Bell Ribeiro-Addy
MP for Clapham and Brixton Hill · Labour · United Kingdom
“The hon. Member will know that, with the extreme heat and reduced rainfall, a lot of water companies are introducing hosepipe bans to mitigate the risk of drought. Does he agree that that seems a bit redundant, given that artificial intelligence data centres use between 11 million and 19 million litres of water a day?”
“This Bill seems inspired by the belief that hostility towards asylum seekers will deter them, whereas hostility towards migrants will not deter those we need economically, but we cannot have it both ways. There is a deeper problem with the Bill’s logic on citizenship provisions.”
“This appears to be blurred with a separate Bill that stops citizenship being restored after the first successful appeal, letting this Government sound tougher than they are while avoiding scrutiny of a power that is already used disproportionately against black, Asian and migrant-heritage citizens.”
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Twigg. First, I will acknowledge that although I disagree with the premise of this petition, I recognise the strength of feeling among the hundreds of thousands of people who signed it.”
“The petition that we are debating today raises the issue of asylum seekers being held in hotels and temporary accommodation. I certainly agree that that is unacceptable; I have seen for myself the diabolical conditions in such accommodation.”
“Automatic deportation for custodial sentences introduces double jeopardy; a wrongful sentence can now also mean unjust deportation. The deportation system is already a mess and is run by the Home Office, which is now asking for sole control of it, without oversight.”
The complete record
Every one of 600 lines we hold for Bell Ribeiro-Addy, in date order, each linked to its source. Free to read, in full, without an account. Page 9 of 12.
“Members that placing agents of the state above the law is almost the very definition of a police state. It is authoritarian and anti-democratic. It is not the legal basis of a free and democratic society. The same is true of any claim that is made that officers of the state determine the law. They do not; their duty is to uphold it. Over time, I would confidently expect each and every one of these pieces of legislation to face legal challenges, including, if necessary, in the European Court, because they are so flawed and draconian. If our democracy is going to work for everyone, it has to include everyone. Our party has already made important commitments to extend the franchise to young people by bringing in automatic voter registration.”
“Furthermore, there is a slew of secondary legislation, rules and guidance that infringe or suppress the rights of citizens. There are too many to mention, but I am thinking about the Covert Human Intelligence Sources (Criminal Conduct) Act 2021, the Overseas Operations Act 2021, the Elections Act 2022 and the Public Order Act 2023. A running theme throughout those Acts is, in effect, to place officers of the state above the law—whether they be police officers, members of the armed services, members of the security services or others—as long as they were acting under the direction of a more senior officer. These laws severely curtail the fundamental rights of citizens. Under these Acts, it is officers of the state who decide what is lawful, not the courts. I remind hon. and right hon.”
“Religious freedom was attacked through the demonisation of Muslims and Muslim communities. We cannot possibly pose as champions of freedom and democracy while these stains remain on our statute book. In addition, we should note that the previous Government did nothing to correct the gross imbalance that now exists between employers and trade unions with regard to workers’ rights. They promised to block the gross abuse that led to the scandal at P&O but did absolutely nothing. They also toyed with the idea of regularising the legislative mess around a woman’s right to choose, and so address issues of women’s sexual and reproductive health, and expanding access to safe and legal abortions throughout the country. We cannot repeat these serial failures to act. This is about what it means to live in a free society.”
“If there were a national emergency, we would find the money. If the levels of child poverty at the moment are not a national emergency, I do not know what is. I was also pleased to support the amendment in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Coventry South (Zarah Sultana) to end the supply of arms to Israel and uphold international law. The Government have called for a ceasefire and we need to back that up with action. I will focus the majority of my remarks on the dreadful legislative legacy on civil liberties left behind by the previous Government. If we take simply the broad heading of our liberties, the previous Government curbed the right to protest, to free assembly, to freedom of speech, to organise in trade unions and to freedom from covert operations by the state. The right to vote has been supressed.”
“Rail in public ownership, stronger workers’ rights, a publicly owned energy supplier, a ban on no-fault evictions and an end to the non-dom tax status—these are some of the key foundations to recovery that we can celebrate in this King’s Speech, after 14 years of austerity, privatisation and squeezed living standards, but I want to touch on a few things that were not included. I was pleased to support the amendment in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool Riverside (Kim Johnson). Removing the two-child benefit cap is the most cost-effective and immediate way for our Government to lift 300,000 children out of poverty. The notion that in the sixth-largest economy in the world we cannot find the money has to be wrong. While the taskforce is good, we must make moves as soon as possible to make this is a reality.”
“Q13. In recent days, the Trussell Trust has revealed that its network has handed out more than 3.1 million emergency food parcels in the past year. That is the most it has ever distributed and nearly double the number of five years ago. Absolute poverty among children in this country has risen by its highest rate in 30 years, and a quarter of all children live below the poverty line. Two thirds of UK children in poverty live in families in which at least one parent works. My Streatham constituency is one of the worst affected. Does the Prime Minister have any plans to restore the child poverty unit, address the calls for universal free school meals, or report on any Government plans aimed at tackling child poverty at all?”
“Eighty-four percent of health facilities in Gaza have been damaged or destroyed, and those that are left are barely functioning. Doctors are having to perform amputations on children and perform C-sections without anaesthetic. It is worth restating that under the Geneva conventions, the forcible transfer of a civilian population is a war crime, as is the deliberate targeting of civilian infrastructure. Yet, even after the ICJ ruling, our Government’s decision to keep supplying military hardware to Israel and their failure to push for a lasting ceasefire mean that the UK is wholly complicit in creating the conditions for the humanitarian crisis we are now witnessing. We have a responsibility to help those who are suffering.”
“I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Lancaster and Fleetwood (Cat Smith) on securing this important debate. As the Israel Defence Forces ramp up operations in Rafah, there are no remaining safe zones left in Gaza. Nearly 30,000 Palestinians have been killed, over 75,000 have been injured, and more than 1.5 million have been displaced. I know that Members have heard those figures before, but I think it is important that we repeat them as often as possible. People who have already been forced out of their homes are having to flee once again. According to an interim damage assessment conducted by the World Bank and the UN, $18.5 billion-worth of damage to critical infrastructure has been done, and 74% of that is housing.”
“Our shared colonial history means that we have a unique responsibility towards Palestinian refugees and a particular responsibility to push for peace in the region, but it is a responsibility that this Government have completely shirked so far. I urge the Minister to listen to the thousands who signed the petition, including hundreds of my constituents, and create a Palestinian family reunion scheme. As well as supporting people displaced by the war in Gaza, we need the Government to do something about the root causes of that displacement, which means suspending arms sales and pushing for an immediate and permanent ceasefire.”
“Again, this was absolutely the right thing to do, but why are Palestinians being denied the same conditions and compassion? When the Minister responds, I want to understand the Government’s justification for these double standards, and I want the Minister to understand why there are so many people right across the country who believe that those reasons revolve around racism and geopolitics. There is nothing that Palestinians want more than a safe return to their home. However, the inordinate civilian death toll in this conflict sadly means that many Palestinians simply will not be alive to exercise that right. From the Sykes-Picot agreement to the Balfour declaration, the betrayals of McMahon to the invasion of Allenby’s forces, we have to acknowledge that it was long-standing British policy to displace Palestinians from their homes.”
“When I wrote to the Home Office again, the response to my constituent was: “I have considered whether there are compelling, compassionate circumstances in your case which would warrant a grant of leave outside of the Immigration Rules; however, based on the information you have provided, I have decided there is no such circumstances in your case.” We have 35,000 people killed, over 75,000 injured, people starving and 1.5 million people displaced, but our Home Office can see no circumstances for a grant of leave outside the current immigration rules. That is an absolute disgrace. In comparison, between 15 March 2022 and 7 December 2023 Ukrainian nationals could apply online without the need to enrol their biometrics until after they reached safety in the UK.”
“I came to the UK on a work permit and never applied for assistance from the UK Government.” He just wants the UK Government to help his family. It is hard to argue with what he says, because when millions were displaced by Russia’s appalling invasion of Ukraine in 2021, the Government had the Homes for Ukraine scheme live in a matter of weeks. It is right that that happened, and I believe the Government have not done enough for Ukrainian refugees, but when the conflict began in Gaza and thousands of Palestinians were displaced, and then more than a million, where was the homes for Palestine scheme? All options are closed to my constituent’s family. It is worth repeating that the Home Office has rejected every single request for biometric deferral and predetermination since 7 October.”
“People from Gaza do not casually leave and travel to different parts of the country. They simply do not. His Majesty’s Home Office should be embarrassed to send such a ridiculous and ignorant response—if not, I am thoroughly embarrassed for the Home Office. Those seeking to leave Gaza are trapped in a Catch-22 because of this situation. They cannot enrol their biometrics because they cannot leave Gaza, and they cannot leave Gaza because they cannot enrol their biometrics. According to the Gaza Families Reunited campaign, at least two Palestinians are now known to have died while waiting for the Home Office to decide on their applications. My constituent said: “I do not think I’m being treated fairly at all.”
“My hon. Friend is absolutely right: the Government should do a full assessment. Unfortunately, the Government’s response to the plight of Palestinian refugees has been typical of their punitive approach to people seeking safety. I found this out for myself when a constituent of mine attempted to apply for his family members to join him in February. They were rejected because they could not provide biometric data. I was appalled to find out that the Home Office actually put down in writing that this was because the Government expect Palestinian refugees from Gaza to apply in Ramallah, Jerusalem or a nearby country. They are effectively telling people to travel through an active war zone to submit information. Besides the current conflict, Gaza has been under blockade for years.”
“For over a decade, the Camberwell dialysis unit has provided high-quality NHS care to patients in south London, so my constituents were shocked to hear that these services are to be outsourced to Diaverum, a multinational for-profit health corporation, which has already had one of its clinics rated inadequate and put into special measures. Does the Minister accept that privatising the NHS bit by bit has disastrous implications for care, and will he listen to patients in my constituency and commit to maintaining our NHS dialysis provision?”
“Royal Trinity Hospice in my constituency supports people across central and south-west London to live and die well. Next year it will cost it £19 million to deliver care for its around 2,500 patients and support for their nearly 1,000 loved ones—a 20% on-year increase. Meanwhile, the NHS funding that it receives will decrease in real terms to 24% of the costs of running its services. Does the hon. Member agree that the Government should commit to maintaining the funding levels that hospices such as Royal Trinity require to ensure that people receive the quality of end of life care and the dignified death that they deserve?”
“When can we expect the Government to finally listen and put forward policy that implements in full the recommendations of the “No One’s Listening” report?”
“This week, on 9 March, it will be 10 years since the death of my dear friend, Adjuah Annan. She was just 28 years old. Adjuah had sickle cell anaemia, the UK’s fastest growing genetic condition, but her untimely death was the direct result of serious failings in her care. Her experience and those of many others are outlined in the landmark report by the Sickle Cell Society and the all-party parliamentary group on sickle cell and thalassaemia, “No One’s Listening”, published in 2021, but since then the Government have failed meaningfully to engage with its findings and recommendations. It cannot be right that 10 years after we lost Adjuah, those with sickle cell and thalassaemia continue to experience inequalities in treatment, substandard care and avoidable death.”
“I thank my hon. Friend for securing this extremely important debate. She has touched on the arms sales, which have continued over a number of years, and on the fact that the UK has continued to supply arms to Israel, which I believe makes us complicit in the occupation of the west bank and the use of arms to suppress people there. She said she was going to talk about the precedents we have had for suspending arms sales where it is clear that there are concerns about their benefiting human rights violations. Does my hon. Friend agree that this could be very much like the time the UK had an embargo on the sale of arms to Israel from 1982 to 1984, following the Israeli invasion of Lebanon.”
“For the second time this year, he cannot say that his plans for removing asylum seekers to Rwanda will not break international law. The Rwandan Government have been very clear. They have said that they will not continue with this deal if it does not meet the highest standards of international law. This Bill does not do that. This Government are wasting our time. This is not going to work, and I am not even sure it was meant to. I am sick and tired of being dragged to this House to approve legislation that does nothing to improve the lives of my constituents or uphold the values of our society. This Bill should simply not be allowed to go any further.”
“It is the Government who have exacerbated the problems in the asylum system, not the vulnerable people who are seeking asylum. We know this because the vast majority of claims are justified. After lengthy delays, three quarters of applications are accepted. The longer these processes drag on, the longer refugees and asylum seekers are prevented from rebuilding their lives in this country, and from working and contributing to our economy. This Government have already spent hundreds of millions of pounds on a policy that is as crap as it is unworkable. [ Interruption. ] There is nothing more telling than the fact that the Secretary of State has been unable to make a section 19 statement. He could not say that this Bill was compatible with the European convention on human rights. The Home Secretary means to take us all for fools.”
“If this Government were serious about resolving the issues surrounding small boats, they would do more to target people traffickers, and they would provide safe and legal routes. People do not take those perilous journeys for fun: they are often fleeing some of the worst persecution. They are some of the most vulnerable people in the world, not the Conservative party’s scapegoats. As has already been said, those who seek asylum from countries such as Ukraine and Hong Kong do not have to come by unconventional means because the Government have given them the ability to come by other means. The Government need to stop misleading the public with their use of the word “illegal”, because seeking asylum in this country is not illegal; it is not against any of our laws, domestic or international.”
“From the very outset, this Bill has been ridiculous. Conservative Members would do well to note that there is no more empire. International law is not whatever we say it is; it is comprised of agreements and treaties adopted by Members of this House, and to dismiss them as the rules of foreign courts is as irresponsible as it is untrue. We signed up to those solemn and binding rules, so the Bill risks our international reputation and makes us hypocrites. How dare we condemn other countries that do not uphold international law, and how dare we preach to them, when we would undermine the rule of law ourselves? This Government do not really care about that, though. They care more about the squabbles of the Conservative party than our standing as a country.”
“It directly prevents the courts from applying the Bill in a way that is compatible with convention rights, it prevents any consideration of previous rulings of the European Court of Human Rights that have found Rwanda to be unsafe, and it removes human rights obligations from public bodies, including courts. The Bill would place an obligation on every single decision maker who has found Rwanda unsafe to simply rule it as safe. It restricts the courts’ ability to protect people who are at risk of harm, and it restricts individual legal protections. Do the Government fully understand what that means? Do they see how far they have sunk? Are they so fanatical about this flawed policy that they would bar courts from considering the very reasons why Rwanda might be unsafe, stripping people of individual legal protections?”
“Our Supreme Court has ruled on it: it found Rwanda to be unsafe, a ruling that was based on evidence. Legislating the opposite is not going to rid us of the facts. This is not an exercise in parliamentary sovereignty, but an abuse of this Parliament’s functions. It undermines the rule of law and the constitutional separation of powers. Yes, we are lawmakers and we can make and change the law, but the law cannot be used to change the facts. Another fact is that the treaty with Rwanda, coupled with the Bill, breaches many of our obligations under international law. If that were in doubt in any way, the Government have helpfully outlined that fact throughout the entire Bill. Clause 3, for example, disapplies key sections of the Human Rights Act.”
“Public services are on the verge of collapse, the gap between rich and poor has widened, and we are slipping back into the Victorian era. Food bank use is at an all-time high, and workers have not had a decent pay rise in 15 years. But we are not here today to talk about those things—in fact, we are barely ever here to talk about them in any meaningful way. We are here to legislate on the dog-whistle, fantasist policies of the Conservative party, who are electioneering when they should be governing, not offering any real solutions to problems and attempting to divert attention from their own failings as a Government. They are wasting the time of this House and squandering the good will of the people of this country. We keep going round and round on this matter.”
“Corpus Christi junior school on Brixton Hill has been closed since July due to RAAC. We now have tenders approved for the significant works that the Department for Education said were necessary and that it would pay for, but they must begin in January to ensure that they are completed in time. Could the Secretary of State explain why, despite repeated requests, her Department has still not approved the necessary funding? Any further delay could mean that my young constituents are left with further disruption and no building to learn in for the next academic year.”
“In response to an earlier question, the Minister talked of dangerous regional escalation and the scale of the loss of life. How do his Government hope to prevent either, and support a just and lasting peace, without calling for a ceasefire? How can they claim to support a two-state solution when they do not recognise the state of Palestine? One plus zero has never equalled two.”
“In any scenario in which real incomes and living standards are falling, those at the bottom—those who are already facing discrimination and hardship—will be even worse off. This is the Conservatives’ economic legacy, and it is a shameful one.”
“In a cost of living crisis of the Government’s own making, an estimated 370,000 people with disabilities and debilitating chronic health conditions will be forced to work from home in jobs that do not exist whether they are physically or mentally able to or not, or lose up to £5,000 in income a year. How are they expected to survive, and how much more inhumanity dressed up as policy can this Government drag through the House before the country has an opportunity to vote them out? In case we have forgotten, they obviously want to remind us that they are the nasty party—nastier than ever. Any reasonable equality assessment in accordance with our laws would have the author of this Budget sent back to the drawing board.”
“Government have been “getting out of the way of business investing” for well over 40 years now. As a result, we have an abysmal record on investment, one of the worst in the industrialised world. It is hard to imagine that any of the measures in the autumn statement were properly assessed for their impact on equalities in accordance with any of our laws. Despite literally being lawmakers, the Government have a strained relationship with complying with any of them. To prove it, we do not have to look much further than the callous announcements regarding disability benefits.”
“I have no doubt that the Prime Minister and the Chancellor hope to emulate that con trick. The British public, however, will not be taken for mugs, not least because on the Labour Benches we will warn them of it. The reality is that this is part of another bout of austerity, just as the OBR warns. The shiny bauble of cutting national insurance is to get the Conservative party through to the election without tearing itself apart—then the axe will fall. As for the carrots to business to invest, we know they will not work. One reason they will not work is that the Government are cutting public investment. Why does that matter? Because the state sector is the single biggest investor in the economy. The whole notion that it crowds out private investment is nonsense and one of the many idiocies of the Thatcher era.”
“That is why councils of every political stripe up and down the country are now facing bankruptcy. At the same time, our public services are in crisis. People are now more likely to be on an NHS waiting list than ever before and our schools are literally falling apart. I could go on. The Chancellor’s policy for the crisis of funding for public and local services is typically Conservative—even more cuts. In passing, we should explode the myth that a pre-election bribe is anything but the most cynical type of politics. More importantly, the voters will see through it. The Foreign Secretary, also known as the former, former, former, former Prime Minister and his Chancellor Osborne had a one-off increase in Government spending and investment in 2014 and then reimposed austerity once they were re-elected in 2015.”
“Worse still, this will go down in history as the only Parliament where living standards were lower at the end of it than at the beginning. How is that a policy for growth? I do, however, agree with the Chancellor on one thing, that strong public services depend on a strong economy, but on the official forecasts we will have neither. I do not think I could be any more damning of the Government’s record and the economic legacy they will leave than the OBR itself. It says that, faced with weak growth and the giveaways in this statement, the Chancellor’s spending plans rely on implausible levels of austerity in local government and public services. Implausible levels of austerity mean enormous levels of cuts, when we know that local government spending has already been cut to the bone.”
“The Government have presided over a crash in the economy of Titanic proportions. They saw the iceberg of stagnation, persistently high inflation and falling living standards, and they decided to head straight for it. Yet they refuse to do the one thing left that would be useful to the rest of the country: abandon ship. The Chancellor talked a great deal about the need for growth and called this his “autumn statement for growth” yesterday, but what is the reality? The OBR has cut the growth forecast for next year to just 0.7%. In fact, it has cut the growth forecast for the next three years. If it is right—I remind the House that it was the Government’s decision to devolve forecasting to the OBR—we will not hit a 2% real GDP growth target in the foreseeable future.”
“T4. I have been asking the Prime Minister and other Ministers about Government bodies spying on the activities of British citizens, including politicians, activists and journalists. In a statement issued in 2020 the Ministry of Defence said that the British Army’s information warfare unit, the 77th Brigade,“do not, and have never, conducted any kind of action against British citizens.”However, the Secretary of State said on 30 January that the 77th Brigade scours Twitter “to assess UK disinformation”. Can the Minister clarify whether the 77th Brigade conducts any surveillance actions against British citizens, for what purpose, and whether that is really the best use of its time?”
“The Minister talked about common-sense policing, but I have to ask what sense she applied when making a statement about suspicionless stop and search while making no reference to the well-evidenced racist discriminatory use of it. Does she not think we should be focusing on solutions that would actually make communities like mine safer, like reversing education cuts, ending school exclusions, improving mental health services and taking people out of poverty? If she has already said that the police have the powers necessary, why is she arguing that they have greater powers for this particular practice, which actually leads to less confidence in policing?”
“We all now know that Boris Johnson lied to the House but, as my hon. Friend said earlier, we also know that he came to this House and told those lies on 30 occasions, and he did so to cheers and whoops from all the Members opposite. Does she agree that they bear some responsibility for this and, if they do not absolve themselves by voting in a certain way today, their constituents will look on them very unfavourably?”
“We need to give local authorities responsibility for in-year admissions, as has been set out in the schools White Paper, and the power to direct all schools to accept local children. They should be given the power to manage academies’ reduction of PAN or closure. That is really important. Loads of people point to how growing up in the country was lovely. I am sure it was—they have a lot of hay fever and such—but I loved my childhood growing up on Brixton Hill in London. Being able to live in this fantastic city as a child made me who I am, and I am really sad that if we do not fix some of these policies, children will not have the wonderful experiences that I had.”
“We need to get empty homes into circulation, as well as a mass council house building programme. I am glad that the next Labour Government have committed to 100,000 social homes, considering the Conservatives clearly had no plans to build homes, let alone affordable ones. I heard about a time, way back when, when public sector workers used to get favourable rates on mortgages or even get accommodation to help them. When I think of all the public sector workers who are being priced out with their families, that is something that we should look towards. They should absolutely be paid more and, given what they are doing, we need to keep them in London, but they are all being pushed right out. We need school funding levels to increase and to keep pace with inflation.”
“Housing costs are arguably the largest driving factor behind all of this. They are people’s biggest expense. At the heart of the debate is the question of who our city is for: is it a place for families to make their home, or is it a playground for the rich? I will point to a few solutions, focusing particularly on housing. We need to enhance renters’ rights. Average monthly rents in London have risen above £2,500 for the first time. The Government should be using the Renters (Reform) Bill to close the eviction loopholes and give the Mayor of London power to control private rents. We need a higher proportion of genuinely affordable housing for new build developments, not this dodgy definition of 80% of the market rate, which is not affordable for people in my constituency or for most people across London.”
“At the root of the issue is the problem of soaring housing costs, but the Government refuse to give us in London the powers we need to tackle them. We often hear Government Members talking about the “metropolitan liberal elite” and making off-coloured gibes about north London Labour MPs, but inner-city London boroughs continue to experience some of the highest levels of child poverty anywhere in the UK. The latest data from End Child Poverty shows that 29.9% of children living in my constituency of Streatham were growing up in poverty last year—that is 7,465 children. The data also shows that 35.5% of children in Lambeth, the borough my constituency is in, were growing up in poverty last year—that is 21,812 children. This is in one of the richest cities in the entire world. It does not exactly scream “metropolitan liberal elite”.”
“Being older than me, they were lucky to get a place in Lambeth at the time, because we had a serious shortage of secondary school places. A lot of the kids in our borough had to go to school out of borough. When academies came in, although there was a lot of scepticism, people were happy that we were getting more schools in our constituency. We did not think it would create a situation in which some academy chains seemed to be given licence to build—we do not understand why—and allowed to increase their numbers. We did not think that that would affect schools that have been in our area for such a long time. Usually, when we hear about schools closing in Lambeth, it is because they are bad schools. These two schools are not bad. They have been the finest in our area for a very long time.”
“After a decade of austerity, there is nothing left to cut. That is why we face the closure of two of our 19 state-funded schools in Lambeth: St Martin-in-the-Fields High School for Girls in Dulwich and West Norwood, and Archbishop Tenison’s in my hon. Friend’s constituency of Vauxhall. This is personal for me, as it is for my hon. Friend, because it is happening in Lambeth, but also because my brother went to Archbishop Tenison’s and my sister went to St Martin-in-the-Fields. I spent a lot of time there because my mum was always insistent that we went to each other’s school events—as the youngest, I certainly enjoyed visiting theirs more than they enjoyed coming to mine, but we spent a lot of time in those schools.”
“Since 2001, our borough has seen a 10% drop in households with at least one school-age child. I am sure other Members visit their schools, as I do. I really enjoy speaking to the wonderful children in my constituency; they always have the best questions. As other Members were speaking, I was thinking that if schools continue to close, I will have to spend a lot more time with all of them instead of with the wonderful children in my constituency. That is really sad, because they really are the best of us, and they show us why we continue to do the work we do here. Since schools mainly receive cash per pupil, empty desks mean debts. Debts leave schools and local authorities with little choice in practice, given wider budget constraints. Teachers and staff end up losing their jobs; their families are then affected in a vicious cycle.”
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone. I congratulate my hon. Friend and neighbour the Member for Vauxhall (Florence Eshalomi) on securing this debate and on her excellent opening speech. What we are seeing unfolding right across London is a vicious cycle of soaring living costs and, as a consequence, falling budgets for local authorities and schools. My hon. Friend pointed to London’s 17% decline in the birth rate, which accounts for 23,000 fewer babies in our capital. That crisis is most acutely felt in inner city boroughs such as ours, Lambeth. Yes, it is true that lifestyles are changing and some people are choosing to have fewer kids, but those who want more cannot afford to have them. Even if they could afford them, they cannot afford the size of house to put the kids in.”
“Can the Minister please outline how he defines “affordable” and why, if the homes are “affordable”, so many of my constituents find themselves unable to afford them?”
“Will the Prime Minister do what Bernie Grant asked all those years ago, and what I and countless others have asked since, by offering a full and meaningful apology for our country’s role in slavery and colonialism, and committing to reparatory justice?”
“Q7. This month marks 23 years since the passing of the late, great Bernie Grant, a former Member of this House and the founder of the reparations movement in the UK. In the last Prime Minister’s questions before his death, he asked for an apology to the people of African descent, living and dead, for our country’s role in slavery and colonialism, but since then Prime Ministers and Heads of State have only ever expressed sorrow or deep regret—not sentiments befitting one of the greatest atrocities in human history—and there has been no acknowledgment of the wealth amassed or of the fact that our country took out its largest ever loan to pay off the slave owners and not the enslaved.”
“I asked the new commissioner who is responsible for suspending officers for misconduct, and he said that, under the law, it is the Home Secretary’s responsibility. In November 2022, a response from the Minister for Crime, Policing and Fire said it was the commissioner’s responsibility. The Home Secretary has said today that there are impediments and that she could potentially change the law to make sure that this happens. Can she please explain who is in charge and exactly what is going on?”