Bob Blackman
Main Page: Bob Blackman (Conservative - Harrow East)Department Debates - View all Bob Blackman's debates with the Leader of the House
(10 years, 4 months ago)
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Jim Fitzpatrick (Poplar and Limehouse) (Lab)
I join the hon. Member for Southend West (Mr Amess) in wishing you, Madam Deputy Speaker, and all the House staff a happy Christmas and a great 2014. It is always a pleasure to follow the hon. Gentleman, a fellow West Ham supporter, especially on the day after one of our rare wins this season, which has struck a cheerful note. I will not speak on as many subjects as he did. I want to cover only two—the Deputy Leader of the House is nodding in approval—which are the individual case of my constituent Mrs Afsana Lachaux, and the firefighters pension dispute, about which I shall speak briefly.
Afsana Lachaux is a friend of mine, who has been a constituent. She moved to Dubai, but is now stranded there. She is a UK citizen and a Muslim in a Muslim country, but being a woman, she is at a great disadvantage because she is in dispute with her husband over the custody of their child following the breakdown of their relationship.
For nearly three years, I have tried to help the family to resolve this case. I had very good support from the former Foreign Office Minister, the right hon. Member for North East Bedfordshire (Alistair Burt), and I have engaged with the Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office, the right hon. Member for Faversham and Mid Kent (Hugh Robertson), while our staff in Dubai have also tried to do what they can to help, so I am not making any criticism about that. There has been criticism from the family, who do not think that enough is being done by me, the Foreign Office or our consular staff in the Emirates, but if I was in the family’s position, I would probably feel exactly the same. Their relative—their mother, their sister—has been completely stranded. She has been accused by her estranged husband, who has a record of domestic violence, of all manner of criminal activities. She has been arrested by the Dubai police. She has been jailed. She has been beaten up. She has had the most horrendous experiences at the hands of the Emirati authorities in Dubai.
Sadly, although Afsana is a Muslim, because she is a woman in a Muslim country and because she is being reported by a man, even though he is French and, I believe, is not a Muslim, she has to explain and defend herself to each set of police officers who come to arrest her and, when she goes to report at police stations and is detained, she has to go through the elaborate process of explaining her circumstances all over again. She is not able to work and is surviving on what her family can send to her from London.
To compound Afsana’s misery, she found out last month that her husband had divorced her and had successfully sued for custody of their child in a sharia court in Dubai more than 12 months ago. The rule in the UAE and under sharia law is that if 12 months have lapsed and the decision of the court has not been challenged, it is no longer appealable and is upheld. She was divorced and lost custody, but was not even aware of the fact.
As Members can imagine, this woman, who has been brutalised, feels totally isolated, completely let down by everybody in authority and persecuted by the authorities in Dubai. She has now found out that she has lost those legal cases. That is a dreadful situation to be in.
I am taking the opportunity to raise the matter this afternoon to demonstrate to the family that people here care about Afsana and that the Foreign Office and the consular officials are working on the case. The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office, has agreed to meet me and I have had meetings with his predecessor on the matter. We have tried to meet the French ambassador. I have had a meeting in the past two years with the UAE ambassador. Sadly, given that child custody is involved and given the nature of the case, it is very difficult to penetrate the legal procedures in the Emirates and in Dubai.
I want to place on the record my appreciation for the efforts that have been made. I hope that we can redouble them to help Afsana escape and to challenge the custody decision of the courts in Dubai. Afsana’s sister, Rosina Aman, who is my constituent, and her son, Rabbhi Yahiya, will appreciate everything and anything that can be done to help their relative.
The second issue that I want to raise is the firefighters pension dispute. There is pretty much consensus among those on both Front Benches that the retirement age for firefighters had to be changed. That was certainly the case when I was fire Minister. The terms of the pension scheme were that firefighters had to take compulsory retirement after 30 years’ service or on reaching the age of 55. It was felt that a number of firefighters could work and wanted to work past that. The changes to the rules were supported by the Labour Government and they have been amended recently by the coalition.
There has been a big change in the situation that has led to the fire disputes that have raged across our country for months. When we put forward our proposals, my understanding was that firefighters would not be penalised if they had to retire early on the basis of fitness or health and that their pensions would not be unfairly reduced if they could not stay on until 60. That has changed partly because of the cuts, partly because of austerity and partly because of the success of the fire service in reducing the number of calls, fires, deaths and injuries. That is partly the result of better building regulations and procedures being introduced over the past 50 years, notwithstanding the point that the hon. Member for Southend West made about fires, which was entirely valid. Overall, because we mostly live in double-glazed and insulated homes with central heating and because fewer people smoke, there are fewer fires. The fire service’s education and prevention teams have been extremely successful in reducing the number of fires, and therefore the number of injuries and fatalities. The authorities therefore think that we need fewer firefighters and fire stations.
Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)
Does the hon. Gentleman agree that we discard far too early the experience of firefighters who have given most of their lives to saving lives? If firefighters are not fit to do the really physical work, there are key jobs that they can do in fire prevention, fitting smoke alarms and giving general advice to all sorts of public authorities. Their experience should be used for the betterment of society, not thrown away.
Jim Fitzpatrick
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman because that is exactly the point that I was trying to establish. When we anticipated the extension of the retirement age to 60, we did not think that every operational firefighter would be fit and healthy enough to work until 60. We thought that opportunities would be found for them in back-room jobs in fire prevention, school education and all manner of support roles to ensure that we took advantage of, and did not waste, the experience that they had accumulated over many years on the front line. However, because of austerity and the cuts and reductions that have been made in the service because we do not need as many fire stations and firefighters, there are many fewer such positions for firefighters who are not fit to fulfil other duties.
Under the new rules that the Government are trying to push through, firefighters are faced with a massive reduction in their pension if they go before 60. We never anticipated that there would be such a punitive element in the pension arrangements because, as part of the new deal, firefighters are being asked to contribute another 2.6%, which takes their deductions up to 12.6%. Many of us know the fire Minister, the Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, the hon. Member for Great Yarmouth (Brandon Lewis), and we have a lot of time for a number of the things that he does. Everyone on the Government Front Bench keeps describing the firefighters pension scheme as generous. It is a good scheme, but they are expected to pay 12.6% for it and the reason for that is deaths and injuries. The scheme is valid and valued, as it ought to be, because of the nature of the job.
Colleagues regularly stand up in this House to applaud the role that has been played by the emergency services in dealing with some tragedy, disaster, flood or storm. These people risk their lives for us on a daily basis. In their view, they are being forced to take industrial action because nobody is listening. They might have to take a hit of up to a 50% cut in their pension because they cannot last until 60. I am 61 and am relatively fit. I know what that job is about because I did it for 23 years. I know what it is like to be on strike. No emergency service worker wants to go on strike. They risk their lives for 365 days a year and then they have to walk out the door and deny the community that they want to protect the ability, discipline and professionalism that they have built up.
This is a monstrous situation. My appeal to the Deputy Leader of the House is that he takes the strong message back to the fire Minister, the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government and the Prime Minister that we need serious negotiations. As the hon. Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman) said, if there are places for firefighters to work away from the front line, they will fill those places.
Lyn Brown
I honestly cannot answer that question, although I can say that at the different times in my life when I have had internal examinations the pain has varied, and that as I have got older, the examinations have become more painful. I have been told by some women who have had babies—which, sadly, I have failed to do—that they have found the examinations less painful after their pregnancies. However, some have told me that they become more painful with the menopause. Indeed, when my mother had a similar examination, she told me that it had been excruciating, and that was when she was quite old.
I am not sure that there are any research findings out there that would answer the hon. Gentleman’s very sympathetic question—certainly I have not found any—and I think that this is something that we need to know more about. However, a study published by the British Medical Journal in 2009 concluded that a local anaesthetic injection was the best method of pain control for women undergoing hysteroscopies as out-patients.
I have struggled to decide what I need to ask the Government to do in order to ensure that women receive the best possible care and treatment while undergoing this procedure. It is difficult for me to know that, because I am not a medic. However, I do think it is reasonable to ask the Government to use all the influence they have over policy in this area to require the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence to work with the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists to issue authoritative guidelines. I also think the Care Quality Commission may well have a role to play in ensuring that best practice is delivered locally at each hospital.
Bob Blackman
I have listened with horror to these terrible experiences suffered by women. Is the hon. Lady aware of any other such treatments to either men or women where anaesthetics are not provided yet people are in such pain on such a general basis? That would clearly be a matter of the whole health service not doing a proper job, compared with a narrow field that we can possibly deal with very quickly.
Bob Blackman
(Harrow East) (Con): It is an honour to follow the hon. Member for West Ham (Lyn Brown). Last night I endured the great pain of West Ham inflicting a second home defeat on Tottenham in a season, which has not been known since I have been alive. At the beginning of her speech, I wondered whether the pain that the ladies she mentioned were going through was anything like the emotional pain I felt last night, but my pain pales into insignificance compared with what women are being put through at the hands of the NHS, and I thank her for bringing that matter to the House’s attention.
It is the great benefit of these debates that we can bring matters that otherwise would not be aired to the Chamber. At this time of year, when we often think of ourselves, our parties and our families, we should also think of those underprivileged people who are less fortunate than ourselves. I shall concentrate on the private rented sector, the overuse of beds in sheds and the massive overcrowding in many parts of the country, which is a growing menace to the whole of our society.
It is a fact of life that 9 million people now rent their homes right across England. That is fine and people make that choice—or alternatively, they have no choice. In my own borough of Harrow there are now twice as many privately rented homes as there are homes in the entire socially rented sector, whether it be council or housing association properties.
I am a member of the Communities and Local Government Committee. When we looked at the private rented sector, one of the problems highlighted in the evidence we received was that the poorer quality of the private rented sector housing damages the health and well-being of the people who live in those homes. The English housing survey conducted earlier this year shows that properties in the private rented sector have the lowest proportion of the three standard insulation measures—cavity wall insulation, good loft insulation and full double-glazing—and they are most likely to fall into the lowest energy efficiency bands. Over a third of private rented homes are not classified as meeting the decent homes standard. We would not expect people to live in socially rented accommodation of that standard, and the number of private rented homes is almost double that of socially rented homes. At the same time, almost one in five fail the housing health and safety tests, compared with just 9% of social sector dwellings. Also, damp is more likely to be found in private rented sector accommodation than in any other type of housing, and it is less likely to be dealt with by landlords. That is a scandal that must be addressed.
There are currently few requirements on landlords, and few ways in which tenants can complain about a property and get things put right. Tenants often refuse to complain about the quality of a property because the landlord could evict them rather than fixing the problem. These problems often befall those on the lowest incomes, who have the least choice about where to live. They and their families therefore have to live in unacceptable conditions. Landlords often evict tenants without reasonable cause, and the tenants have no right of redress, even when they have not caused a problem. Tenants do not have the rights that they probably should have.
Jeremy Corbyn
I am listening to the hon. Gentleman’s speech with interest. I intend to follow much the same theme when I speak later. Does he agree that one of the many problems associated with the private rented sector is the six-month assured shorthold tenancy? It gives the landlord no incentive to respond to a tenant’s demands and, because the tenant has no security of tenure after the six months, they are unlikely to complain. Also, the tenant has no incentive to do anything in the community because their prospects of remaining in the area are so limited.
Bob Blackman
When we were gathering evidence for our report, the Communities and Local Government Committee went to Berlin, where people have much longer tenancies and where a partnership approach is taken between the tenant and the landlord. That is a much more appropriate way of dealing with these matters. Unfortunately, the use of six-month assured shorthold tenancies has grown in this country, more often than not to protect landlords by giving them the right to evict a tenant and recover the property if they so choose. These concerns clearly need to be addressed. We need longer tenancies that give greater assurance to tenants and place greater responsibility on landlords. It would also be helpful if landlords became members of the housing ombudsman service. In that way, they would be more likely to carry out the necessary work and the tenant would have a means of complaining if that did not happen.
I am sure that all hon. Members have houses in multiple occupation in their constituencies. When five or more persons form two or more households in a building, it is a requirement for the landlord to register that property as an HMO. Unfortunately, there can be all sorts of issues involved, including whether fire safety standards are being met. It is a fact of life that, under the terms of the Housing Act 1985, the maximum penalty for operating an unlicensed HMO is currently £20,000. In my borough, there are 89 registered HMOs. I encountered a case three weeks ago in which a three-bedroom semi-detached property was found to be housing no fewer than 11 adults, none of whom was connected in a family sense. They were sharing bedrooms and all the other facilities, and they were each paying £160 a week in rent. That was a nice little earner for the landlord. The property was not registered as an HMO. There are now 100 such cases under investigation in Harrow, and I believe that they represent the tip of a very large iceberg.
Lyn Brown
I recognise much of what the hon. Gentleman is saying. Those problems are certainly replicated in Newham. During the last Parliament, I tried to get HMOs reclassified according to the actual occupancy, rather than to the size of the house. Does he agree that such a reclassification would be very helpful?
Bob Blackman
I agree completely that that is one remedy we have to take on board.
I cannot speak about what is happening outside London, but in London the charges for HMO applications vary: Harrow council charges £1,200 for an application, which lasts for five years, and then there is an £850 renewal fee; Brent, our near neighbour, charges between £800 and £1,200, depending on the licence length; Ealing charges £970 plus £30 per habitable room; and Lewisham charges £180 per unit of accommodation, up to £1,800. Non-London authorities seem to charge much less. The fee seems to be discretionary and a council could drop it to encourage registrations, thus enabling properties to be examined and tenants to be protected.
As we have seen, we also face a challenge on beds in sheds. The Prime Minister was taken this week to a property in Southall that would have disgraced a third world country, yet a number of individuals were being forced to live in incredible conditions there. The Government have taken some action to try to close down beds in sheds, but often we are talking about illegal immigrants in accommodation tied to a job they are undertaking, which is provided through gangmasters and the equivalent. In addition, service providers such as local authorities and the health service are being forced to provide services without any income coming in; these properties will attract a certain amount of council tax, but not the sort of sum they should, given the number of people living in them.
Last May, £1.8 million was given to nine councils to tackle the problem of beds in shed: Brent, Ealing, Hillingdon, Hounslow, Newham, Peterborough, Redbridge, Slough and Southwark were all given money. The trouble is that that addresses only the tip of the iceberg; it does not address all the other boroughs where the problem is occurring. Ealing subsequently stated that it had carried out 4,500 site inspections in a year, in addition to unannounced fortnightly raids, but unfortunately the landlords were running rings around the officers.
In February, a BBC “Inside Out” investigation found two high street estate agents renting out beds in sheds without residential planning permission, including one in Willesden Green, in Brent. Rent payments of £1,000 per month were being taken. It was noted that the owners often claim that these converted buildings are more than four years old and so cannot have planning enforcement taken against them by the local authority.
Some actions have been taken across England on this issue. Slough borough council spent £24,000 on conducting a heat map across the borough during the early hours of the morning. That identified 6,139 properties where it was believed that beds in sheds were operating—that is just in one borough, which shows the extent of the scandal. The hon. Member for West Ham referred to Newham, and the Communities and Local Government Committee has taken evidence about the action that its mayor and council are taking to identify and take enforcement action against the outhouses that are being put up without planning approval. I believe that that work has been extended to tackle other illegal activities by landlords. I understand that over the past year the council has taken 80 enforcement actions on beds in sheds, but a further 230 are still pending against properties in multiple occupation, which shows the extent of the problem in one London borough. We might have extended negotiations with landlords, but it seems as if these rogue landlords, who give other private landlords a bad name, need to have stringent action taken against them.
We must also consider the fire risk. The London fire brigade has estimated that over the past four years there have been 341 fires in buildings that appear to have had people living in them when they should not have been. Those blazes have caused nine deaths and 58 serious injuries.
I have mentioned the fact that illegal immigrants are often in such properties. We might reason why that would be. Migrants who are not here legally are often given low-paid jobs, are paid in cash and have insufficient income to pay the normal rents for accommodation, so they take accommodation from the employer or gangmaster in order to maintain their presence here. They also want to be able to send money home to their families. They are kept in poor conditions, under threat of being reported to the authorities and sent home. There is a lot of anecdotal evidence of people traffickers accommodating their victims in illegal structures, particularly in the London borough of Ealing. Furthermore, if the trafficked victims escape and get work as undocumented migrants, they may resort to living in illegal structures anyway because the rents are often lower and more affordable from their low earnings.
Lyn Brown
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his kind words about Newham. The action that the council has taken over the past couple of years has been important and effective in probably saving lives. We had a death in a shed from a fire way back before 2010. Local schools tell me anecdotally that people who are here legally and who have status are not necessarily aware of their rights. People who have come from abroad and are living here on very low incomes are exploited by the unscrupulous landlords he has been talking about.
Bob Blackman
Clearly, as the hon. Lady says, people who are here legally and have the proper status are often not aware of their complete rights and therefore are exploited by unscrupulous individuals acting as landlords.
One of the consequences of the changes in housing benefit has been to encourage young people under the age of 35 to go into shared accommodation because that is the only rate of housing benefit they will qualify for. I welcome that as a move towards ensuring that accommodation is used properly, but as more and more people share housing in the private rented sector, there is the unfortunate consequence of overuse and overcrowding of such properties.
Under the right circumstances a local authority may be able to force a landlord to repay rent or housing benefits if an HMO is unlicensed. Unfortunately, it appears that this is not well known among the public or even among London authorities or councils outside London. If it were known about, it would immediately dissuade landlords from taking in vulnerable people on benefits and exploiting them.
What do we do about the problem? It is up to local authorities to enforce the rules. If a landlord is operating an HMO—I have written to my council about a huge number of properties that I suspect are HMOs but are unlicensed—appropriate and stringent enforcement action needs to be taken to fine the landlord and to make sure that the properties are brought up to a decent standard. A clear attitude should be adopted towards rogue landlords who give good landlords a terrible name.
Proper advice needs to be given to people who rent properties so that they understand their rights, what they can demand and what they can take on. There should be accreditation and licensing for private landlords, particularly those that choose to operate HMOs. It should be for Government and the Department to ensure that tenants and landlords are educated about their rights and responsibilities.
There is hope on the horizon. There was a case in which a landlord, who happens to live in my constituency, was operating a property empire in the neighbouring borough of Brent, where he put 28 flats into four houses. He was prosecuted and ordered to pay £303,112 under the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002. This demonstrates that local authorities can use their power to stop rogue landlords in their tracks and take appropriate action. Rogue landlords will listen to only one thing: losing their income and assets. We must ensure that the people living in those properties are given decent facilities to live in.
Jeremy Corbyn
The hon. Gentleman is making an important contribution. Does he agree that it would be a good idea to have much better co-ordination between London boroughs, perhaps through the Mayor’s office, on chasing down rogue landlords and, as the Select Committee recommended, to have a much simpler form of harmonisation for all the regulations so that landlords and tenants know their rights within the existing law, never mind those that might be introduced in future?
Bob Blackman
I completely concur with the hon. Gentleman. We must rationalise the regulations to make them simpler and easier to understand and to ensure that the responsibilities are clearly understood. We must co-ordinate action across the London boroughs in particular, but the whole of England—and beyond, I suspect—is affected by those activities. Whether that co-ordination is done through London Councils or the Mayor’s office, for example, should be determined outside this Chamber.
However, it is equally clear that one of the problems is the level of bureaucracy. The mayor of the London borough of Newham pointed out that a landlord has to fill out a form for each property when registering, which seems to make no sense for the landlords who operate a good service, compared with the rogue landlords, who ignore the rules anyway. We need to identify those landlords and the properties that are not properly registered and ensure that the rules, which should operate for everyone’s benefit, are implemented thoroughly and appropriately. I think that there is a potential for doing what the London borough of Brent did last year when it enforced the rules on a particular rogue landlord to ensure that all the others understand their responsibility and know that they will not get away with it.
In my borough I have called on the council to operate a similar heat map so that we can identify, in the early hours of the morning, all the properties that do not have planning permission and are not registered as HMOs but appear to have people living in them. Anecdotally, I know that in many parts of my constituency homes have been built in gardens. Of course, they have been built as garden huts to shelter lawnmowers and other items of garden equipment, but uniquely they have kitchens, bathrooms, beds, windows, curtains, central heating and double glazing. That is clearly an affront to the planning rules. It means that the council is losing council tax income and that people are frequently being forced to live in substandard properties.
It is clear that this is the tip of an iceberg. It needs Government action now. I welcome the fact that they have undertaken to fund a few local authorities that have a problem, but we need to encourage every authority that realises it has a problem to take enforcement action to end it and to bring the people causing it to justice.
I conclude by wishing you, Madam Deputy Speaker, the staff and all hon. Members a merry Christmas and a happy, peaceful, prosperous and above all, particularly from my perspective, healthy new year. I trust that we will all have an enjoyable time over the recess.
John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)
That was an extremely helpful speech from the hon. Member for Harrow West—
John McDonnell
I am sorry—how could I?
I hope to re-launch our housing campaign in Hayes and Harlington in the new year, and many of the themes the hon. Gentleman set out are echoed in many constituencies across London. Some of the solutions he set out—particularly the engagement of local authorities—are critically important. I welcome the Government’s additional money for Hillingdon, but it did not go far enough. A much more serious approach is needed.
My hon. Friend the Member for West Ham (Lyn Brown) made a terrific speech, which needed to be made, although it was excruciating to hear about the pain that women have gone through. If she needs support in campaigning on any of the issues she raised, I am sure that she secured it across the House today.
I wish to raise a number of issues as briefly as possible. It would be remiss of me not to mention the threat to my constituency from the proposed third and fourth runways at Heathrow. Many of my constituents, particularly in Harmondsworth and Longford, will be sitting down this Christmas faced with the threat of their homes being bulldozed. We saw what happened with the original third runway proposal for Sipson, where a compensation scheme was introduced and BAA bought up virtually all the properties. People are living in those properties, but the life of the village—some have described it as a shell; I do not think it is that bad—is somewhat different from what it was. We are engaging the new residents in community life as best we can, but the blight caused by the threat of a runway being built over their homes has resulted in the loss of a large number of residents who had lived there for generations.
The threat now extends across to Harmondsworth and Longford, and beyond into West Drayton, which was represented by the right hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Sir John Randall) in former years. A population of 10,000 to 15,000 people now face an overall threat to their accommodation and from noise and pollution. Parents are sitting down at Christmas thinking that their home is going to be demolished some time in the future. They are planning their children’s education knowing that two of the best schools in our area—Heathrow and Harmondsworth primary schools—would be bulldozed as well. It looks as though other schools, particularly along the M4, perhaps Pinkwell and Harmondsworth primary schools, would be rendered unusable as a result of noise and air pollution.
The right hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip talked about Cherry Lane cemetery becoming an issue again. The last time we had this misfortune, the BAA documents that were leaked to us demonstrated that the road network that would service the new runway and the expanded airport ran through Cherry Lane cemetery. In particular, it ran through the children’s area of the cemetery, and that of course caused immense distress within my community. That threat will return with the road structure that would be proposed for the new third and fourth runways.
I am also worried that Harmondsworth village will be obliterated, and that includes St Mary’s church and the mediaeval barn. Linked to St Mary’s church is the graveyard, which is still being used. Ironically, Keith Dobson, one of the prime campaigners with me over the past 40 years against a fourth terminal, a fifth terminal and a third runway, is buried in St Mary’s churchyard. It would be a tragedy if we had to disinter the bodies of our relatives and friends as a result of this.
John McDonnell
The right hon. Gentleman will remember that in our previous campaign, John Wilkinson, who was the Member for Ruislip-Northwood and served on the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, raised that very point. It was one of the key issues that was raised at the time of our very broad-based campaign against the expansion of Heathrow airport.
I want Members to go away and think how devastating the announcement from the Davies commission is for these families. However, I am optimistic, as I think the right hon. Gentleman is, that we can defeat this. Any Government who sought to expand Heathrow airport, which would impact on perhaps 2 million people in terms of noise and air pollution, would face opprobrium. The political impact would be significant; I think it would determine a shift in a number of seats. On that basis, I cannot see any Government politically sustaining the policy of expanding Heathrow airport.
Just in case anyone tries, let me give this warning: we will campaign on a scale that this Government and previous Governments have never seen before. It will be a campaign in which we mobilise local residents, but because of the impact across London, it will unite communities across London. There are already plans for a march all the way from Harmondsworth through every constituency affected—all the way through west London and into central London—which will garner support as we go along. It will be a crusade that will march right the way through west London and pick up hundreds, if not thousands of people in opposition to the Government. There will also be support from green campaigners who are concerned about the impact of the expansion of Heathrow airport on climate change. There will be direct action campaigns by environmentalists.
Last time this happened, a climate camp appeared in my constituency: 1,000 people turned up overnight, built a village and launched a direct action campaign, which contributed to influencing the Conservative party to change its policy. I warn the Government that people will not lie down and let their homes be bulldozed and their schools demolished, and they will not be threatened with having to dig up their dead from the cemetery. People will fight back, and as part of that fightback I will convene a meeting at Heathrow primary school on 16 January. I encourage Members to come along, because it will be the first discussion among local residents on the implications of the Davies announcement.
On the HS2 link, which the right hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip has mentioned, ours is the only area in the whole country that does not yet know where HS2 will go. We have been denied the opportunity to engage in a consultation on the route, because the Government will not reveal the route into the airport. That has resulted in uncertainty in the community. It will be a blight on the area and, to be frank, the community is angry, because it no longer trusts politicians or Governments on any issue of infrastructure in our area. I do not mean this as a party political point, but for the Prime Minister to explicitly say,
“no ifs, no buts, there will be no third runway”,
only for us now to face not only a third but a fourth runway, does not inspire confidence in the Government’s attitude to any infrastructure development in our area, including HS2.
I urge all parties in the House to agree that the decisions on the options for runway and aviation expansion and for the HS2 route into Heathrow airport should not be delayed beyond the next election. The Davies commission was politically and strategically timed to report after the next general election, to get every political party off the hook. The electorate will not find that acceptable. They will see it as another politician’s ploy not to be honest with the people who will be affected by both schemes.
It behoves all political parties to come to an agreement that the final report of the Davies commission should be published before the general election, and individual political parties should go into that election explaining honestly to the electorate their position on aviation expansion. They also need to explain to my community their position on the link between HS2 and Heathrow. It will be seen as fundamentally dishonest of all the political parties if they do not state their case and demonstrate to the electorate their position on aviation expansion. If they do not make their position clear, people will see through them and they will get angry, and when people get angry with politicians and feel that the democratic and parliamentary process is not working for them, they will take to the streets. It will encourage even more direct action and more disillusionment with politics in this country.
I also want to address the Fire Brigades Union dispute, which my hon. Friend the Member for Poplar and Limehouse (Jim Fitzpatrick) has mentioned. We face potential strikes by firefighters on Christmas eve, new year’s eve and beyond. None of them want to take action and go on strike; they want a resolution. The dispute stems from the previous Government’s proposals to increase the retirement age of firefighters under the pension scheme. The Williams review submitted evidence to the Government of concerns about the physical capacity of firefighters undertaking duties beyond a certain age. That was ignored by the Government, and they went ahead.
My hon. Friend mentioned the argument made with regard to other jobs, as did the hon. Member for Harrow West—
John McDonnell
I am so sorry. I have a directional problem: I am lost once I get north of the A40, I am afraid.
It was proposed that those firefighters who were incapable of completing all of their duties could be moved to other roles, but then, unfortunately, the cuts took place and we identified that, in one year, there were only 15 vacancies to which front-line firefighters could be transferred in way that would enable them to continue in work and to pay into their pension and earn a wage. The reason for the disputes was that employers and the Government refused to recognise that there was an issue about the capability and fitness problem faced by firefighters. A strike took place, which at least led to a breakthrough in that employers recognised that there was an issue that had to be addressed. Negotiations took place on eight points, but they basically foundered on two main ones.
The first, which was mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Poplar and Limehouse, was the risk of having no job and no pension. Firefighters find that they physically cannot do the job, which all the evidence points towards. To be frank, I do not want a geriatric firefighter coming up a ladder to rescue me, and all the evidence demonstrates that as firefighters reach 55 or 60, their capability goes down. In addition, there is further evidence about the—short—longevity of firefighters after they retire.
Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Lab)
I am pleased to be able to contribute to this debate. Sadly, I start with a complaint. Although I welcome the opportunity of a Christmas Adjournment debate and the fact that a Member can raise any issue they want, the system that we have had in other times when there have been themed debates with a Minister replying is a far more satisfactory way of dealing with parliamentary business. I do not doubt that the Deputy Leader of the House will report in great detail to each Minister concerned and ensure that we get an answer, but the whole point of the House of Commons is to hold the Government and Ministers to account rather than using it as a sounding-board Chamber where anyone can raise anything they like and it then disappears into the ether.
I strongly compliment the staff here—as I am sure does everyone else—for their work, loyalty, and sympathy to both Members and the public. They often do a difficult job, and I admire them enormously and want to put on record my thanks to them. As a Parliament, we should value them a lot more. As my hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) said, the treatment of the staff in the Tea Room, their change of contracts and deteriorating working conditions are simply not good enough. We should be much better employers and we should value the service and the loyalty that those staff give us. We need to remember that we should provide a good example of employment practices and not work on the basis of gross exploitation of people. Indeed, we should not be losing our very good and experienced staff. We should reflect on that. None the less, in the same spirit as everyone else, I wish all the staff here a good Christmas and new year and thank them for the work that they do.
Like the hon. Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman), whom I compliment on his contribution, I want to raise the issue of housing in London. I represent an inner-city constituency, which has somewhat different characteristics from those of Harrow. Nevertheless housing is a huge issue. Roughly speaking, my borough divides 40:30:30—council and housing association houses and social rented accommodation make up about 40% of the borough’s housing; private rented houses about 30% and owner-occupied houses 30%. The owner-occupation rate is well below the national average, and falling very fast. The private rented sector is well above the national average and rising very fast. The social ownership section is increasing a bit through the work of the housing associations and the council’s commendable building programme to try to provide homes for people who desperately need them.
The problem we have is an enormous housing list of people in often desperate housing need. The chances of them being housed in a council-owned house or a housing association place are very limited, so the council fulfils its obligations to them in the only way it can, which is by placing them in the private rented sector. Many of those private flats are not in the borough; they are some distance away. That in itself creates a problem. The applicants accept the accommodation because they have no choice. They aspire to return to the borough, so the large numbers of families who are placed outside the borough make very long journeys to ensure that their children maintain a place at the same school, which is important from the point of view of the continuity of education for primary school-aged children.
The other issue is that the benefit level cap on housing expenditure, the housing allowance, is way below the average rent in the private sector. The transitional money the Government approved on the introduction of the cap is drying up and disappearing. Frankly, what we are going through is nothing more than a process of social cleansing from inner London, as families on benefit—sometimes in work, and sometimes not in work, as it affects them almost equally—can no longer remain in the borough and must therefore be accommodated elsewhere. That exacerbates the whole problem.
We have a high degree of housing stress among those families. I meet families all the time and I am very worried about the impact of such a degree of housing insecurity on a whole generation of children as they grow up. Members of this House all earn a good salary, have reasonable accommodation to live in and do not feel a sense of housing insecurity. We should try and put ourselves in the mindset of young parents trying to bring up children in the private rented sector knowing that they have no security of tenure and could lose their flat within six months. If they complain, they are likely to find that their tenancy is terminated. The effect on the parents is extreme stress, but the effect on the children is great uncertainty about their place in life and the ability of their parents to provide for them. We are damaging a whole generation of people through the housing policies that are being adopted in this country.
I am not making a partisan point, because my party, when in government, certainly did not do enough to build the necessary new housing. It certainly did not do enough to bring in much tougher regulation of the private rented sector any more than this Government have. I applaud what my council is trying to do by developing new council properties of a good and high standard and what it has achieved through the decent homes standard. The estates are in a much better condition than they ever used to be. Nevertheless, we live in an area where property prices are rising fast. I think I am right to say that more than 80% of the borough does not earn enough money to be able to buy a property within Islington, so the only option for those people is the private rented sector.
There are areas in which the sector must be reformed, and quickly. I have with me a copy of the report by the Communities and Local Government Committee on the regulation of the private rented sector, which is an interesting, well-written document that calls for the simplification of the regulation of the private rented sector and better education of both landlords and tenants. I agree with all that. Sometimes, the report’s proposals are a bit too timid but I agree with the general thrust of what it is trying to say.
We must be a little bolder. I introduced a ten-minute rule Bill on the subject, and I want to see fundamental change in three areas of the private rented sector. The first is the role of the letting agents. At the moment, there is almost no regulation of letting agents. Anyone can set up a letting agency, there are no checks on them whatsoever and anybody can claim to be a letting agent and start renting out properties. I think they should all be regulated so we know who is working where, so that they have to provide proper information to all prospective tenants, and so that they are not allowed to introduce arbitrary and often totally unfair charges such as search fees, which are always non-returnable and often expensive. There should also be much clearer explanation for prospective tenants of what they are getting into.
Agents are also often deeply discriminatory. A sign in a window that reads “No DSS” shows first of all that they are deeply out of date with the structure of the social security system in this country—it is now the Department of Work and Pensions and it is a housing allowance, not DSS as it was about 20 years ago—and also fundamentally discriminates against somebody who is perfectly legally claiming what they are entitled to from the DWP. Why should they not be allowed to rent because they are claiming? The investigation by “Panorama” showed the race discrimination and racial profiling by the agencies, which are a scar on our society that deeply disfigures people’s lives and life chances. Discrimination is wrong in any aspect, whether it be financial in respect of benefit claimants or racial discrimination as operated by some agents. We must have proper regulation of these agencies.
A number of London boroughs are actively considering setting up their own letting agency to manage the number of people they place within in the private rented sector and offering the service to landlords and tenants alike. I think that would be a wholly good thing—it would be properly run, properly managed and probably a lot cheaper for everyone concerned than the present system.
The second area relates to points raised by the hon. Member for Harrow East about the condition and maintenance of private sector properties. Yesterday, I met an interesting gentleman from the Electrical Safety Council, who told me his concerns—they were held by the fire service and many others, too—about the lack of regular electrical checks in the private rented sector. It can often be an extremely dangerous place to be. There are supposed to be gas checks and all kinds of checks, but they are often never carried out.
I have had experience of tenants in the private rented sector making wholly legitimate complaints about the condition of their flat—the lack of insulation, the poor quality windows, the high energy bills they incur because of all that and infestation by vermin. They usually find that nothing is done about that, and if they contact the environmental health service, they might find their tenancy terminated at the first possible opportunity by the landlord. It is scandalous that if tenants try to exercise their rights, they lose their property. Although that might mean that environmental health can enforce better conditions for the next tenant, it is not much help for the tenant who has been evicted for having the temerity to try to exercise their rights.
The third area is probably the most controversial—the question of the rent levels charged. If I look across the whole country, I realise that the rent levels charged in the private rented sector vary enormously, often over quite short distances. The rent levels in central London are massive; if we move a short distance towards the outer London boroughs, the rent levels are a bit less; if we move a bit further out of London, they become much less; if we move to other regions in the country, the rent levels might not be the main problem, but there could be other areas of regulation.
My private Member’s Bill—I have no notion of whether it will ever become law; certainly not in this Parliament, although I hope the idea will become law at some point—is not only about empowering local authorities to set up letting offices and agencies, but about requiring simplified advice to be given to landlords and tenants about how the properties will be operated. Authorities will also have the power to impose a level of regulation on the rent levels charged in the private sector.
In that respect, a number of formulae could be adopted. One would be simply to take a figure and declare it to be a reasonable rent for the area. Rent levels could be based on the capital value of the property and the cost of maintaining its value if money has been borrowed to purchase it. Alternatively, because the structure of the private rented sector is changing fast, we could require large private sector landlords—there are some of them around nowadays—to provide at least 50% of their properties for rent at an affordable level, as we would require for any new large housing development.
If we do not regulate the private rented sector, we are condemning, in the case of my borough, a third of the population to a life of insecurity—and the numbers of private rented properties are likely to rise considerably over the next few years. All the predictions are that while it is around 17% nationally now, it will probably be 25%, if not more, by the end of this decade. Other countries manage to have a pretty fully regulated private rented sector. The hon. Member for Harrow East referred to the Select Committee visit to Germany, which has a very regulated private rented sector—often, interestingly, with much larger landlords, who often manage the properties a lot better.
One of the problems in my constituency is that it contains a large number of very small landlords who only ever think of the headline return in the form of the rent. They never think of the cost of maintenance, the cost of repairs, or the cost of simply managing a property. We need to devise a much better system. The Select Committee report was a good start, but the Government’s response was more than disappointing. No doubt we shall return to the issue in the future.
Let me end with this thought. We all want to enjoy a nice Christmas—who doesn’t?—but we also want to enjoy a degree of security in our lives, and I think that we should consider for a moment the very large number of people who live in the private rented sector. Not all landlords are bad; some are good, decent, generous people who look after their tenants in the way in which we would all want to be looked after ourselves; but, unfortunately, not all of them are like that. There are some terrible rogue landlords, and some terrible practices. We used to say awful things about Rachman and what he did in winkling secure tenants out of north Kensington all those decades ago, but there are very few secure tenancies now. Landlords no longer need to winkle people out. They can end assured shorthold tenancies after six months, move another tenant in, and charge the new tenant a higher rent—and so the whole situation continues.
If we are to maintain the social and cultural diversity of London, and indeed other cities, we must maintain the diversity of housing, and of housing options and opportunities. Like all Members, I visit hospitals, Royal Mail sorting offices, police stations and fire stations. I always ask people where they live, and I find that fewer and fewer of them can afford to live in central London. They are commuting for longer and longer distances, at greater and greater cost to themselves.
We must address the housing issue. Yes, we can do that by building more houses and providing greater security and better conditions, but what is crucially and urgently needed is proper regulation of the private rented sector, so that we can provide the sense of security that we would all want for ourselves.
Bob Blackman
On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. At the beginning of my speech, I inadvertently failed to draw Members’ attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. May I correct that through your good offices, and apologise to the House?
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
I think that the clarification is already on the record.