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Tag: 2022

  • Bridget Phillipson – 2022 Comments on Ventilation in Schools

    Bridget Phillipson – 2022 Comments on Ventilation in Schools

    The comments made by Bridget Phillipson, the Shadow Education Secretary, on 5 January 2022.

    Vaccination, ventilation and testing are key to ensuring children and staff can continue to learn together in school, but Ministers are again falling short with a lack of tests, only half of eligible children vaccinated and just a fraction of the ventilation systems our schools need.

    Labour called for decisive action to be taken over the Christmas break to get these problems solved but the government has again failed to get ahead of the virus.

    We’ve got a new Education Secretary, a new team of government ministers, but our children are still being treated as an afterthought with chaotic, last-minute announcements hampering their education. It is incompetent, complacent, and inadequate.

  • Rachel Reeves – 2022 Comments on Cost of Living Crisis

    Rachel Reeves – 2022 Comments on Cost of Living Crisis

    The comments made by Rachel Reeves, the Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer, on 5 January 2022.

    Right now, people are being hit by a cost-of-living crisis which has seen energy bills soar, petrol and food prices up and the weekly budget stretched.

    That’s why Labour is calling on the Government to immediately remove VAT on household heating bills over the winter months.

    On top of the highest tax hikes in 70 years, Conservative complacency is leaving working people paying the price.

  • Justin Madders – 2022 Speech on New Homes and Management Companies

    Justin Madders – 2022 Speech on New Homes and Management Companies

    The speech made by Justin Madders, the Labour MP for Ellesmere Port and Neston, in the House of Commons on 5 January 2022.

    It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Mr Betts. Happy new year to everyone who is here today. I congratulate the hon. Member for Wantage (David Johnston) on securing the debate, on his useful introduction and on the interesting points he made. This may be the first debate of 2022 and it may be a new year, but, as we have heard, many of the issues we are debating are not new and, aside from the leasehold scandal, have had insufficient attention from this place.

    We absolutely need more places for people to live; I doubt there is a Member in this place who disagrees with that. While the Government set some general targets about how many homes should be built, the detail is rightly left, in the main, to local councils. In reality, they and the communities they represent have limited say over what sort of homes are built, where they are built and, as the hon. Member for Wantage mentioned, how the infrastructure that goes with them is delivered. That is the nub of the problem, because we are often told that the wrong type of home is being built in the wrong type of place. That can be argued ad infinitum, and it often is. The bottom line is that we are continually falling short in achieving enough decent affordable housing.

    Decent housing is critical to the national infrastructure. It is the bedrock of people’s lives, yet it is too often left to the market to resolve, and the market is clearly failing. In my experience, developers all too often show contempt for local communities by riding roughshod over the development conditions imposed on them: working longer hours, making more noise, and building higher and closer than they should to existing properties. That creates more work for the beleaguered planning department and puts more demands on councils that, after a decade of austerity, simply do not have the powers and resources to keep up.

    By the time the council manages to catch up with a complaint, quite often the house is already built and the drains put in. It is a massive financial, logistical and legal battle to get developers to stick to plans when they have got that far down the road. Many councils simply do not have the capacity to get into such fights, especially when the case is about a couple of metres. It might not look much on a plan, but for someone living next door, a couple of metres makes a huge difference.

    What about roads being brought up to an acceptable standard, so that they can be adopted by the local authority? People are waiting years for roads to be adopted. I do not blame the local authority, which sets out what needs to be done but does not have the resources or time to continually chase developers who have sold the homes and moved on. Where is the incentive for developers to come back and finish the job they started?

    I want to say a few words about the massive expansion of estate management companies. It seems that the idea of the developer paying the local authority a commuted sum to cut the grass and maintain common parts has had its day. This reduces developers’ costs, although it does not seem to lead to cheaper house prices. It costs the homeowner far more in the long run because they are, in effect, paying twice for the maintenance of open spaces: once through a management fee and once through their council tax. Once again, though, it is the council that gets lumbered with all the grief and blame.

    With developers looking to replace their lost funding streams, with what I hope will be the end of leasehold, I am concerned that estate management companies will become the new payment protection insurance of the house building industry. There is little regulation or transparency and, if we are honest, little need for estate management companies in most settings, so why do we have them? House builders build houses—that is their core business; they are not interested in managing estates. Indeed, they cannot wait to get rid of them to a company that specialises in such things.

    Developers creating an estate management company is nothing more than a calculation on the balance sheet. They have zero interest in keeping the verges neat and tidy after they have gone. If they can make the bottom line look more attractive by getting in a management company, they will. They keep getting away with it because we let them. Why can we not start from the basic principle that the local council should be doing those jobs and that estate management companies are an unnecessary tax on homeowners? How many people are told of the implications of an estate management company or how much it costs?

    What developers say to new buyers in the showroom and what is in the final contract are often very different. By the time the paperwork arrives, it is too late. People may have spent thousands on the move, never mind the psychological commitment they have made. What is said in the showroom often does not appear in any documentation. There is a classic example in my constituency where residents now look out on a 30-feet-high warehouse, which the developers conveniently forgot to mention already had planning permission when they sold buyers their homes. They are still waiting for the KFC that they were told was going to be there. Because that is just sales patter, there is no legal accountability for the lies that are told.

    This is the biggest single purchase people will ever make. There needs to be far greater accountability for what developers say and what they build. At the moment, they seem to have a free pass. Developers with household names work across the country, moving from one project to the next, sometimes leaving behind problems that take years to resolve. Another development in my constituency has ended up in court, with one group of residents pitted against another and maintenance bills racking up in their thousands, because the developers did not do the paperwork or the job properly in the first place. I know that they are causing havoc elsewhere, because other hon. Members have told me. What can councils do? They have no grounds to refuse planning permission on the basis that the developer has been a poor performer elsewhere. How about a fit and proper person test for the directors of those companies?

    In conclusion, I would like much greater political direction and oversight of the house building industry. After all, it will build the homes that we need, but at the moment it quite understandably organises affairs to maximise profits. Housing is a critical part of our infrastructure—having a roof over one’s head is fundamental—but it has been shown time and again that we cannot rely on the market alone to deliver that. Four and a half years on from Grenfell, we still have not really had a decision on who is liable for the defects that were created there, and there is clearly a reluctance in Government to grasp the nettle and take some ownership of the industry.

  • David Johnston – 2022 Speech on New Homes and Management Companies

    David Johnston – 2022 Speech on New Homes and Management Companies

    The speech made by David Johnston, the Conservative MP for Wantage, in the House of Commons on 5 January 2022.

    I beg to move,

    That this House has considered the role of developers, housebuilders and management companies in new homes.

    It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Betts. Happy new year to you and to everybody else who is here this morning. This is a 90-minute debate, and I have said to quite a number of people that I could easily speak for at least 90 minutes on this topic—it will be a relief to everyone that I am not going to do that. The reason is that it is a source of huge frustration in my constituency. Owning a new home and the development of new homes should be a source of great joy, but too often it is a source of great distress. There are a few reasons for that that I want to talk about, but before I go into those, I want to say at the outset that, contrary to some of the media stereotypes about areas such as mine, most people in my constituency are not opposed to new homes. If they are homeowners themselves, they entirely understand why other people want to own a home. They often have children and grandchildren whom they are trying to help get on the housing ladder. They know that we need housing for key workers. They know that sometimes people just want to move into one of these new homes from where they already live in the constituency. But people have real frustration with the way in which these things are developing and the problems they are causing in the local area.

    The first issue is simply the quality of a lot of the homes that go up, because it is often poor. Sometimes it is very good, but too often it is poor, and constituents’ homes have major defects that take years to try to deal with. I have constituents who have spent two, three or four years—sometimes more—trying to get these defects repaired. This is not like buying a cheap version of something on eBay, half-expecting that there might be something wrong with it. This is the biggest purchase that any of us will make, and we do not expect to then have years of trying to sort out the problems with it. Unfortunately, when constituents try to do that, they feel completely outmatched by the builder that built their home. Sometimes the builder will blame the contractor; sometimes they will say that there is nothing wrong: “We signed it off according to building regulations.” But I have been in some of these places and we can see these huge issues. It is completely unacceptable that people are experiencing them.

    The second issue is about the impact of these homes on the environment. That has two major aspects to it. One is what it does to the local environment around the area. Naturally, people can see greenfield sites disappearing. One constituent wrote to me and said that the biodiversity commitments that a particular house builder had made had not been kept whatsoever. There is an impact on air quality and water quality, but the other aspect is how the homes themselves are built. I am continually asked by constituents, “Why are we building so many homes that we know we will have to retrofit in a few years’ time?”, and there is no easy answer to that. I am continually asked, “Why can’t every new home have solar panels? Why can’t every new home have a heat pump?” I understand why: there are various reasons why we might not put the same thing in every kind of house.

    I completely welcome the Government’s commitment to having electric charging points in every new home. I really welcome the future homes standard, which will make new homes from 2025 net zero ready, with a 75% reduction in their emissions. But the point still stands that thousands of homes are going up right now and we know that because of our ambitious net zero goals, we will have to retrofit a lot of them. The reason is that it is cheaper for the house builders to build them that way today.

    The third issue is affordability. I have said a few times in this place that no one who rents has ever said to me, “There are too many new homes going up.” They say only that those homes are not affordable. They say that they have saved for years and years, and it does not matter how much they save; they do not get close to being able to afford one. The average house price in my constituency is £335,000. The average house price in my constituency is £335,000. To London ears that might sound fine, but it is 9.2 times median income, and that is out of reach for most people. An affordability threshold of 80% of that is still not affordable. Again, we run into bad practices. We all know that developers commit to a certain number of affordable homes, but time after time that number is driven down on the grounds that the development would not be viable if that commitment were maintained, so broken promises are a constant theme.

    Justin Madders (Ellesmere Port and Neston) (Lab)

    The hon. Gentleman makes a particularly important point about affordable housing. I am often told that developers who make such arguments about viability are working on a 20% profit margin per property. Does he agree that that is completely unsustainable?

    David Johnston

    The hon. Gentleman makes an important point. I was just about to say that when the taxpayer is subsidising the development of affordable homes and when the profits of house builders are so large—often bordering on 30%, come rain or shine; they are making these profits in all weathers—it is completely unacceptable for them to play this game so that people are unable to get on the housing ladder.

    The fourth aspect that I want to talk about is the role of management companies. After someone has purchased one of these new homes, the costs do not always stop. People are often signed up to quite expensive contracts with management companies who purport to provide services to maintain communal areas, and it is often very difficult for residents to find out what is being done for that money. The charge goes up year after year, but their communal area is not maintained. They are told that staff are employed to do things, but they never see the staff. They work hard to try to get transparency about what is being provided for the money, but they cannot get it. They get a basic summary, and that is about it. The people who try to get the information are often well qualified, but they cannot get it.

    I know of a management company—the residents do not want me to name them, so I will not—where many of the residents are elderly, sick or vulnerable, and they feel completely bullied and exploited by their management company. Right now they are being pressured into taking a new lease, which they do not want to take because they know it will be bad for them, but they fear the repercussions if they do not or if they go to someone to talk about it. They have talked to me, but, as I have said, they do not want to me to talk about who they are. That is an appalling situation for people to be in. Far too often there is a real problem with the way in which management companies fleece people in new homes when those people have already spent so much money.

    Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)

    I thank the hon. Gentleman for securing the debate. In preparing for it, I looked into leasehold in the United Kingdom. In England, Wales and Scotland, people are unable to buy their leasehold, but Northern Ireland is one part of the United Kingdom where they can. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that when it comes to purchasing the freehold, people certainly get a “fleecehold” in England, Wales and Scotland? In Northern Ireland they have a chance to buy it out. Does he feel that that should happen here on the mainland?

    David Johnston

    I completely agree with the hon. Gentleman, and I expect the Minister will address that point when he speaks later. Most people think that they own their home, but they can often end up feeling like tenants. I experienced that myself until recently. I used to get a bill for £300 on Christmas day every year. The bill, dated 25 December, was £300 for absolutely nothing, but constituents of mine are in a much worse situation.

    The fifth aspect I want to talk about is the overall broken system in which the process operates. I do not blame the Government entirely. Councils have some responsibilities: if they do not enforce the planning conditions when developers go above the assessed numbers that they are supposed to build; and if they allow the same application to be made over and over again, when they could refuse it after two tries. They do not take a bigger-picture view. There are villages in my constituency, such as Sutton Courtenay, that feel hugely overdeveloped because individual applications are all being approved and nobody is looking at what is happening to the whole area and why it might not be a good idea to keep approving those applications.

    Ultimately, these companies have to be held accountable for their behaviour. They apply for sites that they know the local plan does not allow them to apply for, as is happening in Grove, in my constituency. They continually try to build on flood plains. They continually fail to adhere to their section 106 agreements and community infrastructure levy agreements—sometimes not building infrastructure at all, and sometimes building pointless things, such as a pathway that goes only halfway across an estate or a bike path that leads to nowhere, just so they can say that they have done it. All those things are going on with new developments in my constituency. I do not blame Government for it all, but it is the Government’s job to ensure that the system does not operate in that way.

    If I had to sum up the problems in my constituency, it would be, “Too many homes, too little infrastructure.” The two district councils that my constituency covers are, relative to their size, in the top 10 areas for house building in the country, yet they are in the bottom third for infrastructure spending. That is a huge bugbear. To put that in numerical context, an estimate of the population change between 2017 and 2027 found that the largest town and surrounding area in my constituency, Didcot, will increase from 36,000 to 51,000. The second largest area, Wantage and Grove, will increase from 17,000 to 27,000—that is in a 10-year period. Faringdon is getting thousands more people, and Wallingford is getting thousands more.

    The infrastructure is not following that. It is harder to get a GP appointment, the roads in the constituency get more and more congested and it is harder to get a school place. One village has a 220-child school, and 300 houses have been built right next to it; just last year, the catchment area became less than 470 metres. People who have lived there for a long time and who expected their children to go to that school now cannot get in. When my constituents hear that planning reform may mean new houses and that they will not be able to oppose them, or that the Oxford-Cambridge arc may mean more houses, or that the council’s Oxfordshire 2050 plan may lead to more houses, they are not concerned out of nimbyism; they are concerned because of their experience, over many years, of so many houses being built and so many promises being broken.

    To conclude, I will talk about a few things that I think should happen. There are lots of things, and there are plenty of experts in this room who I know will talk about other aspects. First, we need a much tougher regime for the quality of new buildings. I know that the new homes ombudsman will deal with some of these issues, but it is completely unacceptable to pay that much money and have that many problems. We need very tight quality conditions, and the threshold needs to be raised. If it is not met within a certain timeframe, there should be penalties; issues must not go on for years.

    Secondly, we need “use it or lose it” planning permissions. I know that there are debates about how best to do this, and I am frequently written to about the 1 million permissions that have not been built on. I know that there is a debate about land banking and whether it happens; hon. Members would be hard pressed to persuade me that it does not, at least from the developers’ point of view. We in this place are familiar with the phrase “dig a trench.” The emphasis has been on starting the building: companies dig a trench to suggest that they have started building, and the houses then take years to appear. We need these homes to be completed within a certain period. If they are not, taxes might be levied or fines paid, but I think that the permission should be lost entirely.

    Thirdly, I want to talk about environmental standards. If it takes several years for these houses to be built, they should be built to the latest environmental standards, not to those that existed when the developers got permission. That is what is happening at the moment: companies are building houses to an environmental standard of several years ago, when they should be building to a standard of the future. That needs to change.

    We have got to make developers and house builders commit to their affordability criteria. Our big house builders are doing completely fine for profits for their own viability, so they cannot keep saying that developments would not be viable if they committed to what they originally promised.

    When it comes to management companies, we need a much stricter regime, because the current one is very murky. Companies are getting away with appalling practices, bullying residents into things and fleecing them, year after year, for things that are not being provided. We need a tougher regime under which companies cannot keep hiking charges without an extraordinary set of circumstances. The charges often go up because of things the company itself has done and got wrong, and it passes the cost on to residents who had no say in the first place. Much more transparency is needed, and penalties for such bad behaviour.

    I understand that house builders want a level playing field, because an individual company does not want to commit to expensive things if its rivals are not doing so. That is where there is a role for Government in raising standards, so that all house builders have to do the same. I want more of a level playing field for smaller companies, such as Greencore Construction in my constituency. Many such companies are more environmentally friendly and more efficient, and produce higher-quality homes, but they are often outbid by the financial muscle of the big boys. Perhaps we need to reserve a greater proportion of development sites for such companies or give them greater access to capital. I am all in favour of smaller organisations rather than larger ones—I ran small charities, not larger ones. I think we can get a better product from smaller house builders, and we need to help more such companies into the market.

    My final point is that infrastructure needs to go in first. It is not right to pile more and more houses and people into an area, but to do nothing to support local services and infrastructure. I have been campaigning for Grove station to be reopened, for improvements on our roads and for better medical facilities. GP surgeries are bursting at the seams because thousands more people have been added to the area—Members have heard the numbers. GP surgeries and school places have not been added along with the people. Infrastructure must go in first. Unfortunately, over decades my constituents have been told too many times that the infrastructure will come with the houses, but it never has, and now they do not believe it. That has to come first. As part of that, we might better capture the land value increase that comes with planning permission. At the moment, the increase all goes to the owner. Some of it ought to go to the local community who will live with the new houses, not to the landowner who has sold the land.

    The balance of power is wrong. Management companies, house builders and developers have too much power, and local residents have too little. The Government cannot be blamed for every single thing that a private company does, but they can help to restore the balance, so that local communities do not see new houses as a curse on the area they used to love.

  • Julia Lopez – 2022 Comments on Multiplex Licences

    Julia Lopez – 2022 Comments on Multiplex Licences

    The comments made by Julia Lopez, the Media Minister, on 5 January 2022.

    Radio’s distinctive and much-loved format means it continues to be at the heart of people’s lives. Today we are confirming plans to extend radio multiplex licences until 2035 so our hugely popular stations can continue to reach audiences through digital radio networks and we can give broadcasters the certainty they need to invest in their future services.

  • Priti Patel – 2022 Statement on Assessing Age of Asylum Seekers

    Priti Patel – 2022 Statement on Assessing Age of Asylum Seekers

    The statement made by Priti Patel, the Home Secretary, on 5 January 2022.

    The Nationality and Borders Bill will end many of the blatant abuses that have led to our immigration and asylum system being abused by those with no right to be in our country.

    The practice of single grown adult men, masquerading as children claiming asylum is an appalling abuse of our system which we will end. By posing as children, these adult men go on to access children’s services and schools through deception and deceit; putting children and young adults in school and care at risk.

    It is a fact that two thirds of age dispute cases have found that the individual claiming to be a child is actually over the age of 18. I have given more resources and support to local councils to ensure that they apply vigorous and robust tests to check the ages of migrants to stop adult men being automatically classified as children.

    I am changing UK laws to introduce new scientific methods for assessing the age of asylum seekers to stop these abuses and to give the British public confidence that we will end the overt exploitation of our laws and UK taxpayers.

  • Grant Shapps – 2022 Statement on TFL Funding Extension

    Grant Shapps – 2022 Statement on TFL Funding Extension

    The statement made by Grant Shapps, the Secretary of State for Transport, on 5 January 2022.

    Following my statement to the House on 13 December 2021, I am updating the House on a 7 week extension of the current Transport for London funding settlement that was due to expire on 17 December 2021. The Mayor of London and I have agreed to extend the current settlement to 4 February 2022.

    We have thus far supported London with over £4 billion funding and these extraordinary funding settlements for Transport for London recognise the reliance of London’s transport network on fare revenue, and government’s commitment now and in the future to mitigating loss of fare revenue because of the pandemic. This extension has provided certainty to Transport for London and to Londoners over the Christmas and New Year period whilst also allowing government and Transport for London to monitor and adapt to the impact of the Omicron variant of the virus.

    The extended settlement will continue to support the capital and its transport network – on the same terms as previously agreed – until 4 February 2022, when government expects there to be a new funding settlement in place. The extension letter also includes amendments to the current settlement relating to fares and the Hammersmith bridge ferry.

    On 15 December 2021, the Department for Transport received further information and specificity from the Mayor of London relating to his proposals, set out in his letter of 8 December 2021, to raise new income of between £0.5 billion and £1 billion in line with the commitment agreed under the June 2021 emergency settlement. The original deadline for this information was 12 November 2021. Following receipt of the Mayor of London’s 15 December 2021 letter, the government is satisfied that at this stage he has provided sufficient information on his proposals. We have therefore agreed to extend the current Transport for London settlement from 17 December 2021 to 4 February 2022 so that government is able to fully consider these proposals.

    The government is committed to supporting London and the transport network on which it depends, whilst balancing that with supporting the national transport network as a whole.

  • Yvette Cooper – 2022 Comments on Domestic Abuse

    Yvette Cooper – 2022 Comments on Domestic Abuse

    The comments made by Yvette Cooper, the Shadow Home Secretary, on 5 January 2022.

    We’ve been putting huge pressure on the Government to lift the time limit so I’m glad they have now accepted our proposal to stop victims of domestic abuse being timed out of justice.

    We will keep up the pressure for more action. This is one of many measures Labour is pushing for to tackle violence against women and girls. Over the last five years prosecutions for rape and domestic abuse have plummeted. Too many perpetrators are being let off, too many victims are being let down and the Conservative Government isn’t doing enough to turn that around.

    Labour has a serious and workable plan to tackle the epidemic of Violence Against Women and Girls. Thank you to everyone who backed the campaign for this change and we will keep pushing for further action.

  • Keir Starmer – 2022 Keynote Speech on a Contract with the British People

    Keir Starmer – 2022 Keynote Speech on a Contract with the British People

    The speech made by Keir Starmer, the Leader of the Opposition, on 4 January 2022.

    Today, I want to do something that leaders of the opposition rarely do. I want to celebrate the country we live in. It’s normally the job of the opposition to criticise and oppose. But it can make us sound pretty miserable. It can sound as if we don’t realise our own historical good fortune to have been born into a peaceful, creative liberal democracy.

    Think of all that the British have to be proud of. The rule of law. Her Majesty the Queen. Universal public services. A creative heritage that is the envy of the world. And a thriving civil society on which we have relied so heavily during the pandemic.

    To all the delivery drivers who worked through the supply problems, the workers in the NHS putting themselves in the line of danger, the care workers who made Christmas special: thank you.

    Today, I want to describe a government that might be worthy of you. One of the best characteristics of the British people is that we are fair-minded. Our instinct, in a national crisis is to give the government the benefit of the doubt. And because the pandemic posed an unprecedented problem we, Her Majesty’s opposition, did the same.

    We supported where we could; we questioned where we had to. But the British people do not like being taken for granted. And they do not like being taken for fools. A government which refuses to follow the rules it sets for the rest of us loses the moral right to set those rules.

    So I think that as we begin this new year, Britain has entered a new phase. Because just as the government has revealed itself to be unworthy of your trust its incompetence is becoming plain.

    The cost of living is increasing. Energy bills are going up; wages are stagnant. Tax rises are coming in April. Too many people do not feel safe in their streets. And good luck to anyone trying to get a quick GP appointment.

    I want to start the new year by making a pledge of straight leadership. Today I want to introduce my Contract with the British people. This will be a solemn agreement about what this country needs and how a good government should conduct itself.

    I am well aware that just because the Tories lose the public’s trust it doesn’t mean Labour simply inherits it. Trust has to be earned. I am confident but not complacent about the task ahead.

    So the very first clause in that contract, is a binding commitment about decency and standards in public life. Of course, these standards already exist. They are known as the Nolan principles:

    Selflessness, integrity, objectivity, accountability, openness, honesty, leadership.

    So my solemn promise to you will always be to run a government that honours these principles. I have a very clear idea of what a Labour government would look like. And in 2022 I want to take my plans to the British people.

    Now, I have spent my career working as a lawyer. So you are probably expecting a thousand clauses, seven appendices and a list of definitions. Well my Contract won’t be anything like that. It will be a contract based on three simple principles: Security. Prosperity. Respect.

    These are living principles. And that’s why in the coming months I will hold a series of events all over the country to persuade people to sign up to this new Britain that we can create together.

    The first term in the contract is Security.

    – Everyone has the basic right to feel safe in their own community.

    – We all need to know that the NHS is there for us when we need it.

    – And if we work hard we should also have a right to job security.

    The second term in the contract is Prosperity.

    – Everyone should have the opportunity to thrive.

    – To realise our ambitions and make a good life for ourselves.

    – To have the skills we need to prosper.

    And then there is a third term in my Contract.

    – Respect is a less obvious political virtue than Security and Prosperity.

    – But it is every bit as important.

    – Everyone has the right to live in places we care for and to have our lives and ambitions taken seriously to be valued for who we are and what we do.

    I want to create a contract defined by Security, Prosperity and Respect.

    To create a contract for a government worthy of the fine nation in which we live. The Labour party is a deeply patriotic party. Keir Hardie once said that British socialism must “wear a local garb”.

    He meant that British socialism was rooted in the everyday concerns of working people. The titans of 1945 were elected to power on the votes of the demobbed service men and women. That government took the spirit of collective sacrifice generated by the war and turned it into the National Health Service for which we are so thankful today.

    It was a patriotic government which understood the importance of national defence, which created NATO, the alliance that has preserved the peace in Europe ever since and gave this country its independent nuclear deterrent. The 1945 Labour government laid the foundations for the end of Empire and the beginning of the modern commonwealth.

    Under Wilson the Open University extended higher education. The Race Relations Act of 1965 prohibited racial discrimination. Barbara Castle’s Equal Pay Act was a watershed moment in the fight for gender equality. The Blair government introduced a national minimum wage and repaired the public services that had been neglected under the Tories.

    And when I reflect on previous Labour governments, I have two thoughts. The first is what a record we have. These three chapters of change – Attlee, Wilson and Blair – made Britain a better country. We must be the people who write the fourth chapter. The people who create a new Britain in the twenty first century.

    And second, nobody could look on that record and say that Labour is not a patriotic party. Those Labour governments had the ambition to build a society in which everyone can contribute and everyone is valued. To extend Security, Prosperity and Respect to all. This is the tradition we embrace and the mission we inherit.

    The first duty of a government is the security of its citizens. I was once this country’s leading prosecutor. Crime and anti-social behaviour are issues that matter to me personally. I have seen too many victims of crime, most of them not at all well off, not to know that security is a matter of social justice.

    That’s why Labour will provide crime prevention teams in every neighbourhood. New Police Hubs will be visible in every community. We will introduce a tough new approach to closing down drug dens with new powers for local police and local authorities.

    Security also means knowing the NHS is there for you when you need it. I will be setting out a long-term plan to show how a Labour government will shift the emphasis from emergency care to preventing people getting sick in the first place.

    We will also ensure people feel more secure at work by introducing the new protections for workers that Angela Rayner announced at our party conference last year. For example, one thing the pandemic has taught us is that everyone needs decent pay when they are sick. But that isn’t the case for millions of British workers.

    I know of care workers looking after vulnerable people who can’t afford to be ill because they won’t get paid. This is not only unfair to them, it is unsafe for the country and a Labour government will fix it.

    And a Labour Britain must be a prosperous nation. This country needs an industrial strategy to improve our productivity to ensure we Buy, Make and Sell more in Britain and to revive the places that made Britain wealthy.

    So, for example, at our conference we pledged an extra £28 billion a year in capital investment to combat climate change to create the next generation of jobs and to inspire innovation for a clean future.

    And this promises a future to places that were once defined by what they made. Let me give you a flavour of what I think might be possible. Not long ago I visited the Humber gas works. The gas they stored there helped keep the price low but the government let it close in 2017 and you have seen what has happened to gas prices since.

    But the workers there are not looking to the past. They are convinced that, with the right investment and government support The Humber could become a hub for the production of hydrogen. These workers want to make a historic contribution to combating the climate crisis. To be in the vanguard of the next industrial revolution. All they need is a government that shares their ambition and runs with it.

    Of all the things Boris Johnson has done the one that truly astonished me was that a Prime Minister who claims to be interested in levelling-up tore up their own industrial strategy. What an act of extraordinary self-harm.

    Labour would create 100,000 new start-up businesses and new hubs of excellence building on existing strengths such as video gaming in Dundee and biopharma in Cambridge.

    Here in Birmingham there is Brandauer, which began life as a pen manufacturer, and which now produces plates used in hydrogen fuel cells, a technology that could help to power lorries that have zero emissions.

    In each of these examples new technology is being used imaginatively to create prosperity. But that prosperous future is only possible if we equip our people properly.

    This country has always made a world-class offer to a small section of society and a sub-standard offer to those who do not take the academic course. It will be a vital clause in my contract with the British people and the task for my Skills Advisory Council to ensure that the next generation of students is ready for work and ready for life.

    I believe passionately that everyone has a right to be treated with respect. No places should be left behind. And nobody should be treated as if they don’t matter.

    I know this can happen. I saw it with my dad. My dad always felt undervalued because he worked in a factory. He felt people looked down on him. And he wasn’t wrong about that.

    People have their dignity and it needs to be respected. I want to live in a country in which crucial skills are valued. In which everyone is respected for what they contribute. And in the Britain we make, we will all play by the rules.

    I regard the rule of law, as one of the things that makes Britain great. Due process. Treating institutions with respect. The integrity of British justice has always been the envy of the world. And this has always been a big part of our economic success.

    A good reason to do business in Britain is that you know a contract will be respected. And that respect underwrites your investment. That’s why doing things the right way matters as much as doing the right things. This year I will set out what I mean by respect: what it demands of government and what it demands of us all.

    Because any successful contract is a two-way deal. You can expect access to high quality healthcare, but there will be zero tolerance for abuse towards NHS staff. You can expect the opportunity to acquire new skills but you will be expected to work hard and do your bit. You can expect better neighbourhood policing but you will be expected to behave like good neighbours in your own community too.

    I believe that these values Security, Prosperity and Respect unite the whole of the United Kingdom.

    The UK is a unique construct of four distinct national identities. It is complex and it can easily be exploited for political gain, as we have seen in Northern Ireland the government is playing fast and loose with the peace agreement as the price of getting Brexit done.

    And a reckless government in Westminster that does not seem to care about what happens in Scotland erodes people’s faith in our common bonds.

    But I believe in our union of nations. I believe we are better together than any of us would be apart. I believe that each nation can speak with a progressive voice.

    But we need a new and durable constitutional settlement. Which is why I am delighted that Gordon Brown’s Commission on the Future of the UK will chart a new course for our union of nations.

    Security, Prosperity and Respect are also the values that should inform Britain’s role in the world. I am determined that Britain should profit from our strong global relationships. That means not just getting Brexit done but making Brexit work.

    When I spoke at the CBI last November, I described how we would approach this. Making Brexit work is painstaking work, and slogans won’t cut it. My goals will be to repair the alliances that this government has damaged while also ensuring that our borders remain safe and secure.

    The Contract I want to agree with the British people is motivated by a desire to bring the country together. We do not bind a nation by emphasising what divides us. We build a nation from the common bonds between us.

    Our high streets, our community centres, our places of worship, the spaces we share. The Labour Party is not a nationalist party. But it is a national party. Because a nation gives us a place to belong.

    We are all shaped by the landscape and the villages, towns and cities where we live. For me a football stadium will always be the heart of any community. These are the places that give our lives meaning, that shape our identities, the businesses, pubs, shops and places of worship in which our lives unfold.

    This is a remarkable nation with an extraordinary cultural heritage. British music, British fashion, British advertising, British acting. The diplomatic soft power wielded by the BBC, the world’s greatest broadcaster, which enjoys its centenary this year.

    I think too of the scientists whose wisdom is guiding us through the pandemic. Our world class industries in pharmaceuticals and financial services. Universities which are a magnet for the best students the world over. There is so much of which we can be proud.

    I am personally thankful that I grew up in a country which had a national health service to care for my mum when she needed help. That gave me the opportunity to go to university and become a lawyer and fight for what is right.

    This country has presented me with great opportunities. It’s a great place to live. But I don’t think you cease to be a patriot because you notice your country has flaws. On the contrary, the reason we in this party want to correct those flaws is precisely because we are patriotic.

    I came into politics to make things happen not just to talk about them. I don’t think politics is a branch of the entertainment industry. I think it’s the serious business of getting things done.

    But I’m afraid at the moment we are going backwards. We have a Prime Minister who thinks the rules apply to anyone but him. Just when trust in government has become a matter of life and death, for the Prime Minister it has become a matter of what he can get away with.

    I have heard so many heart-breaking stories of people who missed family funerals because they were abiding by the rules. Meanwhile, the Prime Minister was at a cheese and wine party in Downing Street.

    And let’s be clear – it’s the party that is the problem. This is not just about the flaws of one individual. It’s about the flaws of a whole style of government, the flaws of an ideology, of a political party that has been in power too long.

    After 12 years in power, while the country is trying to stay safe and make ends meet, the Tory party is gearing up for a leadership fight. Too busy squabbling over their leadership to provide any. Meanwhile the real problems that people face are just ignored.

    People need solutions. People are struggling and they need help. This government is simply turning away.

    This year, 2022 is a big year. It is Her Majesty the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee. This city is looking forward to hosting the Commonwealth Games. We will host the women’s Euros and our men’s teams will compete in the World Cup.

    Which gives us an opportunity, as there was in the European Championships last year to glimpse the open, generous, tolerant nation that we are at our best. The England team is a living embodiment of a successful nation – young men of many backgrounds united by their talent and their patriotic pride.

    I want to lead a government that does right by them. I want to create a national community in which everyone feels secure and everyone feels they belong. The Britain I want is a country in which those who contribute get something back.

    Because 2022 is also the first year in which we need to tackle some big challenges. Repairing after the pandemic. Combating the climate crisis. Making Brexit work.

    I believe that the best still lies ahead for this country. But only if we have the courage to create a new Britain. A country in which you and your family get the security, prosperity and respect you deserve.

    My Contract with the British people will set out how we can create that new Britain.

    Thank you for listening and a Happy New Year to you all.

  • Priti Patel – 2022 Comments on Illegal Hare Coursing

    Priti Patel – 2022 Comments on Illegal Hare Coursing

    The comments made by Priti Patel, the Home Secretary, on 4 January 2022.

    Illegal hare coursing has blighted rural communities for too long, resulting in criminal damage, threatening violence and intimidation against farmers and landowners.

    Those responsible are often involved in other criminal activities – including drugs and firearms offences. I have been a longstanding supporter for essential reforms to our laws to stop hare coursing which is why we will act to prevent more people from suffering as a result of the actions of a law-breaking minority.

    We are introducing new measures in the Policing, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill to empower and equip the police and courts with the powers they need to combat this crime. They will deter those breaking the law, and send a clear message that we will do all we can to keep our rural communities safe.