Sanctuary Housing Group

Debate between David Amess and Mark Francois

Thursday 18th July 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Mark Francois (Rayleigh and Wickford) (Con)]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, and Mr Speaker, for granting me this Adjournment debate and thus providing me with an important opportunity to try to hold the Sanctuary Housing Group, which I regard as a highly dysfunctional organisation, to account. As you will soon hear, Madam Deputy Speaker, my remarks have been born from over a decade of frustration in trying to deal with these people as a local MP. To put it bluntly, I have well and truly had enough.

To begin with, Sanctuary has consistently provided a poor maintenance service to many of my constituents over a period of many years. I have had numerous complaints from Sanctuary tenants about shoddy workmanship, missed appointments and a generally off-hand attitude towards them when they complain. To give just one example, a constituent contacted me a few years ago to complain about a broken lift in one of Sanctuary’s sheltered housing units. My constituent put it in an email:

“I’m writing to complain about the fact that our lift has not been working for the past 10 days, effectively trapping my disabled wife in our first-floor flat. Today, I spoke with the Scheme Manager, who advised me there is no confirmed date for when this problem will be resolved. He also advised me that the service company assessed the lift a month ago and advised Sanctuary of repairs that needed to be done, and the lift broke down three weeks after it was assessed… My wife has been trapped in the lift in her wheelchair six or more times. Sanctuary has known there are issues with the lift and has not responded adequately.”

That is but one example of the poor level of service that Sanctuary provides, but I could spend hours reading very many others into the record. The company’s record is so poor that in March this year it was the subject of an absolutely scathing Channel 4 “Dispatches” documentary entitled, “New Landlords from Hell”. To try to summarise a half-hour documentary in one sentence, I would say that the group’s record is truly shocking. In many instances, it shows a complete disregard for the welfare, or even the safety, of its tenants. Sanctuary’s so-called board of directors should watch the documentary and then hang their heads in shame. Anybody who wants to know more about this organisation should watch the programme. I suspect they will be appalled, just as I was, by what they see.

It is not as if Sanctuary is a small or under-resourced organisation. I have carefully read its latest annual report. It currently has total assets under management in the order of £4 billion. It is one of the largest registered social landlords in the United Kingdom, with about 100,000 properties currently under management. It is, supposedly, a not-for-profit organisation, yet it made an operating profit of just under £200 million, as recorded in its 2017-18 accounts. The group’s previous chief executive served for some 27 years, but has recently been replaced by a new chief executive, Craig Moule, whose total annual remuneration, including pension contributions and so on, is now in the order of half a million pounds.

[Sir David Amess (Southend West) (Con)]

What?!

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Francois]

Yes. By comparison, the CEO of L&Q—London and Quadrant Housing Trust—earns about £350,000 in total, the CEO of the Peabody Trust is on about £279,000, and the CEO of Genesis Housing is on approximately £250,000.

Despite previously asking Sanctuary officials for a meeting, I have not yet been offered an audience with the new chief executive, which is a shame, because the first question I would like to ask him is: “How can you justify a salary over three times greater than that paid to the Prime Minister?” I cannot countenance how someone running, essentially, a public sector organisation could be paid such a vast amount for presiding over such chaos.

To give the Minister some idea of the history of all this, I first came across the group some years ago when Rochford District Council decided to transfer its social housing stock to a new registered social landlord established for the purpose, called Rochford Housing Association. The tenants voted in a ballot to transfer to the housing association, which was then shortly taken over by a regional housing association called Hereward, and then in turn by a national organisation, Sanctuary. So I have been dealing with RHA/Hereward/Sanctuary for over a decade as the local MP.

Crucially, the original manifesto for the transfer ballot contained a commitment to build up to 50 additional units of affordable housing a year to assist the council with addressing its housing waiting list. Specifically, the manifesto—I have a copy here, because I saved one—said the following under the heading, “New affordable housing to meet local housing needs”:

“Tenants and the Council have said they want to see new homes in the area for future generations and the Council is committed to working with Housing Associations to provide affordable housing to meet local needs.

Rochford Housing Association working with Hereward Housing will aim to provide at least 50 new affordable homes each year in the Rochford District.”

That was the promise to the tenants before they voted to transfer. Sanctuary took over that commitment when it absorbed Hereward and promised to honour it when that entity became part of its group, but it has come absolutely nowhere near doing so.

I have had multiple meetings with Sanctuary down the years to try to persuade it to honour that promise, not least to alleviate the considerable pressure on Rochford’s housing list, which has sometimes, unfortunately, meant that the council has had to place families, including those with young children, in highly unsuitable bed-and-breakfast accommodation in nearby Southend.

[Sir David Amess]

The salaries are absolutely obscene, just like those of senior members of the BBC. My right hon. Friend might be interested to know that someone in my office suffered under these people as a student. Does he agree that, as we look to build a new town somewhere in Essex, these are the last people we want to get their hands on anything we might pursue in meeting our housing needs?

[Mr Francois]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. As I will demonstrate, it is difficult, I am afraid, to believe anything that this group now says. As we have a Housing, Communities and Local Government Minister sitting on the Front Bench, I will take this opportunity to absolutely endorse my hon. Friend’s long-standing campaign for Southend to be made a city. I hope the Minister will take that back to the Department.

I have had a number of meetings with Sanctuary’s head of development, Mr Chris Cole, which have taken on an almost ritualistic aspect, with him repeatedly reading out a list of major housing developments that Sanctuary is either going to be involved with or to develop itself, hardly any of which—with the exception of some very small developments and one development at Canewdon—ever come to fruition.

Sanctuary absolutely assured me several years ago that, to make up its backlog, it would bid aggressively for the social housing component of three large developments in the Rochford District Council area known as Hall Road in Rochford, Rawreth Lane/London Road in Rayleigh, and Malyons Farm in Hullbridge. In each of those instances, despite the company’s £4 billion of assets, it underbid and did not secure the RSL element of any of those developments, which would have represented well over 100 houses in each of the three cases. Basically, Minister, these people talk a good game to your face, but then completely and utterly fail to put their money where their mouth is. That is totally unacceptable on their part.

Moreover, Sanctuary has acquired, or sought to acquire, a number of high-profile brownfield sites across the district, which it has been promising to build on for years. However, in the vast majority of cases, it has not laid one brick on top of another to this day. To take just one example, when I met Mr Cole on Friday 10 May in Sanctuary’s local offices in Rochford, he sought to assure me that Sanctuary was “actively on site” on the old Bullwood Hall Prison site, which was closed some years ago and is now a classic brownfield site. Sanctuary obtained planning permission to build there over a year ago. Quite by chance, and unluckily for Mr Cole, I visited the site the weekend prior to our meeting, and I was therefore amazed when Mr Cole attempted to persuade me that the company was actively building houses there. Even when I told him to his face that I knew it was not, because I had been there and seen that it was not, he still tried to tell me that it was. The Minister is shaking his head. I mention this vignette deliberately, because it is absolutely typical of the dismissive way in which Sanctuary treats elected representatives.

Let me say as an aside that I recently spoke to the Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee, the hon. Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Meg Hillier), who, for the avoidance of doubt, has not seen my speech and is not party to it. She mentioned to me in passing that she, too, had had unsatisfactory experiences with Sanctuary, but that unfortunately, because of its constitutional status—I shall say more about that in a minute—it was not subject to the remit of the Public Accounts Committee, the most powerful Committee in Parliament. That raises all sorts of governance issues, to which I shall return shortly.

Because of Sanctuary’s appalling record of not keeping to its commitments, the dispute came to a head several years ago when it agreed to sign a “deed of variation, determination and collaboration” via which it undertook to raise its game and make up the considerable backlog of houses to meet the original commitment of 50 a year. I have here a letter, dated 27 July 2016, from a lady called Emma Keegan, who was at that time Sanctuary’s local managing director. It states, clearly and unequivocally:

“At the forefront of Sanctuary’s commitment is to build homes in Rochford. Part of that is a contractually binding requirement for Sanctuary to deliver the 50 homes a year referred to in the original agreement. Taken over the ten years of the agreement, this will require Sanctuary to build 363 more homes. If we fail to do so the local Council will receive £10,000 for each new home below the target figure of 363, up to a maximum payment of £1 million. This reflects our confidence that we will make good this commitment. We have a development team focused solely on this ambition with commercial resources at their disposal.”

I submit to the Minister that that could not be any clearer, but Sanctuary never got anywhere near it. Time after time, it has failed to develop schemes and has given a whole litany of excuses, including desperately trying to blame Rochford District Council for not giving planning permission, suggesting that it was the council’s fault that the houses had not been built and the target—which, incidentally, was due to be met by March 2018, a year ago—had not been delivered.

When I met Sanctuary representatives in May, I raised that issue and was told quite forcefully by Chris Cole that Rochford District Council had “let us off’ the payment because the council had admitted that the planning delays were its own fault. I double-checked that with Mr Shaun Scrutton, the council’s managing director, at a meeting in his office on Friday 5 July. He categorically denied that Rochford had been responsible for any major planning delay and absolutely insisted that it intended to pursue Sanctuary for the outstanding amount and was considering legal action. He said to me, “I will be having a meeting with our legal team on Monday morning.” Both those men cannot be right, and, to put it mildly, one of them must at least be badly mistaken, as the two positions are poles apart.

Part of my purpose in initiating this debate was first to shame Sanctuary into coughing up the million quid that it owes my local council, and secondly, as well as arguing for the money, to argue that it should go on to build the affordable houses that it promised to build in the first place. In short, this is a housing association that, incredibly, seems reluctant to build houses, particularly if that will cost it any money. I read in the newspapers that we have a housing crisis in this country. With registered social housing landlords like Sanctuary, is it any wonder? Basically, these people are a joke, but one that is no longer funny, particularly for those who are living in bed-and-breakfast accommodation as a result of their absolute indolence.

Let me give one further example. Sanctuary assured me that it would build up to 100 properties in a site in Rayleigh known as Timber Grove, and that it was actively acquiring the site for that purpose. When I double-checked a few days ago, it had still not bought the site, which has lain undeveloped effectively for several years. That is just another example of it being extremely difficult to believe anything that the company now says based on bitter experience of a decade of repeatedly broken promises; it is that bad.

That brings me on to my wider point about the regulation of housing associations. There are good and bad registered social landlords in this country; for instance, one of the other housing associations active in my constituency is a locally based one called Chelmer Housing Partnership or CHP. If I speak as I find, I personally do not recall ever receiving a single complaint from any of my constituents who are its tenants about the management of a CHP property, although in fairness, the very good new leader of Rochford District Council, Councillor Mike Steptoe, tells me anecdotally that he has had a few complaints about CHP, which has the RSL component at the new development at Hall Road that I mentioned a few minutes ago. In any event, it is a matter of fact that housing associations, some of whose chief executives are extremely well paid—far more than the Prime Minister—are not even subject to freedom of information requests. In short, they are neither fish nor fowl—neither wholly public nor wholly private—and that leads to serious questions about who is really in charge. Partly based on my experience with Sanctuary, I wish to raise with the Minister the serious question of the governance of the sector in general.

There is a lack of an effective regulator to hold housing association boards to account and to make sure their tenants receive the kind of service for which they pay their rent. I would, therefore, like to press the Minister specifically and ask him whether the Department has any proposals to change the governance of housing associations and, in particular, whether it has any plans to bring in any form of new regulator, perhaps focusing on governance and customer service, to try to keep housing associations up to the mark. For the avoidance of doubt, there are some very good registered social landlords in this country, but there are also some very bad ones, and Sanctuary is probably the worst of the entire lot.

This is a sorry tale of an extremely badly run organisation, which does not keep its word, which obfuscates and delays, treats publicly elected officials with open contempt, and threatens to bring its entire sector into disrepute. Just as Persimmon Homes has given the private house building sector something of a bad name in recent years—I do not believe the sector really deserves that and I note in passing that the new chief executive of Persimmon, David Jenkinson, is attempting to do something to address it—I believe that Sanctuary threatens to give the whole housing association sector in this country a bad name. That would be a shame, because many RSLs do very good work to provide decent, affordable homes for our constituents to live in, and it is important to put that on the record.

I very much hope therefore that when the board members of Sanctuary read this debate, as I suspect they may, they will take radical action to address their woeful underperformance. I hope they will sack the hopeless Mr Chris Cole and specifically agree to pay Rochford District Council the £1 million that they owe. I also hope they will redouble their efforts to build the affordable housing they promised to build all along and which my constituents so desperately need.

This rolling farce, perpetrated by a failed and broken organisation, has gone on long enough and we now need action, not words. I have known the Minister for years and, as he knows, I have high regard for him. I am sure he will take my constituents’ concerns very seriously—that would be in his nature—and I therefore look forward with considerable interest to his reply on behalf of Her Majesty’s Government.

Animal Welfare (Sentencing) Bill

Debate between David Amess and Mark Francois

2nd reading: House of Commons & Programme motion: House of Commons
Wednesday 10th July 2019 Commons Chamber

[Sir David Amess]

Madam Deputy Speaker, I have already been speaking for six minutes and I have not even started my speech, so I need to move on quickly. We want to get this legislation on to the statute book quickly, and people will be frustrated.

My right hon. and learned Friend the Member for North East Hertfordshire (Sir Oliver Heald) mentioned Finn’s law. Given that you are a fellow Essex Member of Parliament, Madam Deputy Speaker, and that my hon. Friend the Member for Clacton (Giles Watling) was interested in the matter, I should say that I was privileged to be at the event at which Paul Nicholls, together with the chief of police, unveiled the monument to police dogs. I met Finn and the whole thing was just a tear-jerker. My right hon. and learned Friend spoke about the dog barking when the legislation went through the House of Lords, and I can testify to that.

Now to my brief speech. It is true that a dog is a man’s best friend but, as we have heard already, there are too many examples of cruelty. There is a danger that we will talk about more and more horrific things, such as dogs being forced to fight against each other and the latest thing, which is sport trophy hunting. How is it that companies can be trying to attract Brits to go abroad, where these magnificent animals are enclosed, so that they can cut off their tusks and heads and so on? It is absolutely barbaric. Shame on anyone who goes on one of those holidays.

I am told that 26% of households in the United Kingdom own a dog and 18% own a cat. The vast majority of British people look after their pets well. We have one or two farmers present; introducing children to animals at an early age is a good way to get them to treat animals well. I know that not all children can necessarily empathise with animals, but I think that that would help. I join others in saying I am so glad that, as a developed country renowned for its historical championing of animal welfare, we are to have this legislation.

In 2017, the RSPCA investigated 141,760 complaints. That is a huge number. In 2018, the RSPCA phone line received 1.1 million calls. I am sure that none of them was made from the constituency of my right hon. Friend the Member for Rayleigh and Wickford (Mr Francois), but an awful lot were certainly made in Essex. The way in which the animals are protected is the first vital part of the Bill. The second important part is that it will act as a deterrent. The Bill recognises that the root of the problem is really with animal abusers, and although it may take a few months to kick in, all the literature that I have read agrees that this legislation will act as a meaningful deterrent.

There are too many examples of animal cruelty. Recently, in a national newspaper, we heard about a French bulldog that had just had puppies. How could someone have chained that dog to a car—we all saw it—and dragged it along the road? That is just horrendous, and the person responsible has still not been caught. I am glad to say that the RSPCA is on the case.

Just last week, The Independent reported that a driver in Somerset was luring birds on to a road with chips before mowing them down. That is sick behaviour beyond belief. In another shocking example, which took place at the end of last year, a man in the UK hit a dog with a hammer and strangled it with a washing line just because it was getting on his nerves—perhaps he had mental health problems. None the less, these are absolutely despicable incidents, and they are happening in our country.

[Mr Mark Francois (Rayleigh and Wickford) (Con)]

My hon. Friend mentioned dogs. He will recall that, seven years ago, he and I helped to co-open the Dogs Trust Rehoming Centre at Nevendon in my constituency. I visited it again last week. Will he join me in commending the superb work that it does, rehoming nearly 900 dogs a year? If he wants to talk about compassionate, loving and focused animal welfare, the Dogs Trust is about as good as it gets, and Lisa Cooper and all her staff there are a living embodiment of that.

[Sir David Amess]

And the Dogs Trust will be very pleased with that plug that my right hon. Friend has given it. I was there. It is a magnificent Dogs Trust, and my own family has had two rescue pugs from it over the years. It is absolutely fantastic.

My right hon. Friend has just reminded me that, when I entered this place for the first time, animal welfare did not have the high priority that it does today. That is not criticising the background of colleagues; it is just saying that we did not give the matter as high a profile as we do today. I do remember, though, that when my right hon. Friend the Member for East Yorkshire had a wonderful debate on monkeys, the House was absolutely packed—but that was quite a rarity.

Southend Hospital

Debate between David Amess and Mark Francois

Wednesday 5th December 2018 Westminster Hall

[Sir David Amess]

Right. Well, there seem to be rumours that, as a result of the plans being referred, there is a real danger that the extra money that we were promised might not materialise or that there could be repercussions for the services at Southend Hospital. I appreciate that the Minister might not be able to comment on that issue at the moment, but in this short debate I hope to set out some of my constituents’ concerns, and my own, about how best to support the world-class services at Southend Hospital and ensure that everyone in all four constituencies receives the best possible care.

Southend has always been absolutely at the top of cancer services generally. I will not delay the House by listing all the organisations that have had a hand in delivering cancer services there, but Southend has always been very highly regarded. From its gynaecology training coming top in the UK and its trauma and orthopaedic team being named training hospital of the year, to its world-leading practice standards for cancer care, Southend Hospital has lots to celebrate about its services and patient care. The radiotherapy department deserves particular mention in the light of its recent CHKS accreditation for its pioneering radiation treatment, as well as its high ratings from the Care Quality Commission. The centre has led the way in utilising highly focused and concentrated radiation treatment on tumours that reduces harm to surrounding organs. It has treated more than 1,700 patients this year and is a great example of the importance of investment in driving world-leading research and developing innovative treatments.

This is where the sting comes in. NHS figures show that 36% of Southend cancer patients wait eight weeks for treatment after their initial GP referral. The Minister may have an answer to this, but more than a third seems somewhat high—more than twice the national NHS target. It is vital that more be done to speed up referrals and avoid such unacceptable delays in treatment, which can cause so much worry for patients. With world-class care on their doorstep, our constituents deserve nothing less than fast access to the treatments that they most need. I would welcome any comments from the Minister about speeding up the process.

Southend Hospital is currently trialling a mobile stroke ambulance unit—a pioneering and innovative treatment service that allows specialists to travel directly to patients and treat them en route to the hospital. Data is still being analysed, but clinicians have reported great successes, with specialists being able to deliver life-saving thrombolysis treatment just 16 minutes after the patient alert. That is absolutely incredible. We all know that the sooner a stroke is treated, the more likely a good outcome. Treatment in the first few minutes can make all the difference, so getting patients to a specialist as quickly as possible is imperative. Not only have patient outcomes been improved, but the unit has shown great potential to alleviate pressure on A&E departments. Some 88% of patients in the trial were admitted directly to a specialist stroke unit, freeing up resources across the NHS.

The trial is due to end on 19 December, but so far there has been no confirmation that this pioneering service, which has been funded entirely by charitable donations, will continue. I believe that greater support is needed to ensure that the hospital can retain the mobile unit. More than 100,000 strokes occur each year in the UK, so it is essential for the NHS to use such innovative services to ensure that we can deliver the best care to patients in the shortest time. I know that my right hon. Friend the Member for Rayleigh and Wickford is particularly interested in stroke care and in how it is delivered at Southend Hospital. I encourage the Minister to review the successes of the trial at Southend and to look into how such life-saving services can be offered to patients across the United Kingdom.

The critical issue of time in stroke care is a great concern for Southend. I appreciate that the Minister will be unable to comment on the STP’s proposed centralisation of stroke services in the constituency that I once represented—Basildon. However, maintaining the established stroke service infrastructure and keeping Southend as a centre of excellence is very important. Whatever the outcomes of reconfiguration, my constituents do not want to see the downgrading of the world-class stroke services in Southend, and patients put at risk.

There is a big issue about transport services, which I know is of great concern to my hon. Friends the Members for Rochford and Southend East and for Castle Point, and my right hon. Friend the Member for Rayleigh and Wickford. While Southend Hospital is leading the way in many areas of care, transfer to specialist services is obviously important. Patients are currently transported to acute services across Essex through the treat-and- transfer model. Although that is working in ensuring that patients get access to the specialist treatment they need, a big concern for our constituents is the impact that an expansion to the model could have. Inter-hospital transfers affect not only the patient, but their carers or families. The costs incurred and difficulties experienced by patients and visitors travelling across services need to be taken into careful consideration. It is essential that the local transport services, whether public transport or community transport organisations, can provide the right support to patients and their families.

[Mr Mark Francois (Rayleigh and Wickford) (Con)]

I endorse everything that my hon. Friend has said about the mobile stroke unit. I encourage the Minister to look at the great success that it has been. As my hon. Friend knows, I have particularly focused on the transport issues. The East of England Ambulance Service, which would be the logical service to provide that transfer, is under great pressure as it is. Does my hon. Friend accept that if the whole of the STP is to stand up and be coherent, we must have clearer answers about exactly how the transfer of critically ill patients from one hospital to another would work in practice?

[Sir David Amess]

As ever, my right hon. Friend is absolutely right; he is intuitive. We need greater clarity on this matter, and our constituents want reassurance and certainty.

I have outlined some of the successes of Southend Hospital, as well as the areas in which greater support and investment are needed. The hospital serves just under 340,000 people and, although challenged by the pressures on the system, has managed to lead the way in world-class care. Southend is becoming a hub of medical education and training, with both the gynaecology and trauma teams recognised as among the best in the country. Pioneering cancer and stroke care at the hospital is at the forefront of treatment innovation, but those excellent services cannot continue at such a standard without investment and support. I hope that the Minister will closely consider our constituents’ concerns, and I look forward to hearing from him what more the Government can do to ensure that Southend Hospital retains its world-class services. I would also be grateful for an update in due course from the Secretary of State, perhaps by letter, on the STP referral when that decision has been made. I look forward to working with the Department proactively on that issue.

Gypsies and Travellers

Debate between David Amess and Mark Francois

Monday 10th September 2018 Commons Chamber

[Sir David Amess (Southend West) (Con)]

rose—

[Mr Mark Francois (Rayleigh and Wickford) (Con)]

rose—