Planning Decisions: Local Involvement

Helen Hayes Excerpts

Monday 21st June 2021 Commons Chamber

[Helen Hayes (Dulwich and West Norwood) (Lab)]

Planning has a vital role to play in our response to the climate emergency, both in achieving net zero and in adapting to climate change which is already happening. It is critical in delivering the homes we need to end the housing crisis, and in delivering the infrastructure and services to support new residents. It is vital for economic development and the delivery of green jobs. At its most basic level, planning should be a framework for fairness. It should ensure that new development delivers what communities need, not what makes the most profit, and it should safeguard the things that they hold most dear. There is no doubt that our planning system is in need of reform, but this White Paper takes entirely the wrong approach. Locking communities and local councillors out of planning decisions on individual applications will not deliver more homes, better design, or zero-carbon development. It will create a developers’ charter for identikit places. Deregulating the planning system by expanding permitted development rights will mean that instead of protecting character and quality in our town and city centres they will be eroded, as shopping streets are pepper-potted with homes, and roofscapes become a mess of ad hoc two-storey extensions.

Instead of treating the planning system as inconvenient red tape to be swept away as much as possible, the Government should be seeking to make it fit for purpose for the challenges of the 21st century. From 2010, the Tory-Lib Dem coalition Government embarked on a bonfire of planning regulations, which removed many of the design standards intended to ensure low-carbon development, including the zero-carbon homes programme. That has resulted in more than a decade of lost time to deliver net zero, a decade in which new homes have continued to be built, which will now need to be retrofitted in the future when they could have been built to zero-carbon standards in the first place. The Government have been utterly negligent on low-carbon building, and making the superficial and subjective concept of beauty the core principle of their planning policy will do little to address that.

Our planning system cannot deliver the genuinely affordable social housing that we need without land reform. In the last Parliament, I introduced a ten-minute rule Bill to reform the Land Compensation Act 1961 to enable local authorities to purchase land for housing at an affordable price without having to pay enormous windfall profits to landowners. Such reforms would enable councils and housing associations to build the homes that our communities need without having to cross-subsidise them with private development.

In the short time that is left available to me, I urge the Government to think again and place climate change at the heart of the system, people at the heart of the process, zero carbon and genuinely affordable homes as the key priority for delivery, and land reform to stop windfall profits as a core concern.

Royal Mail

Helen Hayes Excerpts

Thursday 17th June 2021 Westminster Hall

[Helen Hayes (Dulwich and West Norwood) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Ms McDonagh, and I congratulate the hon. Member for Wantage (David Johnston) on securing this important debate.

I pay tribute to postal workers up and down the country for all that they have done throughout the coronavirus pandemic. Postal workers have been on the frontline. They have faced additional risks, and I know that the rate of coronavirus infection among postal workers has been significant. They have continued to provide vital delivery services and, more than that, have been a vital source of human contact for many people who have been self-isolating while living alone. Sometimes, they are the only person able to flag concerns about the health and wellbeing of residents. We all owe our postal workers a huge debt of gratitude.

It is worth noting how utterly inappropriate it was that, while Royal Mail’s frontline staff were continuing to deliver for the public, the then chief executive was spending the lockdown in Switzerland. I know that Royal Mail has undergone a change of leadership in recent months, and that is certainly very welcome.

My constituents understand the severe difficulties presented by the pandemic for all our public services, and Royal Mail is no exception. They understood the suspension of the universal service obligation in order to enable Saturday deliveries to be paused. They even understood when deliveries in some areas took place every other day, rather than daily. There is a great deal of good will and support for our postal workers. However, the problems experienced in parts of my constituency have at times dropped well below even a basic level of reliability. That is the issue that I will focus on, as well as the significant problems I have encountered with the monitoring and regulation of Royal Mail.

My focus is on the severe problems in the SE22 area of my constituency. Although there have also been periods of significant problems in SE19 and SE27, my understanding is that those have been primarily due to sickness absence linked to the pandemic and were relatively quickly resolved. The problems in SE22 run much deeper.

In 2017, Royal Mail announced its intention to close the SE22 delivery office, which serves East Dulwich, part of Dulwich Village and part of Peckham Rye, and merge it with the SE15 delivery office in Peckham. The local community protested against the plan, concerned that the SE15 office was difficult to access and very remote from some parts of SE22, and that it would be difficult for postal workers to complete their rounds because of the long distances and hilly nature of the routes between SE15 and parts of SE22. Royal Mail pressed ahead with the merger anyway just before the Christmas period in 2018, leading to a disastrous level of service at that time and chaos for many months afterwards. All the warning signs were there that Royal Mail’s arrangements for deliveries to SE22 lacked the resilience to cope with challenging circumstances.

At the start of the pandemic, delivery services in SE22 became completely unreliable, with residents on many different streets across the postcode area reporting that they were not receiving mail on a regular basis, sometimes for weeks at a time. That was a completely different scenario to pausing Saturday deliveries or even delivering only on alternate days, which residents would have understood completely.

The consequences for my constituents went way beyond inconvenience, though there was certainly plenty of inconvenience. The problems caused deep distress: older people living in isolation did not receive birthday cards and gifts; legal documents went missing; hospital appointments were missed; hospital appointments that had been cancelled due to the pandemic were still attended because the cancellation had not been received; death certificates went missing. One constituent had to attend court because she had not received a speeding fine in time to be able to pay it.

I have raised these issues with Royal Mail on behalf of every constituent who has been in touch with me. I have met Royal Mail on many occasions to seek answers and I visited the SE15 delivery office. It has been enormously frustrating that, although Royal Mail has responded to each individual query, it has never accepted the extent of problems with the service in SE22 or the impact on my constituents.

I have taken the matter to Ofcom, who also seemed powerless to intervene, largely due to the suspension of the universal service obligation. I hope the Minister will understand that there is a huge difference between pausing Saturday deliveries or delivering every other day and not providing any deliveries at all for weeks at a time. The accountability framework for a regulated service really should be able to account for that.

I have pieced together some of the problems and the action that Royal Mail could have been compelled to take if there had been more regulatory intervention. The first is not to have closed the SE22 delivery office in the first place, or to have been obliged to re-provide it in a more convenient location for SE22. There is currently no requirement for public consultation on the closure of delivery offices, and the requirement for the geographical coverage of delivery offices is too wide to protect an area such as SE22 from disastrous commercial decisions, and too wide, really, to be workable for an urban area such as London.

Once the severe problems became apparent last year, Royal Mail could have been required to explore temporary premises to alleviate the problems in the SE15 office, which were in part due to social distancing requirements, but it was not obliged to do so. It is also clear that over-reliance on vehicle sharing was a large part of the problem in SE22. Parts of SE22 are just too far away from the current delivery office to enable postal workers to set off by foot and complete their round within their shift.

Coronavirus meant that van sharing was no longer safe, but there was no requirement for Royal Mail to address that—as it did much later to good effect, by acquiring additional vehicles—apparently leaving large parts of SE22 unreachable for weeks at a time. It is also clear that staff sickness was a significant problem, as it was across many frontline services, but, again, there appeared to be no requirement on Royal Mail to take on additional staff to cover, despite the fact that it was responsible for a regulated service.

Finally, I want to flag immense problems with monitoring and accountability. Royal Mail has refused to provide me with performance data for the SE22 delivery office, despite problems over many months, which means that it is impossible to compare the experiences of my constituents against Royal Mail’s actual performance. The information provided by Royal Mail has often been far too broad to be properly transparent or useful. Royal Mail only publishes performance data at the level of south-east London, which is a huge area and entirely masks the variation in performance within individual postcode districts.



Royal Mail has been through a challenging time in recent years, due to competition from private delivery companies, but its fortunes have significantly improved during the pandemic and it recently reported record profits. As things stand, it will not be compelled to spend any of its profits on investing to deliver effective, reliable services for my constituents in SE22.

Royal Mail provides a regulated service, which is absolutely vital for residents and businesses across the country, and it is important that it is effectively regulated. I ask the Minister to look again at the regulatory framework for Royal Mail, in order to introduce a requirement for meaningful public consultation on proposals to close or move delivery offices, to tighten the rules on the geographical coverage of delivery offices in urban areas, and to introduce new performance data requirements to enable Royal Mail to be held to account in a meaningful way at the level of individual postcode districts.

Local Government Finance (England)

Helen Hayes Excerpts

Wednesday 10th February 2021 Commons Chamber

[Helen Hayes (Dulwich and West Norwood) (Lab) [V]]

I declare an interest as a vice-president of the Local Government Association.

Let me start by paying tribute to my local councils, Lambeth and Southwark, for the work that they have been doing to support local residents and deliver essential services over the past year. It has been an incredibly challenging time, but our local councils have been on the frontline of the coronavirus response, delivering emergency help and support at the same time as the need for many core services has also increased.

I pay particular tribute to Lambeth and Southwark council staff for their tireless work. Many frontline staff are from black, Asian and minority ethnic backgrounds and have continued to work on the frontline, despite knowing that they are at increased risk. Many are also parents who have been juggling their work, delivering services while home-schooling young children. I pay tribute to them for their commitment and public service at this very difficult time.

Our councils have also stepped up to meet needs where the Government have failed, particularly in relation to effective contact tracing and the provision of laptops for children struggling to access online learning. The Government promised councils that the additional costs incurred in responding to the coronavirus pandemic would be covered. Our councils took that commitment in good faith and incurred the costs that were necessary to support local residents, but they have been badly let down by this Government.

Councils across the country, including Lambeth and Southwark, are heading into the new financial year millions of pounds short of the funding they need. Councils have faced a triple whammy of additional costs arising from the pandemic and increased pressure on some existing services. They have faced a loss of income arising from the business rates holiday and the wider pressures on household incomes affecting council tax receipts and a loss of funding from fees and charges as local facilities such as swimming pools have had to close. Southwark Council has recently calculated that the additional costs of the coronavirus pandemic, combined with the loss of income over the past year, amount to £100 million.

After the additional Government measures, Southwark still has a shortfall of £23 million. That is the amount of the Government’s broken promise. The approach to this funding settlement exemplifies the Government’s lack of regard for local government and the vital role that it plays. Our local councils have seen more than a decade of cuts, which, in Lambeth and Southwark, has reduced their grant from central Government by more than 60%. The same public servants who have stepped up to respond to the coronavirus pandemic had already been stretched to breaking point by relentless austerity.

The public will not be fooled by the Government’s announcement of one-off single-year pots of money, which are sticking plasters on the gaping hole in local government finance. Forcing councils to increase council tax, a regressive tax that hits low-income residents hardest, does not raise anything approaching the level of funding that our councils need and is a very cynical approach.

Central to the challenges facing local government is the Government’s shameful neglect of adult social care. The need for social care reform and a new sustainable funding model has been clear for the whole of the decade that the Tories have been in power, but they have done nothing about it. The funding deficit in social care has been quantified many times. A total of £3 billion is needed just to meet current needs. The failure to come forward with practical proposals for social care reform and to publish the long promised White Paper means that 1.5 million people who are in need of care receive nothing and many more do not receive the level of support they need or, indeed, the level of support that any one of us would wish for our loved ones. Thousands of care staff are paid less than the living wage. Social care is the forgotten frontline of the coronavirus pandemic, left unprotected without personal protective equipment, while the Government allowed covid-positive patients to be discharged into care homes.

As a co-chair of the all-party group on adult social care and a former member of the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee, I can confirm that there has been no lack of cross-party work on social care reform. That social care has been neglected and council finances stretched to breaking point as a result, is the Tories’ responsibility alone. The Government’s approach to local government can be summarised as “Cut the funding and devolve the blame”. Our councils and our communities deserve far better than Tory cuts, cynical blame and regressive tax rises. I urge the Government to think again, and to scrap the regressive council tax hike, bring forward proposals for the reform of social care and provide the sustainable funding of our councils to deliver the services our communities rely on.

Homelessness and Temporary Accommodation

Helen Hayes Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd December 2020 Westminster Hall

[Helen Hayes (Dulwich and West Norwood) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Edward. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Westminster North (Ms Buck) on securing this important debate, her passionate speech and all the work that she does on this issue.

The work done by local authorities and voluntary sector organisations with additional funding under the Everybody In campaign at the start of the pandemic shows that homelessness is not inevitable, and that when there is the political will to end it great progress can be made. It is regrettable that the support shown at the start of the pandemic has not been sustained, and that many of those who had temporary respite are now back on the streets at a time when the weather is at its harshest and coronavirus is still circulating in the community.

I pay tribute to Crisis and the Robes Project. They work in my constituency, and will be working hard to bring people in from the cold again over the Christmas period, but I want to focus on the hidden homelessness crisis of temporary accommodation. The figures are stark. The numbers of households in temporary accommodation have been rising steadily since 2011, with 98,300 households in temporary accommodation in June this year, including 127,240 children. Those families are often in the worst accommodation available, with no stability or security, while councils pay over the odds to exploitative landlords.

The situation is a direct result of the dysfunctionality of the housing market, particularly but not exclusively in London, and the Government’s refusal to accept the reality of the gap between what the local housing allowance pays and what landlords actually charge. My constituency covers part of Lambeth and part of Southwark; I have figures from Southwark, but the situation is no different in Lambeth. The local housing allowance shared accommodation rate is £515.10 a month, but the median rent for a single room is £700—a gap of £184.90 a month.

For a one-bedroom flat, the LHA pays £1,146.86 a month compared with a median rent of £1,350—a gap of £203.14. For a three-bedroom home, the gap between what the LHA pays and median rent rises to £479.59. How does the Minister expect a family on a low income to find that additional rent? That is a very real, practical concern facing thousands of my constituents. The Government’s housing support policies simply ignore the reality of a housing market with spiralling rents.

There is much more to say, including on the dysfunctionality of our Dickensian immigration system, which traps people with no recourse to public funds for years at a time, while providing no timescale, certainty or closure on their applications. This Government, and Tory Governments for the past decade, have utterly failed to address our housing crisis, but it must be addressed. We need to build council homes and social housing at speed, but in the short term the Government must fix the affordability crisis and reform private renting to give security and stability to tenants, and stop so many people having to endure the misery of temporary accommodation.

Royal Mail: South-east London

Helen Hayes Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd November 2020 Westminster Hall

[Helen Hayes (Dulwich and West Norwood) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the Royal Mail service in south-east London.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Twigg. I start by paying tribute to our postal workers. During the coronavirus pandemic, they have been a lifeline for people across the country who have been unable to leave their homes; they have been delivering parcels to people unable to get to the shops and letters from loved ones who are unable to visit. As we enter a second phase of lockdown, the importance of their role is set only to continue. Postal workers have also been a vital source of human contact for people living alone at this time. They are spotting people who are struggling physically or emotionally, and often going the extra mile to offer support or raise concerns.

As frontline workers, our postal workers have faced additional risks. Many have contracted coronavirus. Some have, tragically, lost their lives. All have had to live with the additional anxiety experienced in a line of work that involves handling many thousands of individual items every day. While touching post boxes, knocking on doors and handing items across a threshold, they may come into contact with a deadly disease. I pay tribute to all of them. I know how hard they have worked to maintain collections and deliveries and serve our communities.

There is no doubt that, despite the best efforts of postal workers, coronavirus has brought challenges for Royal Mail, particularly in terms of staff sickness, and there has been a great deal of forbearance among members of the public for frontline workers doing their very best to keep going at an extraordinarily difficult time. However, in the East Dulwich part of my constituency, covered by the SE22 postcode, patience has run out.

In 2017, Royal Mail announced its intention to close the East Dulwich delivery office on Silvester Road in SE22 and merge it with the already busy SE15 delivery office in Peckham. The East Dulwich delivery office was clearly not fit for purpose at the time. Specifically, it was not big enough for the volume of mail being processed there at busy times of the year. But moving that workload to an already busy office in Peckham made no sense then and has continued to make no sense ever since.

I worked with local councillors and the community at the time of Royal Mail’s announcement in order to warn that the closure would result in a failure of service to my constituents in East Dulwich. Specifically, we warned that parts of East Dulwich were a very long way from the Peckham delivery office, which would make it difficult for postal workers to complete a round on foot within their shift; that the topography of East Dulwich, parts of which are very hilly, would further add to the difficulties; that public transport links to Peckham from parts of East Dulwich are difficult; and that there is no convenient parking near the Peckham office. We urged Royal Mail again and again not to close the East Dulwich delivery office without providing a fit-for-purpose replacement delivery office in the SE22 postcode area.

Nevertheless, Royal Mail management went ahead with the closure two years ago, just before the peak Christmas period in 2018. The result was total chaos, with delayed and missing post. Residents were left completely bewildered after Royal Mail continued to deliver “Sorry we missed you” cards with details of the closed East Dulwich delivery office and thousands of letters informing residents of the closure went undelivered. Royal Mail claimed at the time that it was not compulsory to tell local residents that their local delivery office had closed.

Services improved a little after that difficult Christmas, although many of my constituents continued to struggle to pick up post and parcels from the Peckham delivery office, due to its inaccessibility from large parts of East Dulwich. It is also clear that there is very little resilience in the arrangements for East Dulwich deliveries, so staff sickness and annual leave have continued to lead quite quickly to unreliable service.

However, the coronavirus pandemic has tested East Dulwich delivery services beyond breaking point. Since the start of the pandemic in March, constituents across the SE22 postcode area have reported that their postal deliveries are entirely unreliable. On many streets, residents report not receiving deliveries for days and sometimes weeks at a time.

Residents across East Dulwich have been inconvenienced, but many individual constituents have suffered consequences that are far more serious than being inconvenienced. Among the constituents suffering the most serious outcomes of this collapse in service are those who have missed important hospital appointments for critical health conditions, those whose relatives’ death certificates went missing and those required to shield who did not receive the Government’s advice on how to keep themselves safe.

In addition, dozens of replacement bank cards went missing, leaving some constituents unable to buy food online at a time when they were unable to leave their homes. Cheques went missing, including one for £4,000. One constituent now has to attend court for no other reason than that the letter informing her of a speeding fine arrived after the deadline for paying the fine had passed. Parcels for students leaving home for university have not been delivered before the start of term, and there are many cases of legal documents relating to power of attorney, care arrangements or conveyancing being lost or greatly delayed.

Royal Mail announced at the start of the pandemic that it was suspending Saturday deliveries. Also, Ofcom has confirmed that it considers the coronavirus pandemic to constitute an emergency and that Royal Mail is not required to sustain services without interruption in the event of an emergency. However, there is a huge difference between dropping Saturday deliveries and leaving my constituents without any deliveries at all for two or three weeks at a time. I believe that there is a serious gap in regulation, because if Royal Mail is not currently required to meet the universal service obligation, my constituents effectively have no way to hold it to account.

I want to draw attention to the context in which my constituents are suffering such serious consequences. While postal workers across the country have been serving on the frontline of the coronavirus pandemic, Royal Mail’s chief operating officer and outgoing chief executive were both working from home, in Germany and Switzerland respectively. The outgoing chief executive, whose abrupt departure was announced in May, had received a golden hello of £5.8 million, a sum that could have been used to hire 252 postmen and postwomen, just a few of whom would have been able to sustain reliable services for my constituents in SE22. The SE22 Royal Mail delivery office on Silvester Road in East Dulwich was sold for £7.5 million and is currently being developed for luxury flats, carefully designed to fall just below the threshold requiring any affordable housing.

Royal Mail has announced a suspension of delivery of dividend payments for the current financial year. There is no doubt that the organisation faces some serious challenges, but it is also clear that a privatised model for delivering this vital public service has not worked. The twin objectives of delivering the universal service obligation and a return to shareholders are not compatible. As a consequence, we see an organisation that, despite cuts and asset-stripping, is failing my constituents.

I have been in regular contact with Royal Mail since the start of the pandemic and I recently visited the Peckham delivery office. It is clear that staff there are working very hard, but they are being failed because their work environment is not fit for purpose. Voluntary van-sharing, which would compromise the safety of postal workers just as we enter the second wave of coronavirus, is not the answer either.

Also, although I receive replies from Royal Mail on behalf of my constituents regarding each individual failure, Royal Mail has never acknowledged the cumulative failure of its services in SE22 or the seriousness of the problems caused for so many of my constituents.

I have a number of questions for the Minister. Will he join me in raising the catastrophic failure of Royal Mail in the SE22 postcode area in East Dulwich at the most senior levels in Royal Mail and Ofcom, and in calling on Royal Mail to reinstate a delivery office in SE22? Does he agree that a regulatory system that does not allow for any accountability when the universal service obligation is suspended is not fit for purpose? Will he commit to a review of the regulation of Royal Mail? Will he take action to ensure that Royal Mail can no longer unilaterally close and sell off delivery offices without clearly demonstrating that it will not result in repeated failures to deliver the universal service obligation, as has often happened to the residents I represent in East Dulwich? Does he agree that Royal Mail should not be run by absentee, arm’s length executives domiciled overseas? Does he agree that the payments to Royal Mail executives are excessive and should be used instead to fund additional postal workers in areas of staff shortage? Finally, does he agree that privatisation is failing to deliver the services my constituents need, and that it is vital to bring this vital public service back into common ownership so that it can be run for the benefit of people, not profit?

Planning and House Building

Helen Hayes Excerpts

Thursday 8th October 2020 Commons Chamber

[Helen Hayes (Dulwich and West Norwood) (Lab)]

I am grateful for the opportunity to speak in this important debate. Our planning system is critical to delivering on some of the most important challenges that we face: the desperate need for new homes to address the housing crisis and the urgent need to tackle the climate and ecological emergency, decarbonise our economy, and protect and enrich our natural environment. To meet those challenges, our planning system must establish a clear and ambitious vision for our country, set high standards for design and environmental performance, give strong protection to the buildings, spaces and landscapes that people value, and actively support the involvement and engagement of a wide and diverse range of voices in decision making.

Yet the Government are not concerned with reforming the planning system so that it can address those urgent challenges. They are applying the usual, natural Tory instinct to deregulate, regarding the planning system as red tape to be cut through rather than as a valuable toolkit that must be further improved to secure genuinely progressive, sustainable planning outcomes, particularly in terms of the provision of new, genuinely affordable homes.

The reforms proposed in the planning White Paper are undemocratic. They will reduce the opportunity for local people to have a say on planning applications in their neighbourhood. By front-loading community involvement to the plan-making process, communities will be denied the opportunity to have a say on the specifics of new development. Under the Government’s plans, communities will have a say on only the broad designation of the site and an identikit pattern book of designs. There will be no opportunity for residents to have their objections heard and considered by a democratically accountable planning committee.

The Tories are going even further than that, and removing the need for planning permission altogether in a wide range of circumstances. In 2013, the Tory-Lib Dem coalition Government relaxed planning rules to make it possible for empty office or light industrial buildings to be converted into housing without the need for planning permission. That policy resulted in some of the most appalling housing the country has seen this century, in unsuitable locations with no amenities and often not adhering to even the most basic standards of design.

The coronavirus pandemic has shone a bright light on the injustice and inequality of our housing system. The Prime Minister’s instruction to the country on 23 March to stay at home had profoundly different consequences for people depending on their housing situation. The experience of lockdown for people living in cramped, overcrowded, damp housing was worsening physical and mental health, family relationships strained to breaking point, an impossible environment for home schooling and, for those in the private rented sector, often the fear that as soon as the eviction ban was lifted they would be made homeless. Lockdown provided, lest we need it, a stark reminder of the public health consequences of inadequate housing, and the urgency of delivering the genuinely affordable homes that my constituents in Dulwich and West Norwood and so many people across the country desperately need.

The Government’s planning reforms allow building owners to convert shop units into housing without the need for planning permission. That will not result in high quality, affordable sustainable homes or thriving town centres and high streets; that will result in high streets and town centres across the country being undermined by gaping holes in their retail frontage, reducing further the critical mass of reasons for shoppers to visit and support local businesses, when across the country our high streets and town centres face a perfect storm of economic challenges.

We need a vision for every part of our country, based on high quality, low-carbon jobs, distinctive and special town centres at the heart of every community, good public transport connections and genuinely affordable homes. We need a planning system with the core purpose of addressing the climate emergency, delivering the new homes we need, improving public health and involving everyone in shaping the future of their neighbourhood to deliver those vital outcomes. The deregulated, identikit, box-ticking, algorithm-generated mess set out in the White Paper will not.

Town and Country Planning

Helen Hayes Excerpts

Wednesday 30th September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Christopher Pincher]

Through the prior approval process, communities and local authorities will have rights to say yes or to say no, and I shall say more about that. Existing permitted development rights for the change of use to residential properties already make an important contribution to housing delivery, helping us meet our ambitious plans for 300,000 new homes per year, but we have no intention of reneging on that ambitious commitment. That is why, in June, we introduced rights to allow an additional two storeys to be added to free- standing residential blocks of flats, and in July we extended that to allow for two storeys to be added to a range of existing buildings in both commercial and residential use to create new homes.

It should be remembered that landlords, including registered providers and local authorities, are able to use that right to add additional homes to their existing blocks, making it easier to increase the supply of affordable housing as well as market-rate homes. That will unlock over 8,000 new homes—not 800 but 8,000—every year. Eight thousand new dream homes for their residents, every one of which Labour is planning to oppose. By speeding up and simplifying the planning process, the permitted development rights will green-light schemes that might not otherwise come forward.

However, we must all acknowledge that not all existing buildings will be suitable for conversion, and so, to make it easier to reuse sites occupied by redundant and vacant buildings, we have introduced the new permitted development right to allow such buildings to be demolished and rebuilt as residential blocks of flats within the existing footprint, and to make better use of the site. The right also allows an additional two storeys to be added to the height of the original building. That right will support regeneration by delivering additional homes and redeveloping vacant, unused and unloved brownfield sites, which blight local communities. New homes, new opportunities, new dreams—hopes that will be dashed if Labour votes against these measures tonight.

[Helen Hayes (Dulwich and West Norwood) (Lab)]

Will the Minister give way?

[Christopher Pincher]

I will not give way. As a further safeguard, the local planning authority must advertise the prior approval applications and consult the owners and occupiers of any block being developed, as well as adjoining premises, to ensure that local voices are heard. We recognise, however, that further local consideration of all these proposals is needed, so the rights require prior approval by the local authority on a number of key planning matters before permitted developments can proceed. That ensures that local amenity effects can be considered. The look and the design of the new additions are also taken into account. The age of the building can be taken into account. In these cases, the rights provide for the local authority to grant or refuse prior approval. Conservation rights, listed buildings and scheduled monuments, areas of outstanding natural beauty and national parks are also excluded from these rights.

Windrush Day 2020

Helen Hayes Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd June 2020 Commons Chamber

[Helen Hayes (Dulwich and West Norwood) (Lab)]

In 2018, to mark the 70th anniversary of the arrival of the Empire Windrush at Tilbury, 22 June was designated Windrush Day, an annual day of celebration of the enduring contribution of a remarkable generation to the UK. Yesterday saw the third national celebration. I want to start by paying tribute to Patrick Vernon, who led the campaign for Windrush Day for many years.

I am proud to represent a constituency with one of the strongest connections to the Windrush. Around 200 of the original Windrush passengers made their way from Tilbury to Clapham, where they found temporary accommodation in the deep shelter on Clapham common. From Clapham, they came to the labour exchange on Coldharbour Lane in Brixton in my constituency, where they found work in many different occupations, including with London Transport, in the construction industry and in the NHS. Many then settled in Brixton and a community grew, bringing food and music, and establishing local businesses and churches. Their identity is inextricably linked with the Brixton we know today.

It is easy for celebration of the Windrush generation to become sentimental, commemorating the positive story of people who came at the invitation of the British Government and helped to rebuild a country decimated by the second world war and to establish the NHS. Yet that is to ignore the hardship and racism the Windrush generation suffered: the signs in homes to rent that read, “No blacks, no Irish, no dogs”; the humiliation of bus conductors, whose passengers would leave their fares on their seat to avoid contact—the pervasive, oppressive, grinding discrimination encountered in so many aspects of life.

The first official Windrush Day took place against the raw open wounds of the Windrush scandal. The Home Secretary had resigned and the Government had promised to right the wrongs that so many have suffered.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I commend the hon. Lady for bringing this to the House for consideration. Does she feel the angst that many of us feel that in December last year only 1,108 claims had been made and only 36 people had received money from the £200 million fund? Does she agree with me and others that it is disgraceful that those who need the money most cannot get anything?

[Helen Hayes]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. He makes the important point, which I will come to later, that as we celebrate Windrush Day we must also be mindful of the justice that so many of the Windrush generation are still waiting for. Two years on from that first Windrush Day, only 60 Windrush citizens, as he says, have received compensation from a Government scheme, which is complex and hard to access and far too slow to deliver.

[Matt Western (Warwick and Leamington) (Lab)]

I thank my hon. Friend for giving way to allow me to amplify that point. My understanding is that the compensation claims of people who applied in November-December time are still outstanding, and that is inexcusable, six months on. Perhaps I might join with her and put my name to her remarks about just how extraordinary that generation were, coming over here in the immediate aftermath of war, when we had lost so many men from the population. They contributed so greatly to rebuilding this nation.

[Helen Hayes]

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. That mismatch between the contribution that Windrush citizens made to this country, and their appalling treatment at the hands of the British Government and the wait that so many still have for compensation is something to which we must urgently turn our attention.

The Windrush generation are still living with the pain and devastation of the Windrush scandal. Stephen S. Thompson’s powerful drama “Sitting in Limbo”—based on the experience of his brother, Anthony Bryan, who lost his job, home and mental wellbeing as a consequence of the Home Office’s refusing to accept his status as a British citizen, despite his having been in the country since the age of eight—was devastating to watch. Even more excruciating was the news that Anthony Bryan still had not received compensation from the Windrush compensation scheme and was only contacted by the Home Office days before the drama was due to be screened.

Anthony Bryan’s experience mirrors that of so many of my constituents. The common experience of the victims of the Windrush scandal is that the Government’s compensation scheme does not function effectively or deliver the redress that they are due. I and other Opposition Members have voiced concerns about the scheme many times, and those have all too often been dismissed out of hand by Ministers.

[Ruth Jones (Newport West) (Lab)]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way, and I thank her for securing tonight’s debate. It is timely, and it is very important for me and many of my constituents across Newport West and across Wales. Does she agree that to show that black lives matter, we need the Government to show both urgency and compassion? They must right the wrongs of the Windrush scandal once and for all and pay those affected the compensation they deserve now.

[Helen Hayes]

I thank my hon. Friend for her powerful intervention. She makes a very strong and important point—that it is hypocritical for the Government to offer warm words in celebration of Windrush Day when, of the many thousands who were impacted by the Windrush scandal, only 1,275 have even applied for compensation so far, and of those, only 60 have received any money. There is still so much that the Government must do to put right the wrongs of the Windrush scandal.

[Jim Shannon]

The hon. Lady has just mentioned the figures for now. In the six months that it has taken for 100 claims to be lodged, only 14 have actually been processed. That underlines the issue, does it not?

[Helen Hayes]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. I have sat with constituents and filled out the form with them, compiled the documents, gone through that process, submitted the application, and we are still waiting months and months to hear anything from the Home Office.

I welcome the establishment of the new, cross-Government Windrush working group, and particularly the involvement in the working group of the Black Cultural Archives based in my constituency. Black Cultural Archives is a trusted organisation with deep roots in the UK’s black communities, and it has done so much to support the victims of the Windrush scandal. I pay tribute to its work. It is absolutely vital that it is funded to continue to provide that support, yet it is still waiting for applications to open for the £500,000 fund that the Government announced to support grassroots organisations. I hope the Minister might mention a timescale for that fund in his response.

I also welcome the Home Secretary’s announcement today that she has accepted the recommendations of Wendy Williams’ lessons learned review.  However, the Government have been far too slow, not only in relation specifically to the Windrush scandal, but in delivering the much wider reforms that are needed to address structural racism, including implementing the recommendations of the Lammy review on the over-representation of black men in the criminal justice system. I hope that the Minister understands just how low confidence currently is in this Government to tackle racism and structural racial inequality, and that there will not be confidence until sustained and meaningful action is delivered.

This year’s Windrush Day is celebrated against the backdrop of a new and additional scandal: the disproportionate impact of coronavirus on black, Asian and minority ethnic communities. The stories of the Windrush generation and the NHS are intertwined. The Empire Windrush arrived at Tilbury just weeks before the founding of the NHS. In my constituency, that connection is embodied in a single street. At one end of Coldharbour Lane was the labour exchange; at the other end is King’s College Hospital, which was and is still substantially sustained by the commitment, skill and care of BAME nurses.

Yesterday, I took part in an event organised by the Runnymede Trust to mark Windrush Day by celebrating the role of BAME workers in the NHS. We heard from academic researchers who had captured the historic experience of migrant women working in the NHS. During the event, the chat bar filled up with devastating first-hand stories of racism and racial discrimination. They included the experience of migrant nurses who were prevented from training as state-registered nurses, meaning that they could only take the inferior career path of the state-enrolled nurse—effectively a structural limitation on promotion and pay—and stories of patients being allowed to wait to be treated by white staff instead of equally qualified BAME staff, reinforcing racist views.

In 2020, it is now BAME NHS workers who are dying from coronavirus in disproportionate numbers. The Government are once again being too slow to protect them: they have announced another review, which will report at the end of the year, rather than taking the immediate protective action that is needed and demanded now. Earlier this month, thousands took to the streets in a heartfelt cry for justice and reform in response to the horrific death of George Floyd in the USA, because his death resonated so powerfully with their own experience here in the UK.

This Windrush Day must be both a celebration of the contribution of the Windrush generation to our communities, culture, economy and public services in the UK, and a moment of deep national reflection. We must reflect on how, more than 70 years since those first Windrush citizens began to work in our NHS, BAME health workers have died in disproportionate numbers as they administered treatment and care during the coronavirus pandemic.

We must engage communities across the country in learning about their own history, even when it is painful, and find ways to ensure that our town squares and public spaces reflect the diversity of our communities, including by moving statues that glorify shameful periods of our history from public spaces to museums where they can be contextualised as artefacts from the past. We need reform of the history curriculum in our schools, so that every child is taught a truthful and inclusive version of British history, including colonialism and the transatlantic slave trade.

The Government must deliver a functioning and effective compensation scheme for the victims of the Windrush scandal and urgently implement the recommendations of Wendy Williams and of my right hon. Friend the Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy). They must give confidence that such a scandal can never happen again.

[Mr Steve Baker (Wycombe) (Con)]

I am enjoying the hon. Lady’s speech. She mentions the Lammy review; I have just had an answer to my parliamentary question to the Lord Chancellor about the review, which I will tweet out in a moment. It tells me that

“of the 35 recommendations…16 have been completed … 17 recommendations are still in progress, of which… 1 recommendation is in the initial stages…11 recommendations aim to be completed within 6-12 months…5 recommendations will take longer than 12 months”.

I really think that the Government are making serious progress on the Lammy review, and I think that the Minister is to be congratulated.

[Helen Hayes]

I think the test of the Government’s progress in this area is the experience of BAME residents up and down the country, and the protests in recent weeks tell us loudly and clearly that they do not have confidence in this Government. I hope that the Government will start to rebuild that trust and confidence, but I hope that the hon. Gentleman will recognise exactly how far they have to go.

We must see urgent, meaningful action to protect BAME frontline workers from coronavirus and address the underlying health inequalities that left them at risk in the first place. The Government must end the hostile environment and reform the history curriculum so that every child learns about British history as a story of migration and is taught about the UK’s shameful role in the transatlantic slave trade. Windrush Day is a national celebration, but also a day for asserting the truth that black lives matter and for redoubling our efforts to create a society free from structural racism and discrimination in which everyone’s contribution is fully recognised.

--- Later in debate ---

[Luke Hall]

That is exactly the purpose and point of the measures that the Home Secretary has announced—to make sure that this work will be brought forward speedily and accurately. I understand the hon. Lady’s concerns, but I do think it is right to put on record the importance of things that can be done, like the permanent memorial. I know that the hon. Member for Dulwich and West Norwood has been a passionate advocate for having the national memorial in her constituency. I hope that she accepts the Government’s rationale for having it at Waterloo station and the symbolic nature of that.

[Helen Hayes]

I could not let mention of Waterloo as the location for the memorial pass without saying how strongly so many of my constituents and the Windrush Foundation feel that the proper location for that memorial is on Windrush Square outside the Black Cultural Archives—a location still within London and still within zone 2 that still has such a strong connection to the original Windrush passengers and to the community of so many who followed them here.

[Luke Hall]

The hon. Lady continues to make a passionate case and she is quite right to do so. There are a number of examples of more local tributes that are being set up. Hackney is a great example of a local authority that has commissioned a local public artwork to be placed in its town square to celebrate and honour its Windrush generation. I know that she does not quite see eye to eye on the location of the national monument, but if there is anything that our Department can do to set up conversations or to provide further advice about what could be done within the local authority, we would be very happy to do so at any time. My door is always open to discuss that further.

The hon. Lady referred to the Windrush generation overcoming incredible adversity. They and their descendants have proved to be some of the most inspirational role models. I heard some stories of those individuals yesterday. RAF veteran Sam King returned to London from Jamaica on the Empire Windrush and not only built a life here but volunteered as a circulation manager on the West Indian Gazette and supported the organisation of the carnival at St Pancras town hall in 1959. He was the first black mayor of Southwark—a position he took up just six months after being elected to the council. Euton Christian served in the RAF as well, and settled in Manchester. He was not only the first black magistrate in Manchester but helped to set up the West Indian Sports and Social Club in Moss Side and was one of the founders of the Manchester Council for Community Relations. Those are just two examples I heard yesterday of the incredible contributions that the hon. Lady has talked so passionately about.

The hon. Lady also mentioned the impact of covid-19 on black and minority ethnic communities, and she is right to do so. We have to acknowledge that these have been difficult times for so many people. Professor Fenton’s review, on behalf of Public Health England, on the impact of covid-19 on black, Asian and minority ethnic communities highlighted some of these challenges so starkly to so many of us, and I know what an emotional moment that was for so many people. The pandemic has amplified long-standing inequalities; BAME groups have been found to be more likely to have pre-existing conditions that worsen the effects of covid-19. In response, the NHS has created a new centre to investigate the impact of race and ethnicity on people’s health. My hon. Friend the Minister for Equalities is taking forward further work, following the PHE review, so that we can better understand the disparities, which I know we all agree should not exist in the 21st century.

As has been discussed, Windrush Day this year also took place in the midst of a wider social movement to challenge racism and injustice. As a south Gloucestershire MP, I saw the scenes in Bristol, just next door. I saw the passion of the communities in not only Bristol, but the surrounding areas. It is so important that we listen to the thousands of people who have marched peacefully for Black Lives Matter. That is why the Prime Minister committed to establishing that new cross-party commission to explore these issues, as well as to champion the success of BAME groups. That new commission on race and ethnic disparities will examine continuing racial and ethnic inequalities in Britain. It will build on the work of the Race Disparity Unit, but it will go further, to understand why disparities exist, and what works and what does not. It will present recommendations for action across government and other public bodies.

The Windrush generation answered the call to help rebuild our nation after the war. They and their descendants have inspired as entrepreneurs, nurses, musicians and athletes. The hon. Lady has said that she attended the Runnymede Trust’s virtual event on the contribution of BAME people to the NHS, and I wish to restate my personal thanks and the whole Government’s thanks to those from minority backgrounds who are working in our NHS, and in shops, delivery services, local authorities and other key positions around the country, on the frontline against this virus. Through this national effort, we are turning the tide and getting control of this virus. I know she has made a passionate case for the importance of making sure that the compensation schemes are delivered at the pace she has suggested. Of course, I will be discussing this with my colleagues in the Home Office.

Windrush Day has been a fantastic success in the past couple of years. I welcome the hon. Lady’s constructive comments about how we can make it a success in the future. I encourage everyone to find a Windrush Day activity to get involved with, either online or locally near them, later this year. I will certainly be looking at the radio project happening in her constituency, and I thank those involved in that. By taking part in Windrush Day, people will be playing their part in celebrating, commemorating and educating about the Windrush generation, their descendants and their contribution to Britain’s social, cultural and economic life, and of course, they will be helping to build a stronger and more integrated Britain for the future.

Question put and agreed to.

Draft Parental Bereavement Leave and Pay (Consequential Amendments to Subordinate Legislation) Regulations 2020

Helen Hayes Excerpts

Monday 23rd March 2020 General Committees

[Helen Hayes (Dulwich and West Norwood) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir David. I rise on behalf of the Opposition to support the regulations. Earlier this month, Opposition Members supported the Statutory Parental Bereavement Pay (General) Regulations 2020 and the Parental Bereavement Leave Regulations 2020, following Royal Assent for the Parental Bereavement (Leave and Pay) Act 2018, otherwise known as Jack’s law in memory of Jack Herd. Jack’s mother, Lucy, campaigned tirelessly to bring us to this point. I pay tribute to her for all her work.

We note that a number of consequential changes to other pieces of legislation are now required to ensure that parents have complete support at such a difficult time in their lives. The regulations seek to achieve that by making changes to a range of employment and social security legislation to bring it in line with measures for other forms of statutory recognised absences. The changes seek to protect a parent’s position, income and pension while they take bereavement leave, in much the same way as other forms of family-related leave and pay are handled in law. No parent should be financially worse off or lose out on future benefits as a result of taking statutory parental bereavement leave, whether in work or supported by the social security system through measures such as working taxcredits, or in terms of future pension entitlements.

I am sure that all Members welcome the introduction of these measures. I thank Members from all parties who advanced the need to establish bereavement leave and pay. The measures are due to come into force on 6 April 2020, which will be with the full support of Opposition Members.

Local Government Responsibilities: Public Services

Helen Hayes Excerpts

Wednesday 18th March 2020 Commons Chamber

[Helen Hayes (Dulwich and West Norwood) (Lab)]

I would like to start by commending the work that our local councils are doing in response to the coronavirus pandemic. Faced with an unprecedented set of challenges across social care, education, children’s services, housing and homelessness, they are providing access to advice and support for many people who are distressed, worried and facing hardship as a result of the public health and economic calamity we are seeing, while sustaining day-to-day services such as bin collections, parks and libraries. Our councils are doing that in the context of 10 years of unprecedented cuts to their budgets and a total absence of coherent strategy for local government from central Government.

The Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee observed during the last Parliament that there has not been any assessment from central Government of the responsibilities of local government across its statutory and non-statutory functions and no objective assessment of the resources needed to fulfil the task at hand. Instead, our councils have been cut to the bone. Both my councils have lost more than 60% of the funding they received from central Government in grant. They have been forced to raise council tax, which is regressive and hits the poorest residents hardest, while demands on their core statutory services, adult social care and children’s services have continued to increase, and the need for housing and homelessness services has spiralled as a direct consequence of the welfare policies of a decade of Tory Governments.

In that context, the shift to reliance on business rates is of grave concern. Business rates have been the Government’s only game in town for local government, and we now face an economic calamity that may result in business rates revenue simply draining away. It is imperative that the Government come forward with proposals for how councils will be supported to sustain services in the context of the risk of business rates collapsing. Our councils are stepping up to play their part in multiple different ways, as the closeness and proximity of their relationship to communities make them uniquely placed to do so, but there is a lack of resilience across all our public services. After the last decade, that is completely predictable and therefore completely inexcusable.

I turn to a couple of areas of public services that are responding to the crisis as they relate to our councils, the first of which is social care. Our social care system was in crisis before the coronavirus pandemic struck. About 1 million people eligible for social care are not receiving any, and the sector needs about £3.5 billion of additional funding just to meet additional needs. Across the country, councils of all political persuasions are struggling to deliver the social care services that local residents need, and private contractors continue to hand contracts back to councils.

Now, social care workers are at the frontline of the response to covid-19, caring for some of the most vulnerable residents and working hard to take on additional caseloads as hospitals work urgently to discharge people to free up bed space needed for the pandemic, yet many social care workers are paid the minimum wage and remain on zero-hours contracts.

Last week, 100 parliamentarians from both Houses and many political parties joined me in writing to the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care to ask that social care workers be placed on the same footing as NHS workers with regard to sick pay during the coronavirus pandemic. NHS workers and contractors have been guaranteed full pay if they are ill or need to self-isolate, but no such commitment has been made to social care workers. It is vital that low-paid workers, whose jobs bring them into contact with many of the people most vulnerable to covid-19, are not forced to make an impossible choice between taking action to protect the safety of those in their care or putting food on the table and keeping a roof over their family’s head.

I have not received a response to my letter and, despite raising the issue in the Chamber, there has been no indication from the Government that they understand the urgency of the issue or that any action is being taken. Lives will be lost if low-paid, workers with precarious jobs are forced to make impossible choices. I hope that in responding to the debate, the Minister will provide a definitive commitment to social care workers in response to covid-19.

[Dame Diana Johnson]

My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech. On that point if, as seems likely, schools in England are going to close in the next few days, childcare will need to be provided to allow key workers who have been identified in the NHS to carry on working, perhaps through skeleton schools. Should that also be used for key workers who provide social care in local authorities, so that their children are part of any provision that is made nationally?

[Helen Hayes]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. Social care workers, together with healthcare workers, are at the frontline of the crisis. They must be offered every support possible to enable them to keep working throughout.

More widely, there are grave concerns about the extra capacity that will be needed in the social care sector in response to the crisis. Earlier this week, I visited Turney School in my constituency, an outstanding school for children with special educational needs aged four to 19. Of the more than 130 children at Turney School, 90% are eligible for free school meals, many have multiple and complex needs, and most have a diagnosis of autism. If, as we hear, schools across the country are likely to close shortly, there will be an urgent and immediate need for additional social care support for Turney pupils and many thousands of children with special needs across the country.

Schools such as Turney fulfil not just an educational role, but a social, emotional and respite role for children and their families. Many Turney families live in overcrowded, poor-quality accommodation. Self-isolation in such circumstances will be intolerable and the need for social care support will be critical. The same is true for all children in receipt of free school meals and those who are potentially at risk at home. The social care sector will need to step up to meet the needs of our most vulnerable children.

Finally, in relation to social care, I raise the issue of access to personal protective equipment. Vulnerable people with covid-19 will still need support with personal care, and no one should be made to put their own health at risk in the course of doing their job. I welcome the Minister’s comments on PPE, but will he set out the detailed plans to ensure that all social care workers, whatever setting they are in and whoever their employer is, will have access to PPE? There is serious concern about the impact of the crisis on autistic people and people with learning disabilities, more than 2,000 of whom are still trapped in inappropriate hospital accommodation. As hospitals restrict visitor access, and as the emergency legislation contains provisions to short cut detention under the Mental Health Act 1983, what steps are the Government taking to uphold the human rights of autistic people and people with learning disabilities and to ensure that community services being stretched even further do not result in more people reaching crisis point and being detained in hospital?

The second area of council services I want to raise today is housing and the homelessness service. Homelessness and housing need have risen dramatically during the past decade of Tory austerity. A failure to fund the building of new, genuinely affordable social housing or regulate private renting, combined with cuts to welfare and the disgraceful five-week universal credit wait have driven up homelessness.

I was proud during the last Parliament to be a co-sponsor of the Homelessness Reduction Act 2017, and a recent report by Crisis concludes that the new legislation has been making a difference, but London Councils has made it clear that the level of funding provided by the Government was far from adequate, estimating that the amount that London Councils alone needed to implement the Homelessness Reduction Act was similar to the total national funding the Government made available.

Now we face two additional challenges: the first is the vulnerability of rough sleepers to coronavirus and the impossibility of self-isolating when someone is on the streets. There has been no Government response on this issue. Will the Minister say what arrangements are being made to contain the spread of covid-19 among rough sleepers? Will funding be made available for emergency accommodation that is suitable for self-isolation in addition to the funding that has already been made available to tackle the endemic problem of homelessness, which existed prior to this pandemic?

Secondly, the economic crisis that threatens to engulf our country has the potential to increase homelessness further. The lack of attention to the predicament of private renters has been disgraceful, but without that thousands of people will find their homes at risk. Will the Minister commit to ensuring that no one will lose their home as a consequence of coronavirus?

Our councils are now being asked to administer large amounts of the financial support that the Government are providing in response to this crisis, yet they have not been provided with any guidance, and they are not being supported with additional capacity. Local authorities that have been cut to the bone might find additional financial administration very challenging, so will the Minister set out what support is being provided to councils to ensure that they are able to administer hardship funds and business support without delay and without impacting on other services?

Across many areas of responsibility, local government is at the frontline of this unprecedented public health and economic crisis. It is the job of our councils to ensure that the burdens of the disease do not fall on the poorest and most vulnerable in our communities. It is the job of central Government to ensure that they are properly funded, equipped and supported to do so.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jim McMahon]

That is absolutely the case, but it is also running on high levels of vacancies—there are 120,000 vacancies in adult social care. We are highly vulnerable to staff in that industry becoming ill and going into self-isolation, which is why the question of the protection and support they are given becomes so important. It is absolutely about making sure that, first and foremost, they are considered in the same way as hospital staff. Making sure that they get the proper protective equipment that they need is critical, not just to protect the patients who are being dealt with and the receivers of adult social care, but for the individuals who are placing themselves in a very risky situation, going into people’s homes without knowing who that person has been in contact with, but doing it anyway because they believe in the care they are offering.

My hon. Friend the Member for Poplar and Limehouse (Apsana Begum) made a really important point that went beyond adult social care: the fabric of our society has changed as a result of the cuts. The 70% reduction in youth services has almost certainly had an impact on knife crime, on county lines, and on whether people feel they have a stake in the future.

[Helen Hayes]

My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech. Does he agree that in this time of crisis central Government support for local government is urgently needed in respect of protection of our young people, who may be even more vulnerable to violence as a consequence of the lack of support systems, of activities and of the people who are normally are responsible for keeping them safe day-to-day?

[Jim McMahon]

That is absolutely true, and it is also true that many lives are lost, in terms of potential, through the criminalisation of young people who are effectively groomed into criminality by those in positions of power or authority in the community who attract them in and entice them. We need to do far more to make clear to young people across the country that there is a real alternative when it comes to leading a fulfilled life. Until then, we will never break the cycle of young people being caught in crime unnecessarily.

This goes right to the heart of the “cradle to the grave” approach to public service. We cannot ignore the impact on Sure Start centres, which were about investing in young people and giving them a taste of what opportunity was from the time when they were young and receiving that type of care. Taking it away has had a massive impact, and that is before we get on to primary school budgets and special educational needs. Young people are just not receiving the tailored support that they need.

However, today is also about thanking councils for the work that they do. Regardless of party affiliation, I want to place on record our thanks for the work that councillors do. They come into public service from their community because they really want to make a difference. Hearing from some of the councillors and ex-councillors who are now in this place about the passion and connection that they still feel, as I do, is very inspiring. We must also thank our council officers.

After 10 years of austerity, councils have experienced a very stressful period in trying to reconcile delivering balanced budgets to remain within the law with managing the huge demand for adult social care, children’s services and services for the homeless. People believe they pay council tax for the very neighbourhood services that are being taken away because councils cannot afford to make ends meet and provide those services. Councils are placed in a horrible position. They are trying to keep their heads above water, and providing targeted support for people who really need it, but at the same time the public are holding them to account for the real cuts that have been made locally. I do not think that that is a fair burden for central Government to place on local government.

That brings me to council tax, which is a hugely regressive tax. It has increased by a third, and what was hidden in the Budget papers was, within the lifetime of that Budget, an £8 billion increase in council tax income for the Treasury. The Government are not coming to the table and giving councils sufficient funds to deal with the demands of adult social care and children’s services in particular. What they are saying is “It is the survival of the fittest. If you can raise money through council tax or business rate retention, good luck, but if you cannot, I am afraid that you can no longer rely on central Government to step in and provide that partnership solution.”

That is just not a fair way of doing things. How can it be right that today, in England—and we have an English problem, because of the nature of how the country is governed—adult social care and people’s ability to access the care that they need will soon be determined by the house values in their area in 1991? How can it be right that they will be based on historic industrial and commercial land values and the business rate take in that area, when the council has very little control over that base? With every revaluation, we see many regions being devalued, and London and the south-east increasing in value. That will be the model, the baseline, of public service funding in the future.

I mentioned the survival of the fittest, but the fittest are not that fit. Local government still faces a £6 billion funding gap between now and 2025. There will still be people in the most affluent parts of the country who are living in absolute destitution and not getting the support that they need because councils do not have the necessary funds.

--- Later in debate ---

[Christopher Pincher]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for that intervention. I will come on to talk about social care, but we will certainly be giving those who work in social care the help they need to contend with this crisis.

These measures, which follow on from the Budget and from the Chancellor’s announcement last night, amount to over £330 billion in financial support, which, if I may say gently, is more than just drip-feeding into the system; it is a significant amount of money. The Government are prepared to do whatever it takes to protect the economy, our NHS, our local services and our local authorities in weathering this storm.

[Helen Hayes]

Will the Minister specifically address the loss in core income that councils will experience if business rates revenue collapses? I know the Government have announced large-scale support, much of which will be channelled through local authorities to meet specific needs arising from the pandemic, but the threat to our councils is bigger than that—it is to their core budget. The Government have made councils reliant on business rates revenue in recent years, and it may now drain away from them.

[Christopher Pincher]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for her further intervention. I know and understand the point she is making, and we have already made funds available to local authorities. The Chancellor, in his Budget speech, made clear the support we want to give. He made further announcements yesterday and, if she is prepared to bear with the Government a little longer, I suspect further announcements will be made as the situation evolves.

As the Under-Secretary of State made clear in his opening statement, this funding is in addition to extending SSP and a range of other measures by the Department for Work and Pensions.