Mr Gagan Mohindra
MP for South West Hertfordshire · Conservative · United Kingdom
“I also spoke to the manager at Waitrose in Rickmansworth. Weekend shifts there have traditionally been filled by students, giving hundreds of young people meaningful employment and helping them to build confidence, responsibility and valuable workplace skills.”
“We would abolish business rates for thousands of retail, hospitality and leisure businesses, cut the red tape that stops employers recruiting young people, and introduce our cheap power plan, which would cut electricity bills by 20% for businesses. I will go back to what I said at the start: this debate is ultimately about opportunity.”
“Businesses still want to employ young people—they recognise the value that young people bring, and the value that the businesses offer them—yet increasing costs are making those opportunities more difficult to provide. The consequences stretch far beyond individual businesses.”
“In Sarratt, I visited Micklefield Hall, a wonderful local events venue. It explained that the biggest barrier to employing young people today is cost. It used to happily recruit students straight from local schools, investing time in training those people with little or no experience. It even offered apprenticeships.”
“I refer the House to my declaration in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. Every summer, thousands of students, school leavers and young people across our country begin searching for seasonal work.”
“As a result, such opportunities are becoming harder and harder to find and youth unemployment is rising. Businesses across the country are facing rising costs from every direction.”
The complete record
Every one of 600 lines we hold for Mr Gagan Mohindra, in date order, each linked to its source. Free to read, in full, without an account. Page 12 of 12.
“Illegally building on the green belt reduces our ability to fight the adverse impacts of flooding, which is why we must review what policies are in place to help protect the green belt. In order to truly protect the green belt, we must enforce the law and penalise those who breach it. It is clear that we need to take stronger action against those who cause illegal damage without consulting the authorities. Now is the time to increase the penalties on those who repeatedly and intentionally flout the law to stop further destruction of our green belt. We must ensure that local authorities have the power to effectively punish those who do break the law and prevent individuals or companies that continue to do so. We should also look at the timescales involved, as my hon.”
“A small minority of people and businesses do not care about preserving the green belt. They do not seek planning permission, but would rather take the law into their own hands and destroy our beautiful green belt. Unfortunately, there have been several instances of that in my own constituency, including people building dwellings on green belt land without permission and destroying woodland to create new paths to their land. The process of dealing with such cases can be long and drawn out, as my hon. Friend the Member for Runnymede and Weybridge has pointed out. In the two cases I have just outlined, fines of £12,000 and £8,000 were issued to the homeowners. I do not want to see my constituency’s defence against flooding being lost to people who do not abide by planning laws.”
“Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. I did not appreciate that we were doing a knock, drop and collect survey of zero to 10 on voting intentions. My hon. Friend makes a valid point: we need both sides of the House to be engaged in this debate. That is how we make better laws and legislation and our role as parliamentarians is to be critical friends, even on the Government Benches, to those in the Executive. It is, and will continue to be, for local authorities, rightly, to grant planning permission. However, it is for us as legislators to decide what planning enforcement powers local authorities have and are able to use. This is where we, as legislators, play an important role and must support our local councils and developers in their efforts to build on brownfield sites instead.”
“The collective brownfield registers of local authorities identified an estimated 26,000 hectares of brownfield with potential for around 1 million new homes in 2018. By having a brownfield-first approach and implementing my proposed tax cuts to encourage that, we will incentivise sustainable development and not only ensure that our green belt is better protected, but enable us to meet our housing pressures.”
“I do agree. My hon. Friend raises a really important point: planning is an evolutionary process and what might have been right for planning five, 10 or 15 years ago needs to be amended and evolve. The pandemic has raised some interesting questions that need answering: what will our high streets look like; where will people be commuting to work; and what is the distinction between working from home versus returning to offices, factories and the like. Absolutely, this is something that needs to be under constant consideration. I am not necessarily talking about in this place; it might be more appropriate for this to happen at a local council level, but it is definitely something that we will continue to debate.”
“Only by utilising brownfield land can we truly protect those green spaces, ensuring that they are accessible to us and, more important, to future generations.”
“As my hon. Friend will know, I have already engaged with CPRE Hertfordshire. Given her extensive experience in this area, she will be aware of the other community groups and bodies whose wealth of knowledge leads parliamentarians on all sides to engage with them. I firmly believe that one can learn something new every day, and the CPRE is a body to which I frequently return. Let me finally thank my hon. Friend the Member for Runnymede and Weybridge for initiating the debate and raising awareness of planning breaches. I support increased penalties for those who break these laws, but I would also stress the importance of legislation that seeks to encourage good behaviour. By incentivising the development of brownfield sites, we can better prevent the destruction of our green belt and green spaces and reduce the risk of planning violations.”
“I thank my hon. Friend for filling in for my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton North East (Jane Stevenson). How can she be sure that the proposed restrictions on the use of glue traps will not lead to problems with rodent control?”
“I commend my hon. Friend for bringing this Adjournment debate on an important issue for Hertfordshire residents. Does she agree that early diagnosis of cancer would mean that stories such as that of Jess, which she has eloquently put forward, will not necessarily happen again?”
“I welcome the new fiscal rules set out by my right hon. Friend in his Budget last week, which will mean that the Government borrow only to invest and that they get the debt falling again by 2024. Does he agree that, unlike the Labour party, which has no plan to deliver responsible public finances, these rules show how it is only the Conservatives who can be trusted to manage our public finances responsibly, avoiding higher interest rates and even higher taxes in the future?”
“I am assured that the £5 billion designated for improving the quality of local roads will be welcomed by my constituents, particularly those who live in smaller villages and rely on local roads to connect them to larger towns and onward to cities. This investment boosts our productivity, enabling faster transport times, as well as improving safety on our roads. I am dedicated to campaigning for reliable and healthy transport, for an improvement in transit times and for the frequency and safety of public transport in my constituency and further afield. I am conscious of time, so I will end by congratulating my right hon. Friend on delivering the excellent news that we have had better economic growth than forecast and by welcoming his commitments to creating a more prosperous country for us all.”
“I am delighted that reducing tariffs on drinks and supporting small craft producers such as Tring Brewery through the small producers relief will result in higher profits for businesses and help to protect our pubs. I am equally delighted by the £5.7 billion investment in infrastructure, better connecting our country and better connecting us. As society reopened this year, the importance of reliable and healthy transport for business and personal journeys became even more apparent. Investing in both our national and our local transport affirms the Government’s commitment to levelling up all regions of the United Kingdom.”
“I hope that, along with tax cuts and reliefs such as extending the £1 million annual investment allowance, greater wealth creation will be achieved. Decreasing taxes facilitates the opportunity for businesses to invest and grow. After all, it is businesses that create more employment opportunities, affording every person in this country the opportunity to level up, regardless of our backgrounds. I am also pleased to hear about the simplification of alcohol duties and the prospect that that creates for the growth of British drinks manufacturers and pubs. Pubs are at the heart of the communities in my constituency, as they are across the country, and I know that the issue of alcohol duty is important to my constituents who have contacted me.”
“I am particularly pleased by at least a 50% reduction in rates for businesses in the retail, hospitality and leisure sectors, which have had such a difficult year but have remained resilient throughout the pandemic. As a former retail business owner, I know how vital the cuts to business rates will be for those who work and run businesses in the sector. They will enable businesses to invest in capital, innovation and, importantly, people, enabling more businesses to hire new staff. Investment will not just benefit businesses; reducing business rates is good for consumers, too. Increasing businesses’ capacity to invest enhances competition far more than increasing Government intervention in markets, resulting in lower prices and better products for consumers.”
“I extend my gratitude to my right hon. Friend the Chancellor and his team at the Treasury for their work on the Budget. As I have only a short time, I am unable to go through the many excellent announcements that he made last week, but I particularly support—and wish to discuss, if time allows—his assistance to businesses located across the country with cuts to business rates, the reduction in alcohol duties to make our drinks manufacturers more competitive, the heavy investment in infrastructure to boost our productivity, the support for those in need and the commitment to creating safer streets. I fully support the £7 billion reduction in business rates to promote investment and business in this country.”
“On the hon. Gentleman’s comments about the last Labour Government and the 2008 financial crisis, what support did that last Labour Government give to those families?”
“We should focus on the impact, not just on the additional resources. The necessity of our response to the global pandemic has brought many changes in the way things are done in this country. I hope that, along with the increased resources, there will be increased ambition to do things bigger, better, quicker and more efficiently, rather than just continually chucking money at things. The extensive support schemes offered by my Government were never intended to continue indefinitely. As we emerge from the pandemic, it is right that we look at real-world funding options for the reforms that are so clearly necessary.”
“I am sure I am not alone when I say that many of my constituents have contacted me to express concerns about hospital waiting times, and I know that colleagues from all parties will have constituents who are pleased to hear about the Government’s commitment to solving this problem through the levy. Fundamentally, I am a low-tax Conservative, but as the Chairman of the Treasury Committee, my right hon. Friend the Member for Central Devon (Mel Stride), said earlier in the debate, the Government have few levers with which to address this issue. As the Prime Minister said yesterday, a global pandemic was in nobody’s plans. The £407 billion that the Government have spent to support businesses and families has been vital to keep people safe and the economy afloat during these really difficult times.”
“By introducing this reform to social care after decades of inaction, we will change the lives of thousands of families who are struggling to afford quality care and having to make difficult decisions in the most vulnerable of circumstances. In finally addressing this long-standing issue, we will improve the quality and availability of social care for those who most need it, while ensuring that it is most affordable and helping to relieve the continuous pressure on the NHS. We now cannot ignore the backlog created by the heroic work of our NHS in rightly prioritising the treatment of covid-19 patients. I welcome the Government’s plan to address the backlog immediately through the new health and social care levy, which will allow us to increase hospital capacity to 110% and create 9 million new appointments.”
“It is an honour to follow the hon. Member for Gordon (Richard Thomson), although I did not always agree with what he said. I have spoken in this place on multiple occasions about the need for a long-term plan that addresses social care in this country, so I welcome the Government’s solution. I have direct experience of the problem of social care funding: prior to being elected to this place, I was the finance leader of a large upper-tier authority and we spent more than two thirds of our budget on social care provision, so I am all too aware of local government upper-tier authorities’ issues with funding social care and the challenge that the Government have faced in addressing the issue. As we continue the recovery from the covid-19 pandemic and learn its lessons, it is clear that we can no longer ignore social care.”
“The Home Office is working hard with international partners on getting as many of these people as it can out safely, and I was glad to hear, as of Monday evening, that over 3,300 Afghan staff and their families have already been evacuated. This needs to be balanced with the requirement of ensuring that we do not import those who do not share our values, and we must keep UK residents safe. I will leave it at that, Mr Deputy Speaker; thank you very much for giving me the opportunity to speak.”
“It is essential that that progress is maintained, and I fully support the comments made by my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary that we should use all the policy tools at our disposal to ensure that the Taliban do not undo that progress. I can only hope that the Taliban stand by their comments made in yesterday’s video conference that they will allow women and girls to continue to receive both basic and higher education, even if their previous record gives little room for optimism on that. Education is a human right and no one should be denied an education based on their gender. We must also make sure that we stand by all those who have helped us throughout this conflict, and I commend the Government for their annoucement that a new settlement scheme for those most at need, especially women and girls, will be introduced.”
“I hope they are proud of the work that they have done to improve the lives of many people in Afghanistan, particularly vulnerable women and girls. The fall of the Afghan Government to the Taliban is not what anyone had hoped would happen once the time came for NATO troops to return from Afghanistan, but that absolutely does not mean that the last two decades have gone to waste. UK military personnel have worked hard to support the new governance structures and institutions that will be crucial to building a more democratic society in Afghanistan and we should be proud of that record. We have provided over £3.3 billion of aid since 2001, with notable improvements in the participation of girls in education and political representation for women.”
“I am proud to represent South West Hertfordshire, which has Northwood NATO base in its constituency borders. Like many colleagues here today, I have been shocked to see the speed with which the Taliban have taken control of Afghanistan in the last week. It is absolutely the right decision that we return to Parliament today to debate the events taking place there. Many colleagues have spoken in remembrance of those who lost their lives, including the 457 UK military personnel over the last two decades, and I echo their comments and pay tribute to all our military personnel who have served this country bravely and selflessly throughout the conflict. I have met and worked with several Afghan veterans and my thoughts are with them today.”
“Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Meg Hillier), has done various investigations into the response to the pandemic, with a particular focus on procurement and money. Scottish National party Members will be grateful to know that their colleague the hon. Member for Glenrothes (Peter Grant) is a vocal member of the Committee and, I am sure, will give wise counsel in future debates. When I saw the topic of the debate, I was a bit surprised that the SNP had decided to call for it. I refer to its manifesto earlier this year in the local government elections that we had up in Scotland.”
“I welcome the opportunity to speak in this Opposition day debate on the awarding of covid contracts. It is probably worth starting with where we were 16 or 17 months ago. At the time, we were just hearing about the covid-19 pandemic and what it meant for our lives. With the benefit of hindsight, things may have been done slightly differently, but we should not use our experience over the past 16 or 17 months to prejudge the decisions that we had to make very quickly as a nation back in February and March last year. I had the honour of sitting on the Public Accounts Committee earlier in my parliamentary term. Under the stewardship of Gareth Davies, the Committee works hand in glove with the National Audit Office. I know that the Committee, ably chaired by the hon.”
“I urge colleagues to have a look at the Audit Scotland review, which has investigated the three separate pandemic preparedness exercises that were undertaken, with some of the lessons that should and need to be learned from that. I will leave it there; I look forward to other contributions.”
“Reference has been made to the Boardman review, which reported at the back end of last year and the 28 recommendations that the Government have already committed to implementing. I know that Opposition Members were urging a quicker review and investigation on the pandemic, but the deputy chief medical officer has argued that this would be regarded as “an extra burden” and a “distraction” from the successful vaccine roll-out. Reference has been made to the SNP Scottish Government’s procurement processes and the fact that £539 million of grants and contracts were awarded without a competitive process or proper scrutiny.”
“No, but the figures quoted earlier in this House, I suggest, were a very small percentage of poor delivery, and I am sure that the National Audit Office, the Public Accounts Committee and various other bodies in this House and in the Palace will look into that further. There have been various accusations about relationships that Conservative Members of Parliament may have with business owners or others involved in procurement. I gently urge Members to be mindful that there have been multiple independent investigations, including some in this House and from the National Audit Office, that have all shown that there was no conflict of interest with Members of Parliament, and that if there were, they were properly declared at the time.”
“Reference has been made to not using the normal procurement process and I urge colleagues to look at the Public Contracts Regulations 2015, which allow the accelerated procurement that has been used during this global pandemic—an event that fortunately happens only once every 100 years, approximately. Colleagues on both sides of the House refer to the quantum of PPE and I think we need to put that in context. We have an additional 22,000 ventilators, 11 billion pieces of PPE and 507 million doses of vaccine. Those are phenomenal figures. Did each procurement absolutely hit the spot?”
“With that sentiment in mind, I urge colleagues: where Government Members can help, please do not be shy about asking. Let me go back 16 or 17 months, with the benefit of hindsight—unfortunately the Leader of the official Opposition is not in his place; he uses hindsight a lot. There was a real fear that, as a country, we were potentially running out of PPE. It was this Conservative Government who gave a call to arms and said, “Actually, the United Kingdom needs a national effort”. We did that to ensure that we had the right PPE and other things in place for those on our frontline.”
“Sorry—the national Holyrood elections. The manifesto, on page 9, committed to a Scotland covid review. Unfortunately, the leadership up there has now done a U-turn and has not committed to that, so on behalf of the Royal College of Nurses and the GMB union, I urge them to have a rethink and hopefully commit to delivering what was promised in the manifesto. My hon. Friend the Member for South Suffolk (James Cartlidge) referred to the disappointing news that Edinburgh is regarded as the covid capital of Europe. I will not be political on this one; I just think that it is a disappointment and that all colleagues across the House will hope that, with our heated debate and constructive criticism, we will get a better result quickly.”
“I welcome the statement from the Secretary of State and welcome him to his place. Does he agree that the UK’s portfolio of 517 million vaccine doses is evidence of the world-leading effort of this Conservative Government in securing our route out of this pandemic, allowing the restrictions to be lifted?”
“First, I wish the Minister a happy birthday. Can she reassure the House that the focus will remain steadfast on patient outcomes and happiness as part of the health and care Bill?”
“I welcome the Foreign Secretary’s statement and thank my hon. Friend the Member for Henley (John Howell) for the excellent work he is doing in the Council of Europe. Does the Foreign Secretary agree that Lukashenko must accept that his recent actions are a step too far and that the only way forward for Belarus is for the dictator to halt his campaign of oppression, release political prisoners and hold free and fair elections with international observers?”
“It would completely destroy the ethos and the purpose of the Anderson School, and with it the hopes and dreams of the children it was built to benefit. I fully understand the limitations of the Minister’s powers to take action in this matter, but I implore him to intervene in whatever way he can to break the impasse between the various organisations involved in this terribly difficult situation, and to help to restore to the autistic children for whom it was built the opportunity of a bright future, which was the vision of the Anderson Foundation.”
“It is simply wrong for the NAS, the Minister’s Department and the London Borough of Redbridge to cast aside their concerns, to ignore the aims of their education policy and to override their decisions. The section 106 agreement was put in place only a few years ago for a very good purpose. It should not be overturned simply to maximise the financial position of the NAS. It is scandalous that a newly built school has been left lying empty for a full academic year. It is appalling that the NAS plans would reduce the general capacity of special educational needs education in the Essex area by 78 school places. It is tragic that simply in order to maximise its own financial advantage the NAS wants to hand over the Anderson School to Redbridge Council. Redbridge simply wants to use the buildings.”
“The Minister’s colleague goes on to say in that letter that Redbridge is “unable to operate any provision on the former Anderson site until the Section 106 agreement is amended”— “until”, Madam Deputy Speaker. The Minister’s colleague did not say “unless”—she said “until”. The DFE has made the assumption that the NAS will be able to appeal against the decision of Epping Forest District Council and Essex County Council not to amend the section 106 agreement. Such a stance is not only arrogant in the extreme; it is undemocratic. Epping Forest District Council and Essex County Council are democratically elected bodies that act in the best interest of their whole community.”
“In a letter dated 6 April to my right hon. Friend the Member for Epping Forest, the Minister’s colleague, Baroness Berridge, stated that the Department for Education was satisfied with the current plans of the NAS and that the NAS “is now in a position to offer a lease to the successful party”. That is simply not true. The NAS is not in a position to offer a lease to Redbridge because Redbridge cannot, and will not, comply with the terms of the section 106 agreement. Epping Forest District Council and Essex County Council have refused to amend the section 106 agreement. They are adhering to the principle that planning permission was granted specifically for the purpose of educating a narrow cohort of autistic children. It was not granted for the purpose of educating special needs children in general.”
“We all appreciate that, as a charity, the NAS has an obligation to fulfil its charitable purposes and to maximise its financial resources, but which comes first? It surely cannot be right for the NAS to sacrifice the Anderson School by handing the buildings over to Redbridge simply to maximise its profits. Making money for the charity is surely a means to an end, not an end in itself. The NAS is not fulfilling its charitable purpose. It is letting down the academically high-achieving autistic children it ought to be serving. To put it simply, if the plans of the NAS to enter into a contract with the London Borough of Redbridge are allowed to proceed, the buildings will still bear the name of the Anderson School, but the Anderson School will no longer exist. It will have been destroyed by the incompetence and the avarice of the NAS.”
“The land on which the two current schools stand is prime development land. Redbridge desperately needs to build more homes for its residents. In one fell swoop, Redbridge can rehouse its special needs schools, make a potentially large profit by selling the land and provide much needed additional housing. Who can blame it for using this financial strength to outbid everyone else for the use of the Anderson School buildings? Redbridge’s motives may be admirable but it should not be allowed to pursue its plans by destroying the Anderson School. It is simply unacceptable that the NAS should be allowed to hand the Anderson School over to Redbridge. The NAS has openly told officials at the DFE that its intention in handing the school over to Redbridge is to secure the best financial return for the charity.”
“The problem is—this is the point that I believe has been totally misunderstood by ministerial colleagues at the Department for Education—that the London Borough of Redbridge does not intend to operate the Anderson School for academically high-achieving autistic children. What Redbridge wants to do is to use the buildings at the Anderson School to decant the children with a wide range of special needs, some of whom are autistic, from two existing special needs schools in Redbridge—in other words, we will lose provision in the area. We can all understand the position of Redbridge. It has been presented with a golden opportunity. It can move its children, who have a range of complex special needs, from the old school buildings that it currently operates into the new building in Chigwell.”
“The tender process was carried out under a veil of secrecy, with neither Essex County Council nor the Anderson Foundation consulted. The NAS refused to disclose which organisations had submitted a tender, claiming commercial confidentiality for the tender process. It chose a preferred bidder but refused to disclose its identity, again claiming commercial confidentiality. I was shocked to discover that the preferred bidder is the London Borough of Redbridge. The NAS has chosen the London Borough of Redbridge. The NAS deemed it to have offered “best value” because it was a government body, and therefore a very good tenant, and was willing to pay the significant rent requested.”
“It was decided that a new provider should be sought to run the school, and that such a provider should be put in place as quickly as possible, in order to restore the opportunity that had been lost to the Anderson students. The power to appoint a new provider appears to lie with the NAS, because it owns the school. My colleagues and I question that assumption. It is difficult to understand why the Department for Education considers it acceptable that an organisation that, by its own admission, was a failure at operating a school should be considered fit to be the sole judge of who should succeed it as provider. If the NAS was not fit to run the school, in my view it is not fit to decide who should run it next. The NAS put the contract for operating the Anderson School out to tender approximately a year ago.”
“That is approximately one third of the actual value of the land and buildings, so the NAS benefited from a gift of some £12 million. The NAS was thus given a wonderful opportunity to run the school for the benefit of these highly achieving autistic children. In my view, it failed. The Anderson School opened for its first pupils in September 2017. Within a year, safeguarding and staffing issues became obvious. Several colleagues have received complaints from their constituents about the way their children were treated while in the care of the NAS. Ofsted carried out an inspection in March 2020 and deemed the school to be failing, and in April 2020 the NAS closed the school. The incompetence of the NAS in not in question; it admits its failings and it admits that it could not run the school as it ought to have been run.”
“The land on which the school is built is green belt, and the protection of green belt is very important to the planning authority, Epping Forest District Council, situated as it is between the urban sprawl of London and the Essex countryside. Strict conditions were therefore attached to the granting of planning permission, in the form of a section 106 agreement. That agreement specifies that the school is to be operated for children and young people in the very specific cohort that I have described. The Anderson Foundation collaborated with Essex County Council, specialist charities, engineers and constructors in the design of the school, resulting in state-of-the-art, first-class provision. Once the school was occupied, its ownership was transferred to the National Autistic Society, which paid the Anderson Foundation £6 million.”
“It is not an exaggeration to say that the school is a pioneer in the provision of opportunities for autistic children who have the potential for high academic achievement but whose mental health issues would make it impossible for them to flourish in a mainstream school. I am led to believe that most of the children who attended the school were heading for university, college or meaningful paid employment. It is the only school of its kind in the area—indeed, it is one of very few in the whole country. It is about to be destroyed because of a series of unfortunate decisions taken by the National Autistic Society. The Anderson Foundation, a charitable foundation, raised the funds to build this pioneering school on the land of the former Tottenham Hotspur training ground at Chigwell.”
“The matter has become sufficiently serious to require the attention of the House because if the National Autistic Society is permitted to go ahead with its plans to hand over the school buildings to the London Borough of Redbridge, the Anderson School as initially imagined will be destroyed, and with it the hopes and dreams of many autistic young people. The Anderson School is not an ordinary special educational needs establishment. It was designed and built for a very specific cohort of people, for whom Essex County Council had identified a need that could not be met in any other school.”
“It was appropriate for me to stand down as a governor when I was selected as the Conservative parliamentary candidate for South West Hertfordshire, and it remains one of my few regrets that I had to relinquish that role when I moved to Hertfordshire. I know that my right hon. Friend has consistently shared my concerns. She has been in correspondence about this matter for well over a year with Essex County Council, the Anderson Foundation, the National Autistic Society and the Minister’s colleague, Baroness Berridge of The Vale of Catmose.”
“I am grateful to be given the opportunity of this Adjournment debate to raise a matter about which I have been concerned since before I was elected to this House. For the sake of the record, let me say that I was a district councillor and a county councillor for Chigwell in Essex, in the constituency of Epping Forest, before I was privileged to join these Benches. The Anderson School is a specialist school for autistic children and young people situated in the constituency of my right hon. Friend the Member for Epping Forest (Dame Eleanor Laing). Again, for the record, let me say that I became a governor of the school for a short period to actively help turn around its future.”