Bob Blackman
MP for Harrow East · Conservative · United Kingdom
“I hope that the Leader of the House will again provide protected time and prevail on his colleagues not to have too many Government statements, so that we can have a reasonable debate on the subject.”
“Since the changes, we have been inundated with requests from Select Committees to have statements in the House, which I welcome. Next Tuesday, before the two debates that have been scheduled, there will be Select Committee statements on the Treasury and Public Accounts Committee reports.”
“On Tuesday 20 October there will be a debate on manufacturing skills. On Thursday 22 October there will be a debate on compensation for Equitable Life policyholders. I am sure that the whole House will recognise the importance of hospital radio across the country.”
“Many of my constituents work at Heathrow airport. They have had to work extra hours, as the right hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) mentioned, and they have suffered abuse, too. I put on record my appreciation for all that they have done. Even more of my constituents use Heathrow for business travel and social travel.”
“I am sure that the Leader of the House will join me in congratulating Radio Brockley on this wonderful anniversary. Perhaps we could have a statement in Government time on the importance of hospital radio in the health service and the benefits it brings to patients and staff.”
“This is a sad day for the UK-Israel relationship, given the risks of what the Foreign Secretary is doing. Affecting the Israeli elections by making even moderate politicians even more hawkish is a huge risk.”
The complete record
Every one of 5,702 lines we hold for Bob Blackman, in date order, each linked to its source. Free to read, in full, without an account. Page 45 of 115.
“Canons Drive in my constituency is part of a conservation area with 300-year-old trees. There are unique examples of wellingtonia, redwood and cedar trees. Harrow Council is considering an application to remove the tree preservation orders on the trees, which would eventually lead to them being felled because insurance companies are claiming that they are causing damage to the neighbouring housing. May we have a statement from the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government on protecting tree preservation orders and preventing the felling of these unique specimens that were part of the Duke of Chandos’s historical estate?”
“We now have a clear position whereby two vaccinations are required, with a period of time obviously required between those vaccinations to maximise the efficacy of the vaccine. Will my hon. Friend give me an assurance that when we are vaccinating our armed forces, we are ensuring not only that the intervals between the jabs are maintained, but that we are allowing a period of time after the second jab is provided before our armed forces are sent on deployments, so that they are given the maximum possible protection from covid-19?”
“Our programme of promoting academies and enabling schools and colleges to become academies has been outstandingly successful and very popular. However, there is one section that has not been able to convert: Catholic sixth-form colleges. Will my right hon. Friend enable an amendment to the Skills and Post-16 Education Bill to provide an opportunity for Catholic sixth-form colleges to academise with the legal protections that they need?”
“On Sunday, we commemorate World Refugee Day, when we commemorate the plight of the Kashmiri Pandits, who were forced out by jihadists and are still refugees in their own country. But on Monday, we celebrate International Day of Yoga, which is India’s gift to the world. Can we arrange for statements to be made to the House next week on these two vital subjects, which the House should attend to and, indeed, could celebrate by using Monday for some yoga exercises before the House meets?”
“It will come as no surprise to the Chairman of the Select Committee that I agree with every word of his statement and of the report that we have published. Does he agree, however, that one of the prime concerns is that if the Government come forward with zoning of particular areas within a local authority area, and if a growth area is to be used with planning permission not going through the normal process, it will be essential that those areas are subject to a full public consultation by the local planning authority, setting out clearly the boundaries for height, density and other aspects of development on the site before any developer is allowed to get on site and do as they choose?”
“The overwhelming majority of serving police officers will be devastated by the publication of this report and by the besmirching of their conduct in carrying out the duties they fulfil. Obviously, our thoughts are with the family and friends of the victim, who have suffered over the years, and I welcome my right hon. Friend’s commitment to ensuring that the report and the recommendations are delivered in full. Will she undertake to come back to the House and give MPs the opportunity to question how closely the recommendations have been implemented by all the various institutions that will need to implement them, so that public trust can be restored?”
“In order to combat the human rights abuses heaped upon the Uyghur Muslims by China, it is obviously vital that we build the broadest possible coalition of support across the world. In particular, what is my hon. Friend doing about building a coalition of Muslim-majority countries, which seem to be silent on supporting their brothers and sisters in Xinjiang, so that we can ensure that China gets the message that its human rights abuses are unacceptable to the entire world?”
“Eritrea is effectively a dictatorship with one of the worst human rights records in the world. What pressure can my hon. Friend put on the Government of Eritrea to remove their troops from this conflict and to make sure that they abide by the human rights records we want to see right across the world?”
“There is good evidence that the recommendations will work in synergy to drive down smoking rates, and the forthcoming tobacco control plan offers the perfect opportunity to put them in place. I commend our recommendations to the House, and look forward to the reply of my hon. Friend the Minister.”
“Will the Minister investigate extending official development assistance funding for the framework convention on tobacco control 2030 project for a further five years? Finally, the Minister is the lead for the World Health Organisation’s FCTC in the Department of Health and Social Care, so will she commit to provide the leadership in other Government Departments and public authorities that we need to fulfil their legal obligations to prevent tobacco policy from being influenced by the tobacco industry? I have been able to touch on only four of the recommendations that we have made, and there are 12 in the report. I urge all Members to read the full report and the recommendations. The recommendations are supported not just by the APPG, but by leading health organisations too numerous for me to mention.”
“We also need to look at raising the age at which young people can buy cigarettes. Clearly, young people who start smoking continue to smoke into adulthood, so one of the areas that we have explored is raising the age of sale. It was raised from 16 to 18, which produced a 30% reduction in smokers aged 16 to 17 years old. It would be helpful if we could get to a position whereby 18 to 20-year-olds were prevented from smoking, so will the Minister commit to conducting a consultation on raising the age of sale from 18 to 21 and to coming to a decision about whether to go ahead by the end of 2021? We have been a leader in the tobacco control plan, but obviously the position is that we have set the record. Now that we are free from the European Union, we can make decisions on our own.”
“The US’s user fee legislation raises $711 million annually from the tobacco industry; a similar approach could be introduced in the UK, with a statutory smoke-free 2030 fund imposing a targeted tobacco manufacturer profit cap and utility-style price controls in order to raise funds from the industry through a charge-based mechanism on sales volumes. It would not apply just to tobacco, because obviously this is about incentivising the industry to deliver on making smoking obsolete by 2030. It is quite clear that this is more than demonstrated by the market failure that has happened, and we need to get on with it. Will the Minister commit that the APPG recommendations for a “polluter pays” approach will be considered as a funding mechanism for the forthcoming tobacco control plan?”
“We will achieve a smoke-free 2030 only by motivating more smokers to attempt to quit using the most effective quitting aids, while reducing the number of children and young adults who start smoking. It is right that the Government brought forward the ambition of the prevention Green Paper, and we need to ensure that bold action is implemented, with appropriate investment. The Health Foundation estimates that a minimum of £1.2 billion is needed to restore public health funding to 2015 levels, and that a further £2.6 billion is needed to level up public health across the country. The APPG’s view is that when it comes to ending smoking, the industry that makes excess profits from the sale of tobacco should pay, as it does in the US.”
“In 2018, there were 1,566 smoking-attributable hospital admissions in Harrow alone. Research shows that smokers are likely to need social care a decade earlier than non-smokers because of the impact of smoking-related diseases and disability. Inequalities in smoking have grown, not shrunk, in recent years. To be smoke free by 2030, we need to reduce smoking by two thirds in only a decade, and by three quarters for smokers in routine and manual occupations. Cancer Research UK has said that, at current rates of decline, we will miss the target by seven years, and by double that for the poorest in society, because there are still 6 million smokers in England.”
“The importance of the ambition is very clear: the chief medical officer, Professor Chris Whitty, recently said that smoking is likely to have killed more people in Britain than the covid-19 pandemic, with more than 70,000 people dying from smoking last year in England alone—and for every person killed by smoking, another 30 live with the serious consequences of smoking-related illnesses. Ending smoking is essential if we are to reduce health inequalities between rich and poor, level up the nation and increase healthy life expectancy by five years, in line with the Government’s manifesto commitments. The smoking rate in my Harrow East constituency is lower than average for England, but there is no room for complacency. More than one in 10 of my constituents smoke, and smoking kills 250 of my constituents every year.”
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Miller. I am the co-sponsor of the motion, so I crave your indulgence slightly because I have a rather longer speech than five minutes will allow. It is a pleasure to follow my co-sponsor, the hon. Member for City of Durham (Mary Kelly Foy). I chair the all-party parliamentary group on smoking and health, which published the report on the tobacco control plan yesterday. We were delighted when my hon. Friend the Minister set out the need for a new control plan last December, and we commissioned Action on Smoking and Health and SPECTRUM, a widely acknowledged scientific research consortium, to put together a report for us on what needed to be done and why.”
“I wish you a long life and happiness of your birthday, Mr Speaker. My hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone) rightly said that the problem here is the illegal crossings from France. May I take this opportunity to thank the Minister and his colleagues for doing everything they can to reform the asylum system so that it helps those who actually are vulnerable and need it most? Can he confirm that under the new proposals we will be opening more safe routes to the UK while clamping down on the people smugglers who prey on the most vulnerable?”
“The Hillsborough tragedy is one of those events where anyone who was alive at the time will remember where they were when these terrible events were unfolding. All our sympathy must be with the families of the victims and those recovering. Will my right hon and learned Friend set out what plans he has to review the existing position so that legal support is provided to the families of victims not only of the Hillsborough tragedy, but of other tragedies that may sadly happen? There will need to be legal support for families undergoing this. We need to learn the lessons and ensure that the failure to provide proper legal support for these families during the entire process is not repeated.”
“I thank my right hon. Friend for her very firm position on removing people from the UK who have no legal status to be here and indeed abuse our hospitality. Can she confirm that the proposed one-stop-shop appeals process will reduce the number of baseless claims that continue to frustrate our courts—and indeed, I am sure, all those involved in the Home Office who wish to deport these foreign criminals who have no place here in our society?”
“In Harrow, because of the delta variant, we have surge testing in our schools: 13,000 young people have been tested at school and 12,000 relatives at home. This weekend, 3,280 vaccinations took place because we had two new pop-up vaccination centres for 18-year-olds and over. Will my right hon. Friend join me in congratulating the entire team who have made this massive project, so diligently followed, to enable people to be safe in Harrow, but will he also consider having further pop-up clinics for 18-year-olds so that we can get everyone vaccinated as soon as possible?”
“The recent monsoon-like conditions have created flooding in my suburban constituency, particularly in Kenton and parts of Edgware, caused by the flooding of the Kenton brook. Unfortunately, Harrow Council, which is responsible for some of the maintenance of the sewers and the overflow, blames the Environment Agency. We have tried to get the Environment Agency to take prompt action. Because of over-development and front gardens being lost so that people can put in driveways, the normal soakaways are not available. May we have a debate in Government time on flooding in urban and suburban areas, so that we can call on the Environment Agency and other partners to ensure that they carry out their duties in a proper way?”
“The vast majority of rape victims know the perpetrator in the first place, and the vast majority are in relationships with them, or historically have been. The key here is ensuring that once a victim of rape reports it to the police, they are not only dealt with sympathetically, but supported all the way along the line to court. This is a structural and cultural change that needs to take place. What effort is my hon. Friend making to ensure that cultural change, as well as structural change, is actually implemented?”
“I thank my hon. Friend for updating the House on the current position. Clearly, all of our thoughts are with the family and friends of the late Daniel Morgan, who was savagely murdered. They have had to wait an extended period for justice to be served. Will she therefore give us a timetable for when the Home Secretary will lay the report before the House, so that Members of the House can ask appropriate questions about this inquiry, and about not only why it has taken so long, but its findings?”
“Reports emerged yesterday that Hamas had launched a torpedo at Israel’s natural gas field in the Mediterranean and that an armed unmanned aerial vehicle caused an explosion at Israel’s Ashkelon power station. Does my right hon. Friend agree that Hamas’s ability to acquire these non-conventional weapons is a very worrying development? Will he join me in condemning Hamas for targeting energy infrastructure that will disrupt energy supplies not only in Israel, but in Gaza?”
“My hon. Friend will be well aware that the overwhelming majority of men and women who run our post offices are small business owners who work extremely long hours and have to deal with extremely complex and different sets not only of accounts but of transactions. Given the circumstances that have arisen under the Horizon scandal, what actions will he take to ensure that the position is rebalanced between those small business owners and the vast monolith of the Post Office, so that we get justice for everyone running these businesses?”
“I reiterate my view that we need to ensure that people who are homeless are assisted but not arrested. Equally, on health, it is time that we had a tobacco manufacturers 2030 fund, with a levy on producers of tobacco, so that we can invest in encouraging people to give up smoking for the good of their own health. Unfortunately, that was not mentioned. I hope that we will hear a commitment from the Health Secretary tomorrow.”
“As the Chairman of the Select Committee stated, we did the prelegislative scrutiny and we are still waiting for the Government to respond to that. If they accept all the recommendations made by the Select Committee, that will smooth the process of the Bill, and we will have a Bill that people will be proud of. The reality is that we need to protect leaseholders from the unscrupulous behaviour of developers. The leasehold reform Bill will take things forward from now on, but we have to combat companies such as Bellway, which sell freeholds from under the noses of leaseholders, without even informing them, to finance companies that then exploit them to no end. I was disappointed that we did not hear in the Gracious Speech about the repeal of the Vagrancy Act 1824.”
“That would mean that there were rents that people could afford, rather than rents being subsidised through housing benefits. We should also transform the position by giving tenants, when they move in, a guaranteed price at which they can exercise the right to buy when their circumstances allow, and then all the receipts should be invested in new social housing. That is an area that we can all improve on. The Government have been brilliant on Everyone In, and we now need to roll out Housing First right across the country. I hope that we can ensure that we provide the homes that people need so that they are not forced to sleep rough on the streets because of their circumstances. The Building Safety Bill is clearly welcome.”
“I hope that the Secretary of State will consider the planning Bill a work in progress and allow Members across the House to have some input so that we can get it right once and for all. In particular, if he enabled the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee to undertake prelegislative scrutiny, I think that would improve the Bill no end. I have no objection to planning permission not being needed where a local authority sets out a planning brief for a site and invites developers to come in and build exactly as it has determined, but every other planning application and proposal to build should be subject to local democratic control. On social housing, we need to be more ambitious. We need to be building between 90,000 and 100,000 units a year.”
“I draw the House’s attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. Before we approach reform of the planning system in this country, it is vital that we actually get the homes built for which planning applications are still outstanding. The reality is that more than a million homes have planning permission but remain unbuilt. My suggestion to the Secretary of State—I think he knows this—is that after all planning conditions are discharged, developers should be given 18 months to start on site. If they do not, they should lose their planning permission. If they have not built the homes after three years, they should be charged full council tax on every single one of the dwellings that they have failed to build.”
“My right hon. Friend will be aware that London has a younger cohort and is full of communities from across the world, but many are hesitant because of the activities of pharmaceutical companies in the countries of their origin. Will he look at aspects of control to ensure that those communities can get the vaccine they choose to take, rather than attempting to force them to take vaccines they are extremely reluctant to take?”
“Harrow Council spent £250,000 putting in dangerous cycle lanes and a series of deeply unpopular low-traffic neighbourhoods. It is now spending £85,000 to remove them, after the public outcry. In addition, it proposed to sell off the very popular Belmont community centre to be redeveloped for flats. Then, of course, after the public outcry, it made a screeching U-turn and claimed to have saved the Belmont community centre for the public. Could we have a debate in Government time on the waste of money that takes place in certain places in local government?”
“My right hon. Friend will be well aware of the tremendous success of the vaccine programme in Harrow; indeed, he visited The Hive vaccination centre very early on during the vaccination programme. What message does he have now for younger people who will be approaching the position where they will be called for their vaccination, so that we can ensure that all adults are vaccinated by the end of July?”
“I congratulate my hon. Friend and the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office on their offer of help and the provision that has been made to the Indian Government. He will know that at a time of humanitarian crisis, the people of this country are incredibly generous. Members of the Indian diaspora, in particular, are conducting fundraising events via temples and other religious places across the country this weekend, including the world-famous Neasden temple, where people are doing a sponsored static bike ride of 7,600 km—the distance between London and New Delhi. What advice is being given to those religious organisations who are raising money to make sure the money gets to the right place at the right time to assist in alleviating the suffering going on in India?”
“Let us have some commitments on when we can expect to see the Building Safety Bill brought into operation, and some overall commitment to ensure that people living in unmortgageable, unsaleable flats are given appropriate comfort, because, frankly, without that, we will have to support the Lords amendment to ensure that the Government come back with these proposals early in the new Session. Let us make sure that we send the message to leaseholders out there: you should not have to pay a penny piece to rectify the problems that are not your fault in the first place. I shall be supporting the Lords amendment once again today.”
“Obviously I am not allowed to pre-disclose the details, but it is fair to say that we are critical of the way in which the Government are approaching this necessary means. I urge the Minister for Housing, who is a good friend for whom I have every respect, to let us have some commitments from the Front Bench in his answer to this debate, and to tell us what he will do to ensure that leaseholders are prevented from having to bear these unnecessary and unacceptable costs. Let us also have some commitments on when we will see the proposed forced loan scheme.”
“The Government are committed to producing the Building Safety Bill, but we know that it will be announced in the Queen’s Speech and that it will probably take 18 months to two years before it is live and operational. Leaseholders do not have the luxury of that time. They are being charged the money right now. We still do not know the details of the forced loan scheme that the Government are offering for leaseholders in buildings below six storeys. We have been asking to scrutinise it, so we can see whether it is fit for purpose or whether it will even work. I have had the honour and privilege of serving on the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee for the past 11 years. We are publishing a report on cladding and the other issues tomorrow.”
“So, here we are again debating the Fire Safety Bill and the Lords amendments to it. The key issue here is not whether we enshrine in law the requirements on fire safety but who ends up paying for them. The reality is, as the Father of the House mentioned, that the £5.1 billion offered by the Government thus far will be insufficient to cover the remediation and fire safety costs identified not only in tall buildings but in lower buildings as well. The key issue, then, is that it is going to take some five years for the work to be carried out, and that leaseholders are receiving bills now of £50,000 or more in order for the work to be carried out. They can ill afford it.”
“On 31 January, in answer to the debate on justice for Equitable Life policyholders, this House was assured that all records were being retained and would be available in the event of their being needed. Equally, we were assured that there were no plans to destroy those records. I was therefore shocked that the Public Accounts Committee, in its hearing last week, was informed by Treasury officials that the records had been destroyed and would not be available. That makes getting justice for Equitable Life policyholders more expensive, so will my right hon. Friend agree to meet me and a small delegation of the all-party parliamentary group for justice for Equitable Life policyholders, so that we can get to the bottom of how we can move this long-running saga forward?”
“I congratulate the hon. Member for Hampstead and Kilburn (Tulip Siddiq) on securing this urgent question and on ensuring that the family of Nazanin and the imprisonment of Nazanin herself are at the forefront of our minds in this House. Iran has a dreadful human rights record, with the largest number of executions anywhere in the world and the oppression of its native people. Does my right hon. Friend not find it ironic then that the United Nations Economic and Social Council elected Iran for a full four-year term to the Commission on the Status of Women? Will he therefore take that up at the United Nations to say that it is totally unacceptable for a country that suppresses women and imprisons them without proper process even to be considered to represent human rights across the world?”
“I agree with my right hon. Friend the Member for North Somerset (Dr Fox) that there is a solution. If the Government reject that solution, let them come forward with their own solution in the House of Lords. Let us agree that the leaseholders do not have to pay a penny and the Fire Safety Bill can go on the statute book, as we would all like to see.”
“Equally, we know that the fire safety remediation required in addition to the remediation of unsafe cladding almost dwarfs the costs of remediating the cladding. All those costs will once again be passed on to the innocent leaseholders. I understand that my right hon. Friend on the Front Bench has to defend this position and clearly wants to get the Fire Safety Bill on the statute book. Let us be clear. I do not think any MP wishes to prevent the progress of the Fire Safety Bill. What we do need, however, is surety and assuredness, because the draft Building Safety Bill will almost certainly take 18 months to two years to bring to fruition. The leaseholders do not have that time to wait. My right hon. Friend the Minister has made it clear on a number of occasions that he finds the amendments defective. Well, there is still time.”
“We were promised in the earlier statement in February that the loan scheme would be announced at the Budget. Now, I did make the assumption that that was the Budget in 2021, not the Budget in 2022 or 2023. The reality is that the evidence given to the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee and other bodies suggests that the forced loan scheme is nowhere near being available. We as Members of Parliament are not even able to scrutinise the proposal, so those who are living in blocks of flats of six floors or less do not even know how that scheme will work. My estimate is that many people will end up with a bill that will last for 100 years, therefore factoring in, almost inevitably, a dramatic reduction in the value of their properties.”
“I start from the principle that successive Secretaries of State and Ministers have said from the Dispatch Box that the leaseholders are the innocent parties in this scandal and that they should not have to pay a penny piece towards the costs of remediation. I applaud the Government for coming forward with £5.1 billion of public money to support the remediation of unsafe cladding, but our problem is that it is not enough. The estimate now is that £15 billion will be required and that the extra £10 billion will have to come from leaseholders as the last resort, because building owners will naturally pass that on to leaseholders wherever they possibly can. They are the ones in situ; they are the ones facing these huge bills. The Government say that further proposals will come forward on the forced loan scheme.”
“Does my right hon. Friend not find it ironic that the self-same people who are attacking the Government today for the process of procurement were attacking the Government just about a year ago for their slowness in achieving supplies of PPE and other equipment? Is it not right that the Government have moved heaven and earth and that Ministers and civil servants have worked literally through the night often to make sure that we get through this covid pandemic as safely as possible?”
“I pay tribute to my hon. and gallant Friend and, indeed, all those who served with distinction in Afghanistan. Clearly, the economy of Afghanistan—in particular the farming community—will be vital to preserving peace and security in the region. Will my hon. Friend update the House on what will be done to encourage farmers to develop products and crops rather than feeding the illegal drugs trade, which has caused so much damage not only to the region but to the rest of the world?”
“I am delighted to say that I have had my second dose of the Oxford AstraZeneca vaccine and, so far, no ill effects. In Harrow, we have had surge testing because we have had a relatively small number of cases of the South African variant discovered. Literally thousands of people have been tested, but one of the most frustrating things is that these tests then have to be sent off and there appears to be an extremely long turnaround time before we get the results. What can the Secretary of State do to speed up getting the results of these tests? Otherwise, people will not be aware of whether they have the variant or whether they should take particular actions.”
“I congratulate my hon. Friend on the excellent work she has done in supporting students and universities across this very difficult period. Clearly, students are now consumers—consumers enabled to demand the best from their universities—and the key point here is getting value for money. I know that she is trying to do that. Can she also state the position in relation to international students? Many universities are wholly dependent now on the income from international students. What advice is being given to those students, who are equally consumers of our education?”
“Surely now is the time that, above all else, we should say to the people of this country that people who are homeless should not be arrested but assisted. By assisting them we can help them rebuild their lives and rebuild the dignity of people across the country. We do need to build more social housing and provide a rental basis that people can afford. That is not a debate for today, but let us hear from the Minister the actions that the Government are going to take to repeal this legislation. Although we will need legislation to deal with aggressive begging, we need to make sure that people who are homeless do not feel threatened by the police and those in authority but realise that they can be assisted to rebuild their lives. Thank you, Sir Charles, for allowing me to participate in this excellent debate.”
“Friend the Member for Cities of London and Westminster rightly pointed out, the Vagrancy Act was introduced in the wake of the Napoleonic wars, during which men in particular had been crippled. There were no jobs for them, no national health service and no welfare state. We are now in a much stronger position and should deal with people who are homeless on the basis of their health and enable them to rebuild their lives. It is right, however, that we have legislation to deal with aggressive begging in particular. My advice to anyone who asks me has always been: “Don’t give money to someone who is homeless and unfortunately living on the streets—give them help and support. Direct them to a charity where they can get the help and support they need to rebuild their lives, rather than potentially fuel their addictions”.”