Hong Kong Pro-democracy Activists

Robbie Moore Excerpts

Thursday 6th July 2023 Commons Chamber

[Robbie Moore (Keighley) (Con)]

Last week I met a constituent who was deeply concerned about the erosion of democracy in Hong Kong. Will the Minister assure me, and the House, that the UK will always defend the universal right to freedom of expression, and stand up for those who are targeted in Hong Kong and around the world by China?

[Anne-Marie Trevelyan]

My hon. Friend is entirely right, and I give him that absolute assurance. I hope that when the human rights report is published shortly, all those who wish to read it will see clearly just how seriously the UK takes its obligations.

Repurposing Russian Assets to Rebuild Ukraine

Robbie Moore Excerpts

Tuesday 27th June 2023 Commons Chamber

[Robbie Moore (Keighley) (Con)]

Following the comments that all Members have made, I am sure we all agree that Russia’s appalling assault on Ukraine is an unprovoked, premeditated attack against a sovereign democratic state. Our Government, through their actions, have illustrated that they are completely committed to supporting Ukraine in its fight to liberate the country.

We are all supporting Ukraine, as we are the world’s second-largest military donor, with this Government having given £2.3 billion in military aid. This year we have given a total of £9.3 billion of humanitarian, economic and military support. We are also training many Ukrainian pilots and troops in the UK and offering sanctuary to well over 230,000 Ukrainians. I am proud to say that many of them have made Keighley, Ilkley and other parts of my constituency their home, and I have been pleased to meet many of them.

We are also punishing Putin’s regime with the most severe set of sanctions that Russia has ever seen. We are sanctioning over 1,500 individuals and entities, and freezing £275 billion of their personal assets. Those sanctions are specifically designed to deal a severe blow to the Russian economy, hobble Russia’s military-industrial complex and punish Putin and his allies, including 120 oligarchs worth over £140 billion combined.

In addition to those sanctions, we have ended imports of Russian coal and oil, cutting off a key source of funding for Putin’s regime, while limiting the impact on our consumers. We have also stopped the export of high-end luxury goods to Russia and sanctioned Putin and his political allies, including Sergei Lavrov, hitting the Kremlin regime at its heart. We are working, too, in lockstep with allies to exclude Russian banks from the SWIFT financial system. Our sanctions hit not only Russia but it allies in Belarus. We are sanctioning Belarus for aiding and abetting Russia’s illegal invasion, making sure not only Russia but its allies feel the economic consequences of support for Putin.

Of course, our sanctions are only one part of what we are doing as a country. We have also provided much military support for Ukraine, including by donating Storm Shadow missiles, giving it the long-range strike capabilities it needs to defeat Russia and liberate its country. We will deliver £2.3 billion of military support this year in addition to the Challenger 2 tanks and self-propelled guns we have already provided, and the hundreds of armoured vehicles and advanced missiles that we provided last year and at the beginning of this year. We have also committed to train 20,000 Ukrainian troops this year, building on the success of the training programmes we have put in place which saw 11,000 Ukrainian troops trained last year, and we have provided £4.7 billion in economic and humanitarian aid to the Ukrainian people.

The Prime Minister took part last week in the Ukraine recovery conference, at which he secured well over £60 billion of combined support from other countries, galvanising international backing for Ukraine in the face of Putin’s ongoing attacks. The conference raised that money to go towards Ukraine’s recovery and reconstruction from nearly 500 countries as well as the G7 and EU member states. That is on top of our announcing last week a multi-year financial support package worth over £2.5 billion for Ukraine, helping Ukrainians win the war.

One year on, this Government are absolutely illustrating that we remain committed more than ever to making sure Putin’s barbaric venture will fail, and we will continue Ukraine’s fight as long as it takes until the war criminal Putin is brought to justice.

--- Later in debate ---

[Leo Docherty]

I will not commit right now, but I can give an assurance to the hon. Gentleman and the House that we are working at pace, as we recognise that this is an urgent issue. Urgent is what we will be and do, in terms of pushing the business forward.

On a similar theme, the hon. Member for Cardiff South and Penarth made some interesting comments about the United Nations General Assembly resolution ES-11/1. We note that resolution and recognise that there are interesting parallels that might be considered with regards to the situation post-war, vis-à-vis Iraq and Kuwait. Of course we will consider that, as we do all other options.

The hon. Gentleman mentioned the Canadian model. For the clarification of the House, the Canadians use the term “seizure” for freezing. Like the UK, Canada is not yet able to test the lawfulness of any potential seizing fully, as we understand it, through their court system. They have the legislative start, but it has not yet been legally tested. We will keep in touch with our Canadian colleagues as they move forward. He asked what role the Attorney General, my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Banbury (Victoria Prentis), might have. He will know that she is much vested in this matter. She has visited Kyiv to look at accountability issues and she will keep colleagues updated as she reviews those issues.

[Robbie Moore]

In my speech, I mentioned that the Prime Minister had attended the Ukraine recovery conference last week. Does the Minister agree that that demonstrates that the Prime Minister and the Government are taking world leadership on the issue, by bringing together countries from across the world, including EU member states and G7 states, to commit at least £2.5 billion as part of the recovery package for Ukraine, once the war has finished?

[Leo Docherty]

I entirely agree with my hon. Friend. Last week was a remarkable show of the convening power of the UK, the tremendous resolve of our Ukrainian friends and the remarkable scale of global support, not just in military hard power but in global capital. When that global capital is mobilised to help Ukraine resurrect itself, that will, in tandem with the military effort, lead to a Ukraine that is sovereign and able to resist all potential future threats. Last week was a great success, but there is more work to do.

Finally, let me say to the hon. Member for Cardiff South and Penarth that I am grateful for his reflections on his visit to Ukraine. His insights into the scale of the destruction are very welcome. I am grateful also that he mentioned the HALO Trust, which does heroic work to expedite de-mining. It is 30 years of work, and we are proud to be putting some of our investment into that. It is money extremely well spent. It also speaks to the horrendous scale of environmental damage that has been wreaked right across the country. I am very grateful overall for the hon. Member’s constructive tones.

I should reassure the House that our sanctions have inflicted a severe cost up until this point on Putin for his outrageous imperialist ambitions. In collaboration with key partners, we have now sanctioned more than 1,600 individuals, including 130 oligarchs. We have frozen more than £18 billion-worth of assets in the UK and sanctioned more than £20 billion-worth of UK-Russia goods trade. We will stand with Ukraine for as long as it takes in that regard.

[Leo Docherty]

It is taking a long time because it is very complex. There is no straightforward legal route. No other nation has yet come up with a tested legal proposition despite legislative activity. We are therefore moving in tandem with our allies to expedite and find a route, but if it were very simple, we would have done it already.

Through the G7 leaders’ statements, we have been very clear that the perpetrator should pay. We have underlined our continued commitment to that objective by introducing new legislation to enable us to keep sanctions in place until Russia compensates Ukraine. Nothing is off the table, as I have already said today, and we continue to work with our international partners on the options for using sanctions for reconstruction purposes. However, of course, if it is not legal, it is not viable and therefore not useful.

[Robbie Moore]

I thank my hon. Friend for giving way. Of course, the whole purpose of imposing sanctions is to stifle the economic drive that Russia is undoubtedly using to fund its aggression against Ukraine. Can my hon. Friend confirm that he and the Government are using their ability to encourage other allies to keep their sanctions in place and to take their lead from us?

[Leo Docherty]

That is a very relevant and good point. We have made the point to colleagues around the world that all allies must stand together to prevent circumvention, because economies more connected and more proximate to Russia face severe economic impact. We do work with allies to ensure compliance and also to prevent circumvention.

As we saw last week, the new measures that were announced during the Ukraine recovery conference marked a significant step forward to driving Ukraine’s reconstruction through a number of different ways. Both the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary emphasised the UK’s continued commitment to ensuring that Russia pays for the reconstruction of Ukraine. The Foreign Secretary announced fresh action to increase the pressure on Putin and his supporters through a series of key measures: first, the new legislation, which I have referred to, enabling us to maintain the sanctions on Russia until Moscow pays compensation to Ukraine; secondly, the development of a route to allow sanctioned individuals to volunteer their money to go to Ukraine to help reconstruction; and, thirdly, under the sanctions regime, delivering a new requirement for sanctioned individuals and entities to disclose assets they hold in the UK.



That, in the round, will ensure that we drive forward, that the perpetrator pays and that we can help our Ukrainian friends to rebuild their magnificent country.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House condemns Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine; stands in solidarity with Ukrainians in their resistance to Russia’s invasion of their sovereign state; recognises the enormous damage that Russia’s invasion has caused to Ukraine’s infrastructure, economy and institutions; commends the recent commitments made by the Government to support Ukraine’s recovery during the Ukraine Recovery Conference 2023; and calls on the Government to present a Bill before this House within 90 days to allow frozen Russian state assets held in the UK to be repurposed for Ukraine’s recovery.

Sudan: Atrocities

Robbie Moore Excerpts

Thursday 22nd June 2023 Commons Chamber

[Robbie Moore (Keighley) (Con)]

I have received many pieces of correspondence from constituents deeply concerned about the horrendous situation in Sudan. What steps is my hon. Friend taking to support Sudan’s neighbouring countries as civilians flee the ongoing violence in Sudan?

[Leo Docherty]

That is a good question because the regional impacts are very significant. All countries in the region are a focus of our humanitarian efforts and investment by the UK international development fund. We hope that that, twinned with our diplomacy and the very active diplomatic efforts of our Minister for Africa and Development, my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell)—he has recently been in Ethiopia and Egypt, for example—can bear fruit.

Telford Child Sexual Exploitation: Inquiry

Robbie Moore Excerpts

Monday 5th September 2022 Commons Chamber

[Lucy Allan]

I am very grateful to the hon. Gentleman—I call him my hon. Friend—who makes exactly the point that I would like the Minister to take away from today’s debate. There is so much learning in the Crowther report that could be disseminated throughout the country.

In his report, Mr Crowther urges all stakeholders to commit to a reflective response, and refers specifically to Telford and Wrekin Council. He observes that the council has shown a reluctance to accept criticism, and goes on to say that its approach has been essentially defensive. He stresses that to foster a culture of openness and learning it is necessary to recognise and admit mistakes; but he found, instead, a long-standing culture of resistance to ever admitting that provision was imperfect. Disappointingly, that is what we saw when the council came to respond to this important report on its publication.

In a very brief statement, which was issued on the date of publication and which no one put their name to, the council did not acknowledge or recognise that any mistakes had been made, and the press release claimed that the inquiry had in fact found that the council had made significant improvements and that, in any event, the council was already carrying out many of the recommendations. The press release did say that it was sorry for the pain and suffering of the victims, but it very specifically did not make any apology for or any mention of the mistakes the council had made. There was no acknowledgement that it could have done things differently and no suggestion that the council had a responsibility for what went wrong. There was repeated reference to the fact that child sexual exploitation was a problem that dates back many years—as long as 30 years in this case—as if to create some kind of distance between what had happened and the people responsible.

[Robbie Moore (Keighley) (Con)]

That is infuriating. We must never forget who is at the heart of this: it is the victims and their families who have had these traumatic experiences, and situations have been imposed on them for many years. The report referred to institutional blindness as a key point. Does my hon. Friend share my frustration? In order for us to reinstall trust in those organisations that have failed many of our constituents for a long time, we have to get those authorities to recognise and realise where mistakes have been made. That is why I am frustrated at the council’s response. Does she agree that in order to get to the position of being able to reinstall that trust, we must get our local authorities, including Bradford Council in my constituency, to trigger an inquiry to get to the bottom of the issues to do with child sexual exploitation that have been going on in Keighley and my constituency?

[Lucy Allan]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his intervention. He is absolutely right that it is essential that councils not only acknowledge but know what has gone wrong. This happens in lots of institutions, not just councils. Too often it is easy for them to say, “Nothing happened here really,” and to see it through their own eyes rather than view the reality through the eyes of an outsider or, indeed, the victim. My hon. Friend makes a powerful point about the suffering of victims. I do not think that any one of us who has ever spoken to a victim will forget what they have told us. It is an extraordinarily hideous crime—its deviousness, its manipulation and its way of making people do something they do not want to do without even realising that it is happening. It is the most hideous of crimes. I recognise how difficult it is to identify it, but that means that it is all the more important that inquiries such as this happen. It is such a healthy exercise to actually look at what has gone on, examine responses and challenge oneself. It is very difficult to do that on the inside. I think that having an outside, independent person asking these questions in the same balanced, measured and blame-free way as Tom Crowther is vital, and there is scope for many more such learning opportunities in many other areas.

The response of Telford and Wrekin Council was not just a missed opportunity to learn lessons or reassure the community that it knew that things had gone wrong, but a clear indication and evidence of the resistance, the reluctance to accept criticism, the defensiveness and the corporate pride that Mr Crowther references in the inquiry report. It is that same reluctance to be open about shortcomings that created roadblocks to the inquiry taking place in the first place. Although I would not expect any organisation to be enthusiastic about such an inquiry, the resistance to it in this case was clear for all to see.

For two long years, the council gave various reasons why this inquiry was simply not necessary. First, it hid behind the national child abuse inquiry, which it claimed would cover Telford when it did not do so. Then, it said that it was going to cost too much, then that it had a good Ofsted report, and then that there was nothing to see anyway. When the council did finally agree to it, it took another year to appoint a chair, and when it did that, it produced 1.2 million pages of evidence for the inquiry to sift through. That shows that it was not taking seriously its duties to improve its procedures and practices, and that was extremely frustrating. My hon. Friend the Member for Keighley (Robbie Moore) mentioned being frustrated. Don’t block it, don’t stop it; just accept it as a learning opportunity and as an opportunity to do things better, because these are children and young people, and this is about lives being ruined. No one should stand in the way of making sure that best practice is in place.

For me, most disheartening of all was the formal response to the inquiry by the leader of Telford and Wrekin Council. The report had said,

“It is…the responsibility of the elected members, particularly the cabinet members, to give direction and to assert priorities; to determine what is essential and what may be foregone. I have seen…no indication that before 2016, a CSE response was ever regarded as an essential service. I consider that a glaring failure on the part of a generation of Telford’s politicians.”

Having read that in black and white on the printed page, the council leader who joined the cabinet in 2011, far from accepting responsibility and being humble about the shortcomings, in his response talked defensively about how proud he was of Telford, as if there had been criticism of our town—of course, there had not. He talked about the significant improvements, despite the report saying that such progress as there had been was “unconscionably slow”, and he made repeated reference to the way that CSE dated back 30 years. He went on to say that he was only three years old at the time.

CSE is not all in the past. CSE is not something that happened 30 years ago. Forgive my frustration, but we had the same approach—the same institutional denial—with the maternity death scandal at Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital. Before the Ockenden inquiry into maternity negligence, we saw the great and the good reassuring anyone who asked that there was nothing to see here, and that it was all in the past. But it was still happening at that very time, because there was a refusal to accept shortcomings or have any insight into the problems that the organisation faced.

The leader of the council is the corporate parent, the person ultimately responsible for young people in our borough. Instead of saying, “Yes we got it wrong, yes we made

mistakes, and yes people suffered as a consequence,” he says, “Well, I was only three years old at the time.”

I am heartened that all stakeholders have committed to implementing all the findings of this important report, and it is my job as Telford’s MP, as the representative of victims and their families and all young people in Telford, to ensure that the recommendations are implemented, and to seek updates on their progress. We all know that it is the perpetrators who are to blame for horrific crimes. It is impossible, however, not to feel a deep sense of sadness and anger about the entrenched culture and attitudes that allowed CSE to go unchecked for so long. I invite the council to do as West Mercia police have done and acknowledge the shortcomings identified in the report, and apologise to victims, families and the community for those failings. I ask all stakeholders in Telford and Wrekin to work together with our community to implement all the inquiry’s recommendations promptly.

I thank Mr Crowther for his excellent work and steadfast determination to get the job done, and all the victims who have worked with me on this issue and who were able to give their evidence to the inquiry. I hope that CSE victims and survivors in Telford and elsewhere feel confident that they are now being taken seriously and together have shone a light on this issue, and that no one anywhere will be complacent about CSE in the future. I know that the Minister will confirm that in her response.

I want to take this chance to thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Richmond (Yorks) (Rishi Sunak), who at the time we were battling for this inquiry was the local government Minister. Without his help, I wonder whether the inquiry would ever have taken place. I am very grateful to him.

I doubt any of us would have been able to speak out on this issue but for the pioneering work of the inspirational hon. Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion). It was her support that enabled me to keep going to make this inquiry happen, and I commend her on her bravery on holding those responsible to account. It is not an easy job, as I can now say from experience.

I am privileged to be Telford’s MP and to have the platform to speak up for victims. I am grateful that other hon. Members have taken the same opportunity. Together, slowly and bit by bit, standing on the shoulders of those who have gone before us, we will make change really happen.

Oral Answers to Questions

Robbie Moore Excerpts

Tuesday 21st June 2022 Commons Chamber

[Claire Coutinho (East Surrey) (Con)]

1. What assessment she has made of the effectiveness of British diplomatic support for Ukraine.

[Robbie Moore (Keighley) (Con)]

2. What assessment she has made of the effectiveness of British diplomatic support for Ukraine.

[Mrs Sheryll Murray (South East Cornwall) (Con)]

20. What assessment she has made of the effectiveness of British diplomatic support for Ukraine.

--- Later in debate ---

[Robbie Moore]

Last Sunday afternoon, I spent a couple of hours meeting a Ukrainian family who have moved to the Worth valley in my constituency under the Homes for Ukraine scheme. They are so incredibly grateful for the work that the Government are doing, but they did reiterate that we cannot rest until full Ukrainian sovereignty and territorial integrity is restored in Ukraine and until Putin fails. Will my right hon. Friend update the House on recent conversations that he has had with global allies on how we can take a co-operative approach with international partners to ensure that that happens?

[James Cleverly]

I thank my hon. Friend and his community for hosting Ukrainian refugees. Praise is due in every corner of the House for our constituents doing just that. I assure him that my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary, my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister and other Ministers in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and other Departments, as well as officials at every level, are engaging with our international friends and allies on this issue. It will be raised at the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting, the G7, the G20 and the NATO meeting in Madrid. I also assure him that the UK will not rest in its support of the Ukrainian Government and the Ukrainian people, and we will not rest in advocating on their behalf with the international community.

Prime Minister’s Visit to India

Robbie Moore Excerpts

Tuesday 26th April 2022 Commons Chamber

[Vicky Ford]

The UK is absolutely committed to defending freedom of religion or belief for all, and to promoting respect and tolerance between different religions and indeed between religious and non-religious communities. We condemn any incidences of discrimination because of religion. Our high commissioner in Delhi, and our network of deputy high commissioners across India, regularly meet religious representatives, and have run projects to help support minority rights. The Indian constitution protects all communities, but we will always raise human rights issues with countries across the world where we have concerns.

[Robbie Moore (Keighley) (Con)]

Will my hon. Friend confirm that, as the UK holds the COP presidency, the Government are working to support India’s energy transition away from imported oil and towards a more sustainable energy source, to address both energy security and climate change?

[Vicky Ford]

Yes. As president of COP, the UK is absolutely focused on ensuring that the promises made in Glasgow are delivered. I was really pleased to hear that during the Prime Minister’s visit we launched the hydrogen and science innovation hub to accelerate affordable green hydrogen; we committed new funding for the green grids initiative that we announced in Glasgow; and there was collaboration on the public transport electrification. Globally, we also committed up to £75 million to rolling out adaptable clean tech innovations from India to the wider Indo-Pacific and to Africa. That benefits not only India but the Indo-Pacific, Africa, the UK and, indeed, the planet.

Oral Answers to Questions

Robbie Moore Excerpts

Tuesday 26th April 2022 Commons Chamber

[Elizabeth Truss]

We will be publishing our new development strategy this spring. There are some key elements to the strategy: first, we will restore the budget for women and girls and restore the budget for humanitarian aid. In the face of the appalling crisis in Ukraine, we have already committed £220 million of development funding, and we are one of the largest donors.

[Robbie Moore (Keighley) (Con)]

T7.   Across Keighley and Ilkley, there is no shortage of good will to help those who are affected by the conflict in Ukraine—including from Ilkley and Surrounds Support for Ukrainian Evacuees, a volunteer group led by Caroline Hyde that is working to help those seeking refuge within our community. Of course, that is dependent on the Government working with our European counterparts to ensure the safe passage of refugees from Ukraine. What discussions has the Foreign Secretary had with her counterparts to make sure that that happens?

[Elizabeth Truss]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on the fantastic work that he is doing with the local community in Keighley and Ilkley. We are seeing people across Britain really contributing to the effort to support the people of Ukraine. We have now issued more than 70,000 visas to Ukrainians. We are working with Foreign Ministers right across Europe to ensure that we are completely co-ordinated, particularly with those Governments that are close by, like the Poles.

Oral Answers to Questions

Robbie Moore Excerpts

Tuesday 8th March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Selaine Saxby (North Devon) (Con)]

10. What steps her Department is taking to support Ukraine.

[Robbie Moore (Keighley) (Con)]

18. What steps her Department is taking to support Ukraine.

[Caroline Ansell (Eastbourne) (Con)]

19. What steps her Department is taking to support Ukraine.

--- Later in debate ---

[Elizabeth Truss]

The United Kingdom is the No. 1 donor of humanitarian aid to Ukraine, with £220 million, and we are doing more than any other country on medical support, with the sixth flight of medical supplies having gone out to Ukraine last night. I assure my hon. Friend that Foreign Office teams and Ministry of Defence teams are actively supporting efforts to get very ill children out of Ukraine so that they can get the medical support they need.

[Robbie Moore]

I welcome the Government’s actions in response to the distressing humanitarian situation in Ukraine. Across Keighley and Ilkley we are all deeply concerned about the deteriorating events. Will my right hon. Friend confirm that the substantial funding the Government have put in place will deliver vital support to aid agencies as they respond to this distressing deteriorating situation?

[Elizabeth Truss]

We can all see how terrible the situation is, with 2 million people fleeing Ukraine. As I have outlined, we are providing humanitarian assistance. We are providing Ukrainians with access to basic necessities and vital medical supplies, as people are forced to flee their homes. We will continue to work with our friends and allies throughout Europe to deliver as much as we can to those in need.

Local Authority Boundaries (Referendums) Bill

Robbie Moore Excerpts

Friday 25th February 2022 Commons Chamber

[Robbie Moore (Keighley) (Con)]

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.

Local representation matters. People need to have trust in their local authority, which is charged with acting in their best interest, regardless of which political party may be in charge at local level. Residents need to be reassured that the framework, the model, the structure and the geographical area represented mean that the local authority has the capacity and the capability of acting in their best interest.

My Local Authority Boundaries (Referendums) Bill aims to re-empower communities that feel completely disenfranchised and forgotten about, and that feel their local authority, by the very nature of its structure and the geographical area it represents, is incapable of acting in their best interest. The Bill would give communities the option to have their say in refocusing local councils on being local.

Let us not forget that local authorities perhaps have more important powers on an individual or family’s day-to-day life than any other level of government, whether it be highways, potholes, speeding cameras, housing, planning, schools, children’s services, adult services, bin collection, regeneration, driving economic growth, leisure centres or libraries—the list goes on.

I represent perhaps the best part of the United Kingdom. Keighley, Ilkley, Silsden, Steeton, Riddlesden, East Morton, Worth Valley and my wider constituency are full of passionate people who, quite rightly, are extremely proud of where they live. We have some fantastic businesses, large and small, from manufacturing, engineering and tech businesses to brilliant independent retail businesses, breweries and fantastic tourist attractions, all of which are keen to grow and expand their offering. For far too long the area I represent has felt completely unrepresented and not listened to by our local authority. This Bill aims to change that.

[Sally-Ann Hart (Hastings and Rye) (Con)]

My hon. Friend will agree that democracy is a process, not a state, and it evolves. Winston Churchill said:

“democracy is the worst form of Government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time”.—[Official Report, 11 November 1947; Vol. 444, c. 207.]

Does my hon. Friend agree with that, and does he agree that local democracy protects the interests of local residents, promotes equality, prevents the abuse of power and creates stability? Does he agree that these are all vital parts of the democracy for which he is fighting?

[Sally-Ann Hart]

I apologise, Madam Deputy Speaker.

[Robbie Moore]

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend, because this Bill aims to reinstall local councils’ power to represent local people and to make sure that the area they represent feels represented so that delivery can happen at a local level. This Bill aims to address those points by creating our very own local council that can be more representative, more engaged and, most importantly, more focused on delivering for our area.

The mechanics of my Bill are simple: it aims to make provision to enable referendums to be held within parliamentary constituency areas to form new local authorities. It places a requirement on the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities to lay regulations that would enable two or more parliamentary constituency areas in England to form a new local authority if, when combined, they form a continuous area. A petitioning system will be created to enable local government electors in any constituency area to indicate their support for a referendum to be held on the creation of a new local authority. If 10% or more of the people in those constituency areas give their support for a referendum via the petitioning system, a referendum will be able to be held among all electors within those constituency areas, proposing to form a new local authority area. Of course, once the referendum is held, if a majority of people have signalled that they want a new council to better represent them, the mechanics of setting up a new local authority should be enabled.

[Mr Richard Holden (North West Durham) (Con)]

In County Durham, several years ago, we had referendums on whether to abolish our local district councils and move to a unitary council system. One of the issues that we faced was that, despite referendums in which the overwhelming majority of the general public decided to back maintaining district councils, the greater local authority overruled them. Does my hon. Friend’s Bill have enough teeth in it at the moment, or will this be something to consider in Committee in order to ensure that those referendum results are respected by larger local authorities?

[Robbie Moore]

If I recall, 76% of people across the County Durham area voted in favour of making sure that the local councils were kept. I think the turnout was only 40%—considerably low—but those electors were not listened to. This Bill provides the weight and the teeth necessary to ensure that local electors are listened to and their voice is heard.

[Sir Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)]

Can I give my hon. Friend another example? In Christchurch there was a turnout more equivalent to that at a general election, and its people voted 84% in favour of retaining their independence, but were nevertheless run roughshod over by the Government.

[Robbie Moore]

That is exactly what this Bill hopes to achieve: to instil local democracy in constituency areas that feel unrepresented by a much larger unitary authority, to enable them to have their say, and so that a local council can reflect their views and deliver for them locally, to ensure we can get better services delivered at a local level.

This has been a long-suffering campaign—in fact, I suspect it started before I was even born, probably on the very day on which the borough of Keighley and the urban districts of Baildon, Bingley, Cullingworth, Denholme, Ilkley, Shipley and Silsden were all brought under the control of Bradford. In 1974, the City of Bradford Metropolitan District Council was created to administer the newly formed metropolitan borough instigated by the Local Government Act 1972. Ever since that year, when our area’s decision-making powers were stripped and our assets simply handed over to Bradford City Hall, things have never been the same.

[Peter Gibson (Darlington) (Con)]

I compliment my hon. Friend on the way in which he is presenting his Bill and seeking to deliver for his constituents. Does he agree that it is only right that places such as his constituency have the opportunity to catch up and change those abominable local government structures of the 1970s, as Darlington has been able to enjoy with a unitary authority specifically focused on its own local community?

[Robbie Moore]

Of course, Darlington is now one of the thriving towns of the north. Keighley absolutely wants to be one, too, but we are stifled by the system we have locally, under which we are completely forgotten about. In my view, Bradford Council disregards the voice of Keighley and Ilkley and we must be heard.

[Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)]

As my hon. Friend knows, I fully support him in this and I want my constituency to join his in this new local authority. Does he agree that there is nothing in the Bill that anybody should disagree with, because if Bradford Council is doing such a wonderful job representing his constituents and mine, presumably they will vote against setting up a new local authority when the referendum takes place? It is presumably because Bradford Council knows how badly it is representing our constituents that it is so frightened of this legislation.

[Robbie Moore]

My hon. Friend and neighbour makes a very important point. No one should live in fear of the Bill because it triggers better democracy. Local voices will be heard, so we can ensure that services are delivered better at a local level. I will come on to why this issue is so passionately considered by many of my constituents due to the ongoing failings of Bradford Council.

[Mr Holden]

My hon. Friend is being very generous in giving way, but I have to disagree with him on one point. Is not the entire point of his Bill that some people should live in fear of his legislation: failing local authorities that are not delivering for local people? That is exactly what he is trying to address for his constituents.

[Robbie Moore]

I suspect that some will live in fear, but they should not fear the Bill because it is all about ensuring that services are delivered better and that local residents are represented much more efficiently by the people who should be serving them.

Anyone opposed to the Bill will say that bigger is better, but I beg to differ. I am yet to see consistent and guaranteed evidence that the creation of much larger unitary authorities will always provide better representation, better democracy, better deliverability of services, better effectiveness and performance, or indeed better accountability. When it comes to the efficiency, effectiveness and performance of a local council, size is not the driving factor. In fact, if the population and geographical area a local authority represents is too large or covers geographical areas that have little or nothing in common, there is a much greater risk of failure.

[Peter Gibson]

My hon. Friend is making an important point about size. I would be grateful if he could address the point that size—the total number of people a local authority covers or its geographic size—may not necessarily be the problem; it could be its actual make-up. What assessment has he made of the innovative changes taking place in North Yorkshire just to the north of his constituency, where local government reorganisation is taking place? Does he feel that his constituency probably has a greater affinity to the new North Yorkshire council than it does to Bradford?

[Robbie Moore]

My hon. Friend makes some important points. North Yorkshire is of course within miles of my two principal towns and I sometimes feel there is more allegiance to the areas of North Yorkshire. But we have some passionate people who are dedicated to making sure that services are delivered and local decisions are made as locally as they can be. I am working on a strong campaign with my neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies). We believe our two constituencies will be able to form our own unitary authority, so that we can make sure that decision making happens in our area and is not linked to Bradford Council.

When it comes to local democracy and local representation, which drives the local decision-making process, policy ideas and deliverability of services at a local level, size does matter and matters actually much more. That is why, in my view, there should be no set size for a unitary authority. It should be driven by the geographical area it wants to represent. If the population area is too large or people do not feel fully connected to the area which the local authority wholly represents, the negative implications can be disastrous for driving forward positive change for an area.

[James Daly (Bury North) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech. May I refer him to the case of Greater Manchester, a completely artificial political construct? Within each individual borough of Greater Manchester, a 493 square mile clean air charging zone is being inflicted on people by Andy Burnham. This is an example of how, if decision making is taken away from the local population, the Bill will answer that. The people of Bury do not want to be part of Greater Manchester.

[Robbie Moore]

My hon. Friend describes the similarities. A clean air zone is being imposed on hard-working people in my constituency—taxi drivers and construction workers, who are having to pay up to £50 a day to enter Bradford city. It is a completely outrageous tax on hard-working people, and I urge Bradford’s Labour-run council to rethink the proposals and perhaps take a leaf out of Andy Burnham’s book, delay the implementation and consider that. In my view, the strategy will not work in its current format.

When there is disenfranchisement and disengagement, with a council area being too large, the consequences can be devastating. Public trust in councillors and council officers is eroded. Levels of uniform engagement across the whole area become weaker and levels of identification or affinity between the electorate and the council officers become weaker again. Of course, across Bradford district, we see exactly that.

[Mr Holden]

My hon. Friend is making an incredibly powerful speech and he is being generous in giving way so often. Does he agree that one of the big drivers he and I see in seats such as ours is the levelling-up agenda, which we really want to get on with? Does he share my concern that some local authorities are not interested in delivering that agenda, as he and I are, and that we need local authorities that will work with us, as local MPs, to deliver for our constituents?

[Robbie Moore]

I totally agree and I will definitely come on to that.

A root cause of so many of these problems is that my constituents feel that they are being used as a cash cow for Bradford, with very little coming back in return. Council tax and business rates are all sent from my constituency to Bradford city hall, with nowhere near the equivalent of those funds coming back to be reinvested in our area. The Keighley and Shipley constituencies generate the highest revenue of tax to Bradford Council through our council tax and business rate payments. Data released by the council finds that such wards as Ilkley, Wharfedale and Craven pay the highest proportion of what is billed, while other wards within Bradford city centre itself pay the least, yet get the highest investment. Even though our constituencies are the largest contributors, we undoubtedly benefit the least, with cash being funnelled into Bradford city centre projects by my constituents, who get no benefit whatsoever. Let us be in no doubt that in Keighley we have some huge problems and some huge deprived areas, and we need more local support from our local authority.

Let me come on the point that my hon. Friend made, which is absolutely to do with levelling up. Clearly, parts of my constituency have been forgotten about at a local level and left behind, particularly by my local authority, which should have given much more attention to them over the years. It has taken this Conservative Government to step in and, through the towns fund, from which we are gaining £33.6 million—it is going to be invested in some great projects—to drive and kick-start that economic regeneration.

It has to be noted that, despite the £33.6 million coming in to support Keighley-based projects, our Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities gave every local authority the opportunity to apply for a levelling-up fund—up to £20 million. That would have provided a greater boost; it would have been in addition to the £33.6 million that this Conservative Government had already put down for my constituency. But what did Bradford’s Labour-run council do in terms of that application process? It failed even to apply for up to £20 million to come into my town of Keighley. That is a disgrace and it is exactly why this Bill is so important. It will finally give my residents the opportunity to have a say in driving forward economic prosperity for our area.

Let us consider a very local project: the Silsden to Steeton bridge, which connects those places and goes over a very busy dual carriageway. My predecessor, Kris Hopkins, when he was the MP, secured £700,000 from the Conservative Government to carry out an economic feasibility study. That money was granted way back in 2015, but it took until the beginning of last year for that study to be completed by Bradford council and the West Yorkshire Combined Authority and to produce a cost to build the bridge of £3.6 million. That increased to £5.5 million, and at the beginning of this year Bradford Council came out with an estimate of more than £10 million to deliver the bridge. I only hope that this is not Bradford’s Labour-run council kicking the project into the long grass so that my constituents do not benefit from a pedestrian bridge connecting Silsden and Steeton.

Then we come to the challenges with the planning process. Many of my constituents are extremely frustrated at the time it takes for planning to proceed through the system. I shall use one example. Many hard-working businesses in Keighley want to drive economic growth and build light industrial units. I reference one fairly small project. Back in 2018, a planning application went in for just off the Hard Ings roundabout, to build, I think, eight light industrial units. The application was submitted in 2018, but it took until the year of the pandemic for the application to be approved. During the year of the pandemic, my constituent was successful in gaining planning consent, cracked on, got them built and let the units so that hard-working businesses could crack on and thrive. Had Bradford Council cracked on with that planning application, those business units could have been built and those businesses could have got in and thrived much quicker. Labour-run Bradford Council continued to fail on all levels to support my constituents and hard-working businesses. This Bill gives my constituents the opportunity to have their say.

It does not stop there. Throughout the pandemic, the Government have supported many hard-working independent businesses right across my constituency. Take the example of the additional restrictions grant: a discretionary grant given to local authorities so that they could make the best decision on how to support businesses. Equilibrium, a beauty business in Silsden—this is just one example—struggled time and again to get hold of additional funding; the business had been impacted by the pandemic. The owner then found out that her counterparts in the beauty sector in other local authorities had managed to get hold of the additional restrictions grant. Her business, however, was denied the possibility of even submitting an application, until I pressed the case time and again with the chief executive and leader of Bradford Council.

Some people argue that smaller local authorities are much less efficient at delivering Government support. I do not agree at all. Craven District Council, just next to me, covers a population of about 70,000 to 80,000. It delivered its business grants during the covid pandemic far quicker than Bradford Council. Calderdale, on the other side of my constituency, with a population of around 200,000, delivered its business grants far quicker than Bradford Council. It would be far better to form a new local authority that was much more unified with the area it represents.

I turn to housing. Like all local authorities, our local authority has been charged with putting together a new local plan, which relates to the housing strategy for the next 15 years from 2023. Bradford Council’s proposals see up to 3,000 new houses being built across my local area on greenfield land. Up to 75 houses were proposed in Addingham’s neighbourhood development plan, which it has just completed after long consultations with Bradford Council. Now Bradford Council wants to build 181 houses there. Some 314 houses are proposed for Ilkley, mostly on greenbelt land. There is a proposal for 191 new houses in Riddlesden, mostly on greenbelt land. The Worth valley: 343 new houses, mostly on greenbelt land. In Silsden, 580 new houses are proposed—again, mostly on greenfield and greenbelt land. That will all have a huge impact on local services, schools, health services and road networks. Most of those businesses, schools and GP services have not even been consulted as part of the local plan.

These are not the only instances in which my residents are being ignored. About two years ago, many residents along Moss Carr Road in Long Lee submitted a village green application to try to protect a key greenfield site just outside Long Lee. Bradford Council did not even progress the application, blaming that on its having got lost within its system. Now we find that the housing strategy in Bradford Council’s local plan has identified that very field for house building.

One of the most haunting issues that has had an impact on my constituency is child sexual exploitation. Children’s services are in a dire state in Bradford. Across the district, there are exceptional problems that mark my area out from the rest of the country. Children’s services are perhaps the most important services that a local authority can provide, but Bradford Council’s children’s services have failed vulnerable children for far too long. Only last month, we had a damning Government report on Bradford Council’s children’s services, which only went to show what we have all known for a long time—children in our district are not protected by those with a responsibility for doing so, and that has led to tragic circumstances throughout our area. The council has not acted on problems that have been going on for far too long.

Only in July last year, a limited 50-page review was released, which identified five children who had been sexually abused within the Bradford district over the last 20 years. It confirmed that children remain at risk in Bradford and an unknown number of perpetrators remain unchallenged. Perhaps more damningly, the report concluded that failures had been identified within Bradford Council’s social services and children’s services department.

I am pleased to say that, earlier this year, the Conservative Government stepped in and stripped Bradford Council of its children’s services so that a new trust structure could be set up. My constituents are deeply concerned by the lack of trust in public organisations that should be there to protect them. I am pleased that the Government have stepped in to try to provide some reassurance, so that vulnerable children in my constituency can be looked after, and that is before I start talking about one of the darker issues of child sexual exploitation and my campaign to trigger a full Rotherham-style inquiry into child sexual exploitation across the district. I only hope that the leader of Bradford Council is listening to this debate and that our new Mayor, Tracy Brabin, is also listening, so that they get behind my calls for a full inquiry. If we continue to um and ah around this issue and fail to take action, issues will only get worse.

What are the likely next steps for the Bill? It would give my constituents a chance of a new start with a new local authority. Currently, powers are limited, in that the Government are unable to make changes to local authorities unless they are recommended to do so by the Local Government Boundary Commission for England. While measures remain in place for a council to request the commission to undertake a boundary review, there is nothing to allow our constituents to make the decision for themselves. The Bill would provide that option. Importantly, it would do it in a way that ensures that any newly formed local authority would be financially viable and would leave the original local authority also viable.

The Bill would put new measures in place to ensure that local people have a say on who represents them, the very nature of the council and the geographical area in which its services can be delivered more efficiently. It is only right that, if a majority of people in specific constituencies are in favour of forming a new unitary authority, they have the opportunity to do so. Not only would that benefit my constituents in Keighley and Ilkley, but it would be welcomed—according to comments we have heard across the House—by many other people.

My Bill aims to re-empower communities who feel disenfranchised, forgotten and that their local authority, by its very nature, structure and the geographical area it represents, is incapable of acting in their interests. It is high time that we let people have their say on this very issue, and I will not stop fighting until my constituents can have a better local authority that is better engaged on their priorities and able to deliver for them, because my constituents deserve much better than what they currently get from Labour-run Bradford Council.

[Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Keighley (Robbie Moore). As he knows, I fully support him on this Bill, and I thought he set out the case fantastically well. I should say that the people of Keighley and Ilkley are very lucky to have him representing them. He is a fantastic Member of Parliament both in this place and locally, and I very much trust he will be for many years to come.

Both my hon. Friend and I stood at the last election on a promise that we would endeavour to break our constituencies away from Bradford Council. He set out many of the reasons why Bradford Council is failing. Actually, it is failing not just our constituents, but the people of Bradford. However, they have their own Members of Parliament to represent them, and it is our duty to represent our constituents. It is not just that Bradford Council is failing and incompetent, although it is. It is worse than that, as far as I am concerned: it is actually that it does not care about our constituents; it just cares about its Bradford heartlands. If you do not mind, Madam Deputy Speaker, I will give a couple of examples to illustrate why that is the case, should anybody deny it. There are many examples I could give, but I am going to give two that I think set out the case quite clearly.

Bradford Council is of course always strapped for cash, if we listen to it, and my hon. Friend made a very good point about council tax income, which I will come on to a bit later. It announced a few years ago that it was going to close the swimming pool in Bingley in my constituency, which was a very popular and well-used facility that was used by lots of the schoolchildren we are trying to encourage to do more sport. Of course, Bradford Council’s reason is always that it has not got enough money, and some people may have some sympathy with that. Unfortunately, at the same time as it made the announcement about closing Bingley swimming pool, it announced that it was going to build five brand-new swimming pools in other parts of the Bradford district—so much for lack of resources being the issue. It was quite blatantly because it wanted to put them in its Labour heartlands, and it did not really care about people in Bingley.

However, I have a better, ongoing example. One thing in Bradford Council’s Airedale masterplan from years ago—from about the time I became the local MP, if not before—was to introduce a Shipley eastern bypass. It was recommended by the consultants Arup, who were paid by Bradford Council to come up with this masterplan. It recommended a Shipley eastern bypass, which I wholly agree with and have been campaigning for ever since. After the then Secretary of State for Transport came to see with his own eyes the issues that would be resolved by a Shipley eastern bypass, in early 2019 the Government gave Bradford Council hundreds of thousands of pounds to conduct a feasibility study of this proposal—to see how much it would cost, where it would go and all the rest of it.

Bradford Council was given this money, and it agreed that it would produce the feasibility study by the autumn of 2019. The autumn of 2019 came and went, and no feasibility study was produced by Bradford Council. Then it was going to be the spring of 2020, but that came and went, and there was no feasibility study. We are now almost in March 2022, and Bradford Council still has not completed the feasibility study into the Shipley eastern bypass, and then it has the brass neck to complain that it does not get infrastructure investment into the Bradford district. The Government are trying to facilitate this, and it cannot even do the small bit of the jigsaw that it has to put in place. If that does not demonstrate beyond any doubt that Bradford Council does not care about infrastructure in my constituency, I do not know what would. It would not surprise me if it had barely started it. It clearly does not want to do the project because it would largely benefit the people of my constituency, so it is of zero interest. I think that is pretty shocking, to be perfectly honest.

Bradford Council has not completed a feasibility study, which is either because it is wholly incompetent or because it does not care about my constituents. Those are the only two explanations that anyone can offer. I am happy for it to explain which one it is—it can choose. It can make a public statement about that. I do not care which one it is, but it is clearly one or the other. That proves beyond any doubt in my mind that it really does not care about my constituency. My hon. Friend the Member for Keighley rightly feels the same about his constituency.

The Bradford area is not suited to being so big—it is too big. I will give a simple explanation of why it does not work. People and the local media often ask me what I am doing for Bradford. As it happens, I do quite a lot, including helping to secure millions of pounds to help the old Odeon in Bradford become a live music venue—without that Government support, that project would not have been viable—and, along with colleagues in Bradford, helping to save the National Media Museum, which was threatened with closure. But, the thing is, no one ever asks Bradford MPs what they are doing for Shipley or Keighley—it is always a one-way street. That goes to show how this area does not work for anybody. We are thrown in as if we are part of Bradford when we have our own needs—and frankly, for my constituents, decision making in Bradford is just as remote as decision making in Whitehall.

My hon. Friend gave some good examples of Bradford Council’s failures. He mentioned child sexual exploitation and how we need a Rotherham-style inquiry to get to the bottom of that, but it continually refuses to agree to that because it is more concerned with trying to protect its reputation than with those children who have been put in a terrible situation. He also mentioned how the Government took children’s services away from the council because it had been failing so badly. We have had some terrible cases. The awful murder of Star Hobson, which happened in my hon. Friend’s constituency, uncovered huge failings by Bradford Council, which had been made well aware of the case.

I agree with my hon. Friend that one of the worst aspects of Bradford Council for my constituents relates to building on the green belt, which affects his constituents just as it does mine. That also goes to show how useless the council is. It is always banging on about regenerating Bradford and how important that is for the district—it does not talk much about regenerating Keighley or Shipley—and then it builds hundreds of houses on the green belt in Wharfedale in my constituency. Of course, people in Wharfedale do not shop in Bradford because it is not easy for them to get to Bradford; they get on the train and go to Leeds. Bradford Council’s housing policy is actually regenerating Leeds rather than Bradford.

Bradford Council does not build houses in places where people would want to work and shop in Bradford. It does not have a joined-up policy to help itself; it is just a numbers exercise for the council, with it wanting to build as many houses as it can in desirable areas of our constituencies to tick a box without any thought about our constituents or even how Bradford might be helped. I am almost certain that a local authority made up only of our two constituencies would not have agreed to some of the housing developments that Bradford Council has imposed on my constituents against their wishes. It will not rest until it has concreted over every last bit of green-belt land in my constituency, which is something that I try to stop.

My hon. Friend mentioned how his constituency has been excluded from the levelling-up fund. I have the same story to tell. We might think that a council that has been griping for years that it has not had enough money to do anything would have had lots of projects ready to go—those that it had wanted to do for years and years. Bingley is the second largest place in my constituency. I have asked Bradford Council to develop a levelling-up fund bid for Bingley. Given how many years Bingley has been under the control of Bradford Council, one would have thought it would have something on the shelf—“If we got £20 million for Bingley, this is what we’d do.” The Government announced a levelling-up fund—“Put your bids in.” Bradford Council said, “Can we have one for Bingley?” and it was “Oh no. We haven’t got anything ready for that. We can’t. We’ll have to start working on it.” Start working on it! They had not even thought about how they might regenerate Bingley.

Indeed, they had thought about it so little that they were not even in a position to put in a bid when the Government are handing out money. They are having to start working out what they might do to regenerate Bingley. We missed the first round of bidding, putting at risk whether we may or may not get anything from a future bid. But do not worry, Madam Deputy Speaker, a bid for Bradford West was ready to go in the first round, and I am sure my constituents were hugely reassured by that.

[Robbie Moore]

Does my hon. Friend agree it is shocking that when this Conservative Government come along and say, “You can apply for up to £20 million for the Shipley constituency and £20 million for the Keighley constituency”, there was not even an application for up to £40 million that could have come in to revitalise the Aire valley corridor? It was not even applied for.

[Philip Davies]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and it is frustrating for those of us who are trying to do the best for our local area to have a local authority that has all the power in the area but does not do its bit. It is telling that the biggest investments we have had recently in the towns fund for Shipley and Keighley have both come from the Government, and not from the Labour council that has had years to try to regenerate the town centres but has not done anything about it. That is why the Bill is so important to me and my constituents, and they will welcome it.

Time is against us, and I accept that the Minister may not be able to accept the Bill today. I hope, however, that she will commit to holding further discussions with me and my hon. Friend the Member for Keighley to see how we can progress the grave injustice that our constituents are facing, and see what can be done to ensure they are properly represented at local level. Surely local government should be all about being local—indeed, as local as possible. What on earth is the point of it if it is so big in area that people feel no affinity to the local government area that is governing them? It is completely pointless. We must make local government much more local again.

The Bill is a perfect way of going about that. It would mean that our two constituencies would be able to petition to set up a new local authority. If the majority of my constituents, and those of my hon. Friend, wanted that to happen, it would happen. Who can be against that form of local democracy and ensuring that we have a local authority that our constituents want? Does any political party want to oppose that principle? I cannot think they would want to face their electorate by saying that they are opposed to that principle, but we will be delighted to hear what the Labour party says about whether it favours that kind of local democracy. My constituents do not want to be part of Bradford Council, and neither do those of my hon. Friend.

I am prepared to be more generous than my hon. Friend, and I hope the Minister will also take this into consideration. Under the Bill—I think my hon. Friend is right to do this in principle—if a majority of voters in those two constituencies wanted to break away and set up their own local authority, the Government would implement that. I am prepared to make a generous offer to go further. I am happy to have a referendum in the whole Bradford district about whether we should break away from Bradford Council. It would mean that the Bradford part of that district would have the majority of people in it, but I am happy to take my chances on that. People might say, “Well of course if you break away that will affect Bradford”, but I am happy for everyone to have a vote in that referendum. Let’s go for it. I will make that generous offer. Who could possibly disagree with that? I hope that the Government will look at what can be done to ensure that local government is genuinely local, so that my constituents are no longer short-changed by the appalling Bradford Council, which is not only incompetent but does not really care about my constituents or those of my hon. Friend the Member for Keighley.



I commend my hon. Friend for keeping to his promise at the last election to do whatever he could to ensure that our constituencies break away from the horror of Bradford Council and set up our own local authority. This would be a viable local authority—it would be exactly the same size as neighbouring Calderdale Council, so nobody could say that it was not viable. I therefore hope the Government will take steps to ensure that my constituents and his can be properly looked after and feel represented at a local democracy level, because they are certainly not at the moment. It is an absolute pleasure to be the parliamentary neighbour of my hon. Friend, who is a superb representative of his constituents. I stand shoulder to shoulder with him on this Bill, and we will not give in. We will keep up this fight until we get justice for our constituents.

--- Later in debate ---

[Peter Gibson]

I am grateful for that intervention, which gives a shining example of the horrors of Bradford Council and many others across the country in failing to collect council tax, which is shameful behaviour.

We have all been horrified by the stories that my hon. Friend the Member for Keighley shared about children and young people’s services in Bradford Council. In my view, the Government were absolutely right to strip the council of control over its children’s services department this year. No vulnerable child or young adult should be failed by those whose role is to protect them, and I sincerely hope that childhood services in Bradford can turn a corner.

In my constituency, many residents will no doubt be sympathetic to my hon. Friends’ desire for Keighley and Shipley to break away from Bradford District Council. Darlington was a non-metropolitan district of Durham County Council until, on 1 April 1997, the borough of Darlington absorbed the powers of the county council to become a unitary authority, the third smallest in the country, and Darlington Borough Council was formed. Darlington residents felt forgotten and abandoned by Durham County Council, and, given what we have heard today, I have no doubt that that is exactly how the residents of Keighley and Shipley feel about Bradford Council. In Darlington, we also know a lot about how ineffective Labour-run administrations can be, especially when they rest on their laurels and take our communities for granted.

[Robbie Moore]

My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech. The problem is not just that these local authorities are not delivering, but that they are not listening. In my constituency, the Government, through the towns fund, has delivered money for a new health and wellbeing hub, which we want to support because we need a health and wellbeing hub in the centre of Keighley. However, the local authority is determined to build it on a green space in the centre, in North Street, despite the voice of Keighley not wanting it to be built there. This should not be an either/or choice; it should be possible to deliver a health and wellbeing hub while also keeping the green space. That example illustrates that the failure of some of these Labour-run authorities is not listening to what local people want.

Elections Bill

Robbie Moore Excerpts

Report stage
Monday 17th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[Deidre Brock (Edinburgh North and Leith) (SNP)]

I rise to speak to my new clause 18, and I declare an interest as a member of the all-party parliamentary group on electoral campaigning transparency.

The Bill has almost nothing to say about the acute issue of secretive campaign finance filtering into British politics. The use of unincorporated associations reveals loopholes that are being used to funnel dirty and dark money into the UK electoral system. As the Committee on Standards in Public Life has warned, these groups can offer a route for foreign money to influence UK elections.

The purpose of the new clause is explicit in not placing an extra burden on the many thousands of small UAs such as sports clubs, which for various reasons want to maintain structures that have no legal existence separate from their members. Equally, I am not arguing that UAs should be banned altogether from donating to political parties; rather, the issue is about addressing the loophole that allows UAs registered with the Electoral Commission to make political donations without conducting adequate permissibility checks on their original donors.

Unincorporated associations are associations of two or more people that do not fall into any of the other categories for permissible donors; the two or more people do not necessarily need to be resident in the UK, only on the electoral roll. The Electoral Commission identified two key vulnerabilities in its submission to the Committee on Standards in Public Life. The first was that although UAs are included in the list of permissible donors, as long as they are UK-based and carry on business or other activities in the UK, those who give money to them are not required to be permissible donors. A UA could, in fact, legitimately receive money from overseas sources and donate it to political parties. If a donation is over the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000 threshold of £25,000 in a calendar year, the UA will have to disclose whatever details it knows of the name and address of the person who made the gift, but it would not be prevented from receiving and then donating that gift. Secondly, no transparency is required from UAs when they provide donations to candidates rather than to parties.

The UK Government insist that the current checks are comprehensive and offer sufficient transparency, but the entire public register of donations to UAs amounts to just half a dozen gifts. All were made to the same Conservative association, the Trevelyan Campaign Fund, with the most recent gift recorded in November 2014. That means that it is more than seven years since a donation to an unincorporated association was registered.

To provide greater confidence in the original sources of donations, the permissibility requirements for UAs need to be strengthened. As investigative journalists such as Peter Geoghegan have helped uncover, UAs can be set up with the sole purpose of siphoning money to political campaigns. Perhaps the most infamous example is the Democratic Unionist party’s £435,000 donation to Vote Leave, which was channelled via a UA, the Constitutional Research Council. It was consequently fined just £6,000—a penalty totalling little more than 1% of its donations, which could well simply be seen as the cost of doing business. We still do not know who provided that money originally.

It is clear that such punishment offers little deterrent. The Association of Conservative Clubs, which connects affiliated private clubs around the country, explicitly advises members to set up as UAs rather than limited companies. Those clubs have given well over £1 million to the Conservatives. New clause 18 would quite simply require unincorporated associations that meet the threshold for registration with the Electoral Commission to conduct checks to establish whether a person donating for political purposes is a permissible donor and, if not, to reject that donation as the Committee on Standards in Public Life has recommended. I will have to leave it there.

[Robbie Moore (Keighley) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to speak on this Bill as it continues to progress through this place. I welcome the actions that the Government are taking to make our elections fairer. Changes to the electoral process have been due for some time, and I was proud to stand on a manifesto in 2019 that promised finally to do something about the situation.

The issue of postal vote misuse is particularly important for my constituents when it comes to elections. With that in mind, I put particular focus on new clause 11 and new schedule 1, which have been put forward by the Government. The new clause gives attention to postal votes regarding how applications are made and the verifications needed to make them. As I have previously said in this place, postal voting is an undeniable problem in Keighley and Ilkley. My constituents have expressed their anger and confusion at how it is so easy for people to get away with distorting our electoral process. In fact, my constituency is deemed to be at high risk of such fraud, with one in five reports of electoral fraud coming from the West Yorkshire area. This includes cases of bribery, false statements and exerting undue influence on voters. In Keighley it is well known that postal votes are manipulated during general and local elections and other votes.

[Mr Holden]

Does my hon. Friend agree that, across the country, people are concerned about postal voting? I am sure hon. Members have heard this whenever they campaign in elections. I stood in council elections in Tower Hamlets back in the mid-2000s, I stood in Preston in 2015 and I have stood in North West Durham. Wherever I have gone, I have seen concern about postal voting. I was delighted to take my constituency from a Labour Front Bencher who stood at the last election, but there is widespread concern, so these amendments are incredibly important.

[Robbie Moore]

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend, and I am delighted he is here, having taken the constituency from a former shadow Minister.

The manipulation of postal votes during elections comes in several forms. The head of a household might guarantee multiple postal votes for a candidate, with other family members not even having a say in using their basic right to vote. There is also false registration, individuals being put under undue pressure to give away their postal vote and individuals being registered to vote in multiple households where it is clear they do not reside.

New clause 11 will help, but I would be grateful for further assurances from the Government that it will help to address all these problems. I feel the Government could go further by shortening the amount of time someone can vote by post before having to renew their registration and prove their identity, perhaps to one electoral cycle. New clause 11 contains flexibility, and I therefore urge the Government to explore this issue further. Likewise, further information is needed on how plans to stop political campaigners handling postal votes in public will prevent mishandling from happening behind closed doors.

New clause 15, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for North West Durham (Mr Holden), is a probing amendment that I wholeheartedly support. A person should be entitled to register at only one address in the United Kingdom at any one time. I also welcome new clause 17, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Bosworth (Dr Evans). Although I appreciate it is also a probing amendment, candidates should be able to ensure their security while comforting the electorate by identifying where they reside, which is vital.

I welcome this Bill, which is definitely a step in the right direction, but I ask my hon. Friend the Minister for further assurance that it will be robust enough to tackle postal vote fraud and the other issues I have outlined.

[Margaret Ferrier (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (Ind)]

Although I do not wish to repeat in detail the excellent points made by so many colleagues, I want to put on record my unequivocal opposition to the Bill in its current form.

On the issues that this Bill does not cover, last week I tabled new clause 10 that would amend the Representation of the People Act 1983 by removing the current requirement for public notice of the address of election agents, including where candidates are acting as their own election agent. Instead, it would allow for the general area in which the address is situated to be published, and would apply to parliamentary and local elections across the UK. Why is that important? Where a candidate is a lone election agent, the law could very well lead to their home address entering the public sphere.

Politics, by its very nature, can be divisive—look at the anger that this Bill alone has triggered. When we stand for election, we know that that comes with associated risks. Sadly, it becomes essential for us to be hyper-vigilant about our personal safety. Those who are privileged enough to win a seat are afforded some support in that respect, but those who do not win do not get the same support, despite the increased profile that even standing for elections will bring in the local community in many cases.

For me, there is an even more vital consideration. Many of us do not live alone, so we are not taking a solely personal risk. If a successful candidate acted as a lone election agent and were suddenly thrust into a very bright national spotlight, their home address would be out there for anyone to find. Our families do not sign up for the personal safety risk that our jobs bring them—we do. Our husbands and wives, children and, in some cases, parents and siblings, could be at risk, too. That is not acceptable.

I hope that the Minister and the Government see the value in new clause 10 and will consider including it in the Bill. I thank the hon. Member for Nottingham North (Alex Norris) for tabling amendment 2 to strengthen the accessibility requirements for blind and partially sighted voters.

This year marks the 150th anniversary of the Ballot Act 1872, which gave citizens the right to vote independently and in secret. It is absolutely essential that any new legislation does not limit that right, even unintentionally.