Robert Jenrick
MP for Newark · Reform UK · United Kingdom
“Robert Steele was a beautiful four-year-old boy who died three weeks ago in Newark when he was thrown from an off-road bike that was being driven by a 24-year-old man. This is the culmination of a number of incidents in my town, and many others across the country, involving off-road bikes, e-bikes and e-scooters.”
“The Minister said that Governments are elected to lead. Most people would assume that means that Ministers are elected to lead, because they are accountable to Parliament and to the people.”
“There is an air of total unreality hanging over this debate. Successive Governments have run down our Royal Navy to its present enfeebled state, they have conspired to surrender other British sovereign territory and we have a Government who procrastinate about signing off a new oil field in the North sea—let alone about one in the south A…”
“I welcome the right hon. Gentleman to his position. I have known him for a long time—I wish him well. He has a huge task ahead of him. Earlier in the summer, the Prime Minister said that walking the streets of Makerfield lodged in his mind that so many working people want to see the personal allowance raised.”
“Imagine that you are a worker at JLR worried about your future, and you have the misfortune of watching the Chancellor’s speech, which contains searing economic insights like, “I want to see businesses make a profit.” There was nothing about scrapping electric vehicle mandates, bringing down energy costs by getting rid of net zero targets…”
“The sight of the Government escorting illegal migrants into Portsmouth harbour, the home of the Royal Navy, was a national humiliation. Sometimes I wonder whether Members of this House have no appreciation of the level of anger there is in the country at the rapes, the murders and the billions being wasted that should be being spent on th…”
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“Our commitment to net zero is not in any sense incompatible with making use of our domestic reserves. Otherwise, we will simply be reliant on imported gas from Putin and the Gulf, creating insecurity and greater emissions in the process. If we want our oil and gas companies to invest, we need to provide them with certainty. Will my right hon. Friend reaffirm the principles that I committed to as Exchequer Secretary, as other Treasury Ministers did: fiscal stability and maximising economic recovery in the North sea basin? It is through that combination that we can encourage our world-leading oil and gas companies to invest for the future.”
“In addition to targeted sanctions against Kremlin-linked individuals, our friends and allies in the US Senate are considering three further steps. The first is sanctioning Russian state banks, to prevent the flow of foreign capital. The second is having export controls on key technologies that are useful to the Kremlin. Thirdly, a number of Senators, led by Ted Cruz, are proposing a return to sanctions against Nord Stream itself, and related entities and individuals linked to the organisation. Will each of those be included in the Bill that my right hon. Friend intends to bring forward?”
“It is why I pay tribute to the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust, run by the brilliant Olivia Marks-Woldman; the Holocaust Education Trust, led by the indefatigable Karen Pollock; the Wiener Holocaust Library; the Beth Shalom Holocaust Centre, which is in my own constituency in Nottinghamshire; and many other organisations and charities for the work they do to document, record and educate.”
“We pay tribute to the memory of those non-Jewish heroes and heroines who saved countless lives—those people who the people of Israel call the righteous among the nations. In an age of indifference, they acted. In an age of fear, they showed courage and their memory is an example to us all. As time passes, the importance of this day grows. In 2020, 147 survivors of the holocaust passed away in this country. In 2021, 134 died. The youngest survivor of the camps is currently 77. As the survivors die, the holocaust is moving from living memory to vital history, which is why we must keep their experiences alive.”
“Today, the 77th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau, we remember a dark stain on human history, the greatest evil perpetrated by man against man in the long catalogue of human crimes. Today, we mourn with those who mourn, and grieve with those who grieve. We remember the names, the faces and the promise of the 6 million Jews who were murdered. Today, we pay tribute to those who survived and, for all these years, have borne witness to that evil and have served humankind in doing so. Today, we honour and remember the memory of the allied forces, including the 3.3 million British servicemen who left hearth and home, suffered appalling casualties and freed a continent from the grip of tyranny.”
“I am sure we all wish her a speedy recovery. Holocaust Memorial Day has been a national day of commemoration for over 20 years and our debates have become a regular fixture in the parliamentary calendar. We use this day to fulfil a solemn obligation, an obligation of remembrance: to never allow the memory of those who died in the holocaust to be forgotten by anyone anywhere in the world. This year’s theme, “One Day”, encourages us to put aside our differences for just one day, to come together to understand more about our past, and to resolve to act for a better future. I hope that Members from across the House will join me at 8 pm this evening and light candles in our windows as a mark of remembrance.”
“I beg to move, That this House has considered Holocaust Memorial Day 2022. I would like to thank the right hon. Member for Barking (Dame Margaret Hodge) and the hon. Member for East Renfrewshire (Kirsten Oswald) for co-sponsoring today’s debate. I am only sorry that the right hon. Member for Barking could not be with us because she is recovering from covid. As Margaret is not here, and therefore cannot be embarrassed, I thought I would say a few words about her. She has championed holocaust remembrance throughout her 28 years in the House and has proven to be one of our most courageous warriors against antisemitism and racism of all kinds. I will miss her enormously when she steps down at the next general election, but I feel fortunate to have served alongside her and to be able to do so for some time yet.”
“One said to me, as we walked away, that she could die easier knowing that they had contributed to that project and to educating future generations.”
“From London he went to Wales, where the children were joined by their mother, who managed to escape. His father did get to Switzerland, but the family were never reunited. Although a refugee, Herbert served in the RAF and has enjoyed a full and fulfilling life in Britain. The right hon. Lady and I both know how powerful it is to have heard these stories from our own family members, to feel their impact and to have had a personal relationship with those who were victims of the holocaust. It is—I think I speak for all of us in this House who have met them—one of the greatest privileges to meet survivors. It was a huge privilege for me to meet Sir Ben Helfgott, Lily Ebert and Susan Pollack in July, when together we marked the granting of planning permission for the memorial in Victoria Gardens. All were very emotional that day.”
“I have talked about my own family, many of whom perished in death camps in what today is Ukraine, but two of whom miraculously survived—my children are their great-grandchildren. Had the right hon. Member for Barking been present, she would have shared with us the experience of her brother-in-law, who is gravely ill. Herbert was born in Germany in 1930 into a successful middle-class Jewish family. One of his earliest memories is Kristallnacht in November 1938, when his grandfather was assaulted and had all his teeth knocked out. His father had already lost his job as a judge because he was a Jew. Herbert and his little sister were among the very few children who escaped on the Kindertransport. He still has the passport with the Nazi swastika imprinted on it. He remembers little of the journey he took to Liverpool Street—he was only eight.”
“I will, and I thought the images of those survivors and their families with the Prince of Wales—just yesterday, I believe—seeing the unveiling of their portraits at the Royal Gallery was extremely moving. Those are some of the reasons why, as Secretary of State, I worked to gain approval for the National Holocaust Memorial and Learning Centre, so that, when the time when the last living survivors leave us does come, there will be another permanent centre to reflect, honour and remember those who suffered and died, and to educate future generations. I am grateful to Members on all sides of this House who continue to support that initiative. Our debate in Parliament also matters. I have come year after year to share my own or my constituents’ experiences of the holocaust.”
“I certainly do and the hon. Gentleman makes the point very powerfully. The way we remember is changing. For example, Dov, the great-grandson of Lily, whom I met in Victoria Gardens, is now using his 1.3 million TikTok followers to educate the next generation with her stories. I strongly encourage those who have not seen them to do so. The importance of remembrance remains as strong as ever.”
“While Britain is, as I can attest from my own family, one of the most welcoming places for Jews anywhere in the world, antisemitism is on the rise at home. This year, the Community Security Trust found that anti-Jewish hate incidents rose by 49%.”
“There have been subsequent genocides in our living memory: the millions of victims of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia; the million-plus victims of the Rwandan genocide; and the 8,000 Muslim men and boys who were murdered in Srebrenica. Today, atrocities continue in Darfur, and last month the Uyghur Tribunal’s judgment in London found beyond reasonable doubt that the People’s Republic of China is responsible for genocide, crimes against humanity and torture in Xinjiang region. Its findings were supported by this House in the debate led by my hon. Friend the Member for Wealden (Ms Ghani). In each of those cases, we see what happens when the powerless cry for help and the powerful fail to answer. On Holocaust Memorial Day, it is appropriate that we reflect on the atrocities of the past to draw connections with those of the present.”
“Absolutely. My right hon. Friend has a long record, of which he should be proud, of drawing the attention of the House to exactly those issues. That is exactly the point I was turning to. Since the holocaust, human civilisation has advanced by virtually every metric. We live today in the most advanced human civilisation in history, yet we are still capable of such evil. To acknowledge that fallibility and where it can lead is the best corrective to these indescribable tragedies. The genocide committed on the Jews, the Roma, the Gypsies and the disabled in Europe in the 1940s was, as my right hon. Friend says, not an aberration in history.”
“In May last year, we saw a convoy of vehicles drive through north London with speakers blasting out antisemitic slurs and threats against Jews. In December, the passengers on a bus in Oxford Street, who had been celebrating Hanukkah, were subjected to vile and frightening abuse, with racists banging shoes against the bus.”
“I thank my hon. Friend, and return to my thanks to and support of the Holocaust Educational Trust, which sends hundreds of thousands of our young people to visit Auschwitz-Birkenau. I hope this Government will continue to support the trust, as previous Governments did, enabling those visits to continue. Social media is fuelled with antisemitic hatred, with conspiracy theorists growing their followers daily. According to research published last year by the Antisemitism Policy Trust, there were up to half a million explicitly antisemitic tweets per year made viewable to UK users. During the pandemic, we have seen the use and abuse of holocaust language and imagery, with anti-lockdown protesters carrying signs reading “Vaccine Holocaust” and wearing the Star of David.”
“Today, we remember not simply the liberation of the camps, but the triumph of freedom and the human spirit. We marvel at the strength, the resilience and the faith of those survivors and of Jewish people here in the UK and around the world. We must continue to tell their stories. We must use this day to continue the fight against hatred in all its forms. Then, perhaps, one day we will have a future without genocide.”
“Only last year the University of Bristol, one of our most respected universities, acted painfully slowly to discipline Professor David Miller, a purveyor of antisemitic conspiracy theories that went well beyond the bounds of free speech. Such incidents are one of the reasons I champion the brilliant Union of Jewish Students. I will end my speech today as the right hon. Member for Barking would have done, by quoting a diary extract of her grandfather’s. Old, ill and interned, deemed an enemy alien at the time, in an entry before Christmas, he wrote, “Is the present time a blip? Is Hitler only an episode? Are these ideas going to disappear and the better side of humanity re-emerge?” We owe it to her grandfather Wilhelm, and all the survivors of genocides, to do all we can to learn from their experiences.”
“The hon. Lady makes her point eloquently, and of course I agree entirely. Some of us here have been on the receiving end of antisemitism—I know the right hon. Member for Barking has on many occasions. I recently received a letter telling me to teach my “Jewish Zionist wife” to “put out fires”, as they intended to burn our house down and cremate our children. As Communities Secretary, I encouraged universities to adopt and use the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of antisemitism, a cause taken up strongly by the current Education Secretary, but despite those entreaties some universities have not done so.”
“His campaign against them will go down in history”, as one of the greatest stains on humanity. He added: “Let there go with it another memory, the memory of what the other nations did to wipe the shame away.” —[ Official Report , 21 November 1938; Vol. 341, c. 1440.] I often wonder whether I would have attended that debate and been one of the 40 Members of Parliament who spoke. I hope I would have done so, and that I would have acted. We are, after all, the legislators of this country, the leaders of our communities, and the responsibility to act today is ours. I close with a prayer in honour of the 6 million souls who perished in the holocaust: Oseh shalom bimromav Hu ya’aseh shalom aleinu V’al kol Yisrael. V’imru Amen. May he who creates peace in the heavens create peace for us, and for all the world.”
“I thank all right hon. and hon. Members who have participated in the debate. I have attended these debates on almost every occasion since I was elected eight years ago, and to me this was the most personal and powerful set of contributions I can remember. The contributions also continue to be prescient, with antisemitism on the rise at home and genocide and violence abroad. When I attend these debates, I often think of the debate that took place in this House before the second world war, on 21 November 1938, which ultimately led to the Kindertransport. That debate was opened by the then Member for Derby South, Philip Noel-Baker, who said: “Dr. Goebbels said the other day that he hoped the outside world would soon forget the German Jews. He hopes in vain.”
“The UK is proving to be the pre-eminent European nation in the support and defence of Ukraine, so I thank my right hon. Friend for his leadership on that. Nobody could doubt our commitment to European security. I have been encouraged by my right hon. Friend’s remarks about Germany, but it is critical that the German Government play a full part if we are to deliver the unprecedented package of financial and other sanctions that he described and that were set out in the call last night. How confident is my right hon. Friend of that and what more can he do with Chancellor Scholz to ensure it is delivered?”
“We have been working closely with the Highways Agency as it prepares those plans, and it has promised to do so within weeks. It would be extremely welcome for my constituents if she could do that this month, then we can analyse those plans and comment as they proceed to a public inquiry. If that major investment is made, we will see the first fruits of the campaign to improve safety on the A1.”
“I strongly urge the Minister to consider instructing the Highways Agency to conduct the kind of work that has been discussed, to ensure that those slip roads are safe, and that the short-term improvements required are done as quickly as possible. Thirdly, and most importantly for me as MP for Newark, I urge the Minister to take forward as quickly as possible the major investment in the dualling of the A46, which brings with it a major upgrade of the interchange between that road and the A1 around Newark. That will ensure that the dangerous slip roads there are made safe, making a big difference to the level of congestion. It is at that set of interchanges and slip roads that so many accidents and delays occur. This is my specific question to the Minister. When will she be able to publish the final route of that new dualling of the A46?”
“The debate I first held on this issue, shortly after I was elected, followed a spate of fatalities, including, notably, a constituent of the former Member for Grantham, whose current MP sits beside me, my hon. Friend the Member for Grantham and Stamford. I want to raise three issues. First, I support the proposition that our part of the A1 should in time become a motorway. It does not make sense that this key arterial route, through an important part of the midlands, connecting a number of cities and ports, is not a motorway. Secondly, I emphasise the point that, because of its history, a number of the slip roads on to the A1 from villages and towns that we have the pleasure of representing, are very short. That leaves them in a dangerous position, leading to constant accidents, delays and, sadly, fatalities.”
“It is my pleasure to support my hon. Friends the Member for Rutland and Melton (Alicia Kearns) and the Member for Grantham and Stamford (Gareth Davies) in today’s debate. I first raised this issue in a debate here in 2017, when my right hon. Friend the Member for Epsom and Ewell (Chris Grayling) was the Transport Secretary. It is one that has bedevilled our three counties for many years. As my hon. Friend the Member for Rutland and Melton said, the A1 is one of the most important arterial routes in the east midlands and the whole country, and has been since it was built in Roman times. In recent years, it has become heavily congested and the site of accidents and fatalities significantly above the national average.”
“Secondly, I see that the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors has failed to make good on the conversations we have been having for several months, if not years, to instil a more proportionate and sensible approach into the assignment of risk. What further steps—he alluded to some in his remarks—can he take against RICS, because its behaviour is now bordering on scandalous in not taking this issue seriously?”
“I welcome these further measures to provide critical support to leaseholders and to restore a greater degree of confidence to the housing market. In particular, may I welcome the future support for those in medium-rise buildings? It is a pity that the Treasury did not agree to that proposal in January of last year, but such is the way with this issue. May I ask my right hon. Friend about two particular points? First, he has agreed a backstop with the Chief Secretary to the Treasury whereby the ultimate risk will be borne by the provision of social housing. I am sure that he would agree that it would be quite wrong for social housing tenants and the homeless to pay the price for solving this issue, so will he say that that will not be the case?”
“Will she confirm that she has had a direct conversation with the new German Government about Nord Stream 2 and that she will ask them to halt its operationalisation, given that that is the single most important bargaining chip in the hands of Europe and NATO today?”
“I thank my right hon. Friend for a strong and clear statement. I agree with her that we should not accept the suggestion that NATO is, in any sense, anything other than a defensive alliance. Neither, indeed, should we accept the suggestion—and I do not expect her to say this today—that there is any imminent prospect of Ukraine’s becoming a NATO member. The Kremlin does not believe these things; they are merely pretexts to undermine a democratic and free society. The immediate concern is altering the cost-benefit analysis currently being undertaken by the Kremlin, and that is why the conversations that my right hon. Friend will have in the coming days are so important with respect to sanctions and other actions.”
“I, too, thank my hon. Friend for her excellent work on the scheme thus far. As was implied by the Chair of the Home Affairs Committee, the right hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Dame Diana Johnson), the long-term success of the scheme will depend on the Minister and the Government persuading local authorities to participate and on giving them the tools to succeed. That is more difficult than it was with the Syrian scheme because local authorities currently have literally tens of thousands of people, mostly asylum seekers, in hotel accommodation. There are currently 60,000 to 80,000 individuals—almost a constituency-worth of people—in hotels. What is my hon. Friend going to do to persuade local authorities throughout the United Kingdom to participate and to ensure that they have the funding and support that they need to do so?”
“I thank the Prime Minister, whose judgment was proven to be absolutely correct over the holidays. As a parent, I know that although the wearing of masks at school may seem a small price to pay to ensure that kids are back in the classroom getting the vital face-to-face teaching they deserve, it is not cost free and does affect the quality of teaching and our children’s wellbeing. What assurance can my right hon. Friend give to me and parents throughout the country that the measure will be constantly reviewed and last only as long as is absolutely necessary?”
“It is ensuring that public sector pensions, which are ultimately paid for by us all as taxpayers, are not politicised, and that political judgments do not come into decisions on the types of investments that are made by these funds. I will conclude my remarks and leave the matter with my right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary, and I hope that, between us and other interested Members in all parts of the House—there are a significant number—we can find a resolution to this issue, which has been hanging around now for several years, between 2013 and that judgment in the Supreme Court a year and a half ago, and put it to bed.”
“It is the Government’s policy that we do not support BDS. The Government wish to bring forward a Bill on BDS later in this Parliament, and I hope that they do so, but this is the appropriate place to make the amendment because this is, after all, the successor Bill to the 2013 Act in which this issue arose. It is important to say why we would want to do this. BDS is a divisive matter. It damages and undermines community cohesion and sows distrust, and we do not want to see local councils trying to influence foreign policy decisions, which are properly the purview of the United Kingdom Government. This is not about politicising public sector pensions, as was implied, I think, by one member of the Supreme Court; it is precisely the reverse.”
“I would argue that the time has come, in this Bill, to make the modest change that we need in law to ensure that we can rectify that issue and change the situation. A small amendment to the Bill would give the Secretary of State the powers he or she needs to issue the necessary guidance. That was essentially the message that came from the Supreme Court: if the Government wish to do this, they must ensure the law is clearer than it was in 2013. I am here to suggest to my right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary that a small amendment be made to the Bill to ensure that that can happen. The Government took this matter to the Supreme Court; unfortunately they lost, and of course we respect the Court’s decision, but the matter is able now to be rectified with a small technical amendment. It is one that I think is appropriate.”
“Both judges took the view, which I agree with, that a scheme such as the local government pension scheme is liable to be identified with the British state for a number of reasons, not least the fact that ultimately the money to pay for it is coming from the taxpayer, but also because it is underwritten by the taxpayer and by statute. Those looking in from afar, for example in a foreign country such as Israel, would be likely to deem a decision by the trustees of one of these pension funds to reflect in some respects the British Government and the views of the British state. The outcome of the Supreme Court decision in 2020 was that the rule and guidance issued by the then Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government was disapplied.”
“There was a second, not totally unrelated point made: some members of the Supreme Court were of the view that some of the pension funds in question were not within reach of the British Government, that they were essentially not part of the British state, and that by contributing to a pension fund, a civil servant or an officer of a local council is contributing to a pension scheme that is ultimately outwith the reach of a Secretary of State’s issuing such guidance. That, again, was subject to debate and conflicting views within the Supreme Court, and Lady Arden and Lord Sales dissented.”
“The guidance was, I think, perfectly valid; it said that “there are certain circumstances where the trustees of the pension schemes should be careful not to make decisions which would conflict with UK national foreign policy and defence policy.” Two issues arose when this was tested in the Supreme Court, in a case brought by a campaign group. The first was that some members of the Supreme Court felt that the 2013 Act itself did not give the Secretary of State the necessary powers. The Act clearly states that the Secretary of State can bring forward guidance on how the fund should be administered, but there was perfectly legitimate debate within the Supreme Court about whether the guidance went sufficiently far to cover this particular point. Three of the Supreme Court judges deemed that it did not, while two had a dissenting view.”
“Friend the Member for Tunbridge Wells (Greg Clark), the guidance issued by the Department was designed to guide local councils, primarily, away from adopting boycott, divestment and sanctions policies against Israel through their pension funds, although of course other examples were occurring at the time and might occur in future. The Department issued guidance at that stage that was entirely within the spirit of the then law in 2013, but was subsequently found by a split decision in the Supreme Court to overstep the Secretary of State’s legal powers.”
“The issue was whether the Government, acting through the Secretary of State at the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government or its successor Department in this case, have the power to issue guidance to those who administer certain public service pension schemes, primarily funded pension schemes, the most prominent of which is the local government pension scheme, to guide those trustees and administrators away from making investment decisions that are contrary to the United Kingdom’s foreign and defence policy. The reason why this came to court in 2020 was that when it was brought forward, initially by my predecessor, now the noble Lord Pickles, and his successor, my right hon.”
“In the early 1990s, when I think there was no retirement age, it was right to bring in a retirement age of 70. Senior members of the judiciary, such as Lord Denning, retired at 83. It was then right to bring in a somewhat lower retirement age but of course, to all our benefit, the world has moved on and we are living longer, so it is right to have a somewhat later retirement age than was legislated for in the 1990s. The primary reason that I wanted to speak in today’s debate was with respect to an issue that arose out of the 2013 Act, which was ultimately tested by the Supreme Court when I was Secretary of State in 2020.”
“I welcome the Bill and I am pleased to make a few brief comments. Like my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for South Swindon (Sir Robert Buckland), I was involved in its preparation and followed the consequences of the McCloud judgment as a Treasury Minister and as Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government. I welcome the fact that the Bill will now provide certainty and enable the important reforms that began with Lord Hutton’s report and were enacted in the Public Service Pensions Act 2013, the regulations that subsequently followed and the reforms of 2015. It will help to enable those changes to proceed and will enable all concerned to be given the confidence and certainty that they deserve. Again like my right hon. and learned Friend, I welcome the changes to the judicial age of retirement.”
“I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his remarks. He has just said that the Government will legislate as possible; this is the opportunity to legislate. Of course, there might be a BDS Bill at some point later in the Parliament—we do not know; there will always be pressures on the legislative timeframe—but even if there were, this is the appropriate Bill to handle the situation, because the issue arose in the 2013 Act, to which this Bill is essentially the successor. I do not expect my hon. Friend to make a commitment here at the Dispatch Box—it is clearly something that we will all have to consider in the weeks ahead—but this is the moment at which to make the amendment, should the Government wish to do so in this Parliament.”
“President Putin is clearly testing us. If there is a strong enough reaction, he may back off this time, but the softer our response, the more likely he is to go. That makes this an important test of our ability to engage in collective action. We need to reach and make public a consensus on specific sanctions that would apply in the event of Russian action. At the moment, I hear from the Minister and the other world leaders stern words, but not specific sanctions that will apply in the event of Russian aggression.”
“Does the Minister acknowledge that one of the flaws with the increase in national insurance is that only 15% of the additional revenue will flow through to local authorities to improve the quantity and quality of care? The remainder will go to protecting relatively asset-rich families’ inheritances and to the very important task of tackling backlogs in the NHS. Many councils listening to the announcement today will be very concerned about how they will tackle the demographic changes that they face in the years ahead. What does the Minister have to say to them? In the more substantial White Paper that is to follow, what more can she say about reforming the system to integrate care, which might enable efficiencies to help those local authorities to face the future?”
“It is a comprehensive piece of legislation to remove more of the iniquities of the present leasehold system, and to pave the way for the wholesale introduction of commonhold.”
“Then the last Labour Government took it forward one further step, with the Commonhold and Leasehold Reform Act 2002, which introduced commonhold, albeit not nearly as successfully as they would have hoped or as I would like to see taken forward in the years ahead. The destination of those reforms is not just a better situation for leaseholders, but the gradual elimination of leasehold altogether. It is, as some have said here today, essentially a feudal form of tenure: a product of our rich and ancient history as a country, but one that is no longer fit for purpose. It does not exist in any other developed country and it does not, in essence, have a place in a modern society. The Bill is, as my predecessor as Housing Secretary, the noble Lord Young, said in the House of Lords, the appetiser for the main course.”
“This is an important step on the road to leasehold reform. It is a road that really began with the Leasehold Reform Act 1967, which gave tenants of houses the right to buy their freehold. It then took the next step forward with the Leasehold Reform, Housing and Urban Development Act 1993, which gave leasehold tenants of flats the right, collectively, to buy their freeholds. There was a great deal of opposition, back during the Major Government, to that reform in this House, the House of Lords and from propertied interests, who said that it would be a disaster for the housing market. It was not and those rights have been enjoyed by hundreds of thousands of people pursuing the dream of home ownership across the country.”
“It will come as no surprise to right hon. and hon. Members to hear that I strongly support the Bill. It would be surprising if I did not, as I was one of the Ministers who instigated it, although stranger things have happened in politics. I would like to take this opportunity to thank the Minister for his hard work in bringing the Bill to the House, the noble Lord Greenhalgh who has worked extremely hard on this issue for many months, and the fantastic civil servants at the Department who have taken this forward. There is a very strong, albeit very small, team of civil servants who have been beavering away on this issue for many months and will have a lot of work to do ahead of them not just in taking the Bill forward but, perhaps more importantly, in preparing the next Bill, which I will come on to speak about in a moment.”