Renters (Reform) Bill

Debate between Caroline Lucas and Angela Rayner

2nd reading
Monday 23rd October 2023 Commons Chamber

[Angela Rayner]

We need legislation for decent homes alongside these provisions. I hope that we can get into that, and how we can protect people, in Committee. As the Secretary of State acknowledged, at the moment many families face a situation of inadequate housing, which goes beyond the scope of the Bill. I think we all agree that that needs to be addressed as soon as possible.

[Caroline Lucas]

On decent home standards, would the right hon. Lady support the integration of Awaab’s law into the Bill? We are talking about delays, but my concern is that if those provisions do not make it into the Bill right now, our constituents, including some of mine in Brighton, will still be living in absolutely atrocious accommodation, with water streaming down their walls, mould and kids getting ill.

[Angela Rayner]

If we can address that in the Bill, we should push for it, but we should also push to ensure that, whether in social housing or private rentals, people should have confidence that their homes are safe. Homes should be a safe place, but at the moment, that is not the case for too many.

Huge swathes of renters have been left paying a heavy price for the Government’s inaction on section 21. This is real for people such as the Brady family, who live in Wiltshire and have experienced two no-fault evictions in the past two years. Mr Brady is a gardener and Mrs Brady works full time. After being forced out of their home, where they had lived for 15 years, they have resorted to living in their van. The family are able to bid on council houses when they become available, but so far, everything has been at least an hour away from where they live. Mr Brady said:

“There is a housing crisis and there are reasons behind it—you can use whatever excuses you want but it is a political decision. It was a political decision not to build enough houses, it was a political decision to sell off the social housing stock.”

Those are not my words but the words of a man who would still have a roof over his head if the Government had not dragged their feet.

I feel that more delay is inevitable. Conservative Members threatened in the newspapers this weekend to choose their self-interest over the national interest by opposing or delaying the Bill. They do not want to see these changes enacted. Then, on Friday evening, the Department snuck out the suggestion that section 21 changes are dependent on court improvements, which could take years to complete. Today we discovered—not from an announcement to the press, to Parliament or to the public, but from a leak—that that is indeed the core part of a grubby private deal that the Secretary of State has struck behind closed doors with his own Back Benchers. So the Government who broke our justice system are now using their own failure as an excuse to break their own promises.

Just how long will it take? Can the Secretary of State promise that the Government will meet the pledge they made at the last general election, which he mentioned, before the next general election? Renters simply cannot afford any more excuses or delays; he must provide clarity on that. [Interruption.] I know that he is a confident Secretary of State—he says so from a sedentary position—and I have confidence in his abilities, but people who are facing section 21 notices cannot afford any more dither and delay. He will get support from those on the Labour Benches in enacting this legislation to protect families who need protection.

We think that the Bill is a good starting point. We fear that a number of loopholes have been left in it, however. One such loophole is the commencement clause, which leaves Ministers the power to decide when—or, perhaps, whether—to actually bring an end to section 21. But that is not the only loophole. I hope that the Minister will engage with us constructively in Committee to close all those loopholes and strengthen the Bill in a range of areas.

For example, the new grounds for and protections from evictions are a welcome step, but the details on those grounds remain vague. On evictions, there remains a loophole by which renters are protected only for the first six months of their tenancy if their landlord decides to sell the property or move back in. That time limit needs to be increased as part of the Bill to give renters proper protection.

On section 21, it is not just a question of when the law is implemented but of how. Every household threatened with homelessness by a section 21 notice has the right to assistance from their local council to prevent them from becoming homeless, but the Bill removes that right to immediate help. That loophole could lead to a huge spike in homelessness and must be closed.

Procurement Bill [Lords]

Debate between Caroline Lucas and Angela Rayner

2nd reading
Monday 9th January 2023 Commons Chamber

[Angela Rayner]

I say to the right hon. Member that we do not have a system that works. That is pretty clear to me because we can see the disastrous waste that currently happens in the system, and because companies that should be rewarded with contracts are not, while others get around the system.

I think we should go further still by finally shedding light on the amount of taxpayers’ money being shelled out to tax havens. Labour will push for the Bill to introduce full transparency about whether suppliers pay UK taxes, as well as public country-by-country reporting by multinational corporations. A Labour Government would go further by using public procurement to drive up standards of responsible tax, including by asking big corporations and businesses publicly to shun avoidance and artificial presence in tax havens.

Transparency is not just a nice thing to have; it actually saves money. A lack of transparency in the procurement system reduces competition and increases costs, leaving the taxpayer to shoulder the burden, so the adoption of open transparent contracting makes good financial sense. It leads to a more competitive procurement process and, ultimately, to cost savings.

As I said earlier, being granted public money is a privilege, and suppliers should in turn uphold the highest standards in the workplace. The Bill is an opportunity to drive up standards across the economy and ensure that public procurement is used as a means to promote decent work throughout supply chains and to reward businesses that treat their workers right. We must back the workers and the employers who create Britain’s wealth by using procurement to raise the floor on working conditions for all. I hope that the Minister will engage openly in Committee with proposals to include good work and the promotion of quality employment as strategic priorities.

That brings me to outsourcing. This Government have become too dependent on handing away our public services on the cheap, and we are all paying the price. It is ideological and not based on sound service delivery. The Bill presents an opportunity to introduce measures to end the knee-jerk outsourcing trend and to ensure that, before any service is contracted out, public bodies consider whether work could not be better done in house. When I worked in local government, we coined the phrase “not outsourcing but rightsourcing”. That is what a Procurement Bill should facilitate.

The pandemic showed us that a decade of Tory Government had shattered the resilience of British businesses and services and of our local economies. Instead of handing out billions to British firms to deliver services, jobs and a better future, big contracts were given to Tory cronies and unqualified providers. The Tories eroded standards at work, encouraging a race to the bottom.

But it does not have to be this way. From the Welsh Government and London’s Labour Mayor to local governments in Manchester, Southwark and Preston, Labour in power is showing that things can be done better. What we need is a public procurement policy that the public can trust and that will make winning contracts a force for our country’s good. Not more sticking-plaster solutions but a Bill that will restore trust in the way public money is spent.

[Caroline Lucas]

I was trying to time my intervention for just as the right hon. Lady was finishing her remarks. Before she finishes, does she agree that one of the reasons why procurement is so brilliant is that it has a vital role to play in greening our economy? Again, the Bill does not go far enough on that. In particular, it does not include scope 3 emissions in supply chains, and the Government will not meet their own net zero targets unless they start accounting for those emissions. Does she agree that that is a big hole in the Bill?

[Angela Rayner]

Absolutely. I listened to the Minister’s response to the hon. Member’s question earlier, and it showed a lack of ambition. Those of us concerned about environmental factors, as we all should be, are also concerned that the Minister is not putting the necessary gusto into the Bill to ensure that those issues, including meeting the net zero targets, are really factored in. I hear a lot of words, but when it comes to the legislation that will enable us to do that, I do not see the practice being delivered. The next generation will hold the Government to account for the disaster they will be given if we do not act now. We know what the science says and what needs to be done, but this Bill does not do enough to ensure that it happens.

I want a Bill that will restore trust in how public money is spent, will have social and environmental factors in it, and will make British industry the best it can be so that workers in this country get the best they can get. I urge the Minister to use this opportunity to plough taxpayers’ money back into local communities so that we can make, buy and sell more in Britain, claw back our money when it is wasted, and outlaw VIP lanes once and for all.

Standards in Public Life

Debate between Caroline Lucas and Angela Rayner

Tuesday 7th June 2022 Commons Chamber

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

I beg to move,

That this House recognises the importance of the Ministerial Code for maintaining high standards in public life; endorses the Committee on Standards in Public Life report entitled Upholding Standards in Public Life, Final report of the Standards Matter 2 review; calls on the Government to implement all of the report’s recommendations as a matter of urgency; and further calls on the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster to make a statement to the House on the progress made in implementing the recommendations by 20 July 2022, and each year subsequently.

It is always a pleasure to stand opposite the Paymaster General. In this House, we are proud of the constituents we represent, and I am no different: from Droylsden school to St Peter’s and St Mary’s, from our town team to Tameside markets, Ashton-under-Lyne did our country proud this weekend. I am proud of our British values and the community that I come from—we all are—but the conduct of this Prime Minister undermines those values: rigging the rules that he himself is under investigation for breaching, downgrading standards and debasing the principles of public life before our very eyes.

There is nothing decent about the way the Prime Minister has acted. What example does he set? This Prime Minister’s example of leadership is illegally proroguing Parliament, breeding a Downing Street culture in which his staff and he himself felt able to break lockdown rules, and putting the very standards that underpin our democracy into the shredder.

The Prime Minister promised a new ministerial code in April of last year. It has taken him 13 months—13 months of sleaze, shame and scandal—and what has he come up with? In the very week that the Sue Gray report laid bare the rotten culture at the heart of Downing Street, the rule breaking on an industrial scale and the demeaning of the pillars of our great democracy, the Prime Minister made his choice—and what did he decide? Not to strengthen standards, but to lower the bar.

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

The right hon. Lady is making a powerful speech. Does she agree that, when faced with a rogue Prime Minister, a mere adviser on the ministerial code is dangerously inadequate? We must have an independent enforcer. So long as this unfit PM retains the ability to override his own adviser on the finding of a breach, the adviser—in the words of the chair of the Committee on Standards in Public Life—is left “critically undermined”.