Ruth Cadbury
MP for Brentford and Isleworth · Labour · United Kingdom
“I supported this legislation first in 2015 and will do so again as it goes through its processes. I am truly grateful for all the work that so many hon. Members here and in the other House have done on the detail of the Bill.”
“His brother was diagnosed with cancer, and after an operation that proved unsuccessful, he was admitted to a hospice for end-of-life care. About his brother, he said: “He was very philosophical about what was going to happen. His one request and hope was that his death was not going to be prolonged and painful.”
“If he could only have received a life-ending intervention 5 days before he died, as he wanted, he would not have had to suffer the indignity and agony of a painful and long, drawn-out, horrific death.” The second experience is that described on several occasions in the House by Paul Blomfield, the former MP for Sheffield Central, about hi…”
“In Paul’s words, “He had had his share of health problems, but he faced them all positively, until a terminal diagnosis of inoperable lung cancer clearly led to his decision to take his life. He could not talk to me or his partner about it, because he would have made us complicit.”
“I will not. The many people who have shared their experiences of facing death soon have told us that they want to die on their own terms. We also know, through various credible polls, that the majority of people in this country want that choice for themselves. I do not want to deny them the right to be able to make that choice.”
“231WH.] Those potentially facing unimaginable pain or suffering after their terminal diagnosis, despite the best palliative care, currently have options that are unbearably lonely—like for Paul’s father—or involve an arduous and costly journey by going to Switzerland; or they have no choice, like my constituent’s brother.”
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“I am going to remain on the subject of the prison estate. The Minister made a valiant attempt to defend the Conservatives’ woeful record on prisons, but they are failing to build the prison spaces we need to reduce this cycle of crime. Just last week it was revealed that the Government had built only 380 of the 1,000 pop-up prison cells that they promised by the end of 2023. Therefore, can the Minister at the very least confirm when the remaining 620 pop-up places will be built?”
“Shot and killed for going to the toilet—the hon. Member for Oxford West and Abingdon (Layla Moran) has described just one example of what Palestinians in Gaza are going through. Our heart goes out to her and her family, but also to all the civilians in Gaza who are affected by such appalling treatment at the moment. Many Israeli leaders have openly pushed for the expulsion of Palestinians from the Gaza strip and called for the second Nakba in Gaza. Will the Minister reassure the House that the British Government oppose any such attempt to forcibly expel and displace Palestinians from Gaza?”
“T7. Over the past year, yet more people have been killed or seriously injured on our roads, and the UK’s record on that has plateaued. While we have accident investigation organisations for air, maritime and rail, we do not have one for roads. The Government promised to set up a road safety investigation branch last year. When will that become a reality?”
“I want to add my gratitude for the work done by Fighting With Pride and to those affected veterans who gave evidence to the review, including a constituent of mine. In response to the hon. Member for Lichfield (Michael Fabricant), who is no longer in his place, the Minister mentioned—I hope it was a slip of the tongue—the debate today. I do hope that the debate will be soon in the new year in this Chamber and in Government time. It is being reported that an earlier draft of the Etherton review recommended double the compensation offer for LGBT veterans than has come out in the final version. Can the Minister tell the House if that was the case and, if so, why the compensation offered has been halved?”
“As well as providing adequate housing, will the Government please ensure that those settled through ARAP and ACRS get quality support to help them into a future career in this country, so that they can be fully integrated?”
“I thank the Minister for including the word “integration” in his statement. This weekend I met a man who is now settled through the ARAP scheme in a permanent home in my constituency after living for over a year in a hotel elsewhere with his family. Although he is hugely grateful to the Government, Hounslow London Borough Council and Refugees Welcome Hounslow for the support he has had to ensure that he and his family are safe and secure, it is not everything. He is working 16 hours a week in a minimum-wage catering job. He has had no support to find properly paid work that uses the skills and experience that the UK valued when he worked for our specialist services in Afghanistan.”
“I thank the hon. Member for the work that she has been doing on this issue. However, she implies that the rip-off merchants constitute only a certain proportion of freeholders. Is she not aware that these people have been working in cahoots over the past 10 years, attending conferences, identifying the weaknesses in the law, sharing information and forming links with professionals such as agents and solicitors in order to rip off innocent leaseholders? This is a consistent, organised scam that has been growing over 10 years, which is why there are so many more problems now than there were, say, 15 or 20 years ago.”
“It will not help those who are stuck in limbo and unable to sell, it will not help those who were tricked into shared ownership with false promises, and it will not prevent yet more leaseholders from having their lives turned upside down. When someone is handed their first set of keys, it should be a day of dreams, but for so many of my constituents and millions of people across the country, that dream has turned into a nightmare. The Government had a chance to end that nightmare through this piece of legislation, but they have failed to do so.”
“Friend the Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Matthew Pennycook) has said that a Labour Government would go further and ensure that everyone who wanted to move from leasehold to commonhold would be able to do so. A Labour Government will make commonhold the default tenure for all new properties, and will carry out the Law Commission’s recommendations—I welcome that. Labour will also address the omission on deferment rates. We will do what the Conservatives have failed to do. I have touched on only some of the many and varied issues that my leaseholder constituents have faced. The legislation does not go far enough for them and will not fix the problems that they face.”
“Member for Dartford (Gareth Johnson), who is no longer in his place, mentioned the excess charges, increases well above inflation, deteriorating service and opaque bills. Management companies are often too closely aligned by ownership with the freeholders. The same names keep coming up: Rendall & Rittner and FirstPort appear to be hoovering up the management contracts for a range of blocks, including housing association, shared ownership and resident management companies, all the while providing an appalling service to the leaseholders. On declining value and the need to extend leases, constituents have told me about how they worry about their future if they have less than 80 years left on their lease. I do not think that the Bill does enough to address that challenge. I am pleased that my hon.”
“The residents of Wheatstone House in Chiswick, which is managed by L&Q, face an example of poor repairs services. Leaseholders and tenants in that block have known their hot water and heating not to work for days on end. That started last winter and is back again this winter. Each time, residents get a lacklustre and slow response from L&Q. We saw a repeat of such poor service when Peabody-Catalyst dragged its feet for months in fixing the lift at Aplin Way in Isleworth, trapping some residents upstairs. The developer then tried to leave leaseholders with a huge bill. Others have district heating systems that run at 35% efficiency but cost a lot of money. What does the legislation do to address those issues? On service charges, management companies have their cake and eat it. The hon.”
“Banks will still not approve mortgages for those blocks until the work is carried out, which means that, again, those leaseholders are trapped in limbo. In one case in my constituency, Galliard Homes has delayed and delayed taking any action, despite promises that it would start months ago. Leaseholders in blocks below 12 metres are still responsible for funding building safety fixes. They were carved out and left to deal with the crisis themselves. For one of my constituents, that means a £20,000 bill hanging over their head. The building safety crisis is a wider symptom of the building culture that the leasehold system encouraged; a system in which a small number of people and companies are able to make huge profits, with absolutely zero oversight of the build quality. Let me move on to repairs.”
“They only own 20% or 25%, and if they need to sell, they have to sell through their housing association, unless they are in the fortunate position of being able to step up and own the lease outright. A report that I read said that many housing associations drag their feet on resales as there is not much money to make from them. They focus their energy on getting the new blocks sold. I have heard from many constituents who are shared owners. They wait months and months to sell, and have to pay for costly valuations, while they are trapped in limbo trying to get on with their lives. Many of my constituents who are leaseholders are also unable to sell because they are waiting for remediation work to begin on blocks deemed to be unsafe. Much of that emerged following the tragedy at Grenfell.”
“Leaseholders feel that they are treated like cash cows. Then they are hit with an increase in their building insurance: what was £200 a year is now £400, £500 or more. They ask why those costs have gone up, but they do not receive a specific or clear answer. Many are faced with having to sell, sometimes at a loss. If they were lured into shared ownership, managed by housing associations, they face additional problems. The part-buy/part-rent set-up is supposed to be targeted at keyworkers in the public sector, many of whom are on fixed pay. On top of the mortgage and service charges, those so-called owners—they are not really owners, are they?—find out that their rent is going up. In many cases, my constituents in shared ownership have seen rent increases of 6%, 7% or 8%.”
“Too often, they are kept in the dark by solicitors who are often recommended by developers. They move in and the problems start. They notice a few problems: the promised concierge might not be there; the gym on the brochure never opens; rubbish is left in the hallways; the car park barrier and the door from the car park into the flats are often broken, creating a security hazard; and heating and hot water stop working for weeks on end. They report those issues, but nothing happens. Then, they get their service charge bill in the post: it has increased to more than £7,000 a year, over 50% more than what they were told they would be spending. One constituent has seen a trebling of their service charge since they bought their flat in 2017, but while the service charge goes up, the services get worse.”
“If the House will indulge me, I will give a typical example of why the leasehold system is outdated and just what the legislation should be addressing. Imagine someone in their early 30s on the career ladder in a reasonably well-paid job. They have saved up for years, often while stuck in private rentals. They finally have enough for a mortgage, and they can just about afford the monthly repayment rates. They look across west London and cannot afford to buy a house, but they then see a glossy advert for a flat. At first glance, it looks perfect. They have worked out that they can get a mortgage and use their deposit to get a foot on the ladder. It looks as if their salary can pay the mortgage and the service charge, so they buy and assume that they have a stake in the home that they now own.”
“He has become the Conservatives’ Mr Fix-It. He was sent in to fix the justice system and then the Cabinet Office, and even to deliver the parting blow to the former Prime Minister. When he was presented with the leasehold system, there was a glimmer of hope that the Government would slay the vested interests and finally fix this antique system—but no, the right hon. Member has flinched. He has failed, because before us today we see a timid and narrow Bill that does not go anywhere near far enough to fix the problems faced by leaseholders. Most new homes in my constituency are flats, not houses, so although ending the sale of leasehold houses is welcome overall, it will not help my constituents and the millions across the country who are still living in, or face the prospect of living in, leasehold flats.”
“Problems with leaseholds is one of the biggest issues brought to me by constituents, and I am sure if the Minister joined me in meeting residents of just one or two blocks in my constituency, whether it was Great West Quarter in Brentford, Grove House in Isleworth or Wheatstone House in Chiswick, he would see the wide array of problems caused by the leasehold system. We have had nearly four years of promises from successive Conservative Housing Ministers and Secretaries of State to commit definitely to leasehold reform. The Government have talked a good game but failed to deliver the big comprehensive package of reforms needed. This piece of legislation is yet another example of that failure. This was supposed to be the grand reforming Bill from the grand reforming Secretary of State, who is not currently in his place.”
“It is a pleasure to speak on the Second Reading of the Leasehold and Freehold Reform Bill and to follow so many excellent contributions from Members across the House. They have all provided examples, most of which I have experienced in my eight and a half years in this place. For years and years, leaseholders, campaigners and groups such as the Leasehold Knowledge Partnership have been warning the Government about the huge harm being done by our outdated, feudal and antique leasehold system. Many of us have raised it in this House.”
“With a boost in the powers of the water regulator, water bosses who fail to meet high environmental standards on sewage pollution must be met with significant sanctions to ensure that they cannot profit from damaging the environment.”
“At least she had the good grace this year to say that it “just did not feel like the right thing to take performance-related pay this year.” I support the Opposition’s motion calling on the Government to enable Ofwat to block company bosses’ bonuses where high levels of sewage are being pumped into rivers; to end self-monitoring and force all companies to monitor every single water outlet; to ensure that water bosses face personal criminal liability for extreme and persistent lawbreaking: and to introduce severe and automatic fines for illegal discharges that bosses cannot ignore. We should not be dependent on whistleblowers to find out about failures.”
“That means a new pipeline and access shafts, so we are going to have a building site the size of half a football pitch on the Ivybridge estate, a low-income council estate in my constituency. The project will involve tunnelling beneath homes. It will also potentially impact on biodiversity in the River Thames and on riverside walks, and impact on river users as well. Are there really no alternatives to this three-year construction project across my constituency and those neighbouring it? The Environment Agency certainly raised doubts about the scheme when it wrote to Thames Water in March this year. The Teddington DRA will save only a 10th of the 630 million litres lost per day through leaks. What are the rewards for this managed incompetence? Thames Water’s chief executive, Sarah Bentley, received a £496,000 pay-out last year.”
“We have had to put up with recent roadworks locally, because it has now installed a pipe to pump excess methane into the main gas grid, which is to be welcomed. We have had the multibillion-pound tideway project to take sewage out of the Thames, but it does not benefit those of us who live upstream of Hammersmith, so we are now faced with another expensive tunnelling project: the Teddington direct river abstraction scheme, which will address not high rainfall periods but periods of drought. The Teddington DRA is designed to take millions of litres of water from the Thames, pump it across London to the Lee valley, and then replace that water with treated effluent from Mogden.”
“The overall picture of our water situation in the Thames Water area is a failure of oversight—a failure to upgrade the water and sewage infrastructure continually as London’s population grows, and as drought and heavy rain become regular aspects of our weather. For over 20 years—first as a councillor, and as an MP since 2015—I have been pressuring Thames Water to take action, as have the Mogden Residents’ Action Group, Hounslow London Borough Council and other residents. As a result of a legal challenge by residents, Thames Water was forced to increase the capacity of the sewage treatment works, to improve its reporting and to do continuous mosquito eradication. Thames Water has also done some other work.”
“The discharges of which we are notified are the only ones we know about, because, as the BBC “Panorama” investigation found, water companies appear to be covering up illegal sewage discharges, making sewage pollution disappear from official figures. The water companies not only process our sewage and storm run-off, but supply fresh water. As other Members have already said, however, too much of that fresh water is wasted through pipe leaks. After too many water main bursts flooded shops and homes, we had, as my hon. Friend the Member for Hammersmith (Andy Slaughter) described, a programme to replace the Victorian fresh water pipes across the Thames Water area, but it seems to have stopped and we are just supposed to wait until the next burst happens. There is so much more that Thames Water could be doing to stop the leakages.”
“That was a direct result of maintenance failure and that issue not appearing on the risk assessment register. This debate matters to my constituents. In October 2020, 2 billion litres of dilute sewage was discharged into the River Thames at Isleworth Ait over just two days. That was two thirds of the total discharges in 2020. In 2022, that same sewer storm outflow spilled 20 times for a total of 164 hours, discharging again into the River Thames. Just across the river at Petersham, another outfall regularly discharges. All of that is 10 years after Mogden sewage treatment works had its treatment capacity almost doubled. I am struggling to find any evidence of any fines that Thames Water has received for the discharges I have just described. That is because they are planned. They are permitted discharges.”
“My constituents are not only bill payers and users of Thames Water, but they live with its decades-long failure to plan and invest. The River Thames flows alongside Chiswick, Brentford and Isleworth, where we walk, kayak, row and paddleboard. Too often, the Thames is polluted with dilute sewage just about every time it rains. Mogden sewage treatment works, covering 55 acres, sits in my constituency. For decades, Mogden has been a regular source of pungent sewage smells and a virulent subspecies of mosquito. In February 2020, the streets and parks of Isleworth and the pristine Duke of Northumberland’s river was flooded with raw—not even dilute—sewage, because the main sewage intake into Mogden backed up and punched a hole through into the river.”
“I would like to see them—I find that Ofwat is just too powerless. On dividends, Thames Water has not paid them for five years—so it keeps telling me—but that did not stop it until this year paying its senior executives very high dividends. Why should my hard-pressed constituents face an average increase of £39 in their water bills? They have lost trust in Thames Water after years and years of scandal, putting up with smells, mosquitoes, building works, flooding and sewage through their streets and parks. Having met and talked to Thames Water for almost 20 years as a councillor and an MP, it is clear to me that it still has a lot to do to clean up its act. Bills are rising, service standards remain poor, and we continue to see raw sewage being pumped into the Thames.”
“In response to the question from my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge (Daniel Zeichner), the Secretary of State said that he had recruited 1,000 additional probation officers, but in fact that recruitment campaign has resulted in 76 fewer probation officers between March last year and March this year. Owing to the excessive workload, staff are leaving in droves. The proposed new presumption in favour of extended sentences and the extension of electronic monitoring will simply offload more pressure from prisons on to the probation service, will it not? What are the Government doing to address these issues of excessive workload and the loss of probation staff?”
“Will the Minister be able to let us know what steps will be taken as part of this review mechanism? What information will be made public and when will the review take place? I will finish more broadly, on a point about migration and the approach taken by the Government. Just last week, we saw their flagship policy on Rwanda rejected by the Supreme Court, despite years and years of claims—”
“Even if we leave aside the questions of morals and ethics, we can all surely see that the full implementation of the changes foreseen by these regulations will likely face formidable barriers on an entirely practical level. What thought have the Government given to those barriers, and what steps does the Department plan to take by way of mitigation? Those are just two further questions to which I believe the Government have an absolute duty to provide clear answers. I am always open to the chance, however remote, that the Minister may surprise me and let me know what consideration the Home Office and the Ministry of Justice have given to those questions. That brings me to the issue of the review mechanism. I can see that the Ministry of Justice will review the use of X-rays by the Home Office.”
“The Government claim that 49% of asylum claims with a disputed age were found to be adults. Has the Home Office assessed how accurate this new method will be? Additionally, what consultations were made with local authorities and medical authorities, both of which will be on the frontline of dealing with age assessments? I know from talking to the chief executive of my own local authority, Hounslow, the cost and difficulty of carrying out these age assessments, because it is the duty of local authorities to carry them out. A range of expert bodies representing everything from social work to dentistry have warned that these medical procedures for non-therapeutic purposes are unethical.”
“The Minister will point to the Age Estimation Science Advisory Committee that has been set up, but beyond that, what steps have the Home Office taken to see the opinions and views of other stakeholders on this practice? I have read the very real concerns that the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health has about the policy. The House of Lords Committee expressed palpable frustration about trying to get basic information about this case and the consultation between the Government and the wider medical community. These questions matter as there is by no means any evidence of a clear consensus among experts. In fact, a report in the New Scientist suggested that the widely held view among experts is that age verification is based on “pseudoscience”.”
“Friend the Member for Aberavon (Stephen Kinnock) asked the then Home Secretary, the right hon. and learned Member for Fareham (Suella Braverman), about it in December 2022, and she said she did not know. Does the Minister now have an estimate for the cost to the public purse of rolling out the policy? In the submissions made to the Lords Committee, the lack of an assessment was a major issue for several stakeholders, some of whom the Minister has already named. That matters because of not only the costs, but the wider policy implications that the policy poses. The SI says the Secretary of State has a power to make regulations specifying a scientific method, but that is conditional on the Secretary of State having determined that the method is appropriate for assessing age after seeking scientific advice.”
“While I accept the limitations of our business here today, I cannot avoid the fact that several questions remain, among them the cost and impact to the NHS, which is already massively under pressure. We would expect the Government to address those questions in the impact assessment, but as far as I am aware no such assessment has been provided. Don’t worry, though, because the Government have said that “the policy and design are still under development”. They appear to be building the bridge as they cross it. It is unclear to me, as it was to the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee in the other place, why this instrument is being moved forward while the policy and process are still being developed. Looking at the SI, I was surprised to see that the Government do not know what the cost of the new imaging process will be. My hon.”
“It is a pleasure to serve under you, Mr Gray, and to follow the right hon. Member for Charnwood. It is unusual for me, having only been in my post for two months, to not be the newbie in the room. The change made by the draft statutory instrument allows the Government to seek to verify the age of unaccompanied asylum seeking children. It is more than 18 months since the legislative framework was set in the Nationality and Borders Act 2022 for these assessments to take place, yet we have still not had some rather straightforward questions answered. We have had, by my count, four different Home Secretaries since then, so it is strange that we have not had these answers.”
“Thank you, Mr Gray. That was one example of a scheme which the Government were warned would be costly and would not work. We fear that that will also be the case for this statutory instrument. From my own casework experience, I must confess that I am deeply sceptical about the Home Office’s claims about its ability to deliver its policies. In summary, I hope that the Minister can enlighten us about the costs, the lack of an impact assessment, the review process, and the engagement that will take place with groups such as the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health especially, which has raised its own concerns about this policy. I hope that we can see some much-needed transparency on this issue.”
“My constituent’s parents fled Afghanistan for Pakistan. On appeal, they were granted adult dependent relative visas to join their family here, but before that decision was made, their Pakistan visa expired and they were forced to return to Afghanistan. Due to their being Hazaras, the fear of travel, their disabilities and medical needs, and the policy of the Pakistan Government, they cannot return to Pakistan to collect their paperwork to travel to the UK. Will the Government consider issuing some form of digital visa or travel document, so that they can fly to the UK and join their family here?”
“Hounslow’s Muslim leaders told me and my hon. Friend the Member for Feltham and Heston (Seema Malhotra) yesterday evening of the horror felt in their communities at the atrocities taking place in Gaza, the need to get aid and support in, and their wish for long-term peace. Now that Israel is threatening to occupy Gaza permanently, will the UK Government support the US Secretary of State Blinken’s insistence that there should be no Israeli occupation of Gaza after this war?”
“Once again, the Prime Minister is out of touch with the crisis in the country. This King’s Speech should end the myth that the Conservatives are the party of home ownership. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Angela Rayner) said, the Prime Minister caved in to the demands of his own Back Benchers and got rid of housing targets. He caved in to pressure from freeholders and dropped real leasehold reform. He caved in to the pressure from private landlords and watered down rental reform—a watered down Government, with a watered down King’s Speech.”
“Developers should never have started building leasehold houses in the first place. I am pleased that my hon. Friend the Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Matthew Pennycook) has said what a Labour Government will do: ban the sale of new leasehold flats as well as houses, and fix the mess in the leasehold system to ensure that existing leaseholders can move to commonhold. Commonhold must become the default for flats and render leasehold obsolete, and freehold must be the norm for new houses. Labour would enact the recommendation of the Law Commission’s report. We will do what this Government have failed to do. The Government’s failure to fix our broken leasehold system is part of a much wider problem: a failure to understand the housing crisis across this country.”
“Those problems all stem from the huge flaws in the leasehold system—huge flaws that the Government’s modest set of tiny, limited changes does not start to address. The shadow of the building safety crisis still hangs over many of my constituents. It has been six years since more than 70 people died in the Grenfell fire, and more than a decade since six people died in the Lakanal House fire. Constituents—mine and others across the country—are still waiting for vital building safety work to begin, despite it being promised months ago for their blocks. Many are not even eligible for support, because their building is less than 12 metres high. The Government have once again failed leaseholders with the crumbs on offer. No more leasehold houses to be built—big deal.”
“He promised me in the Chamber that he would grasp the issue and used rather emotive language about “Applying a vice-like” pressure, yet it appears that his grip has soon weakened. I am sure that the developers and freeholders are relieved about that. I will give just some examples of the impact on my constituents. One constituent had a 300% increase in building insurance costs despite no change in the building. Another constituent had service charges doubling in a block even though the lifts have been left broken and the intercom out of action. A constituent was unable to move with their partner and children to a bigger home because of a quirk of the Help to Buy system. I could go on.”
“How can someone look after their own wellbeing when the threat of eviction is hanging over their head and no landlord will rent them a home because they do not earn at least £60,000? The monthly rent for a one-bedroom flat in even the cheapest part of my constituency is £2,000—more than many of my constituents earn. No wonder home ownership is but a distant dream. We need a multi-pronged approach with a proper programme of house building and a sweeping set of reforms to the current systems, especially in regard to leasehold—perhaps I should call it “fleecehold,” as many of my constituents do. It is a “feudal” practice—not my word, but that of the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities—that has left many of my constituents trapped in a serf-like position.”
“It means no space to do homework for those in overcrowded conditions. It means mothers living in one or two rooms in a big shared house wondering whether it is safe to leave the baby or the toddler alone while going to the toilet or to the kitchen. It means families with three or four children living in a one-bedroom flat or bunking up with friends or relatives, and children sleeping on sofas and sitting on buses for hours to get to and from school. The housing crisis is a poison; one that is touching so many in west London who are priced out of even being able to rent a home, let alone buy one. Ending no-fault evictions will not help my constituents who do not have a tenancy, or those who do but whose landlord is selling up. How can one expect one’s children to grow up healthy when there is mould in every single corner of one’s home?”
“The party of Macmillan, which once built hundreds of thousands of homes for our heroes, has been reduced to banning tents. The once-grand Conservative party has been reduced to declaring war on tent fabric. How does the housing crisis look to my constituents in Hounslow, Isleworth, Osterley, Brentford and Chiswick—those in what we euphemistically call “housing stress”? I will start with homelessness and homeless families. All the schools in my constituency have a number of homeless children. Can the Education Secretary imagine the impact that has on children and their parents? First, being homeless means having no settled future; not knowing when children will start a new school, or whether they will need to be pulled out just as they have made friends or move on before their next set of key exams.”
“The topic on the Order Paper for today’s debate is opportunity, but we know that opportunity is only possible if someone has a safe, secure and truly affordable home. Politicians often use the term “housing crisis”, but we are seeing multiple housing crises. There is a crisis in the private rented sector, a crisis for leaseholders—in fact, a crisis for most mortgage holders—a crisis for those entangled with shared ownership, a crisis among housing associations, and a crisis for those with no home and no hope of having a home. There is also a crisis in home building, with far too few homes being built. What do we see in the King’s Speech to tackle that multi-headed hydra on housing? A ban on no-fault evictions, first promised in 2019, and a weak, watered-down version of leasehold reform.”
“I rise to speak in response to the Gracious Speech, and it is a pleasure to follow so many excellent speeches, particularly that of my hon. Friend the Member for Batley and Spen (Kim Leadbeater). There have been so many speeches from the Opposition Benches, and not very many from the Government Benches. Interestingly, some of those on the Government Benches were not particularly supportive of the Gracious Speech. This King’s Speech fails to undo the damage of 13 long years of Conservative rule inflicted on this country and most of its people. There are any number of topics that I could have chosen to speak on to illustrate the damage that the Government have done to my constituents’ lives and hopes, and how the Gracious Speech has failed those constituents. However, I have time to cover only one topic: housing.”
“Heavy goods vehicles cause a disproportionate number of cycling deaths. To cut the number of deaths of cyclists by illegal freight operators in other places, will the Department look at the successful London scheme and encourage partnerships between local authorities, the Driving and Vehicle Standards Agency and police forces to address this problem?”
“Q14. It is an honour to be elected to this place, and the standards by which we are expected to abide matter. Does the Prime Minister therefore accept that it was ill-judged for him to fail to declare to Parliament that companies linked to his wife had benefited to the tune of £2 billion from a fund he had set up as Chancellor? Will he correct the record now?”