Queen’s Speech
Lord Kennedy of Southwark Excerpts(8 years, 7 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab)
My Lords, first, I draw the attention of the House to my registered interests: specifically, that I am a councillor in the London Borough of Lewisham and a vice-president of the Local Government Association.
As we debate the Motion on Her Majesty’s gracious Speech, our thoughts are with the victims and their families of the terrorist attacks—in Manchester, at London Bridge and Borough Market and at Finsbury Park mosque—and of the tragedy at Grenfell Tower. Our thoughts are also with the heroes of the emergency services, the security services and the NHS, who have all worked to protect and save lives, as well as on the many selfless acts of courage and kindness from members of the public, faith communities, charities and businesses. They have shown our country at its best, in the most difficult and tragic circumstances.
As the Official Opposition in your Lordships’ House, we will work with the Government in a constructive manner at all times and will robustly challenge where we think the Government do not have it right. Our aim is always to make sure that we pass laws that are fit for purpose. We respect conventions, including that the elected House has the authority that we do not.
The first job of government is to protect our citizens from threats that endanger our lives, liberty and well-being. Terrorism, and the fight against it, is never far from our minds, and combating it must be the number one priority for the Government. I support the review to be initiated to ensure that the Government’s counter- terrorism strategy provides the police and security services with the powers they need and that punishments and lengths of custodial sentences are correct.
There are, though, two other points to be made here. First, the Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation has an important role to play here, and the recommendations he or she makes must be listened to carefully by the Government. There is no point, and it will serve no purpose, if the Government take further powers for the police and security services to keep us safe but do not resource them properly. Any review undertaken by the Government has to look at the question of resources and the lack of them and whether the powers presently at the disposal of the police and security services are adequately resourced. Providing new powers and new laws but no new money to back them is the worst thing that can be done, as it provides little or no protection and delivers a false sense of security.
Further, if new powers are sought, we as an Opposition will seek to ensure that there is proper parliamentary scrutiny and oversight. This is not the time for Henry VIII powers or regulations to be enacted without at least the affirmative procedures in place and, if necessary, we will propose amendments in your Lordships’ House to ensure that is the case.
The proposed new commission for countering extremism will have an important role to play, and it will be vital that communities are involved and are seen as part of the solution. It will not have gone unnoticed that, in the recent atrocities in Manchester and at London Bridge and Borough Market, the security services had been alerted by the Muslim communities to concerns about individuals who were later involved in these terrorist attacks.
Internet providers and companies that operate online must play their part in ensuring that extremist ideology in all its forms has no safe place to corrupt people online. I call on all companies that operate in this area to work closely with the Government to ensure this happens quickly and that they play their role in keeping us safe. There can be no excuse for not co-operating fully with the authorities.
I fully support the proposals from the Government to tackle the evil of domestic abuse. That must be stamped out. I fully support the noble Baroness in the work she does in that regard. We will support the Bill fully when it comes to this House.
I welcome in principle the proposals to introduce an independent public advocate to act for and support bereaved families after a public disaster and at public inquests. The intention here, though, must be to give families the best possible support and ensure that no stone is left unturned and no family is left out, marginalised or prevented from having their voice heard due to issues of costs and available resources. Families who have lost loved ones in previous disasters have proven, time and time again, that the truth will come out, no matter what is said at the time or how powerful the opponents are. The Hillsborough families proved that; the sense of injustice and the lies told, heaped on the tragedy of losing loved ones, drove them to do right by their loved ones. But it should not be like that. Victims and their families should have proper representation, funded by the state, right from the start.
The return of the devolved Administration in Northern Ireland is supported by everyone, on all sides of the House. It is vital that an Executive is formed and that normal working relationships are restored. The progress made in Northern Ireland over the last 25 years has been the result of a willingness on all sides to seek agreement, to co-operate, to build a better future for families and to live in peace, and that prize is too precious to lose. My parents came from the Republic of Ireland to make a life for themselves in London in the 1950s, and they retired there many years ago. I have numerous friends in the Republic and in Northern Ireland. I was in County Mayo the weekend before last and in Belfast a few months ago at a conference. The city is welcoming and friendly, and no one wants to return to the past. There should be no return to the hard border—it is in no one’s interest, north or south. The Government must redouble their efforts to get the Executive back on their feet, and we will support them in achieving that. Nothing in the arrangements for propping up the Government can be allowed to get in the way—these matters are far too important.
It is my sincerest hope that, moving forward from the tragic fire at Grenfell Tower, we will never again hear the nonsense that we have heard about red tape and health and safety laws and regulations. The rule that there should be two—or is it three?—regulations out before a new one is agreed should be confined to the dustbin, where it belongs. What we saw in Grenfell Tower was a catastrophic failure of regulation or of its proper application. It was an unimaginable tragedy in one of the richest countries in the world, in the richest borough in the United Kingdom and probably the whole world. The updates from the Government have been welcome. They have highlighted the complete failure of Kensington and Chelsea Council, in contrast to the wonderful help and support from businesses, charities, faith communities and the local public, along with support from the Red Cross and the various government agencies on site and other local authorities. All of them deserve our thanks and praise.
I still find it shocking that the leader of Kensington and Chelsea Council has not resigned. You would have thought that, out of a sense of honour and accepting responsibility for the complete failure of the administration to deliver on its responsibilities, he would have resigned immediately, but he is still hanging on to office. Councillor Nicholas Paget-Brown, it really is time to go.
I pay tribute to the emergency services, which came to the aid of their fellow citizens at the time of unimaginable horror: the police, the ambulance service, the doctors and nurses, other NHS staff and the fire service. The firefighters, brave men and women, who were unable to seek the advice of a structural engineer from Kensington and Chelsea Council to confirm whether it was safe to enter the building, took the decision to enter the burning building anyway and save people’s lives. They are true heroes, each and every one. They rightly deserve our thanks for the work they have done, for their bravery and their courage. We can never repay the debt we owe them.
When we look back before this tragedy, though, there is one group of heroes that not all of us praise. With one group of firefighters, the previous Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, who is now Foreign Secretary, had such a bad working relationship that he spoke about them in such an unfair manner and would never listen to them. They have had their pensions cut and their terms and conditions changed. They do a unique and very special job. They are the same people—the same heroes we praise today—and they deserve to be treated better. I hope that the Foreign Secretary reflects on some of his previous, ill-judged remarks and how unwise they were then, and that we will have no more of it from him. If we can do nothing else, they deserve to be listened to and treated with respect, as they have been in the past.
Housing is one area where we have to do better. The Prime Minister told us that,
“we simply have not given enough attention to social housing”.—[Official Report, Commons, 22/6/17; col. 169.]
I would qualify that statement by saying that the Government have given plenty of the wrong attention to social housing, and that is part of the problem. We should build more council housing, at proper social rents that people can afford. The affordable rent model supported by the Government in most parts of London and some other parts of the country is unaffordable. People in many parts of the country are trapped in a perfect storm. They are unable to raise the deposit to buy a home, there is no social housing at genuinely affordable rents and people are forced into renting in the private sector at a cost that makes it impossible for them to save for a deposit to buy their own home. That is why home ownership is on the decline.
A number of proposals from the Housing and Planning Act have been dumped, and I hope that many more will go in the next few weeks and months. We need a proper plan to improve the type, quality and number of houses built. However, to achieve that, the Government have to give way and let the public sector build at a level probably not seen for 40 years. The banning of unfair tenants’ fees is a measure that we will support, as we will other measures that improve housing and seek to meet the demand for quality homes fit for people to live in and thrive.
I grew up in council accommodation that was warm, safe and dry. It was provided at a rent that my parents could afford to pay while bringing up their family. As a child, I did not realise how lucky we were as a family. My three siblings and I are now all home owners, and we are better off than our parents were at this stage in their lives. That is what most people aspire to for themselves and for their children. This Government have completely forgotten about that, and they need to get back to it in addressing the housing crisis.
In conclusion, I look forward to all the contributions today from noble Lords. In this two-year Session of Parliament, we as an Opposition will make our points robustly but fairly. When we think the Government have got it wrong, we will say so, and when we think they have got it right, we will say so, too.
Fire Safety: Lakanal House Fire
Lord Kennedy of Southwark Excerpts(8 years, 7 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth
I am grateful to my noble friend. This is not simply about the issues that have arisen from the Grenfell Tower fire, although obviously they are the focus of the public inquiry. I think Camden has identified that in five blocks, four of which have subsequently been evacuated, some 1,000 fire doors were missing. That must also give rise to concern.
Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab)
My Lords, I refer the House to my interests in the register. In the Lakanal House fire in 2009, there were compartmentation breaches that allowed the fire and smoke to spread through the building, in conflict with the evacuation procedure. Failures like this have come to light often only as the result of a fire or when the advice of the fire brigade has been sought after construction, although the power to take enforcement action expires one year after construction and the power to prosecute expires after two years. Does the noble Lord agree that this is far too small a window for action to be taken, and will he act on the London Fire Brigade’s call to extend these deadlines to a more appropriate period to be determined by consultation with key stakeholders?
Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for his suggestion. It is right that these issues should be looked at by the independent advisory committee that is being set up by the Secretary of State. It will come up with urgent actions that need to be taken and will decide which first actions are appropriate. I will take away the noble Lord’s suggestion; it is something that no doubt the committee will wish to ponder on. However, this episode has thrown up a whole range of actions to be taken not only in relation to the cladding but much more widely, as we have seen in evidence from around the country.
Update on the Grenfell Tower Fire and Fire Safety
Lord Kennedy of Southwark Excerpts(8 years, 7 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab)
My Lords, I refer the House to my interests, specifically as a councillor in the London Borough of Lewisham and vice-president of the Local Government Association.
I thank the noble Lord, Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth, for repeating the Statement made in the other place by the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government. My thoughts and prayers are with the victims and their families of this terrible tragedy at Grenfell Tower, and with our emergency services, which responded so bravely and quickly to the unfolding disaster. Their actions saved countless lives. The whole nation owes these heroes a debt of gratitude.
The Prime Minister acknowledged that the response by Kensington and Chelsea Council was not good enough and a firm grip on the situation needed to be taken. The response by charities, faith organisations, businesses and local residents has rightly been praised and I pay tribute to them all. They add to the shame with which the response of Kensington and Chelsea council is viewed by everybody. I find it staggering that the council leader did not resign immediately. He should resign without further delay. The chief executive of Lewisham, Barry Quirk, has taken over as the chief executive of Kensington and Chelsea council. He is a public sector manager with years of experience and will get a grip of the situation quickly. The command centre is under the joint leadership of John Barradell, the chief executive of the Corporation of London, and Eleanor Kelly, the chief executive of Southwark council. Both are experienced public sector managers. Eleanor Kelly is known to me, and she will do an excellent job, I am sure, with the chief executive of the Corporation of London.
I have no intention of speculating on matters that are best left to the police and the inquiry. I have confidence that robust work will be undertaken, and where criminal activity is found to have taken place, prosecutions to the full extent of the law will be brought. But lessons have to be learned and things have to change. I hope that we never again hear the nonsense that we have heard in the past about red tape and health and safety regulations. It is clear that, rather than having too much regulation, there has in this case been a catastrophic failure. Regulations were either not good enough or were not followed and applied thoroughly and properly.
The checks on tower blocks throughout the UK need to continue as quickly as possible. I pay tribute to the residents of Camden who have been affected by the right decision to evacuate their blocks, which are deemed by the authorities to be unsafe, and to the leadership shown by the leader of Camden council, Councillor Georgia Gould, who has been there on the ground speaking to residents. It would be welcomed by the whole House if we were given further details of the work being undertaken by the Government Property Unit to oversee checks on wider public sector buildings.
Cladding is not the whole story. That is clear from the Lakanal House and Shirley Towers fires, as the respective coroners’ reports show. Can the noble Lord tell the House what plans the Government have to provide up-front funding to local authorities to take recladding measures, the installation of sprinkler systems or other fire precaution measures rather than the after-event funding through the Bellwin scheme? I welcome the independent advisory panel that is being set up, but the Statement repeated by the noble Lord seems to suggest that the system is at the point of collapse, and urgent action must be taken. We need to do that quickly.
Last Thursday, the Prime Minister said,
“we simply have not given enough attention to social housing”.—[Official Report, Commons, 22/6/17; col. 169.]
I would suggest that the Government have given plenty of the wrong attention to social housing. Schemes such as the National Tenant Voice have been scrapped. The social homes build is down from 37,000 to 1,000, and Homes and Communities Agency funding for the Decent Homes programme has been ended. What we need now from the noble Lord is a commitment to do everything to ensure that the Prime Minister’s promise is not just empty words and that we will see a complete change of course by the Government in support of funding for social housing so that we have truly affordable homes in this country.
Baroness Pinnock (LD)
My Lords, I start by declaring my interests as a councillor elected in Kirklees and as a vice-president of the Local Government Association. I join with what has already been said in tribute to both the fantastic work of the emergency services on the night and to the ongoing support that has now been put in place by a combination of charities, faith groups, community groups and finally—although too late—the Government and local government. I have three major areas of concern following the Grenfell Tower fire.
The first area is that of care for the victims of the fire. The initial co-ordination of this huge and probably preventable catastrophe was a fiasco. As I said in this House last Thursday, accountability in the political process is absolutely vital if we are to retain trust between those who are elected and those who are represented. I called for the leader of the council in Kensington and Chelsea to take responsibility for the fact that 79 people have died in a council building on his watch. I cannot believe that a leader elsewhere in the country would not have resigned by that point. I repeat my call of last Thursday and I trust that some Members on the government side will talk to the leader and urge him to take responsibility.
A second element in the area of care for the victims is the co-ordination of ongoing support for them. I understand that the Government are implementing the Bellwin scheme, which provides recompense to councils and other authorities for the emergency costs of the work they do. That is positive, but I am concerned about the work that they ought to be doing to support the children who have been involved in this awful trauma. They are a particular concern of mine because of my interests. Are their welfare and ongoing education needs going to be well supported for a very long time, because that is probably what they will need?
My second major area of concern is that of prevention, referred to by the Minister in the Statement. What we absolutely must ensure is that there are no other buildings where further loss of life could take place. My understanding is that all building materials have to be passed by the British Board of Agrément, which determines whether the materials are fit for purpose and how they can be used. I have not heard in any of the statements in either this House or the other place whether this is the case for the materials referred to by the Minister; that is, the aluminium cladding. I would welcome an answer to that point.
The second element in the area of prevention is that I am particularly concerned about schools. I am a governor of a school which should be opening in September. It is being built through the government scheme. As I speak it is being clad and does not have a sprinkler system because the requirement for such systems in schools has been removed. No doubt the Minister will not be able to respond, but a number of schools are currently being built around the country. Will they have sprinkler systems put in and will the cladding be checked?
My third area of concern is that of costs. We have heard that the emergency costs are to be covered by the Bellwin scheme, but we expect that cladding which fails the checks will have to be replaced. Who is going to pay for that? If there are some 600 tower blocks, numerous schools and some hospitals which did fulfil the building regulations but latterly discover that the cladding material is combustible, who will fund the enormous cost of recladding those buildings? I doubt whether cash-strapped local authorities will be in a position to fund replacement cladding, and similarly I doubt whether the NHS will be able to meet the cost of recladding buildings. It is not responsible in the sense that, if the building regulations were complied with, in my view the costs ought to be met by the Government.
Localism Bill
Lord Kennedy of Southwark Excerpts(14 years, 3 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Baroness Hanham
My Lords, Amendments 54, 55 and 56 are technical amendments that ensure, in line with our original policy intention, that where a fixed-term assured shorthold tenancy is demoted, the tenant can be given another fixed-term tenancy upon successful completion of the demotion period.
Without these amendments, such tenants would automatically become periodic assured “lifetime” tenants on successful completion of the demotion period. That would clearly be unfair—in effect, a reward for behaving anti-socially in the past—and mean that private registered providers would in practice be unlikely to demote fixed-term tenancies, rather than simply seeking to evict for anti-social behaviour. These amendments ensure that private registered providers of social housing who demote fixed term assured tenants are in the same position as local authorities who demote flexible tenants. I beg to move.
Lord Kennedy of Southwark
My Lords, I accept that these government amendments are to correct a drafting error. I am pleased that someone spotted it before the Bill left your Lordships’ House. Well done to whoever did that. It would be regrettable if we had had to waste valuable parliamentary time correcting this error at a later stage if it had passed into law. The substantive amendment clarifies that a fixed-term tenant should get another fixed-term tenancy on successful completion of the demotion period. From these Benches we have no objection whatever to that. Time is getting on and I will leave it there.
Lord Best
Once again the House of Lords consideration of this Bill has led to a really sensible change to the legislation. I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, alongside the noble Lord, Lord Newton—I have supported these amendments all the way—on persuading the Minister who I know has handled this with great distinction. On behalf of all the organisations which have been extremely worried about this and all the people whose complaints will now be better handled, I thank the Minister very much.
Lord Kennedy of Southwark
My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness for moving the amendments. They are a work in progress. I also thank my noble friend Lady Hayter for her amendment which would reduce the period before referral from eight to six weeks. I hope that the Government will accept my noble friend’s proposal.
I never really got to the bottom of why it was such an issue for the Government. Looking back to the debate on Report, it was not only Members from the Labour Benches who expressed such concerns but Members from all sides. I have always thought that the democratic filter would do nothing to improve the process of enabling tenants to resolve their complaints. The Government’s proposals allow a tenant with a complaint direct access to the ombudsman after going through a process or on the refusal of a designated person to send it on.
When the noble Baroness responds to the debate, will she say how the ombudsmen satisfy themselves that either of the two conditions for direct referral have been met? I hope that that will be something very simple, such as the copy of a letter or an e-mail confirming that the complainant has gone through the process and the period of time has elapsed, or the refusal of a designated person, as I do not want to see added burdens on the complainant.
At this point, I would like to add my thanks to the Minister, other noble Lords on all sides of the House and the Bill team as we draw to a close on this Bill. This is the first Bill on which I have contributed to your Lordships’ House’s discussions from the Dispatch Box. It has been an interesting learning curve for me. I hope, in particular, that I have been of assistance to my noble friends Lord McKenzie of Luton and Lord Beecham. I again thank the Minister for bringing these amendments back. They are very welcome.