which demonstrates vividly that this is an issue that reaches into every single Member’s constituency.”
“HS2 is an incredibly important regeneration project, but so is Chesterfield canal, which has had five years of blight, being unable to make applications because of the uncertainty around HS2. Near the maintenance depot that is proposed for Staveley, there is a piece of land currently owned by Network Rail that needs to pass over to HS2. May I encourage the Minister to ask HS2 to get on with taking over ownership of that land so that Chesterfield canal can finally put forward plans to apply for new funding and reduce that blight?”
“Does my right hon. Friend share my disappointment that we have a Prime Minister who inherited a parliamentary majority that she managed to lose rather clumsily, and rather than responding to her situation by trying to build consensus throughout the House on a whole raft of issues—this is the most important, but I include all Opposition days and so on—she has decided to respond by ignoring Parliament?”
“Two and a half weeks ago, I telephoned 999 after witnessing a prolonged and serious fight in a petrol station in Chesterfield. I have not been contacted by the police since then. Although I have been unable to establish this for certain, I believe that the incident was not recorded as a crime because none of the protagonists considered themselves to be victims of crime, although it was also reported by the people who run the petrol station. Is this part of a wider policy? Are the Government encouraging police forces not to record as crimes incidents that would clearly be seen as crimes? What guidance do the Government give police forces in such circumstances?”
“Her Majesty’s armed forces enjoy the respect and admiration of Members right across the House, so the Prime Minister is wrong to suggest that her critics are somehow insulting our armed forces; we are all proud of them regardless of her decisions. As for the legal basis for the decision—the alleviation of humanitarian suffering—the vast majority of Syrians murdered by Assad have been killed with conventional weapons. Is the Prime Minister only alleviating the suffering of those who are killed with chemical weapons, or does she consider there to be a legal basis for alleviating the suffering of those killed by conventional weapons, too?”
“She should go away and come back with a much better response.”
“Given what the Prime Minister just said about the urgency of taking action on Saturday and the fact that she did want to listen and respond to the House, the business statement that we have just heard is utterly extraordinary and flies in the face of everything we heard during the Prime Minister’s statement. My constituents expect me to tell them how I would have responded to this matter, and it is a matter of record that may last for many years in the future. I support entirely the SO24 application of my hon. Friend the Member for Wirral South (Alison McGovern), but it is not the same as an amendable motion, in Government time, where we as Members of Parliament are asked to justify to our constituents our view on this matter. The response of the Leader of the House is utterly unsatisfactory and demeans Parliament.”
“I am very grateful to my hon. Friend, and I share the admiration of everyone else for the speech she is making. We have heard a great deal today about the aid cheques we have signed, but her speech is revealing that a huge amount of that aid is not actually getting through to the people who so desperately need it. Is not part of our commitment to those people not just to sign the cheques but to have the political will to ensure that the aid gets to where it is needed?”
“I entirely recognise the Prime Minister’s concerns about Russia’s role in that. Russia is clearly acting as a block on the Security Council. We have not heard, however, whether the Government will make serious efforts to stop Russia being on the Security Council. If we are saying that the United Nations route is broken, what are we actually doing to get the international community to recognise Russia as the pariah state that it is and to stop it being a permanent member of the Security Council, where it is currently able to block any steps that we take? I look forward to hearing what the Prime Minister has to say on that. I am very concerned about the steps, but I also recognise that—”
“The fact that the President of the United States has made a glib response suggesting that this is “mission accomplished” and that it has all been dealt with is a real cause for concern. We will watch with great care to see what happens now, but the idea that we have taken a substantial step and will never see a repeat of this kind of attack is deeply questionable. The important point has been made tonight that inaction has just as many consequences as action does. However, I do not share the shame of some of my colleagues over the vote in 2013. As the right hon. Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis) said, if we had taken a decisive step against Assad back in 2013, we would have paved the way for ISIS. It was right for us to have concerns about that vote. I want to finish by focusing on the United Nations Security Council.”
“It is important to make the point that stopping someone else committing war crimes does not, in itself, mean that you have acted within the law. The measure that the Government are citing in relation to the alleviation of humanitarian suffering would count equally for the hundreds of thousands of people murdered by Assad using conventional weapons. The Government need to be clear on the legality of what they are saying. However, I entirely share their revulsion at the use of chemical weapons, and I entirely recognise why that is seen as a red line. During the earlier statement, the hon. Member for Central Ayrshire (Dr Whitford) said that all the evidence pointed to the attack being chlorine-based, and that the Government seem to be attacking sites at which sarin was produced. That was an important point.”
“I start by echoing the disappointment of many of my colleagues that there was not a parliamentary vote on this issue. The Government do not have an overall majority. Given that there were going to be legal questions, that the President of the United States was tweeting about this on Wednesday and that the Prime Minister had clearly come to the conclusion that we were going to act on Thursday, there was time for Parliament to be recalled on Friday. The points made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn) and the right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke) were powerful, and it is very regrettable that the vote did not happen. Notwithstanding that, there is no question but that Assad is a murderous tyrant. He is undoubtedly breaking international law and guilty of war crimes.”
“My admiration for the courage of the victims knows no bounds, but they really should not have been put in the position of having to pursue this in this way. They have been let down by different sections of the Government, and what was missing from the statement was any sense of apology to those victims for the actions that they have been forced to take because various parts of the Department failed. The Secretary of State referred to the number of cases that the Parole Board have to consider, but this was not any old case; it was a very high-profile one, and there have been serious failings in decision making. Will he take this opportunity to apologise to the victims for the many failures that left them having to pursue justice because no one else would do it for them?”
“Does my hon. Friend agree that, as well as the funding issue, there are further demands on our police as a result of the failure of many other Government policies? The number of homeless people, and the failure to deal with mental health issues, to which my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition referred earlier today, are putting additional pressures on the police at exactly the time when the Government are cutting the resources that they have.”
“Are not the rows of empty Benches behind the Minister the most powerful demonstration of the Conservative party’s failure on policing? I am told that the Conservative Whips have had to text Tory MPs to ask them to come in and make those Benches look a bit fuller. Is it not an embarrassment that the party that once prided itself on law and order now has so few people who are willing to come in and defend its record on policing?”
“I welcome both the domestic and international unanimity on this issue. Now that the Government support the Magnitsky Act, may I encourage the Foreign Secretary to do all that he can to learn from the Americans about how they have been able to prosecute the people who were exposed by Sergei Magnitsky? The UK is the only country that has not started criminal proceedings against such people.”
“I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing the debate. He made an important point about how long it has been since home ownership kept up with demand. The truth is that home ownership has never kept up with demand, except for those times when Governments have built a significant number of homes. It is not in the interests of the house building industry to satisfy demand. Does he see a greater role for arms of the Government—whether local government or others—in satisfying our housing crisis?”
“There needs to be much more understanding both of the role that towns play and of the make-up of the east midlands. I entirely endorse the point made by the hon. Member for North East Derbyshire about the need for greater infrastructure spending in the east midlands.”
“Friend the Member for Nottingham North, but we are not a region where the cities dominate and where it is all about the cities. Actually, we are a region of small towns and villages, predominantly—much as Nottingham and Derby might like to think that they are the spoke in the centre of our wheel, they are not entirely. I remember being at an event where we got east midlands council leaders together. Up on the top table, as was always the case, were the leaders of Nottingham City Council and Derby City Council, and sitting quite a way back from them was the leader of Derbyshire County Council. Of course, the leader of Derbyshire County Council has far more constituents than either of the other two, given the size of that authority. Nevertheless, successive Governments have seen the cities as the way to regenerate regions.”
“The Government consider us to be from the east midlands, but, as I say, I think people in Chesterfield consider themselves more northern than east midlands. Whatever people consider themselves, the truth is that the east midlands has been massively overlooked in terms of the spending. The hon. Gentleman referred to the amount of spending on both house building and transport. It is true that when someone from the east midlands comes down to London, they meet people who have 10 times more spent on their transport than people in the east midlands do. There are a number of reasons for that. Part of it is that the east midlands does not fit neatly into successive Governments’ views about how to regenerate areas. I apologise in advance to my hon.”
“What we saw was two or three years in which all infrastructure spending was slowed down, and although the rhetoric changed from 2012 and 2013 onwards, the level of infrastructure spending in the period between 2010 and 2015 was pitiful. There is a real need for infrastructure, including transport infrastructure, and also for Government intervention in making sure that the people with skills are available, to make construction affordable and to get more houses and more civil engineering projects built. I will also take up the point that the hon. Gentleman raised about the level of spending in the east midlands. In Chesterfield, we are slightly unusual in that we consider ourselves—I certainly do—to be northern but Derbyshire.”
“He is right to say that these key infrastructure problems exist. The previous Government made a massive investment in junction 29A, which was a really welcome and positive step in generating hundreds of jobs out of Markham Vale. However, it is a shame that the work on the development of that junction did not continue through to include work at the Stavely bypass, which it should have done. The Government need to be held to account on infrastructure spending. They came to power in 2010, at a time when all kinds of pressures were slowing the economy down. However, one of their first decisions—I still remember the former Deputy Prime Minister, Nick Clegg, and the former Chief Secretary to the Treasury, Danny Alexander, standing up to speak—was to cancel all the infrastructure spending.”
“The hon. Member for North East Derbyshire also referred to infrastructure. Again, I do not find myself in disagreement at all with what he said about the need for infrastructure to keep pace with new housing developments. He alluded to a couple of specific infrastructure challenges that both his constituents and mine face on the A61 and the Staveley bypass, and I am very keen to work closely with him on both those issues. I first came to Chesterfield when I worked at CCS Media, which was slap bang on the A61; it was just inside my constituency and on the border with the hon. Gentleman’s constituency. He is absolutely right to say what he did. Right back in 1990, I was sitting in my old Ford Cortina in exactly the kind of traffic jam that he took the Transport Secretary to see 27 years later.”
“People would have a choice: they could either take up the opportunity to get a new council house that they recognise would not have the right to buy, or they could stay on the housing list for all the council houses that already exist, which are already massively over-subscribed. That is something that the Government should think carefully about, as is allowing councils to borrow in order to build. If we are serious about ending the housing crisis but all we are doing is pushing the supply side and trying to make it easier for people to afford a house—even if there is some value in that—simply by effectively providing the deposit, then we will continue to fail to get the number of houses to meet demand. I urge the Government to consider more seriously the steps that can be taken to support councils to do more of this type of thing.”
“That is because I know that in Chesterfield there will be a real desire to get more houses built; in a small way, the council are getting houses built. However, there is a real worry that if the council was to make a substantial development and get new people into all those new homes, within three or four years those houses would all be getting bought off and the council would be hundreds of thousands of pounds out of pocket. There is a role for Government in that regard. Although I support right to buy in general as a principle, if councils were given a moratorium that said that in the case of new homes they did not need to have right to buy for the first however many years, we would actually start to see more houses being built.”
“I was a young man on a very modest wage, but I was able to afford a small two-bedroom cottage. It is a magical moment for someone when they buy their first home, so I do not ever want to undermine or underplay people’s aspiration to own their own home. However, at a time when there is so much homelessness and so many people are in insecure accommodation, we should recognise that there is also a real value to people securing their first council house and that council houses can also be a route towards home ownership. That part of the whole equation has also been lost. In the debate on housing in the main Chamber yesterday, I said that the Government really should look at the issue of right to buy on brand new houses.”
“As a homeowner and mortgage-payer myself, I am not advocating in any way that we should try to orchestrate some kind of collapse in the value of house prices. However, there needs to be a recognition that if the average price of a new home is going to be six or seven times the average wage, it will be increasingly difficult for new people to get into the housing market. As I said in my intervention on the hon. Member for North East Derbyshire, there will be times when the house building industry is able to meet the level of demand, as it did at times in the early part of this century, but it many cases it will not. There is a role for Government there. I entirely support people’s aspiration to own a home. I remember unlocking the door for the first time on the day I bought my first home, at the age of 22 or 23.”
“A relative of mine is currently going through the process of getting on to the housing ladder through that scheme, and there is some value in it. However, there is a more fundamental issue, which I referred to previously: it is not in the interests of the house building industry for the number of houses being built to meet demand. We all know what happens if there is a shortage of supply—prices go up. There is also a skills part of this conversation that has not really been referred to yet. At a time when far too many young people are in very insecure work and they do not have huge amounts of skills, it seems a tragedy that we are so short of the people who we need to be trained up in the construction industry. There is a skills part of this whole equation that is missing, and there is certainly a role for Government in that regard.”
“Chesterfield is a very attractive destination for house building sites, but it faces many of the difficulties between residents and developers that my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham North (Alex Norris) raised. Interestingly, even on sites where just one or two houses are being built, there are often widespread problems. When it comes to getting planning permission, sometimes it seems more difficult to build two houses than 80 houses. That is a real issue. It is important that we hold the Government’s feet to the fire on their record on house building. I find it incredible that a Conservative Government are overseeing the lowest number of new people becoming homeowners, as has been the case in recent years. It really is a significant flaw in the Government’s record. I positively support the opportunity for people to get Help to Buy.”