Oral Answers to Questions

Angela Rayner Excerpts

Wednesday 24th April 2024 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the deputy Leader of the Opposition.

[Angela Rayner (Ashton-under-Lyne) (Lab)]

First, may I share the Deputy Prime Minister’s comments regarding our Jewish community and wish them a happy Passover? I wish to acknowledge the loss of David Marquand and Baroness Massey, both of whom made historic contributions in Parliament, politics and wider life. I also send my condolences, following today’s news, to the family of Lord Frank Field, who was a good friend of mine and a colleague. He was a tireless campaigner against poverty and a champion for his constituents.

Mr Speaker, I know that the Conservative party is desperate to talk about my living arrangements, but the public wants to know what this Government will do about theirs. Natalie from Brighton has been served with two no-fault eviction notices in 18 months. She joins nearly a million families at risk of homelessness due to the Deputy Prime Minister’s failure to ban this cruel practice. Instead of obsessing over my house, when will he get a grip and show the same obsession with ending no-fault evictions?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

To begin with, it is a pleasure to have another exchange with the right hon. Lady in this House—our fifth in 12 months. Any more of these and she will be claiming it as her principal residence.

On the issue of no-fault evictions, it may have escaped the right hon. Lady’s attention, but we will be voting on exactly that matter later today. This is the Conservative Government taking action.

[Angela Rayner]

The Deputy Prime Minister clearly thought that he could spend all week obsessing over my living arrangements and did not even bother to read up on his own Government’s Bill this afternoon. The reality is that he caved in to vested interest on his Back Benches and delayed justice for people like Natalie. This week, the Housing Minister said that there is no solid date for banning no-fault evictions. The Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities now says that it will not happen before an election. If the Deputy Prime Minister can give us a date, will he name it now?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

I can name the date for the right hon. Lady: today. It is today that the House will vote on it, and I am confident that, in line with our manifesto, we will deliver on that commitment.

[Angela Rayner]

The Deputy Prime Minister clearly has not been looking up his own Government Bills. Let me turn to another Tory housing failure. Leaseholds are a rip off and a con, but the Government’s proposed ban on new leaseholds applies only to houses. The majority of leaseholds are in flats. What is the point of a ban on new leaseholds if it will not apply to flats?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

Again, the right hon. Lady is talking about legislation introduced by this Government that the Labour party totally failed to introduce in its entire time in office. It is no surprise, because it is this Government who have brought social housing waiting lists down by nearly half a million, and delivered more affordable homes in the last 12 years than Labour delivered when it was in office. Of course, all this can only be paid for by ensuring that we have a strong economy. Her policy to repeal every single Conservative trade union law in the first 100 days would open the door to French-style wildcat strikes, sweeping away the reforms that made this country great. We all know, though, the one reform by Margaret Thatcher that the right hon. Lady would not abolish: the right to buy your council house.

[Angela Rayner]

I was expecting a little bit better from the Deputy Prime Minister. He seems to be a bit worn out. Maybe it is the 3 am calls from the “bad men” that have been keeping him up at night. He talks about strikes and the unions. We have had more strikes under this Government’s watch than at any time before. Once again, he has not read his own Bill. Their ban on leasehold will not apply to the majority of people. It is like banning non-doms but exempting Tory Prime Ministers. He speaks about affordable homes. Families are trapped in temporary accommodation and stuck on waiting lists, and in the west midlands the Conservative Mayor has used his multi-million pound housing budget to build just 46 social homes in eight years. That is almost as many as in the Chancellor’s property portfolio. The British people know that the Conservative party will not build the homes that this country needs, so when will they get a chance to vote for a Government who will?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

I am surprised that the right hon. Lady raises the west midlands when Labour-controlled Birmingham has virtually bankrupted the council and is hiking up council tax by 21%, while in the meantime—I am sure that this would please her—continuing to hand out £1.8 million to the trade unions. By contrast, Andy Street, our brilliant Mayor of the wider west midlands, has delivered £6.1 billion of investment to improve transport. There you have it: the contrast between the Conservative party and the Labour party, and the usual political opportunism from her, failing to ask about the issues that really matter. If you want more bin collections, more potholes filled, lower debt and lower council tax, vote Conservative, because whether it is Ben Houchen in the Tees Valley or Andy Street in the west midlands, it is only the Conservative Mayors who deliver more for less.

[Angela Rayner]

It is pretty revealing that the Deputy Prime Minister thinks that housing is not an issue for the British people; I think it really is. People in glass houses should not throw stones, because in Birmingham and across the whole country, councils are facing black holes because of his Government’s austerity programme. I warn the Deputy Prime Minister that Tory councils have also faced section 114 notices, and Birmingham City Council has had over £1 billion taken from its budget—from some of the poorest people. More than 16,000 families face losing their home after the Tory party’s mini-Budget, and mortgage bills continue to soar. Meanwhile, the former Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for South West Norfolk (Elizabeth Truss), parades around the world in a twisted victory lap promoting her new book, saying that the mini-Budget was her proudest moment. Since she will not apologise to those families losing their home, will he?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

What the Prime Minister has done since he has taken office, with the Chancellor, is to restore stability to our economy, with inflation halved and more, down to 3%. As a result of that, in an increasingly dangerous world, the Prime Minister was able to announce his plan for the biggest strengthening of defence spending in a generation. But it should come as no surprise that the Labour party refused to say whether it backs that, because this comes from the right hon. Lady who voted to scrap Trident and to install in Downing Street someone who wanted to change the Army into a peace corps. There you have it.

[Angela Rayner]

The right hon. Gentleman talks about defence. We all want to see 2.5%; the difference is that we have not cut the Army to its smallest size since Napoleon. Never mind some secretive deep state, it is the state of the Tory party that is the problem. The Tories are in a deep state of sewage. After 14 years they have failed renters, they have failed leaseholders and they have failed mortgage holders. I read with interest that the right hon. Gentleman has been urging his neighbour in No. 10 to call an election, because he is worried they might get wiped out. Has he finally realised that when he stabbed Boris Johnson in the back to get his mate into No. 10, he was ditching their biggest election winner for a pint-sized loser?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

I think the whole House will have heard, despite all the bluster from the right hon. Lady, not a single word on whether she would actually back our plans to invest in our armed forces. No plans, in a dangerous world. Of course, as ever, the deputy Labour leader is always looking to attack others’ failures, but never one to take responsibility for her own. She once said, “You shouldn’t be waiting for the police to bang on your door. If you did it, then you shouldn’t be doing your job.” The right hon. landlady should forget her tax advice and follow her own advice.