Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Robert Halfon and Lord Stunell
Andrew Stunell
The fact of the matter is that the social and affordable housing programme is meeting an urgent need and we are pressing ahead with it vigorously. The issue that the hon. Lady raises must be seen in the context of the financial and housing situation we inherited from the previous Government.
Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)
Given what my hon. Friend said about right to buy and like for like in social housing, does he agree that the more people who take up the £75,000 discount, the more chance there will be for people to have affordable housing, and will he make every effort to encourage every council to offer that discount so that we can make affordable homes for the many, not for the few?
Andrew Stunell
That is of course an important step, and the Minister for Housing and Local Government has also announced a consultation on “pay for stay” to ensure that those on very high incomes do not have the subsidised use of valuable social rented accommodation.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Robert Halfon and Lord Stunell
Andrew Stunell
The right hon. Gentleman is of course a doughty fighter on these matters, and I assure him that the Bill will be back in the House within a week or two.
Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)
Is not the best way to help those on low incomes to freeze council tax, and is the Minister aware that Harlow’s Conservative district council has frozen council tax not just for one or two years, but for three years?
Andrew Stunell
Clearly, a good way of reducing the cost to the state of the council tax benefit system, and the cost to the householder, is to freeze council tax, and I commend the hon. Gentleman’s local council on the work that it has done.
Anti-Semitism
Debate between Robert Halfon and Lord Stunell(13 years, 3 months ago)
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Andrew Stunell
I apologise if I overlooked that reference. The point that the hon. Lady and I—I am sure—agree on is that, of course, what has been said about university campuses is important, but so too is what may be going on in other educational establishments.
The problem was first highlighted by the all-party group’s inquiry in 2005, but progress has been harder to make on it than on some of the other issues that were raised. There are some examples of good practice, including the Manchester university code, but it is clear that that is not enough. There is a strong feeling that many individual universities and student unions have not taken these issues as seriously as they should have done; or perhaps it is not so much that they have failed to take them seriously, but that the high passions that are aroused, often by international events, have been allowed to spill over into completely unacceptable behaviour, which has not been challenged robustly and effectively. We believe that that must change.
Robert Halfon
I thank my hon. Friend for his thoughtful response, but does he not agree that the university problem is ever increasing? Will he consider taking up my suggestion that where there is extremism on campus and it is not dealt with properly by the university authorities, they should be penalised in some way, possibly financially?
Andrew Stunell
I do not think I want to get there yet. I was about to say that Universities UK has established an academic freedom working group. The aim of that group is to consider how universities can best protect academic freedom, freedom of speech, freedom on campus and freedom to study under the contemporary conditions of geo-political conflict, racial and religious tension and violent extremism. The Universities UK working group will include representatives from the FE sector, so it will be very wide ranging. When the report is published, my right hon. Friend the Minister for Universities and Science will respond with a ministerial statement, so we are setting store by that report and will certainly respond strongly to it. I can announce today that I am asking the cross-Government working party, which I referred to initially, to take up this issue alongside its work on anti-Semitism on the internet. Those will be the two focal points of that work.
The debate is particularly timely, with Holocaust memorial week being next week. As I have said, the Government have now published our response to the report of the all-party inquiry into anti-Semitism. We have backed that response up with facts and figures in a number of cases. As has been reported in the debate, £2 million has been allocated to pay for the security of Jewish schools in the state sector. On Monday, I shall visit North Cheshire Jewish primary school, which is in the constituency adjacent to mine. I know from my previous visits to the area that the security required there is a shock to all non-Jewish visitors, who expect a primary school to be a primary school, perhaps not with open access, but certainly with friendly, welcoming access rather than high fences and armed guards. There, in a quiet suburban neighbourhood, far away from any threat of upset or trouble, one would have thought, it has proved necessary to have such high levels of security. I think that the whole House acknowledges that it is right that Jewish faith schools should have assistance with the extra protection that they need.[Official Report, 27 January 2011, Vol. 522, c. 4MC.]
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Robert Halfon and Lord Stunell(13 years, 6 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Andrew Stunell
My assessment is that, like a lot of reporting of what the coalition agreement and the comprehensive spending review are about, it is purely speculative. What we have actually got is a programme for growth in the private sector and in small businesses, and we are putting the British economy back on its feet.
Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)
Is the Secretary of State aware that hard-pressed taxpayers in Harlow and elsewhere are paying the East of England Development Agency chief executive a higher salary than the Prime Minister? When the Secretary of State gets rid of this unnecessary and wasteful bureaucracy, will he ensure that the new local enterprise partnerships no longer waste taxpayers’ money in this way?