Net Migration Figures

Debate between Peter Bottomley and Robert Jenrick

Thursday 25th May 2023 Commons Chamber

[Sir Peter Bottomley (Worthing West) (Con)]

I am sorry that, while my right hon. Friend was replying to those questions, four of the Labour Front Benchers were talking at the same time. I think that was to disguise the fact that their spokesperson appeared to agree with virtually every sensible element of the Government’s immigration control policy.

Does my right hon. Friend agree with me about this? Beyond the admission order office, there is the memorial plaque for the Kindertransport. Some of those who feel most strongly against immigration now feel proud of what we did then. We have to remember that there were then and there are now tens of millions of people around the world suffering because of violence in their own countries, and there are others with bad Governments who stop them having economic success where they are. Can I say that, as well as having a good immigration policy, we ought to do all we can around the world to have better governance and a flexible economic system, so that people can be happy living where they are, not feeling that they have to come here for refuge?

[Robert Jenrick]

I strongly agree with the Father of the House. We have made two very significant interventions in the last two years. The first was to provide sanctuary here in the United Kingdom for Hong Kong BNOs, to whom we have a moral and historical obligation, to enable them to escape creeping authoritarianism in Hong Kong and make a new life here in the UK. We are proud of that, and I expect that, in the years to come, that scheme will be looked back on as a great success for this country. Secondly, the Ukraine schemes have now led to 200,000 Ukrainians coming to the UK and seeking sanctuary here, with hundreds of thousands of British people opening up their homes to support them. Those were great schemes.

We want to ensure schemes such as those can continue, and that the UK can be an even greater force for good in the world. That does not mean, however, that we should go slow on further measures to bring down net migration, because net migration does place very significant burdens on communities in respect of housing, public services and our ability to integrate people. That is why we made further interventions this week, and we will consider further ones in the future.

Holocaust Memorial Day

Debate between Peter Bottomley and Robert Jenrick

Thursday 27th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[Robert Jenrick]

The hon. Lady makes her point eloquently, and of course I agree entirely.

Some of us here have been on the receiving end of antisemitism—I know the right hon. Member for Barking has on many occasions. I recently received a letter telling me to teach my “Jewish Zionist wife” to “put out fires”, as they intended to burn our house down and cremate our children.

As Communities Secretary, I encouraged universities to adopt and use the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of antisemitism, a cause taken up strongly by the current Education Secretary, but despite those entreaties some universities have not done so. Only last year the University of Bristol, one of our most respected universities, acted painfully slowly to discipline Professor David Miller, a purveyor of antisemitic conspiracy theories that went well beyond the bounds of free speech. Such incidents are one of the reasons I champion the brilliant Union of Jewish Students.

I will end my speech today as the right hon. Member for Barking would have done, by quoting a diary extract of her grandfather’s. Old, ill and interned, deemed an enemy alien at the time, in an entry before Christmas, he wrote,

“Is the present time a blip? Is Hitler only an episode? Are these ideas going to disappear and the better side of humanity re-emerge?”

We owe it to her grandfather Wilhelm, and all the survivors of genocides, to do all we can to learn from their experiences.

Today, we remember not simply the liberation of the camps, but the triumph of freedom and the human spirit. We marvel at the strength, the resilience and the faith of those survivors and of Jewish people here in the UK and around the world. We must continue to tell their stories. We must use this day to continue the fight against hatred in all its forms. Then, perhaps, one day we will have a future without genocide.

[Sir Peter Bottomley (Worthing West) (Con)]

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. It may or may not be known to the House—it is known to the Government—that permission has been given to appeal the planning approval for the memorial in Victoria Tower Gardens. I think we need to be careful about how we speak about it. I did not want to interrupt the exceptionally good speech of my right hon. Friend the Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick) on a very important subject.

Building Safety Bill

Debate between Peter Bottomley and Robert Jenrick

2nd reading
Wednesday 21st July 2021 Commons Chamber

[Robert Jenrick]

As I understand it—I stand to be corrected if I have the wrong information—the 900 figure that the hon. Lady cites was a misinterpretation of the figures that were released earlier. None the less, the actual number is significant, albeit fewer than 900. We want to see waking watches used only in cases where they are absolutely necessary. The recent statement from the National Fire Chiefs Council has suggested that they are being used too often and that they can be reduced significantly. If she has constituents in that situation, as I am sure she does, in the first instance I would recommend that they make use of the waking watch relief fund to install a fire alarm, which can cut the costs very considerably.

This Bill takes an unusual step of retrospectively extending the period during which compensation for defective premises can be claimed—it more than doubles the current period, from six to 15 years. This significant step forward was requested and campaigned for by groups impacted by the cladding issue. We are going further, expanding the scope of the work for which compensation can be claimed also to include future major renovation work to buildings. These measures will not help everyone, but they do provide a step change in redress for raising issues. I hope that, in time, builders will extend their warranties to cover this period and provide the maximum amount of confidence to house purchasers.

[Sir Peter Bottomley (Worthing West) (Con)]

While my right hon. Friend is considering this point about the extension, will he please consider the point made by Robert Ayling, at Grosvenor Waterside, that the Building Act 1984 provision should be extended to six years after the plaintiff is aware of the defect? I am not asking for an instant answer, but such a measure would help to deal with the current situation very well.

[Robert Jenrick]

I will give that further thought and revert to my hon. Friend on it.

It was clear after the fire at Grenfell Tower that action was required to address safety concerns with respect to existing buildings, and my predecessors rightly took a safety-first approach, as I have also tried to do. We have provided expert advice and accelerated inspections of all high-rise buildings, and that work continues, with substantial progress having been made by the National Fire Chiefs Council on the building risk review, which is likely to be concluded by the end of the year. We have provided £5 billion in grant funding to carry out vital remediation work targeted at the buildings we know to be at the greatest risk from fire spread—those over 18 metres—and we have banned the use of combustible materials on the external walls of high-rise residential buildings, providing industry with a clear standard for the construction of new builds.

Some 474 buildings have been identified as having Grenfell-type ACM—aluminium composite material—cladding. We are now well on the way to remediating all of those buildings. Over 95% of the buildings identified at the beginning of last year have either completed or started remediation work; 70% of those have now been fully remediated, and that is rising every week. That means that around 16,000 homes have been fully remediated of unsafe ACM cladding, an increase of around 4,000 since the end of last year. Despite many building owners failing to provide adequate basic information, almost 700 buildings with other types of unsafe cladding are proceeding with a full application to the building safety fund. We have already allocated £540 million, which means that owners of 60,000 homes within high-rise blocks can be reassured that their remediation will be fully funded.

We currently forecast that over 1,000 buildings with non-ACM unsafe cladding will receive support of the same form through the building safety fund, providing a guide to the cohort of high-rise buildings where remediation is actually required. That is being progressed by a dedicated team in my Department and our two delivery partners, Homes England and the Greater London Authority. The Government have played their part: the unprecedented £5.1 billion we are providing gives assurance to leaseholders in eligible buildings that unsafe cladding on their blocks will be replaced at no cost to them.

I know that there will be strong feelings across the House about industry needing to fix and pay its fair share for problems that is has helped to cause. I recognise that some house builders have stepped up, too, thus far committing over £500 million for remediation since my statement in February. But some have not stepped up, or at least not in the way I expect them to. Ballymore, for example, has yet to commit to fully funding the remediation of its buildings.

The industry needs to go further. That is why we are introducing a new levy on high-rise residential buildings. We have published today a consultation document on the levy and I welcome views from all interested parties on its design. The levy will sit alongside a tax being developed by the Chancellor to raise at least £2 billion to contribute to the costs of historical remediation. This Bill also introduces the building safety charge to provide residents with clarity and certainty on the costs of building works, and we have listened and ensured that that charge only includes the cost of management of building safety in their building.

As I said at the outset, in bringing forward this new building safety regime we need to take a sensible, proportionate approach driven by expert advice. The Bill ensures that the building safety regulator will regulate in line with best practice principles, be proportionate and transparent, and ensure that the interests of leaseholders are protected. In 2020, only 9% of fires were in flats of four storeys or more. In 2019-20, only 7% of fires spread beyond the room of origin in such buildings. And, while every death is of course tragic, thankfully only 10 people died in 2020 as a result of a dwelling fire in flats of four storeys or more. We strongly believe that our proportionate approach is in line with these facts, ensuring that remediation works are undertaken only where absolutely required, and leaseholders should not be landed with bills for unnecessary work.

Unfortunately, that is not the position today and we need a significant reset. Too many people living in lower and medium-rise buildings have told us of feeling trapped in their properties, held back from selling their homes because of excessive caution in the lending, surveying, insurance and fire risk assessment markets. Understandably, this has caused residents to worry over safety and has led to unnecessary costs. I want to be clear that the vast majority of residents in all homes in this country, including blocks of flats, should not feel unsafe. Driven by these concerns, earlier this year I asked a small group of experts on fire safety to consider the evidence and advise me on the steps that should be taken to ensure a proportionate, risk-based approach to fire safety in blocks of flats. I thank them for their time and their expert advice, which I will publish later today.

The key finding of the experts’ advice is clear: we cannot and should not presume systemic risk of fire in blocks of flats. I quoted some of the statistics earlier, but let me repeat them. Dwelling fires are at the lowest point that they have been since we started to collect comparable statistics in 1981, despite the fact that in 2020 people spent significantly greater amounts of time in their homes as a result of covid restrictions. On that basis, the expert advice includes five significant recommendations to correct the disproportionate reaction that we have seen in some parts of the market. First, EWS1 forms should not be a requirement on buildings of less than 18 metres.

Building Safety

Debate between Peter Bottomley and Robert Jenrick

Wednesday 10th February 2021 Commons Chamber

[Robert Jenrick]

I am pleased that the hon. Lady welcomes many of the proposals we have set out today. This is an unprecedented intervention, and it is one of the most generous, if not the most generous, of its kind anywhere in the world. She asks, importantly, why we have focused on high-rise buildings. We have done so because that is time and again where all the independent expert advice leads us. We must make these judgments on the basis of expert advice. With the greatest respect to the hon. Lady, I think we need to follow the expert advisers, not her instincts. We are focusing on the buildings over 18 metres, where the work needs to get done, and in those buildings we are ensuring that the leaseholder never pays. We want the building owners to step up and meet the cost, but where that is not possible—in many cases, I am afraid it is not, because the building owners are no longer around—the taxpayer will step in and meet the cost, with the advantage of the levy and the tax to help recoup the costs. That must be the right approach.

The hon. Lady asks whether enough progress has been made. Actually, we have ended 2020 with 95% of buildings over 18 metres with the most dangerous form of cladding—ACM cladding—either having been remediated or with workers on site doing the job. That is 100% of the buildings in the social sector, which is a huge step forward. I pay tribute to everyone who has been part of that over the course of the year, including those keeping the works going during the pandemic, which many politicians, including Labour politicians, asked us not to do. That was the wrong judgment, but we kept those works going.

For lower rise buildings—those of four to six storeys—we are bringing into play this important new financing scheme. That means that those leaseholders who at the moment have impossible costs, causing great worry and strain, will now be able to have the reassurance that those costs will be turned into manageable ones. They will never need to pay more than £50 a month—many will pay far less—and only where the cladding really does need to come off to ensure that the building is safe. That will provide peace of mind to hundreds of thousands of leaseholders, and I think it can be seen as a generous, affordable way forward for the taxpayer.

We have to remember that, when the Prime Minister and I came to office 18 months ago, there was only £200 million of Government money available to support leaseholders in this situation, and that that in itself was the result of incredibly hard work by my predecessor, my right hon. Friend the Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (James Brokenshire). Today, 18 months later, there are many billions of pounds of support in direct Government grant and then billions more, no doubt, in financing scheme funding available to support those leaseholders and to get the situation under control.

Meanwhile, what is happening in other parts of the country? We know that, in Scotland, according to a recent freedom of information request, the Scottish Government have done absolutely nothing. The funding they received from the building safety fund is sat in a bank account in Edinburgh, and they have done nothing with it. I would be interested to know from the hon. Member for Bristol West (Thangam Debbonaire) what the Welsh Government are doing. I do not know. Perhaps she can inform us. The hon. Lady herself came to this late. It was only a week or so ago that she convened the first debate on this in her tenure. She did not offer a plan. She did not show an appreciation of the scale and complexity of the issue. She offered a taskforce, a committee. Empty words, I am afraid, and gestures. That is not good enough.

While the hon. Lady was doing that, the Prime Minister, my right hon. Friend the Chancellor and I were working with the lenders, the insurers, the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors and the leaseholder groups to bring forward what we have announced today, which I hope all fair-minded Members across the House will see as a significant intervention. It does get unsafe cladding off buildings and end the cladding scandal. It does provide reassurance and confidence to leaseholders. It does ensure that the developers and the industry pay their fair share. It does build a world-class building safety regime, and it does enable us now to move forward to reopen and restore confidence in the housing market so that the country can move forward again.

[Sir Peter Bottomley (Worthing West) (Con) [V]]

May I first say that I am a leaseholder who is neither affected by the problem nor gaining by the solution?

We recognise that this is another set of major steps along the way. During the last three years, the problems have been spelled out by the all-party parliamentary group on leasehold and commonhold reform, and I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Justin Madders) for working together in a cross- party way. There will be more to do, and the Select Committee will no doubt have hearings.

Will my right hon. Friend thank the Chancellor and the Prime Minister for helping to make the funding available? I do not claim that it is going to be enough, but it is a major step forward and I recognise that.

There is a problem about low-rise accommodation in low-income areas looking at high-rises in high-income areas getting more direct help. Will my right hon. Friend talk about that?

Can he also confirm that no leaseholder who does not actually own anything will have to sign away any of their rights to eventual compensation, as and when the inquiry finishes and any civil claims of liability against developers, cladding manufacturers, local building control or national regulators come to be finalised?

[Robert Jenrick]

I praise my hon. Friend for his determined campaigning on the issue over many years, which I think everybody in the House has recognised and for which many leaseholders will no doubt be grateful. I have been pleased to work with him and to take his advice when it has been needed. I assure him that the funding that we have made available today will provide leaseholders with the certainty and confidence that they need. Any leaseholder in a building of over 18 metres will now know that they will not have to pay for the removal of cladding, and leaseholders in the buildings that are lower rise—11 to 18 metres—can take great comfort from the fact that this new financing arrangement will be in place. It does not preclude any actions by the building or the leaseholders against insurers, those holding warranties or the developers, and those actions should take place. We want to see those who made these mistakes brought to book. We do not want this all to fall on the taxpayer; that is absolutely essential. This is a very difficult judgment. We have to ensure that we are striking the right balance between the interests of leaseholders who are homeowners and those of the broader taxpayer. I think we have done that today, and I hope that this is a major step forward in the battle against this issue.

Holocaust Memorial Day 2021

Debate between Peter Bottomley and Robert Jenrick

Thursday 28th January 2021 Commons Chamber

[Sir Peter Bottomley (Worthing West) (Con)]

I bow in respect to the first two speeches, and I expect they will be matched by those that follow.

“We remember those who were murdered for who they were. We stand against prejudice, hostility and division in the world today. We learn from the tragedies and horrors of the past. We work towards a better future.”

Those were the words put out with the photograph of the candle we lit last night. Had I been born in the Dutch Jewish line of my family, I could have died at Bergen-Belsen with many of the other 113 members of grandfather’s extended family.

The purpose of the holocaust memorial and education centre is for us to know, to care and to act, whatever our heritage. It may be that the Secretary of State will announce that if the proposed national heritage memorial and learning centre is built—whether it is built in Victoria Tower Gardens or not—then entry will be free. We have always assumed it would be free, but the Government were not able to say that. What the Government did say through its agency is that the bulk of the money should be spent on education, not on construction.

The proposal in September 2015 was that the centre should be completed by 2020, a year ago, that it should have the support of the local authority wherever it was to be built, and that it could be built anywhere within 3 miles of London on a suitable site. Page 10 of the publication showed that and included: west of Regent’s park; Spitalfields; most of Southwark, including the Imperial War Museum—

[The Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government (Robert Jenrick)]

indicated dissent.

[Sir Peter Bottomley]

The Secretary of State may shake his head. He will have his chance to speak. I want him at the moment to listen, if I may. I respect him and I respect what he tries to do, but I ask him to publish the analysis done before 2016 of the sites at the Imperial War Museum and Victoria Tower Gardens. I will publish what I know. He will need to consider what he is putting forward and his deputy needs to say whether he can seriously make a decision on the Secretary of State’s behalf when the Government are so implicated in an inappropriate scheme in an inappropriate place, with a design not accepted in Ottawa.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Peter Bottomley and Robert Jenrick

Monday 20th July 2020 Commons Chamber

[Robert Jenrick]

I will join my hon. Friend in thanking Nehemiah housing association for its work on housing in the west midlands over the past 20 years. Compared with the start of the decade, the number of homes built in the west midlands last year had doubled. She is right to talk about skills; delivering the homes this country needs depends on having a skilled workforce. The Construction Industry Training Board estimates that we will need 688,000 skilled construction workers if we are to deliver our target of 300,000 new homes every year.

[Sir Peter Bottomley (Worthing West) (Con)]

What his timetable is for bringing forward legislative proposals on leasehold and commonhold reform. [R]

Covid-19: Housing Market

Debate between Peter Bottomley and Robert Jenrick

Wednesday 13th May 2020 Commons Chamber

[Sir Peter Bottomley (Worthing West) (Con) [V]]

The Secretary of State is right to talk about people living their lives. Most of the people going to new homes will be going to leasehold ones.

When will he, and we, act to ban the sale of leasehold and pre-sold houses? When can he announce actions for justice for leaseholders and lease renters who are stuck with excessive ground rents?

Can he advise residential landlords and smart developers that the financial games are over, and that the leasehold knowledge campaign and the all-party group on leasehold and commonhold reform are going to make sure that there is justice for leaseholders?

[Robert Jenrick]

I am grateful to the Father of the House for that question. I pay tribute, once again, to his campaigning over many years against rip-off practices in the leasehold sector. We are committed to bringing an end to those practices, to legislating to bring ground rents down to a peppercorn, and to ensuring that no new homes are built as leasehold properties except in the most exceptional of circumstances. We will shortly be bringing forward draft legislation for scrutiny. I am pleased that, in general, such practices have reduced enormously as a result of the Government’s firm stance and that of campaigners, including many Members across the House. I want to see that continue.

Building Safety

Debate between Peter Bottomley and Robert Jenrick

Monday 20th January 2020 Commons Chamber

[Sir Peter Bottomley (Worthing West) (Con)]

There will be a welcome for the announcement about the role of Dame Judith Hackitt.

Many points will be made in the next half hour or so, but I want to concentrate on two. First, the Leasehold Knowledge Partnership and the all-party parliamentary group on leasehold and commonhold reform were the first to point out the difficulties of private leaseholders in these tower blocks. When the Secretary of State and his Department work closely with the LKP and with the all-party group, we will not have all the answers, but I commend to him the fact that we can certainly point to many of the questions and some of the problems as well.

Additionally, may I commend what Nick Ross, the independent commentator and expert on risk, has said—that people do not die in buildings where there is a fire if there are sprinklers? We ought to pay more attention to that. Even if they are not required everywhere, we ought to consider whether they would be useful and valuable.

Finally, at the all-party group meeting, leaseholders talked about the sixfold or greater increase in their insurance premiums. The Government should get together with the Association of British Insurers and say, “Are people being scalped or is there scope for a scheme like Flood Re, which made premiums affordable to ordinary people trying to go on living in their homes?”

[Robert Jenrick]

I thank the Father of the House, who has been heavily involved in this issue and has a long-standing interest in leasehold reform. We are working with the insurance industry and the mortgage industry to try to unblock the issues that are flowing there. We have had some success with that. There is now a deal between the major lenders and the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors to find a simpler way to assess the condition of high-rise buildings and ensure that lenders can make a proper assessment of the value of people’s homes. We will continue to engage with that very closely.

I am happy to work with my hon. Friend and any others who represent or are interested in leasehold reform. He knows my personal interest in that and commitment to bring forward legislation later in the year. I have been contacted by many leaseholders who feel trapped in their homes and are very concerned about their ability to meet the costs that flow through. It is obviously right that building owners should meet the cost of remediation work, but we need to work with leaseholders to ensure that meeting those costs is not a barrier to getting the work done and keeping them safe. I have made that commitment today.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Peter Bottomley and Robert Jenrick

Monday 13th January 2020 Commons Chamber

[Robert Jenrick]

The hon. Lady is incorrect. The Queen’s Speech made it clear that we will be bringing forward legislation. We intend to publish a draft Bill shortly, which will take the first steps that I have just described. We are also awaiting the next report of the Law Commission. We have just received one on enfranchisement. It is a very important issue, and I certainly want to take forward its recommendations to ensure a simpler and fairer system. The next report of the Law Commission will be on commonhold. Again, we will be paying close attention to that. At our encouragement, the Competition and Markets Authority is now looking into the mis-selling of leaseholds, which is another important issue. Be under no illusion: we will be taking forward leasehold reform, and soon.

[Sir Peter Bottomley (Worthing West) (Con)]

I thank the Secretary of State and his predecessors for the work they have done in commissioning work from the Law Commission that will provide a guide to the way forward. May I put it to the Secretary of State that, as his representatives at the all-party group meeting last week will confirm, there is a whole range of strong issues—the hon. Member for Ealing Central and Acton (Dr Huq) mentioned them—and that the Government, the Select Committee and the whole House need to make sure there is action, not just good intentions?

[Robert Jenrick]

I thank the Father of the House for the work he has done over many years on this issue. I campaigned on this before I became a Minister. I have seen a number of abuses with respect to leasehold properties, and we want to take action. Now is the time for action. We have the first report from the Law Commission. There will be a further one. There will then be the report from the CMA. Together with the evidence, we will take this into careful consideration and move forward to reform leasehold and put it on a more sustainable footing for the future.