John Healey
MP for Rawmarsh and Conisbrough · Labour · United Kingdom
“Mr Spock, I think some would say, Mr Speaker! My hon. Friend is right. Despite global conflicts, trade tensions and rising threats in the world, which are pushing up inflation, bearing down on growth and pushing up borrowing costs, the UK economy is demonstrating huge resilience.”
“The Prime Minister and I have been clear that we must cut the costs of welfare. On levels of taxation, we had a period of Conservative Government, with low growth and high debt. They crashed the economy with the mini-Budget, and we had levels of taxation that were putting pressure on business, adding to the cost of living.”
“The hon. Lady is talking to the person who led the work to establish a defence and security partnership with the European Union and bilateral agreements with other countries, on which we now build both our economic strength and our national security strength. On the question of the Budget, I ask the hon.”
“Since day one in the job, the Prime Minister and I have been in lockstep in our determination to meet Britain’s fiscal rules. This is the bedrock on which we build good growth and help give a bit of breathing space to families and businesses.”
“May I start by paying tribute to my predecessor, my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds West and Pudsey (Rachel Reeves)? I am proud to have been a member of a Government with the first female Chancellor in 700 years.”
“My hon. Friend speaks up very strongly for his local area. He is right about the importance of pubs, social clubs and live venues, and about the importance of the 20% cut that we announced in July. These are the things that make the places where we live the places that we also love.”
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“My hon. Friend is right. Her council, like Oxford, is in the dark on this—it simply does not know what the Government’s guidance and advice will be. If it takes off the cladding, what does it replace that with, because the council must be certain that it is safe? The First Secretary of State rightly made great play of the panel of independent experts in his speech. The panel is there to advise Ministers on the urgent lessons that need to be learned and the action that needs to be taken, and that is very welcome. I hope that the panel can help the Government to get back on track and deal with some of the following concerns, which Ministers will hear about from colleagues right across the country.”
“Never again can we have a Government Minister who, when challenged on fire safety measures after the fire in Camberwell, said that they were not the Government’s responsibility, justifying that with the “one in, two out” approach to regulation. If the Prime Minister and First Secretary of State are serious about change, they should start by confirming that that approach came to an end with the Cameron-Osborne era of Conservative government.”
“I had not heard that rumour—I prefer to deal with the facts in front of us—but my hon. Friend is dead right that there is a serious question of capacity in DCLG. There is an even greater question over leadership, which I shall come on to in a moment. Finally, I want to turn to the “fundamental issues”, as the Prime Minister described them, that were raised by the Grenfell Tower fire. When a country as decent and well-off as ours fails to provide something as basic as a safe home for its citizens, things must change. Let me mention two areas, the first of which is regulation. Surely Members in all parts of the House would agree that all markets, organisations and consumers require regulation to guarantee quality and safety, to ensure fair practice and to stop abuse, yet that is not the current Government’s mindset.”
“If Ministers want our support for their recovery programme post-Grenfell, they must raise their game.”
“What does the Secretary of State have to contribute to solving the country’s housing crisis; to doing more on social housing; to reversing the plunging rate of home ownership, especially for young people; to giving 11 million private renters basic consumer rights; and to preventing the rapidly rising numbers of homeless people sleeping on our streets? Where is the plan? Where is the hope? Where is the leadership? If the Prime Minister wants a domestic policy programme, and if she wants to find common cause and to make fundamental changes to Government policy, we stand ready to contribute—we offer our Labour housing manifesto, published last month, as a starter. If the Government want our support for a plan to tackle the country’s housing crisis, they must raise their sights.”
“This is the first Government since the second world war to provide no funding to help to build new social-rented housing, and they have also ended all funding through the Homes and Communities Agency programme for decent homes, which is investment to bring social housing up to scratch. If the First Secretary of State and the Prime Minister were serious about social housing, they would lift the cap on councils borrowing to build and maintain their homes, restore central Government investment to help to build new social housing, guarantee “first dibs” on new homes for local people, and strengthen the hand of councils to get better deals from big developers for their residents. Finally, we hear that the Prime Minister wants us to “contribute” rather than just “criticise”. I have to ask this: has she asked her Cabinet to contribute?”
“I am grateful for that unexpected support from the Liberal Democrat Benches. The right hon. Gentleman’s very important and specific point supports my general argument. The second area is social housing. For decades after the second world war, there was a national cross-party consensus about the value of social housing to help to meet the housing needs and aspirations of many ordinary families. There is a recognition that there has been only one year since the second world war in which this country has built more than 200,000 new homes without the public sector doing at least a third of them.”
“That means that the full building has been tested for fire safety, not just one component of the cladding on the outside; that all replacement cladding and fire prevention works necessary to guarantee safety are done; and that no remedial action is delayed or not done because the council or housing association has not got the funding. How much funding have the Government set aside for these costs? Has the Treasury agreed access to the Contingencies Fund? Will the Minister reassure tower block residents today by making a clear commitment to full up-front funding for whatever work is needed to make these high-rise homes safe? When Ministers have rightly said, “You can’t put a price on people’s lives,” that is what it means.”
“It lacks the powers of decision or action that commissioners would bring. Public confidence in the council will not be restored by replacing one set of leaders with politicians from the same ruling group. What will be the tests for this taskforce, and what will be the tests of further council failings, before Ministers take the fuller intervention steps needed, as they have in other areas? The fears following the fire go well beyond Grenfell Tower, as do the consequences. Hundreds of thousands of people who live in high-rise blocks around the country want to know that their homes are safe.”
“What assessment have the Government made, with the Mayor of London and the other London boroughs, of the knock-on consequences for temporary accommodation, social housing and council waiting lists across the city? The Minister mentioned the recovery taskforce for Kensington and Chelsea. This is the taskforce that has now been sent in to take over from the taskforce sent in three weeks ago. Kensington and Chelsea is a failing council—it has even failed to admit that it is failing. The fundamental concern about this council is not just its capability, but the total lack of trust that residents or anyone else have in it. The Government concede that by sending in the taskforce, yet they leave the council in charge. Labour Members want the taskforce to work, but we doubt that it will. It can advise but it cannot act.”
“Is it the case, as I have been told, that some have been offered accommodation with too few bedrooms, or in another tower block, or indeed with bizarre conditions attached, including “no overnight stay” for family or friends? A hotel room is no home, and temporary housing is no place to rebuild shattered lives. When will all those now homeless from the fire be offered a new permanent home? The Minister mentioned the 68 homes in the Kensington Row development. They were already allocated for social housing. How many extra social homes have the Government or the council made available in the borough? Will the Government guarantee that the number of new social homes planned before the fire will be increased by at least the number needed now as a result of the fire?”
“They have been off the pace at each stage following this terrible tragedy, and it is clear from this statement that in some ways they still are. After the fire, the Prime Minister said: “I have fixed a deadline of three weeks for everybody affected to be found a home nearby.” The three weeks are up, yet whole families, who have lost everything, are still in hotels and hostels. We have learned today that three—just three—of the 158 families from Grenfell Tower have moved into a fresh home, and these are only temporary, which was not what the Prime Minister first said. Plus, only 11 others have so far been found somewhere they feel they can say yes to. Why have so few families been successfully matched with fresh accommodation?”
“I welcome the Minister to the Dispatch Box for his first oral statement in this job and thank him for making a copy of his statement available. May I also add the thanks of Labour Members to John Barradell and the emergency response team, as well as to the community organisations that are still supporting the survivors? The Minister has had a testing first few weeks. I hope he knows now that, whatever he says, it is the Government’s actions that count in getting Grenfell Tower residents the help and new housing they need, and in giving them and the wider local community in North Kensington the confidence that what is promised will be done. I have to say to him that the Government have been slow to act.”
“There are deeper flaws in this council, beyond the very serious failings in response to the Grenfell Tower tragedy, and every public statement from the ruling politicians confirms that they are in denial. These are exactly the deeper problems that commissioners and a full corporate governance inspection would help put right. The Government are still off the pace. If this council were a school, it would be in special measures, fresh leadership would be needed and fresh confidence would be built, as it must be built in this council. Actions speak louder than words, and actions count most in helping the Grenfell Tower survivors, and in rebuilding their confidence in the future and the wider public trust that must be there for the residents who live in our tower blocks and make them their homes right across the country.”
“168.] Yet Sir Martin Moore-Bick has said: “I’ve been asked to undertake this inquiry on the basis that it would be pretty well limited to the problems surrounding the start of the fire and its rapid development”. So I say to the Secretary of State that I recognise the importance of the independence of the inquiry, but will he make it clear to the House today what brief Sir Martin has been given by the Prime Minister for this inquiry? As the Secretary of State said, John Barradell is leading the strategic co-ordination group at present, providing the emergency response, relief and leadership that Kensington and Chelsea Council failed to do after the fire. How long will it be running these council operations? What is the hand-back plan? Who will it hand back to?”
“So will he act now—not wait for the public inquiry—to reassure residents in all other tower blocks by starting the overhaul of building regulations; by retrofitting sprinkler systems, starting with the highest-risk blocks; and by making it very clear that the Government will fund, up front, the full costs of any necessary remedial works? Turning to the public inquiry, which the Secretary of State mentioned, the Prime Minister has rightly set up this inquiry to get to the bottom of what went wrong at Grenfell Tower and help make sure this can never happen again. She said: “No stone will be left unturned”. —[ Official Report , 22 June 2017; Vol. 626, c.”
“The Government say that 600 tower blocks with cladding need safety checks, but nearly three weeks on the Secretary of State confirms today that only 181 have been tested so far—and all have failed. Will he accept that these tests are too slow and too narrow? Will he confirm that the Government are testing only one component of the cladding—not the panels, adhesives and insulation; not the cladding as a composite system; and not the installation method or impact on the buildings? All those things can affect fire-safety qualities. Importantly, will he confirm that cladding is not the whole story? We know that from the two coroners’ reports after the previous fires at Shirley Towers and Lakanal House, four years ago.”
“The Grenfell Tower residents understood what the Prime Minister meant when she said: “I have fixed a deadline of three weeks for everybody affected to be found a home nearby.” It is three weeks on Wednesday since the fire. How many people are still in hotels? The Secretary of State gave the latest version of the promise today: “a good-quality temporary home within three weeks”. Does that include hotel rooms? How temporary is “temporary”? By what date will all residents affected by the fire be in permanent new homes? While we are trying to get the numbers clear: how many survivors are there from Grenfell Tower? How many have not received the Government’s immediate assistance payments of £5,500? Let me turn to the wider fears of those living in 4,000 other tower blocks around the country.”
“I thank the Secretary of State for the prior copy of his statement. He struck an appropriate tone today. These are complex challenges for government, both national and local, but Ministers have been off the pace at every stage since this terrible fire. They have been too slow to grasp the scale of the problems people are facing and too slow to act. For the Grenfell Tower survivors, for the victims’ families and for the local community in north Kensington, underlying everything is the question of trust: that those in positions of power mean what they say, do what they promise and do not drag their feet before acting to deal with problems. That powerful message must be understood by Ministers, Kensington and Chelsea Council and the chair of the public inquiry, Sir Martin Moore-Bick.”
“What is he doing to make sure that this terrible tragedy at Grenfell Tower means a profound change of course on housing in this country?”
“Will he now act on the recommendations in those reports? There really should be a triple fire safety lock around buildings and works on them. First, the materials must be fit for purpose and meet safety specifications. Secondly, fire safety systems must be in place and fire risk assessments done regularly. Thirdly, building regulation and control must make sure that design, construction and any further works are fully safe. Instead, the update that the Secretary of State has given us this afternoon suggests a collapse of the fire safety control and check system. It is not working and it must change. Finally, what is the Secretary of State doing to make sure that when the Prime Minister said that we simply had not given enough attention to social housing in this country, those were not merely empty words?”
“Will the Secretary of State make funding available up front—not after the event through the Bellwin scheme—for any council or housing association that needs it for recladding or the installation of sprinklers and other fire prevention measures, starting with the highest-risk high-rise blocks and those with sheltered accommodation? Will he lift the central cap that he currently places on local authorities’ housing so that they can borrow and invest to ensure that their residents are safe? I welcome the independent expert advisory panel, but frankly the Secretary of State is wrong to say that many experts would claim that our buildings regulation and fire safety system serves us well. Many experts have said exactly the opposite, especially since the two coroners’ reports four years ago into previous tower block fires.”
“We know this from both coroners’ reports in 2013, into the Lakanal House and Shirley Towers fires. We may well find that from investigations into Grenfell Tower, as the fire there broke into almost every floor of the building. We need from Ministers a much more thorough review of fire safety in all the country’s residential tower blocks, a total commitment to action to deal with any problems, and a guarantee that the Government will help to fund the costs. That also applies to other public buildings such as schools and hospitals, over which similar doubts may hang. The issue of costs is crucial because some significant work and alterations have to be done, and quickly.”
“Finally, as those residents move, will the Government guarantee that the children will still be eligible to attend their same schools? More widely, Ministers talk too loosely about the buildings that have been tested so far. The Prime Minister said last week: “We can test more than 100 buildings a day”. —[ Official Report , 22 June 2017; Vol. 626, c. 169.] Will the Secretary of State make it clear to the House that the Government’s “testing” is only of cladding samples sent in by councils and housing associations? The Government say that more than 600 tower blocks with cladding need safety checks, so why, five days into the programme, have only 75 tests been done so far? Why have all failed? Importantly, will he confirm that cladding is just not the whole story?”
“Trust is so low in the local community around Grenfell Tower that I welcome the local Gold Command leadership. I welcome the key workers who are in place to provide each household with support and advice, and I welcome the £1 million paid so far in immediate assistance payments. However, the Secretary of State has made a promise to rehouse all Grenfell Tower residents in the local area within three weeks. It is now nearly a fortnight since the fire. How many people are covered by that pledge? Two weeks on, is it correct that 370 households are still in emergency accommodation? How many have so far been found permanent new homes, or even the “good-quality temporary” homes mentioned by the Secretary of State? By what date will all residents affected by the fire be in a permanent new home?”
“I thank the Secretary of State for the advance copy of his statement, and for what he has told the House. As he has said, the shock from this truly terrible, tragic fire at Grenfell Tower has not subsided, and neither has the fear. As the Prime Minister said in her statement last week, the Government’s response, both national and local, was not good enough in the early days. Nationally, it is still not good enough. Hundreds of residents of Grenfell Tower and their relatives are still struggling to keep their lives going in the face of this gravest loss, and hundreds of thousands of residents in 4,000 other tower blocks across the country are still wondering whether their homes are safe, worried about sleeping at night and want to know what the Government are doing to ensure their safety.”
“We are discussing this year’s Queen’s Speech, not 1997’s. Does the Secretary of State accept that the 13 years of the last Labour Government saw 2 million new homes built in this country, 1 million more people becoming homeowners and the largest investment in new affordable housing for a generation by the end of that period?”
“There is also a Queen’s Speech with no guarantee of getting the number of votes needed to approve it. This is the first minority Government in this country for 38 years, but this Prime Minister is no Jim Callaghan. She called the election expecting a bigger majority and saying she wanted a stronger mandate. She now has no mandate, no majority and no authority. Normally, the Queen’s Speech sets out what the Government will do; this Queen’s Speech sets out what they won’t do, can’t do and daren’t do. They will not make the economic changes to invest for the future and protect our public services. They cannot put forward a full programme for government, because the Prime Minister cannot yet do a deal with the DUP. They dare not even implement their own manifesto, and have taken it down from their website.”
“I welcome you to the Chair, Mr Deputy Speaker; I think this is the first time that you have been in the Chair in the Chamber. May I also welcome almost all of my Labour colleagues back to the House after the election, and all 87 new Members from all parties? As elected Members of the House, ours is a special job with special responsibilities. Last but not least, may I welcome the Secretary of State and his old team back to the Front Bench? There is a new Housing Minister, but, sadly, he comes with no new ideas or plans to deal with the housing crisis in this country. These are extraordinary times. There is a Government Bench without a Government, a Prime Minister who cannot even seal a deal with the DWP—I mean the DUP. [ Interruption. ] She might have better luck with the DWP; she cannot seal a deal with the Democratic Unionist party.”
“To come up with that number of Bills, the hon. Gentleman has to incorporate anything that can be loosely described as a draft Bill or flagged as potentially coming to the House in the next two years. The Prime Minister promised she would not call an election, but then did so because she wanted a bigger majority, a stronger mandate and greater authority. I am sure the Secretary of State will accept that the Prime Minister has none of those things at a time when our country is facing—I know he will appreciate this being such a strong Brexiteer—some of the biggest challenges we have faced for decades at home and abroad. At a time when we need a heavyweight Government, we have an interim leader and a set of lightweight Government Ministers.”
“We need to do both, of course. The major flaw with Help to Buy is that nearly a fifth of the people being helped to buy through the scheme are not even first-time buyers. Nearly 4,000 being helped by Help to Buy are on incomes of more than £100,000. It is not well targeted and it is not good use of public money. It could be spent much better, especially on helping younger people on ordinary incomes to get their first foot on the housing ladder.”
“We have had seven years of failure and a party with no answers to people’s problems, no hope for the future, and no plan to change the country for the better or to make government work in the interests of all.”
“They can’t and don’t tackle the longer-term questions that affect the future of our nation and the wellbeing of all of us.” The question for the Queen’s Speech is whether the “short-term” will be days, weeks or months. On 8 June, the Prime Minister asked the people for their judgment on seven years of Conservative Government, and they gave it. Real wages have fallen, Government debt has risen, investment in new transport and housing has been slashed, the NHS is in crisis, schools are cutting teachers and last year, more than a million people used a food bank. At the same time, there have been big income tax cuts for the top earners, with more tax cuts to come for the richest on wealth that they do not even earn.”
“We would be happy to consult on that. My main argument is with Ministers. They are making the wrong judgments and they are not putting in place the help that young people need in particular. That is why—the hon. Gentleman may know this—the number of homeowners under 45 has fallen by 900,000 since 2010. Young people’s hopes and dreams of ever owning their own home are being completely dashed, and the Government have no plan in this Queen’s Speech or in their manifesto to fix that. In truth, the Prime Minister is locked in place by her party only until its members judge that they can dump her without facing the British people again in a fresh election. It was Margaret Thatcher who said: “Minority Governments can only struggle on from day to day with a series of short-term measures.”
“Friend the Member for Hammersmith (Andy Slaughter) made the point that the safety checks that are imperative for all 4,000 tower blocks around the country are about not just cladding but all aspects of fire prevention and fire safety. The Secretary of State needs to make it clear that the checks will be comprehensive and rapid and that if local authorities need support and resources to carry them out, the Government will make that available. He also needs to make it clear—the Prime Minister did not—that if remedial work is needed to make the blocks safe and funding is required for that, the Government will provide it to ensure that the buildings are safe for their residents.”
“I am glad that the hon. Gentleman’s constituency of Bexhill has seen the benefit of some Government investment and support in recent years. The part of the Barnsley borough in my constituency certainly has not. The Government seem simply to overlook large parts of the country. I now turn to housing, the theme of today’s debate, and to Grenfell Tower. The Prime Minister was right today to apologise, to admit that local government and national Government were too slow, and to take charge herself. However, in a set of important commitments, which we welcome, she set several hares running and failed to answer a number of important questions. Earlier, my hon.”
“The Secretary of State talked about the Government’s track record on social housing. My hon. Friend the Member for Westminster North exposed it. Perhaps the Secretary of State could ask his officials for table 1012. My hon. Friend gave the figures for the number of starts; I will give the figure for social homes completed that people can live in. It was 37,000 when Labour left office. Last year, it was just over 1,000. That is the Government’s track record on social housing. It must change.”
“When this happens in one of the richest parts of the country, it offends our sense of living together as one nation, with each and every person equally treated and valued by our society and our Government. Things must change. For decades after the second world war, there was a cross-party consensus about the value of social housing. There was also a recognition that, in only one year since then did we build more than 200,000 new homes without councils doing at least a third. In 2015 we saw the first year since the second world war when central Government provided no new funding to build new social rented homes. Labour’s decent homes programme to overhaul and upgrade social housing has been stopped. Last year, Ministers ended secure long-term tenancies for new council tenants.”
“The residents and communities affected by the terrible tragedy want us to tackle precisely the political and policy decisions that those in power took. The Prime Minister has talked about the lessons to learn and promised that all necessary action will be taken after the investigation. As the official Opposition, we will not rest until those who need help and a new home have it, until anyone culpable has been held fully to account and until every measure is in place to prevent such a thing from happening ever again. Surely what has happened must shock the country and us into changing the policy, ideology and responsibility of government. When a country as decent and well off as ours fails to provide something as basic as a safe and decent home to all our citizens, things must change.”
“Friends the Members for Westminster North (Ms Buck) and for Hammersmith, both of whom know the area well and, as neighbouring MPs, spent much of the past week with my hon. Friend the Member for Kensington. I was with our Labour leader in Kensington the day after the fire. Firefighters with more than 30 years’ experience told us that they had never seen anything like it. The police commander was right when she said to me, “You have to be here to appreciate how truly apocalyptic this fire was.” It was not a natural disaster, but man made. It should never have happened and must never happen again. Hon. Members of all parties have a deep responsibility to ensure that it does not. Some have said, “Don’t try to score political points from the tragedy,” but it is about politics: ideology and policy, which the House exists to debate and decide.”
“I am grateful for that and I think that the House is, too. It has taken a dozen questions to the Secretary of State, the Prime Minister and the Leader of the House to get that statement, but it is of course welcome. I paid tribute to the Prime Minister for her leadership, having acknowledged that the Government were slow to get a grip of the matter and appreciate the scale of the tragedy. I also pay tribute to the Mayor of London, who has given a strong voice to the concerns of local communities and residents and strong leadership to the emergency services that struggled to deal with the tragedy. I pay tribute, too, to my new hon. Friend the Member for Kensington (Emma Dent Coad). She has been simply magnificent in her first week in the job as a Member of Parliament. I thank my less new hon.”
“Will the Secretary of State confirm exactly how much is in the Homes and Communities Agency programme this year and last year for Government investment in the decent homes programme?”
“Good. It is a small number, and it has a zero in it—and nothing else. Let me return to the serious points that I wish to make. Secondly, let me say to the Secretary of State that all markets, organisations and consumers need regulation to guarantee safety, ensure fair practices, safeguard standards and stop abuse; yet that is not the mindset of current Conservative Ministers. Never again can a Minister who is challenged on fire safety measures say, “It is not the Government’s responsibility,” and justify it by citing the Government’s “one in, two out” rule on regulations. That must change.”
“But my goodness, didn’t people—including us—have to argue hard for those basic regulations? Why did the hon. Gentleman and his colleagues, when the Bill that became the Housing and Planning Act 2016 was going through the House, reject intervention and regulation to ensure that all private landlords at least made their homes fit for human habitation before letting them? This is a Government whose mindset can see regulation only as red tape, and who do not see what the Prime Minister described as the important role played by good regulation in the public interest.”
“Some of what the Secretary of State has said this afternoon, and has said before, about house building and tenants’ fees is welcome, but there is nothing in the manifesto or in the Queen’s Speech to tackle the wider causes of the housing crisis.”
“They have given private landlords a freer hand and rejected legislation requiring properties to be fit for human habitation, so 11 million private renters have fewer consumer rights than they have when they buy a fridge-freezer. They have stripped away protections for people who need help with housing, so the number of people sleeping rough on our streets has more than doubled. They have cut investment and outsourced responsibility for building new homes to big developers, so, on average, fewer new homes have been built since 2010 than under any peacetime Government since the 1920s. That is the track record of the Secretary of State and his colleagues. After seven years of failure, it is clear that the Conservatives have no plan to fix the country’s housing crisis.”
“Its establishment resulted from a report called “Citizens of equal worth”. Many Grenfell Tower residents, and other social housing tenants, will feel that that rings hollow in this day and age. Let me now deal with the specific failures on housing. Two thirds of people now believe that the country is experiencing a housing crisis. Everyone knows someone who is affected—people who are unable to obtain a home that they need or aspire to. Many of the housing decisions made by Ministers since 2010—decisions that the Secretary of State boasts about—have made the problems worse. Because Ministers have done too little for first-time buyers on ordinary incomes, home ownership has fallen to a 30-year low.”
“This is precisely about politics. This is precisely what the House should do, and, in fact, it is precisely about what the Prime Minister said this morning. Indeed, my third point follows on from the point that she made when she talked about the fundamental issues that underpin the detail of what we have also been discussing. Sections of our people feel marginalised and ignored, and that is what happened to the tenants at Grenfell Tower. It is no good the hon. Gentleman huffing and puffing; the Prime Minister said that this morning. She recognised it. However, this is a Government whose housing regulator has now dropped any real requirement for the voice and views of tenants and residents on governing boards to be heard, and who, in 2010, abolished the National Tenant Voice, which we had set up.”
“I offer them our new deal on housing: a deal between the people of this country and the Government, and a bold, long-term plan to start to fix our country’s housing crisis and meet people’s housing needs and aspirations. If they too are willing to offer people that hope, I offer them Labour’s support as they put it into practice; but if they are not, they will have to make way for a party that can change the country for the better, and can make government work for the many and not the few.”
“I am talking about building at least 100,000 genuinely affordable homes to rent and buy a year, with the biggest council house-building programme in more than 30 years. I am talking about a new deal for private renters to establish new consumer rights, with legal minimum standards, as well as making three-year tenancies the norm, with an inflation cap on rent rises. Finally, I am talking about a new deal on homelessness, involving a new national mission and plan to end rough sleeping—not some time in the future, as the Secretary of State says, but during the next Parliament. Ministers have no domestic programme in the Queen’s Speech, and no majority in the House of Commons.”