Oral Answers to Questions

Steve Reed Excerpts

Monday 19th July 2021 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Secretary of State.

[Steve Reed (Croydon North) (Lab/Co-op)]

The anti-corruption campaign Transparency International says that the Conservative party has become overly dependent on donations from developers. It is particularly concerned that Ministers failed to report the details of what they talked about to developers in over 300 meetings about which they simply disclosed generalisations such as “housing” or “planning”; it fears that that could amount to what it calls aggregate corruption. Will the Secretary of State now publish the full minutes of all those meetings so that the public can see exactly what Ministers agreed to do for their developer paymasters?

[Robert Jenrick]

As the hon. Gentleman knows, all meetings that Ministers have are correctly identified on the register of interests, but I have to say that he has been on quite a journey. One adviser who worked with him as leader of Lambeth Council has been left bemused: is this the same Champagne Steve he remembers meeting with developers? It is not just him who has invited charges of shameless hypocrisy; the Leader of the Opposition has received thousands of pounds of donations from developers, and the deputy leader of the Labour party caused a splash in the papers the other day for accepting £10,000 from developers for her leadership campaign.

[Robert Jenrick]

I will certainly withdraw that, at your request, Mr Speaker. We can only imagine how much the deputy leader of the Labour party will be asking for when it comes to her impending leadership campaign.

[Steve Reed]

It is not surprising that the Secretary of State is refusing to be transparent, because we all know who benefits the most from their developers’ charter. Just weeks ago, this House passed Labour’s motion to guarantee residents’ right to a say over local planning applications in their own neighbourhoods. This week, councillors of all parties—including the right hon. Gentleman’s—in Medway and Richmond passed similar motions. How many more councils will need to do the same before he ditches the developers’ charter and his plan to pay back developers by selling out communities?

[Robert Jenrick]

I am sure that Conservative councillors the length and breadth of the country were over the moon to receive the hon. Gentleman’s letter. I can see the scene now over the summer recess, when the gate rattles or there is a knock at the door and he rushes to check what the post has brought in, but like a jilted lover or a pen pal who assumes his letters got lost in the mail, he finds nothing there except just another letter from Croydon Council telling him that the bills are going up as a result of the terrible mistakes and mismanagement that his friends and cronies are making over at Croydon. He has taken an avowedly anti-house building approach. This is a far cry from the Labour party of Attlee and Bevan, who said that this was a social service and a moral mission. This Government are going to keep on building houses, but we will build them sensitively. We will build beautiful homes, we will protect the environment and we will help young people and those on lower incomes to enjoy all the security and prosperity that comes with owning a home of their own.