Town and Country Planning

Debate between Robert Halfon and Bob Stewart

Wednesday 30th September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that quality is just as important as quantity?

[Robert Halfon]

My hon. Friend is right, and that is the kernel of my argument today. What has happened is that the homes, some of them smaller than my office in the House of Commons, and the relatively inexpensive rent charged by property management companies have proved an attractive and lucrative model for social housing, and, I am sorry to say, it is predominantly London’s Labour borough councils have that seen this as an opportunity for what can be described as social cleansing: moving vulnerable residents from their own boroughs into our town of Harlow.

The redevelopment of Terminus House in particular is a blight on our town centre. Antisocial behaviour sky-rocketed. Essex police have attended 238 recorded incidents at or near the site. Another office block, Templefields, has been converted in an isolated part of town on an industrial estate with no proper transport links or amenities for residents.

The crucial issue is how we avoid this in the future. I have had long meetings with the Minister and have been reassured that today’s extension of PDRs, allowing for additional stories to be built on top of purpose- built flats, will not have the same consequences for my constituency, particularly because the Government have announced that they are putting a stop to matchbox houses. All new homes developed under PDRs must meet the nationally prescribed space standard. A one-bedroom apartment will need to be a minimum of 37 square metres.

Education Committee

Debate between Robert Halfon and Bob Stewart

Thursday 29th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Robert Halfon]

The hon. Gentleman makes an incredibly important point. Our Committee is dedicated to looking at social injustice. It is a key aim of the Education Committee. Only yesterday, we had a discussion about early intervention and life chances—about intervening very early on to ensure that social injustice is not carried through later on in life. The answer, therefore, is, yes.

[Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend mentioned that one in eight children from low-income backgrounds is likely to become a high-income earner. What is the percentage for the rest of children—what percentage becomes high-income earners—so that we have a good comparison?

[Robert Halfon]

I do not have the answer off the top of my head, but I am happy to write to my hon. Friend.

Middle East and North Africa

Debate between Robert Halfon and Bob Stewart

Thursday 17th July 2014 Westminster Hall

[Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under you today, Mr Davies. I welcome the debate and, in particular, the fact that it was introduced by my right hon. Friend the Member for North East Bedfordshire (Alistair Burt), who was one of the finest Ministers responsible for relations with the middle east that this country has seen in recent times. Few possess both his fairness and his wisdom in dealing with the intricate problems of the region. I am proud to speak alongside him.

I also welcome the debate because at this time of crisis for the middle east it is worth setting out a few home truths. First, we need to acknowledge that the free world has got it badly wrong. Not only has it been the cause of some of the problems, but it has attempted to solve them with quick fixes, rather than real, long-term solutions. Too often, realpolitik has taken precedence over human values, ignoring the fact that freedom is about not only having an election, but the rule of law, tolerance, equality and property rights. Secondly, realpolitik has too often led to appeasement and to working with the very regimes that created the situations. Even worse, we have seen disengagement due to fear, and guilt over past mistakes. That is why we are now told that we have to work with Iran to deal with the problems of ISIS in Iraq, or why we supply arms to dictatorships in the middle east to enhance stability, despite some of those countries’ records of exporting extreme Islamism around the world. Thirdly, instead of supporting the few genuine democracies in the middle east, either we seek to hold them to disproportionately high standards—higher than any other country—or we deny them the right to self-determination.

Let us look at realpolitik and appeasement. The Arab spring could have been a great opportunity, not only for the citizens of the countries involved, but for the free world. For the first time, it showed that the people who were in revolt wanted and cherished the same values that all of us, throughout the world, hold so dear—the values that Roosevelt so accurately summed up as freedom of speech, freedom of worship, freedom from want and freedom from fear. Unfortunately, the west gave mixed signals, in particular in Egypt, where the prevalent attitude has been “better the devil you know”.

The west’s disengagement, however, has manifested above all in Syria. As my right hon. Friend said, there are 160,000 people dead, and there were promises of red lines that never appeared, and chemical weapons attacks, including the September 2012 one on Palestinians in Yarmouk. As we have seen, the result has been a moral vacuum filled by extreme Islamists, who have now spread from Syria to Iraq. We like to talk about moral values, but where were the demonstrations, the moral outrage and the requests for boycotts by VIPs and celebrities when Assad gassed the Palestinians and starved them to death in Yarmouk? The only Palestinians who count in the eyes of the west are those in Gaza. Compromises with oppressive regimes have led us not only to fail those fighting for freedom, but to fail to support those nations that are spreading democratic values across the region, such as Israel and Iraqi Kurdistan.

Let us turn to Israel. In 2005, Israel withdrew from Gaza and disbanded all settlements at great political cost, eventually causing the split of the main Israeli political party at the time. It was envisaged that the successful withdrawal from Gaza would lead to a withdrawal from much of the west bank; that was the point made by the then Israeli Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert. The reality turned out to be quite different. Instead of progress towards peace, Israeli towns faced a barrage of missile attacks from a total of 11,000 rockets fired by Hamas and Islamic Jihad—11,000 since the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza.

In recent months, as has been described, the rocket attacks have extended from towns close to Gaza, such as Sderot, to Tel Aviv and further. Let us not forget that the missiles—supplied by Iran, which has given Hamas financial and material support—have emboldened that terrorist organisation and led to today’s tragic situation. After being dragged into unwanted confrontation, instead of getting support for facing down Islamist terrorist organisations, Israel yet again gets opprobrium from the west.

Similarly, Iraqi Kurdistan, another nation to have suffered genocide, faces daily threats from terrorism, is surrounded by hostile enemies and is denied its right to seek independence, despite having been faced with an economic blockade by Baghdad over the past year. It now faces the terrible threat of ISIS on its borders. Instead of trying to keep together an artificial and broken Iraq, the UK, the United States and their allies should be doing everything possible to help the Kurdistan region to become independent, and to ensure that that part of the middle east remains free and democratic.

[Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)]

And safe.

[Robert Halfon]

And safe, as my hon. Friend points out. In recent times, the message from the United States and NATO on all such matters has been confused and disparate. The free world needs to group together to give a clear signal that muscular enlightenment must and will take precedence over appeasement, and that freedom and liberty must and will take precedence over extreme Islamist, terrorist or authoritarian dictatorships. Guilt and fear stemming from past mistakes cannot justify total inaction and turning our back on those fighting for just causes.

We must make it clear that intervention to stop genocide, to stop the use of chemical weapons and to protect people from poverty and starvation, far from being unnecessary, is all the more important. It is not wrong to say that democracy can be dropped from a B-52 bomber; perhaps if we had done so from the beginning, we would not have 150,000 dead in Syria. I hope that the debate is a pointer for us, showing that we should grasp the nettle of muscular enlightenment and the case for intervention and doing the right thing in the middle east, so that the people of the region can enjoy the values that all of us cherish so dearly.

Assisted Suicide

Debate between Robert Halfon and Bob Stewart

Tuesday 27th March 2012 Commons Chamber

[Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)]

I wish to make three points. First, as the right hon. Member for Cardiff South and Penarth (Alun Michael) said earlier, I believe that the people who have pushed forward today’s debate are, in essence, introducing a Trojan horse. I respect the genuine feeling that many have on the issue, but my worry is that whatever the intention of some Members, this will ratchet towards euthanasia.

Secondly, there is a risk of abuse because of the serious abuse that exists in Oregon and the Netherlands, where assisted dying is legal and, dare I say it, in historical examples of state-sanctioned euthanasia, such as in Nazi Germany. Thirdly, I would argue that this is the wrong debate. In terms of resources and philosophically, surely we should put everything into helping people to live, not helping people to die.

My fear is that this is a Trojan horse motion. I accept that the motion simply welcomes the DPP’s advice, and that the Director of Public Prosecutions said in February:

“The policy does not change the law on assisted suicide”,

but he also admitted that there had been changes to the policy. As my hon. Friend the Member for Epping Forest (Mrs Laing) said, Parliament has never voted on these measures, even though they de facto amend the Suicide Act 1961. There is a risk that the guidance will tilt the legal balance towards euthanasia, not least because it clarifies how people can deliberately avoid prosecution.

[Bob Stewart]

I do not understand how they would amend the Suicide Act. It is my understanding that it has not been amended.

[Robert Halfon]

My argument is that the guidelines are too flexible, and that Parliament has not made a decision about the matter. As I said, Parliament has had no say in designing the DPP’s guidance, and that is not how law should be made in Britain. We are simply being asked to rubber-stamp what the DPP has said. This matters because there is a risk of abuse—it could become a lawyer’s charter—and because of the kind of country it would make us.

Sadly, there is a real example in history of how the move to assisted dying has led to something much worse. In 1920, the eminent German medics, Binding and Hoche, argued strenuously that doctors should be protected against prosecution for assisted dying. Their research was popularised during the Weimar era, and by 1932 created the intellectual climate that allowed Prussia to remove support for the disabled and terminally ill. In 1939, we know that Hitler issued orders that doctors be commissioned to grant a mercy death to patients who were judged to be incurably sick. A small step perhaps; each step along this path was a small step. Two years later we know that 70,000 patients from Germany’s hospitals had been killed. We know that in 1941, the gas chambers were moved from the hospitals where they had been used for euthanasia to the death camps of Auschwitz and Treblinka. Nurses, doctors and technicians followed the equipment. That is why I am worried about a conveyor belt. Of course, we live in a benign country, and we think that such things would never happen, but it is precisely because we are a benign country that we have to put in every safeguard to ensure that it does never happen.

I argue that the DPP’s guidance can become a lawyer’s charter. Who will define “compassion” in the DPP’s guidance? What is “minor encouragement”? How will we know the victim’s story if only the suspect can give evidence. Moves towards assisted dying would seriously damage our national character. As the National Review reported, a 1991 Dutch survey showed that 2% of all deaths in the Netherlands were caused by deliberate euthanasia, but 10% were from euthanasia by neglect, omission or other forms of poor care.

This is the wrong debate. We should be supporting palliative care, and I am proud to be very involved with my local hospice, St Clare’s. We should remember that about 40% of hospice in-patients return home and 66% of hospice at-home patients die in their own homes.

As a society, we are beginning to devalue human life, whether it is on television, in computer games or in other forms. I accept that we give people choice, but we are not talking about going to a supermarket and choosing a brand of chocolate. Harold Shipman was mentioned earlier, and he got away with what he did because human beings became digits on a computer: form filling. I wonder whether he would have got away with what he did if we did not devalue human life in the way we do.

UK Relations: Libya

Debate between Robert Halfon and Bob Stewart

Tuesday 1st November 2011 Westminster Hall

[Robert Halfon]

I thank my hon. Friend. Being British, I blush at such compliments. I do not want this to turn into a mutual love-in.

Yesterday marked the end of British military involvement in Libya, seven months after the no-fly zone was authorised, and I would argue that it was one of the most successful NATO operations in history. It proved, all the more importantly after the Iraq conflict, that intervention can work and that Britain can fight for peace and democracy. Although I was disappointed at the manner of Gaddafi’s death because it would have been better for him to be tried in the international courts, I wish that my grandfather, Renato Halfon, was alive now to have seen his demise.

In 1968, after some anti-Jewish pogroms, my grandfather was forced to leave Libya and, as an Italian Jew, he went to Rome. He had planned to return to Tripoli once the pogroms had subsided, but Gaddafi took power in 1969 and all the Jewish businesses and my grandfather’s home were taken. The same thing happened to the Jews and the Italians. Luckily, my grandfather had sent my father to England some years earlier. I love Britain—I was born here and would not live anywhere else—but I feel a deep concoction of Jewish and Italian from Libya, which has been awakened by recent events. I listened with considerable interest to the story that my hon. Friend the Member for Shrewsbury and Atcham told about being in Poland, particularly the part about the oranges, and about what motivated him to fight for freedom in Libya.

It has been good to have conversations with my father and his friends from Libya to try to understand what it was like in those days. My grandfather had a clothing business and sold clothes to the British, and he always said that they were the only people who paid on time. He loved this country more than anything; he thought that the streets were metaphorically paved with gold and that everyone in England was a gentleman. It is worth remembering that King Idris was installed as monarch of Libya in 1951 by the British, in the aftermath of the war, when Libya gained independence from Italy and the old colonial name Tripolitania disappeared.

Although my grandfather and many other people had contempt for Gaddafi, we must acknowledge that in the early days the colonel was not a monster. My father remembers him becoming a rapidly popular figure, who before the coup used to walk down the famous Italian street in Tripoli, Corso Vittorio Emanuele—I think it is now called Jadat Istiklal—shaking hands with passers-by, including my father, wearing a broad serene smile and speaking loudly. He was articulate and nurtured dreams of pan-Arabism, and because of King Idris’s benign weakness, he became known as the liberator. Astonishing as it might seem, he was seen as sympathetic to western interests, and so the Americans, who controlled the large Wheelus air base outside Tripoli, did nothing to stop the coup d’état against the king. No one imagined that Gaddafi would become the monster he did and impose a 42-year totalitarian regime. Now he has gone, everyone is asking, “What next? Will it be a repeat of Iraq in the aftermath of the overthrow of Saddam Hussein?”

It is worth emphasising that a yearning for freedom is deep in every human breast and should be nurtured and supported. The Libyan people deserve freedom just as much as we do in the west. For years, the realist school of foreign policy—I am sure that the Minister is not of that school—has argued that the middle east is not ready for democracy and that democracy cannot be dropped from a B-52 bomber, but actually it can. The NATO planes showed that by providing cover as the rebels advanced on Tripoli, although that is not the only way to do it. We must remember that liberty is a human right for everyone, whatever their background or race. Sometimes it requires military intervention, and sometimes it requires hearts and minds—so-called soft power. Our foreign policy should be directed at supporting groups of resistance to dictators, and at funding radio and TV stations and the internet, in the same way as the CIA did in the cold war to try to combat communism. Where is the middle east equivalent of Radio Free Europe?

What is not required is appeasement. Appeasement often works in the short term but never in the long. The previous Government, as well as some of our universities and businesses, lost their moral bearings when it came to dealing with the Libyan regime. I happened to support Tony Blair and the invasion of Iraq, yet the complete contrast between that and what his Government did with Libya was astonishing. While senior new Labour Government figures hobnobbed with Gaddafi and his family, academic institutions accepted millions of pounds in blood money from the regime, and companies rushed to Libya to sign commercial deals. The London School of Economics, in perhaps the most shameful episode in the university’s history, went cap in hand to Gaddafi and treated him like some kind of king from over the water. I am glad that one of the professors implicated in that disgusting scandal resigned today, according to reports in The Times.

The leader of the Labour party talks about predator and producer capitalism, and I do not think there has been a more horrific example of predator corporate capitalism than the commercial dealings between the previous Government and so-called big business and the Libya regime. I do not say that to make a party political point; I just cannot get my head around how the previous Government could do some good things in Iraq but behave so disgracefully when it came to Libya. The release of the Lockerbie murderer, al-Megrahi, marked the low point of that kind of appeasement by the establishment, and I would argue that the political establishment’s flirtation with Gaddafi was akin to the appeasement of Hitler before the second world war by British upper-class aristocrats.

In having the courage to support intervention and ignore the armchair generals who said we could not or should not get involved, the Prime Minister did much to correct Britain’s moral compass, but I urge the Minister and the Government to launch a serious inquiry into the previous Government’s relations with Gaddafi. We must learn from what went wrong, so that we never, ever, do such a thing again with such an evil regime.

[Bob Stewart]

It was not so much the armchair generals. The armchair generals were right that we had no land forces that we could have put in. We did what we were able to do, which was to use our Air Force, but we certainly could not put troops on the ground, so the armchair generals and the Government were right to say that we could not do so.

[Robert Halfon]

I bow to my hon. Friend’s incredible experience in these matters, but I was not arguing about what kind of intervention it was. In fact, Britain has shouldered too heavy a burden, and other NATO countries should have done more. However, many so-called armchair generals argued against any intervention per se.