Hilary Benn
MP for Leeds South · Labour · United Kingdom
“As the right hon. Gentleman knows, the Irish Government published on 8 June their legislative outline, entitled “The General Scheme of the Legacy of the Troubles Bill 2026”. That is intended to fulfil the commitment that the Irish Government gave in the joint framework to co-operate to the fullest extent possible with the commission.”
“Northern Ireland is a society, as the hon. Gentleman knows better than most, that has been undergoing profound change since the signing of the Good Friday agreement 28 years ago. As the famous lines go, we have a shared history, but not necessarily a shared memory.”
“The right hon. Gentleman raises a really important point, and I am grateful to him for his question. We all have a responsibility—political leaders have a responsibility to call out what was witnessed for what it is and not mince our words, and as I have already indicated, social media companies have a responsibility to ensure that such m…”
“I hope the hon. Lady will recognise that the common travel area, which is more than a century old, is of great benefit to the citizens of the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland. Many people in Northern Ireland live their lives across that border every single day.”
“I do agree with my hon. Friend. The attack on Mr Ogilvie was truly shocking, and there was no justification whatsoever for the racist thuggery we witnessed on the streets of Belfast in the days following.”
“That was, of course, an awful feature of what we saw. One of the things I learned in my discussions was that those from the far right had taken a list of houses in multiple occupation in Belfast—a list that, in the interests of openness, was properly available on the Belfast city council website; the council has now taken it down—and used…”
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“I do not know whether he has taken this up—I apologise if he has—but I wrote to one of his predecessors to propose convening a standing roundtable, if that is not a contradiction in terms, made up of representatives of leaseholders, managing agents, fire services, fire surveyors, insurance companies and mortgage lenders. The Minister and his team and officials may be having conversations with each of those bodies individually, but such a roundtable would be a place where individual problems that may be happening elsewhere could be worked through in aid of a speedier outcome. The real test, as with the debt of obligation that we owe to the Grenfell families who are here today, will be how soon the day will arrive when all my constituents and every other hon.”
“If they cannot come up with the money to contribute to fixing the problem, that will affect all the leaseholders living in flats that they have bought in the same block, because the work will never get done. There is a pragmatic reason for ensuring that that does not come to pass. This debate has not touched on the alternative approach of having a building works agency, rather like what has happened in Australia, where a central body has taken on this complex task but then gone after the people who should pay. With hindsight, that would have been a better approach. Of course, costs are rising all the time. Before I come on to social housing, I want to make one other point to the Secretary of State.”
“They never thought that the task of being a managing agent would mean being asked to manage a multimillion-pound contract to, in effect, pick off the outside of a building and rebuild it to be safe. They are sitting with leaseholders and trying to work out where the funding will come from, out of multiple sources. It is a very difficult process. The hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Sir Robert Neill) raised a point about buy-to-let landlords. Apart from the unfairness of saying to people who have bought flats in good faith that somehow they are not entitled to the same protection as leaseholders, there is a practical problem. I can think of blocks in my constituency in which a goodly proportion of the flats are owned by buy-to-let landlords.”
“It may relate to a relatively small number of blocks, but they deserve reassurance that if they provide the evidence, they will get a change in the building safety fund’s decision. The problem is immensely complex, as the Secretary of State and his officials, who have been working so hard, know better than anybody. Also complex is the liability waterfall that he has created to deal with it, but leaseholders are still not sure how the waterfall will work. To extend the analogy, I suppose they hope and pray that the water will never fall on them because others higher up the chain will have taken on the work and the liability. I have great sympathy for the managing agents, some of which are quite small. They have dealt with lift contracts and ground maintenance.”
“There is a great waiting list—after a generation or two of failure to set fire to materials to see whether they were safe, there is now a long queue for the small number of institutions that can make up a particular combination made up at height and set fire to it to see what happens. I raise the case because one of the considerations that my constituents and the managing agents are weighing up is that if the material is not found to burn in a way that breaches the regulations, a fire safety adviser will be able to issue an EWS1 certificate in respect of the building. But what if the material does burn in a dangerous way? Is it all worth doing unless they are sure that if they provide incontrovertible evidence, the building safety fund will say, “Okay, we will now cough up for a replacement”? That is a very important question.”
“They do not know when it will all be brought to an end. I have raised with the Secretary of State the particular case of the Gateway building in the centre of Leeds. Three types of cladding were submitted to the building safety fund. The fund said that it would pay for the render, but that the two types of zinc cladding—zinc is applied to battens with various other materials—were not eligible for funding, even though the specialist fire safety adviser to the managing agents and the freeholder has said that in their professional opinion such cladding does not comply. The leaseholders are currently debating whether to spend £70,000 or £80,000 and another eight months on it.”
“As the Secretary of State will know, as cladding has been inspected, people have peeled stuff off, peered inside and said, “Uh-oh—where are the fire breaks?” It is also shameful that the people responsible for this generation of jerry-built blocks thought that they could get away with it. That is what we are confronting. There is no doubt at all—I join hon. Members on both sides of the House in saying this—that the Secretary of State has applied great determination and energy to the task that confronted him when he came into the post. However, he will be acutely conscious that thousands of leaseholders still do not know what will happen to their block. With each passing day, they remain trapped: trapped in their life, trapped in their building, which they are told is a fire risk, and paying additional costs.”
“I begin by joining others in expressing my condolences to the families who are here—and others who are not—whose loved ones died in the Grenfell fire. Their pain is never, ever going to go away. The very least we can do, and the essential first step, is to apologise for the failures. We heard that from the Secretary of State and my hon. Friend the Member for Wigan (Lisa Nandy), who spoke for the Opposition. Looking back, it is incredible that combinations of materials were allowed on the outside of buildings as cladding and were declared safe when no one had ever set fire to them to see what would happen. It is extraordinary that that transpired, and it is incredible that so many buildings were not constructed in accordance with the building regulations in force at the time.”
“As I tried to explain, there were applications for three different cladding systems. The building has been funded for one and rejected for two. That is the issue.”
“Has not the Minister just got to the heart of the problem? It is precisely because the Prime Minister is the ultimate arbiter of the code that the holder of the position of Prime Minister has a particular obligation to act with integrity. The problem that we have here is that there is a growing lack of confidence in the Prime Minister’s integrity—we saw that last night—and the longer he clings on, the more he undermines the office that he holds and, indeed, undermines our democracy.”
“May I return to the position of the British Council contractors—a point that was raised by the hon. Member for Basildon and Billericay (Mr Baron)? Having to move from place to place costs money, and we all know that these people are in fear of their life. What are the Government doing to support them with those costs? I know of individuals who are sending money, but are the Government doing so? Secondly, it is all very well to say that people can be considered for the resettlement scheme if they make it out of Afghanistan, but we really owe a debt of honour to these individuals, so surely we can tell them that they will get a place on the scheme if they manage to get out.”
“People on pre-payment meters, many of whom are on the lowest incomes, are still paying more for their energy than people who pay by direct debit, and they are increasingly likely to self-disconnect to turn off the light and the warmth. When will the Government act to end this price discrimination against some of the least well-off members of our society?”
“While businesses are having to cope with all that cost, the Government have for the fourth time postponed checks on EU businesses exporting into the United Kingdom, so they face less of the checks and costs that the Government have just dumped on to British businesses. The Office for Budget Responsibility, as Members will know, says that the UK has, “missed out on much of the recovery in global trade”. According to Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, the number of UK businesses exporting goods to the EU fell by an astonishing 33% last year compared with the year before. That is mainly small businesses that have said, “We can’t be bothered with all of this. We’re giving up exporting.” How does that help economic recovery?”
“Member for Ashford (Damian Green) talked about the importance of the cultural sector, but we know that musicians and performing artists face visa applications and customs declarations, which they find incompatible with trying to tour in Europe. We know that farmers are suffering from a shortage of labour. On Monday, when I was in Kent—I am co-convenor of the UK Trade and Business Commission—I talked to a fruit farmer. He said that, last year, he could not pick 8% of his crop. What has he done this year? He is reducing the amount that he plants. What does that do for British food security? It has benefits for other countries that are growing more, but it is making it harder for British farmers to grow more here.”
“This morning, the Foreign Secretary said: “We are in a very, very difficult economic situation”. We all recognise that that is true. Although there are some things that no Government can control, I encourage Ministers to reflect a little more on some of the difficulties that they have brought upon themselves and British business. In his speech, the Chief Secretary to the Treasury somehow neglected to mention the fact that our goods trade with the European Union since January 2021 has had to contend with red tape, bureaucracy and costs, including transport costs, which the Government have dumped on British business via the deal that they concluded. We know that we have small and medium-sized companies that are struggling to export to the EU. The right hon.”
“I can only report what I was told by the farmer on Monday. He has relied over the years on workers who have come from eastern Europe, and he says, “They’re just not coming in the same numbers, and that’s why I can’t pick my crops.” That is the point I am making.”
“Undoubtedly, disentangling the impact of the pandemic and other factors is continuing work; the Office for National Statistics makes that point when it publishes the statistics. However, there is no doubt at all that the change in the visa regime being operated by the Home Office now is having an impact on British farmers, and that was the point I was trying to make. I long for the day when these things—”
“There is a problem with divergence, but I hope that a way of mutually recognising each other’s food production standards arrangements can come. In conclusion, this crisis arises from a practical problem and it requires a practical solution. That is what politics is meant to deliver. That is our job. We need patient diplomacy and negotiation that takes as its starting point the purpose of the rules—they are there for a purpose—rather than the rules themselves and applies that to the unique and particular circumstances of Northern Ireland. Could we have less squabbling and more cool heads? Could we have less escalation and more conciliation? My message to both sides in the partnership council is a simple one: “You’ve got the power to deal with this. Sort it out.””
“In the end, it will result in retaliation. If retaliation results in further obstacles to trade or, heaven forbid, a trade war, that will make the cost of living crisis even worse. We have a real war in Europe going on; we do not need a trade war with our biggest trading partner. At the same time, the EU needs to understand that it has to move to help to bring this crisis to an end. If one takes those supermarkets that sell only to shops in Northern Ireland, what exactly is the risk to the integrity of the single market from a sandwich, a cake or a chicken—I speak as a vegetarian—that is bought in a supermarket in Strabane or Belfast? Can anyone point, in the 16 months the grace period has operated, to a single example where the integrity of the single market has been damaged? I am not aware of any.”
“He changed EU law to allow NHS patients in Northern Ireland to get NHS medicines, which is pretty obvious really. I said to Mr Šefčovič on Thursday, when he appeared before the Parliamentary Partnership Assembly, “Thanks for doing that, but if you can move on that, can you not move on other things as well?” We all know the list of remaining problem areas: seed potatoes, parcels, guide dogs, supermarket deliveries to shops, organic food and divergence on the use of titanium dioxide, an ingredient in cakes and ice cream that I was not previously aware of. The EU proposals would provide more checks and problems than the current stand-off, and it is important to recognise that. I say to the Government, as I said to the Foreign Secretary yesterday, that threatening to disapply the protocol will not work.”
“That is why the most important part of the protocol talked about goods at risk, and this is at the heart of the debate: goods at risk, having entered Northern Ireland, of going into the European Union, as opposed to goods that are going to stay in Northern Ireland. That was never defined, and the joint committee was given the task of dealing with it. We have a stand-off at the moment. In one way, that stand-off could just be extended and extended and the Government could continue to prolong the grace periods—unlawfully, as per the protocol—with the EU starting legal action and staying it while they try to negotiate. That is one way of dealing with it. In fairness, the EU moved on medicines, and I praise Maroš Šefčovič for that.”
“It is extremely tempting to dwell on the miserable history of how we got here—how the Prime Minister moved from promising that he would never put a border in the Irish sea to promptly doing so when he became the occupant of No. 10, and then to describing it as “a great deal” for Northern Ireland—but, in all honesty, the Prime Minister’s failings and inconsistencies are not a reason to inflict damage on Northern Ireland or on the British economy when so many people are struggling. We all knew that leaving the European Union would create difficulties over Ireland. The only thing everyone agreed on—practically the only thing—was that there could be no return to a hard border.”
“There is no doubt that if we put more costs, bureaucracy, red tape and increased transport costs on businesses, prices will increase. That is one of the ways businesses cope. Those things need to be sorted out but, as long as there is no trust between the European Union and the United Kingdom, it is frankly not going to happen. The principal cause of that distrust is the stand-off over the Northern Ireland protocol, which is the other issue I want to raise. We have two problems. One is that the Northern Ireland Government is not functioning and the second is that the Northern Ireland protocol is not working. The Good Friday agreement and the power-sharing and peace it has brought cannot be jeopardised by trade problems caused by the protocol.”
“I agree that the Commission needs to move further to reduce unnecessary checks and paperwork on goods moving between Great Britain and Northern Ireland; a sandwich made in Yorkshire and sold in Belfast presents no threat whatsoever to the integrity of the European Union single market. However, why does the Foreign Secretary think that threatening to change an international treaty unilaterally—I look forward to seeing the description of why that is legal—will encourage the Commission to change its approach, especially when it is likely to undermine trust further, and may result in trade retaliation, which is not in the interests of any of our constituents?”
“Some 4.5 million people pay for their gas and electricity through a prepayment meter. They are already paying more for their energy than direct debit customers, and the number of people who are disconnecting themselves because they have run out of money for the meter is increasing. What is the Prime Minister going to do to ensure that all our constituents have a right to light and warmth?”
“Many countries of eastern Europe chose to join NATO as soon as they were free to do so, because they regard membership of the defensive alliance as essential to their security and democracy. As a result of Russia’s invasion, Finland and Sweden are considering whether to make such an application; the Foreign Secretary has made it clear that the UK would support an application if it was forthcoming. Is the Minister confident that, in that event, NATO would agree to admit Finland and Sweden to the alliance?”
“I congratulate the hon. Lady and colleagues on securing this debate. She is making an outstanding case. One of the cancers that affects children is brain cancer. If we take glioblastoma, the five-year survival rate for children is only 20%. I am sure she recognises that not only do we need improved diagnosis—the point she is making—but more research. That is what the Tessa Jowell Brain Cancer Mission is about: more research to understand the make-up of those cancers, so we have more effective treatment and more children may survive.”
“As this war has intensified, the distinction between providing defensive, as opposed to offensive weapons has largely disappeared, as increasingly heavy equipment is being transferred. The Secretary of State said previously to the House that he would support the provision of suitable aircraft to the Ukrainian air force. Further to the question asked by the hon. Member for Shrewsbury and Atcham (Daniel Kawczynski), what is the Secretary of State’s current assessment of the appetite of countries to provide to Ukraine suitable aircraft that could be used in this new phase of the conflict?”
“I am extremely grateful to the Minister for giving way. In respect of the point that he has just made, have the Government made an estimate of the number of residential buildings below 11 metres where there may be a case for extensive remediation works? I am just trying to follow the logic of the Government’s position. They say that there is not really a problem with buildings below 11 metres, which is why they do want to include them, but if there is not a problem, surely the Government would not be having to do much in respect of those buildings, because there are very few of them—so the Minister says.”
“Also, if a building has a lot of buy-to-let properties and the buy-to-let landlord leaseholders cannot come up with their share of the money to fix the building, that has an impact on the residential leaseholders living in the building, and the net result could be that the building does not get fixed and they continue to bear costs that they cannot bear. I say “cannot bear” because ultimately that is the reason the Government have had to move. It was a fantasy to think that leaseholders would come up with sums of money they simply do not have—ridiculous. It was never ever going to happen.”
“We’re shutting it down because you don’t have a waking watch still in place.” What happens in those circumstances? It would be scandalous if leaseholders who have already paid the £10,000, or £15,000 in London, were to suffer that for want of someone to pay the bill. Fourth is a point that has not been raised in the debate so far, but some constituents have contacted me about it. The Government have decided to limit the number of leaseholders who are not resident—buy-to-let landlords—who can benefit from the scheme. Morally, I do not see how anyone can argue that they are more responsible for the failings of others than residential leaseholders.”
“A cap is better than an uncapped bill, but why should they have to pay anything at all? Secondly, we have discussed the position of buildings under 11 metres this afternoon, and I think the local case for including them is extremely strong. Replying to interventions, the Minister for Housing said that he is prepared to look at them on a case-by-case basis, but it seems to me that he could do that even if the Government chose to include them in the scheme. Thirdly, I seek clarification on a point my hon. Friend raised about what happens if leaseholders have already paid up to the £10,000 cap but there are further costs. What if there is a continuing need for a waking watch? If the bill is not paid, the fire service may say to leaseholders, “You’re going to have to leave the building.”
“Never mind the fear of a bill arriving which they have no hope of paying; there are the waking watch costs, the insurance, the uncertainty, the inability to get on with their life or to sell, and going to bed every night thinking, “Well, if there were a fire, would I get out if the building went up in 11 minutes?” It is a scandalous position that people have been put in through no fault of their own. I have a few brief points to make. The first is that I stick to the principle that I and many other Members have advocated from the start, which is that leaseholders, because they are not responsible, should not have to pay anything. My hon. Friend the Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Matthew Pennycook), who spoke so clearly a little earlier, was absolutely right when he said that they should not have to pay.”
“We all saw what happened at Grenfell, but there was also the fire at The Cube student accommodation in Bolton, and we saw how quickly it went up. I think the official report said, in effect, “The building did not perform according to expectations”. If that is not understatement, I do not know what is. The truth is that we are dealing with a load of buildings that were badly built and unsafe, and people got away with it for far too long. Let us try to put ourselves in the position of those who live in those buildings.”
“They looked at the situation they found themselves in through no fault of their own and basically said, “We’re not having it, because it’s not fair.” The House now acknowledges that and recognises it, so we should, above all, applaud their determination and persistence and that of all the cladding groups, including the Leeds Cladding Scandal group in my constituency, where, like many speakers today, I have constituents who are affected. It shows what can be done if people do not give up, which is a really important life lesson. Having said that, our constituents have lived with years of uncertainty and it is not quite over yet—a point to which I shall return. Reference was made to a video of one of the fires.”
“Member for Hemel Hempstead (Sir Mike Penning) that, given the Government majority, dissent on the Conservative Back Benches has been really important in getting us to this point. I pay particular tribute to the hon. Members for Stevenage (Stephen McPartland) and for Southampton, Itchen (Royston Smith). The reason above all others that we have got to this point, however, is the leaseholders’ refusal to give up.”
“Like many Members have already done, I begin by acknowledging the progress that the Government have made. I think the House would like to thank the Secretary of State and the Minister for Housing for effecting the transformation from the laissez-fair approach that the Government took previously to a really hands-on approach now—I also pay tribute to the civil servants for the work they have obviously done advising Ministers—and for asking themselves, “What are all the levers we can pull and the legislation we can enact to force people to live up to their responsibility?” I also thank Members on both sides of the House—it has been a team effort—but echo the point made by the right hon.”
“I am delighted to echo the Father of the House. The partnership has been brilliant in its analysis of what has and has not been done, what the problems are and what the solution ought to be, and it has also been persistent. I know the Minister will appreciate my final point, because he has worked very hard on this. Our constituents have waited long enough, with their lives on hold, and the sooner we can make all these bits work, the better. We have to enable them to wake up in the morning and think, “D’you know what? I don’t have to worry about the nightmare I’ve been living in for the last five years and I can get on with the rest of my life.” We owe it to them to bring the day they dream of around as soon as possible.”
“On the basis of what evidence has the Home Secretary concluded that this policy of forcing some asylum seekers on to planes to Rwanda will have a deterrent effect on people getting into boats to cross the channel?”
“People used to have their water supply cut off if they could not pay their bill, until it was made illegal to do so. Given that more and more of our constituents will be unable to pay their gas and electricity bills as the year progresses, does the Secretary of State share my concern that more and more prepayment metres will be installed in response, and that our constituents will in effect end up disconnecting themselves because they do not have enough money to put in the meter? If so, what is he going to do about it?”
“May I join other Members in thanking the Foreign Secretary, her officials, my two hon. Friends the Members for Lewisham East (Janet Daby) and for Hampstead and Kilburn (Tulip Siddiq), and everyone who has brought this wonderful day to pass, made all the sweeter by the smiles we see looking down on us from the Gallery? The Foreign Secretary said that the debt was paid in parallel, but we all know that for the Government of Iran it was always sequential. Given what she said about the work she is doing with other G7 members, including Canada, to try to deal with this, what practical steps is she hoping to secure through that to ensure that in future it is much, much more difficult for Governments to engage in hostage-taking for political purposes?”
“In 2018, the Saudi Arabian Government told the United Nations that “if the crime committed by the juvenile is punishable by death, the sentence shall be reduced to a term of not more than 10 years detention”. However, the following year, six young men sentenced to death for childhood crimes were executed, as was Mustafa al-Darwish in 2019, having recanted a confession that was extracted under torture. The Minister says that we can speak frankly to the Saudi Arabian Government. Will she frankly say to the House of Commons now that the promise the Saudi Arabian Government made to the United Nations that it would not execute minors for crimes committed when they were children was not made in good faith?”
“Last week, I was in Northern Ireland with members of the UK Trade and Business Commission, where we heard from a major supermarket about the impact that the protocol could have in future if the grace periods no longer exist. I listened carefully to the Secretary of State’s answer to the hon. Member for Penrith and The Border (Dr Hudson) earlier, when he suggested an SPS agreement as a way forward. Can we be clear that the Government are seeking an SPS agreement with the EU that differentiates the goods that are at risk of going into the EU, and those that are not?”
“I echo the thanks to the Secretary of State and his team. Will he pass on the House’s thanks to all his teams who are making this happen? On the Polish jets issue, it is, of course, a matter for Poland. Given that we are giving man-portable air defence systems and anti-tank weapons, does he regard the gift of aircraft as a defensive system, which is the word that he has used in his statement?”
“On the referral to the International Criminal Court, what more can be done to assist in the collection and preservation of evidence, including forensic evidence, of potential war crimes? I ask the question because, if that evidence is held in towns that, heaven forbid, the Russians eventually take, by the time the International Criminal Courts asks for it, it may no longer exist.”
“What we have to do is offer hope that, by those means, we can build a better and more peaceful world to hand on to our children and the children of Ukraine, who are uppermost in our thoughts today and in every day that is to come.”
“Look at the announcement made by Chancellor Scholz on Sunday—that would have been unthinkable even a month ago. We must rebuild our alliances with the European Union. This is no time to be falling out over fish or customs procedures, because, whether a country is in or out of the European Union, we are all Europeans, we face the threat together and we must be ready to make peace together when, one day, there is a change of the leadership in Russia. What we are witnessing is an attack on the values that bind us together as democratic countries: the freedom to say what we think; the power to choose by whom we are governed; the ability to make those decisions free from the fear of violence at the hands of others; and hope.”
“Fourthly, for those who are streaming across the border, it is the responsibility of all of us to offer them a warm welcome. We must also think about what this means for the future, as was just said, because the world that we thought we understood has been turned upside-down. Now that President Putin has invaded Ukraine, who is to say with any confidence that he would not be prepared to do the same to the other countries that surround him? We have made a pledge to those who have joined NATO that an attack on one is an attack on all, and we will have to reinforce their defences with our presence to make clear to Russia that this is a line that it does not cross. We need to invest more in military capability to be ready for the conflicts of the future.”
“That may not happen today or in the next two years, but at some point the Russian people will say, “Why are we experiencing all these hardships for the sake of a war with our brothers and sisters in Ukraine, the purpose of which we do not understand?” Thirdly, we must collect the evidence for the ICC. It is essential to bear witness to the crimes being committed. We can see them thanks to the courage of President Zelensky, who has been inspirational—any puppet that Putin installs in Kyiv will have no credibility—and thanks to the journalists who have stood by their posts, filing and broadcasting to counter the lies and disinformation that are as much a part of the war as the rockets that Russia is raining on the people of Ukraine.”
“Not a single one of us in this House would not do anything that could be done to bring the slaughter in Ukraine to an end, and not a single one of us in this House does not feel a certain helplessness because we cannot make that happen, particularly when we think of the children. That makes it all the more important that we do everything else that we can to support the people of Ukraine in their hour of need. First, the Government must continue supplying the weapons—do not tell us how; just carry on. Secondly, the sanctions must be tough, and they must remain in place. We must isolate Putin for the pariah that he has become. I say that because the only sure way to remove the risk presented in the long term not just to Ukraine but to the rest of Europe is for there to be a change of leadership in Russia.”