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  • Fleur Anderson – 2022 Speech on a Strategy for International Development

    Fleur Anderson – 2022 Speech on a Strategy for International Development

    The speech made by Fleur Anderson, the Labour MP for Putney, in the House of Commons on 6 July 2022.

    Thank you, Mr Speaker, for calling me to speak in this important debate. It is an absolute pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Richard Foord). I spent many childhood summers in Cullompton, so I know what a beautiful constituency he represents. I can see already that he will be a strong advocate for his constituents, local schools—he spotted a lobbying opportunity in his maiden speech—and farmers. He displayed an internationalist outlook, which I certainly welcome, as I am sure we all do. I am delighted that he chose to speak in this debate for his maiden speech; I think that shows real acuity. What a day, here in Parliament, on which to give his maiden speech! I look forward to following him in many speeches to come.

    I campaigned, along with hundreds of thousands of people across the country, for the move to 0.7%. Many are in this Chamber now, but they are also in towns, villages and cities across the country. That decision had cross-party support and was one we could all be proud of—proud to be British, and proud to achieve 0.7% of GDP on development spending. The fact that it was cut is deeply disappointing to me, to Opposition Members and to people across the country, including many of my constituents who write to me. It is very disappointing that the 0.7% target has not been reinstated in these estimates. Achieving 0.7% was the right thing to do. It was the wrong thing to do—it is a false economy—to cut it to 0.5%. That diminishes our position in the world and has damaged many successful poverty-reducing, conflict-cutting and climate change-tackling programmes. There is a £4.6 billion black hole and 1,000 programmes have been or will be cut. It would be welcome if the Minister could confirm whether that is correct.

    I want to focus not only on how much and which programmes have been cut, but on how the remaining money is spent. I am concerned about the merger of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and the Department for International Development, and the fact that so much money in this strategy will be under the remit of ambassadors. I have spoken to many ambassadors and they have not had the training to spend development funds. They have been trained to be excellent diplomats and we are really proud of them. They do a great job for us around the world, but development expertise is very, very different. Will the Minister confirm that the training programme for ambassadors has changed as a result, right from selection through to achieving their positions? It needs to change dramatically if the money is to be spent in a way that achieves our aims.

    Then we come to our aims. What are the aims of the international strategy? I have serious concerns that they are not clear, that they break our promises to achieve the sustainable development goals and that they are not to cut poverty.

    Anyone who has followed any of my speeches will not be surprised by the two areas on which I will focus today, but I have not plucked them out of thin air. I have worked in development around the world for 25 years. I have worked for Christian Aid, Oxfam, CAFOD—the Catholic Agency for Overseas Development—and Water Aid. I did a round of the development agencies, which meant that I had the privilege of visiting many countries and seeing programmes that are funded by the British public around the world. Two key areas that can achieve poverty eradication are: tackling conflict, focusing especially on genocide prevention; and tackling climate change, focusing especially on water sanitation and hygiene.

    Commitments have been made across the House and we have said many times in debates that we want to prevent genocide. We have stood here and said, “Never again,” and I am sure we all agree that this crime of crimes must be prevented. That has been highlighted this week by the international ministerial conference on freedom of religion or belief, which is being hosted by our Government and is happening now in London.

    Religious persecution and the targeting of people because of their ethnicity go hand in hand, but to achieve the aim of “Never again” in relation to genocide, we need genocide prevention strategies across all the countries in which we work to predict when early steps towards genocide are being taken, to prevent genocide through peace building and to fund social and economic actions and targeted intervention to prevent it. There is a list of continuing genocides around the world and of areas where there are moves towards genocide. Our projects and programmes can make all the difference. They will not be glamorous or hit the headlines, but they will save lives in their millions.

    The Foreign Secretary’s promise to restore the humanitarian and women and girls’ development budgets has been broken because of the aid cuts. Compared with the spend in 2020, the cuts include the Ethiopian budget by 90% and the Syrian budget by 64%. Yemen, one of the poorest countries in the world, has had a cut of 40% and Sudan has had a 74% cut. There is an unprecedented famine in the horn of Africa, yet the cuts to humanitarian budgets continue regardless.

    Last year, the British Government made famine prevention their flagship humanitarian agenda when they held the G7 presidency, and the UK played a lead role in convening discussions on famine prevention in the UN Security Council. That is—or should be—a key feature of the international development strategy, but there is a perception that the UK risks being somewhat missing in action on humanitarian aid because of the cuts. For example, in 2017, when 16 million people in the horn of Africa were facing severe hunger, the UK provided £861 million as part of the global response. That helped to avert widespread famine. The work that was done then has helped to reduce the number of people who are facing famine, even now, in the next period of crisis. Despite that, however, 23 million people in 2022 are facing famine as a result of drought, conflict and covid, but the UK has provided—bear in mind that the figure was £861 million in 2017—£72 million to support people in Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia and South Sudan. This is the worst famine in that area in 40 years, yet we have dramatically cut our support. That is not what the British people want from the aid budget.

    Sarah Champion

    My hon. Friend makes a powerful point and she knows at first hand the importance of our contribution to the international and aid sector, particularly on famine prevention. My Committee has just published its report on food security, and there is so much more that the Government could do to take a strategic leadership view. However, the countries that my hon. Friend mentioned, where famine is running wild, seem to be completely off the Government’s radar and hidden. One can only assume that unless we raise the profile of those countries, this will just keep going.

    Fleur Anderson

    I thank my hon. Friend for raising that issue. This debate has been really important in enabling us to talk about the issues, because these cuts seem to be happening quietly and in secret. If British people knew about the cuts to famine prevention and the other things going on, they would not be happy. These are not our values; these are not British values.

    The House will hear no argument from me against championing women and girls, which is in the development strategy, but the budgets for women and girls are being cut and are not being prioritised. The Government are not putting their money where their mouth is. CARE International estimates that £1.9 billion was cut from women and girls projects in 2021. I would welcome any assurance from the Minister that that is not correct and that the budgets for women and girls are being protected. I would like to hear that in her response.

    The international development strategy should have poverty reduction as a target, but it does not. Instead, it talks about people being “more prosperous”. It could be said that that is just semantics—putting a positive spin on poverty by talking about prosperity instead. However, I am very concerned, as other hon. Members clearly are, that it shows a move away from poverty reduction, tackling inequality, support for the most marginalised and inclusive growth, with a focus instead on macroeconomic prosperity and the hope that it will trickle down. We know that that will not work and that it risks fuelling inequality and instability. It is a move away from achieving the sustainable development goals on the interconnected issues of poverty, inequality, climate change, inclusive societies, access to health and education, and water and sanitation.

    Water and sanitation is all but missing from the international development strategy. WASH—water, sanitation and hygiene—is the foundation on which any development strategy should be based. There is a lot of talk in the strategy about trade, but trade cannot increase if farmers cannot water their livestock or crops. Farmers just cannot achieve very much with no water: they face ill health and poor hygiene, or have to fetch water instead of farming and being a trading actor. It is truly frightening that the Government have cut funding for WASH by two thirds between 2018 and 2021.

    Water Aid is one of the most popular and well-supported aid agencies in this country. I am not just saying that because I used to work for it; I chose to work for it because I know the importance of water and sanitation. Its popularity demonstrates how obvious it is to British people and to anyone who has travelled to any of the countries we are talking about that without clean water, sanitation and hygiene, we just cannot get the other benefits to progress for girls, for trade, for autonomy and for villages and towns. WASH is a no-regrets solution: it is really good value for money, and it fast-forwards progress in gender equality, global health, climate change and so many other areas.

    Let us take gender equality as an example. The focus of the development strategy is quite rightly on women and girls, but without access to WASH, millions of women and girls will miss out on school or the chance to work and will be at greater risk of poor health, violence and abuse. Every day, approximately 800 million women and girls are on their period, yet one third do not have access to clean water, female-friendly and decent toilets, hygiene facilities and sanitary materials to manage menstruation with dignity. I have met many, many girls who miss a week of school a month, and many teachers who despair. They want to do their best, but they cannot.

    Women are responsible for about 60% of household water collection needs globally. Achieving universal basic water services would free up more than 77 million working days for women each year between 2021 and 2040. The gains could be huge, so I ask the Minister: what proportion of the reinstated ODA budget for women and girls will go to programmes addressing period poverty and shame? Given its importance to the education, economic empowerment and safety of women and girls globally, will the Minister restore the UK’s ODA funding for WASH?

    Global health and WASH are inseparable too. The World Health Organisation estimates that one newborn baby dies every minute from infections related to a lack of clean water and hygiene. This is such a basic problem, so heartbreaking and so easily solved. More than half the healthcare centres in the world’s 46 least developed countries lack clean water or decent toilets, which is causing preventable deaths and accelerating the spread of antimicrobial resistance as health workers are forced to use antibiotics in lieu of good hygiene. If any of our local hospitals had no running water, they would close—they would not be open—but that is the situation of half the healthcare facilities in the world’s poorest countries. The Lancet estimates that 1.27 million people died of drug-resistant infections in 2019 alone, a number that will just continue to increase as antimicrobial resistance develops, and that will affect us in this country as well: we are interconnected.

    The FCDO’s own analysis in December 2021 rightly recognised the importance of WASH in maternal and child health, pandemic preparedness, and building climate-resilient health systems. However, the FCDO is not putting its money where its mouth is. The financing gap preventing universal access to WASH in healthcare facilities is just $601 million annually to 2030. That is small change for all the G7 nations, working together, and the UK should be leading the way in advocating its provision. I therefore want to hear from the Minister what the Government are doing to increase access to WASH in healthcare facilities in the world’s least developed countries, and whether she agrees that it must be better financed.

    I also have a little shopping list of aid programmes which I know are changing, but about which I should like some further information. These are just examples of the problems that will come as a result of the disintegration—the Government seem to be disintegrating around us as we speak, but there is also this disintegration —of what used to be the DFID budget.

    The right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell) raised an important issue: why are we still funding China to such a great extent, and what are those funds for? As for Sudan, has the peace programme been entirely cut? We built up that programme over many years, and we have been funding it for so long; are there any plans to reinstate it?

    In Lebanon, the UK Government had been funding a very successful landmine programme to clear cluster munitions for many years. The Lebanese Government were given a five-year extension allowing them to clear their munitions by 2026, they said they were on track for 2025—and then what happened? We cut the programme. They were so close to achieving landmine eradication. They had come so far, and we had worked so well with them, and the Lebanese military, to achieve that. Farmers could have their land back, they could grow and they could trade, but they cannot achieve any of those goals in the international development strategy without that programme, so why did we cut it?

    The next item on my little shopping list is the BBC World Service, the jewel in our crown. We have built up, over so many years, a trusted service. I saw its impact in Kenya, where I was living, during the post-election violence. It was the only source of information then. It is so well trusted across the world. It is a source of huge soft power for us, and I hope to hear from the Minister that it will not be subject to any of the cuts.

    The final item is climate finance. On 20 June, the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy said that the BEIS was surrendering climate finance underspend to the Ukraine aid budget. Climate finance underspend is climate finance which has been budgeted for, for which there are plans, which has not been spent yet, but which will be spent on very important climate projects. I do not begrudge any aid going to Ukraine, but I do want to know where the money is coming from. If we are just robbing Peter to pay Paul, what is the point of this strategy? It is not very strategic at all.

    A development strategy that does not prioritise poverty reduction, conflict and genocide prevention, and WASH is not one that the British people would want to support. It breaks our promises to the world’s most vulnerable people, and it further weakens our standing on the world stage.

  • Fleur Anderson – 2022 Speech on Hammersmith Bridge

    Fleur Anderson – 2022 Speech on Hammersmith Bridge

    The speech made by Fleur Anderson, the Labour MP for Putney, in the House of Commons on 28 June 2022.

    Thank you for calling me, Mr Deputy Speaker, and I thank the Members who are present for this important Adjournment debate.

    Here I am again, and talking about Hammersmith bridge again. It has been closed to vehicles for three long years, and that closure is still having a huge impact on the everyday lives of residents in Putney, Roehampton and Southfields, and much more widely across south-west London.

    I last held an Adjournment debate on the closure—and, hopefully, the reopening one day—of the bridge in April 2021, and I have raised it in the House several times since then. Since that debate there have been welcome stabilisation works to make the bridge safer, and it has reopened to pedestrians above and river traffic below. However, I am here again because there has still been no agreement on the building of a temporary vehicle bridge, on any date by which the restoration of the bridge will be complete, or on when—and residents are crying out “When?”—the bridge will fully reopen. I hope to hear much better news from the Minister this time than last time, and I know that plenty of people in Putney and across south-west London are listening to the debate and also want those answers.

    The Government have been dragging their feet, and the taskforce has had no task and no force. Responding to my last debate, the then Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport, the hon. Member for Redditch (Rachel Maclean), simply said:

    “The buck stops with Hammersmith and Fulham.”—[Official Report, 14 April 2021; Vol. 692, c. 442.]

    That was a very disappointing end to the debate. I will be describing all that Hammersmith and Fulham Council is doing now, because it is the council that is responsible for the bridge, and explaining why it is the Government who need to do more.

    It is Hammersmith and Fulham Council that made the assessment of the danger in the first place, has made the business case for the stabilisation works and funded those works up front, and has drawn up the memorandum of understanding between the council, the Government and Transport for London, the three parties that will be responsible for the funding. However, Transport for London does not have the funds to restore the bridge because of reduced fees and other payments as a result of covid, so it comes down to the Government. What have the Government done, what will the Government do, and when will the bridge reopen?

    Let me first say something about the impact of the closure. It has resulted in between 500 and 4,000 vehicles a day coming through Putney High Street. Local residents complain constantly of increased travel times for journeys by bus and car, of increased congestion and pollution and of accidents on the roads, especially involving children near the schools on the most affected roads.

    We want more safe cycle routes in Putney, and in Wandsworth we have one of the highest “propensity to cycle” ratings. However, the increased traffic and traffic jams make cycling more dangerous and put people off cycling. In meetings that I have held with potential cyclists, most people say they feel that Putney Hill, Putney High Street and Putney Bridge are very dangerous roads. That in turn means worse air quality, because if there are fewer cyclists on the road there are more vehicles, which add to the congestion. As you will know, Mr Deputy Speaker, each year more than 4,000 Londoners die prematurely as a result of air pollution, and more than 500,000 people in London boroughs suffer from asthma and are vulnerable to toxic air.

    Recently, for Clean Air Day, I undertook readings using an ultra-fine particle counter—lent to me by Imperial College—along Putney High Street and the Lower and Upper Richmond Roads, the main diversion routes from the bridge. The readings were exceptionally high, even from inside homes along those roads. Residents have shown me the black soot that builds up in their homes, and companies tell me about the impact that the poor air quality is having on their business.

    The Putney Society is concerned about this as well, and it has sent me the following statement about the impact of the bridge closure:

    “Congestion is at an all time high with roads leading towards Putney Bridge clogged up before 7 am in the morning, with traffic jams continuing well into the evening. Prior to the Bridge closure in 2019 Putney already suffered from one of the most polluted High Streets in the country. And despite positive measures such as the introduction of cleaner buses and the ULEZ zone, our pollution levels continue to exceed UK legal limits, in part because of additional traffic resulting from the Bridge closure. Around 60 constituents die prematurely each year because of this pollution, and we now face the prospect of this continuing for several more years until Hammersmith Bridge is fully repaired.”

    The statement continues:

    “The extra traffic has affected thousands of people. Aside from the impact of pollution on residents’ health, children and students have suffered disrupted journeys to their school or college; workers, especially those travelling from Roehampton, have faced significantly lengthened bus journeys and businesses have had delayed deliveries. And the most vulnerable people, who require access to healthcare, whether appointments or vital emergency treatment, face delays in getting an ambulance or reaching nearby hospitals. Why? Because ambulances can no longer take a short hop across the Bridge to Barnes or beyond but now spend much, much longer in traffic”.

    Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)

    My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech, particularly in drawing attention to the fact that the closure of Hammersmith bridge is having a sub-regional and regional effect. It is much wider than just the immediate locality. Does she find it surprising that the Government have dragged their feet all the way along the line on this, first by asking Hammersmith to find all the funding, then £64 million and now a third of the cost, which is more than double what they would propose for similar schemes? Does she agree that until the Government are prepared to take their responsibilities in this matter seriously, we are not going to see progress?

    Fleur Anderson

    I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. We have just had a debate on Government failure, and this is Government failure 101. Not keeping a major transport route open in our capital city and letting it stay closed for so many years—and who knows how much longer—is a Government failure. They need to step up with the funding, and I will be outlining more information about that.

    Hammersmith bridge is a very unusual bridge, and this is why it requires special attention from the Government. It is a grade II listed structure and part of Great Britain’s engineering heritage. It is also one of the world’s oldest suspension bridges, and only five years younger than the Brooklyn bridge in New York. It is unique, having been built out of cast iron, wrought iron and wood. No Government, surely, would allow the Brooklyn bridge to stay closed, so why let Hammersmith bridge do so? It has suffered from over seven decades of deterioration and corrosion. This corrosion, along with the fact that the bridge was designed for the needs of the 19th century, is what makes Hammersmith bridge one of the most expensive bridges in Britain to repair. When warnings of its possible imminent collapse forced its closure, I perfectly understood that the engineers faced huge challenges.

    Transport for London has estimated that the repair bill could be between £141 million and £161 million. By comparison, the cost of repairing other Thames bridges is far smaller. For example, Chiswick bridge cost £9 million to repair, and Albert bridge cost £9.7 million. In those cases, Transport for London largely funded the works, paying between 85% and 100% of the costs. The responsible council was not left to foot the bill in the way that Hammersmith and Fulham Council is being asked to do. The bridge is a special case, both historically and financially, and it needs a different funding package from the Government.

    Overall, there needs to be a change in bridge policy in London. Lambeth Council has five bridges, but is responsible for none of them. Southwark bridge and London bridge are managed by a trust. Two railway bridges are managed by Network Rail, but Hungerford railway bridge is managed by Westminster. The policy is all over the place. I think it might be time to look at the inequity of bridge responsibilities in London, because it is clear that the system is failing us over Hammersmith bridge. But we are where we are, and there is currently an agreement that the Government, Transport for London and Hammersmith and Fulham Council will fund it.

    The Mayor of London has repeatedly sought to meet the Transport Secretary to discuss this and a range of London transport funding issues, but these requests have all been refused. Twenty meetings with Transport for London have been cancelled by the Department for Transport or the Treasury since the last TfL funding deal was agreed. The last time the Transport Secretary and the Mayor of London spoke and discussed Transport for London funding was on 30 May 2021. That is shocking to hear, as Londoners are being let down by this Government. We need them to work with the Mayor, and I hope to hear more of that from the Minister later. We are talking about a national transport route, and the Government must lead the way in funding and reopening it. If a toll is going to be made necessary because the Government will not fund the bridge, has the impact on Putney residents been factored into that business case?

    What has Hammersmith and Fulham Council done? Can we say that the buck stops with it? Last November, the council submitted a full business case to the Department for Transport for the stabilisation works, at a cost of £8.9 million, which was £21 million less than the TfL stabilisation plan, so this is a major saving to the taxpayer. To speed up the repair programme, the council decided in December to make the cash available up front, rather than wait for the DFT and TfL governance processes to sign off their shares, as that process is simply too cumbersome. That enabled works to begin several months early. The DFT did not sign off on its one-third share until 22 March this year, many months later, showing that the Government are dragging their feet. The phase 1 stabilisation programme was able to get under way on site in February. It will stop the risk of collapse and prevent future closures to pedestrians, cyclists and river traffic, which I, of course, welcome. On 7 March, Hammersmith and Fulham Council signed off a further £3.5 million investment so that it could crack on with all the essential expert studies required to obtain Government and TfL funding through the full business case. That includes essential concept design work, geotechnical studies, crowd loading assessments and traffic modelling. I understand that the council and the DFT officials are working together on completing the business case, but when will that be done? Will funding be ready to go as soon as that is completed and approved, so that we do not have any more delays?

    The latest investment of £3.5 million by the council to deliver those essential studies has again been paid for by the council up front, rather than having to wait for the DFT and TfL governance processes to kick in. This signing off of money, at its own risk for the council, in order to expedite bridge works is a situation that the council says cannot continue. I understand that the impasse is now the memorandum of understanding, which would confirm the one shares payable for the council, the DFT and TfL, but that it has not been signed. The latest draft version was sent by the council to the DFT on 14 September 2021, but it has not yet received a response from Ministers or their officials. So I hope that I will not hear, “The buck stops with Hammersmith and Fulham Council” from the Minister again. The Government need to recognise the huge impact of this closure on people in Putney and beyond, and they need to take far more proactive and urgent action.

    I shall finish with some questions for the Minister. When is the next meeting of the taskforce? When will Secretary of State sign the memorandum of understanding to enable the next phase of the works to continue as fast as possible? What is the hold-up on that? Has an assessment of the impact of a proposed toll, or of any other financial proposals, on routes through Putney been carried out? Would the Government consider underwriting the full works? When will the building of the temporary bridge start? How long will it take? Is there a deadline from Ministers for the completion of this project, as we would certainly like to see that there is and that it is as soon as possible? I ask again, and I will keep asking, what have the Government done, what will they do and when will Hammersmith bridge reopen?

    Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)

    Sarah Olney has asked permission from the mover of the motion and the Minister to make a short contribution in this debate. Both have agreed and I have been informed.

    Sarah Olney (Richmond Park) (LD)

    Thank you very much, Mr Deputy Speaker. I thank the hon. Member for Putney (Fleur Anderson) for securing this debate and I thank the Minister and you for allowing me to contribute briefly to it. As I am sure everybody knows, the closure of Hammersmith bridge has had an enormous impact on my constituents. I wish to raise two issues, following on from the excellent speech of the hon. Member for Putney outlining the situation. The first is that on 25 May 2022, the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham issued a prior information notice, announcing its intention to seek external funding for its third of the cost of strengthening Hammersmith bridge. As the hon. Lady asked, does that mean tolls? We are desperately seeking further information on that important point from the Department. I am not against tolls. If they are required to get the bridge open, there may be public support for that in Richmond Park, but it needs detailed consideration by all parties, including the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames. Any tolls would weigh heavily on my residents, and we need a full exploration of all the factors. For instance, would tolls mean that people continue to use Putney and Chiswick bridges and avoid Hammersmith bridge and the tolls? Tolls are not unknown on London bridges, but not within the lifetime of anyone here.

    My residents would also want to know who will have to pay the tolls. Might there be exceptions for Richmond residents, or will the exceptions just be for buses and emergency vehicles? We need more information. I urge Baroness Vere, the Minister responsible, to reconvene the taskforce so that the issues can be urgently discussed by local stakeholders, including the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames.

    The hon. Member for Hammersmith (Andy Slaughter) made the point about the strategic issue involved. In Richmond, planning permission for housing developments, school place planning and healthcare planning are being affected. Will my residents have access in the long term to services, including schools and healthcare, on the north side of the Thames? It is really urgent. We know that jointly Transport for London, the Department for Transport and the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham are committed to reopening the bridge, but without the funding to do so, their commitment is not worth very much. When it comes to five and 10-year planning for education and healthcare, we do not know whether services on the north side of the Thames will be accessible to people in Barnes. That is a real issue for parents who are thinking about schooling for their children. Will they be able to cross the bridge and access schools in Hammersmith and further afield? I thank the hon. Lady for bringing the debate to the House, and you, Mr Deputy Speaker, for allowing me to contribute.

  • Fleur Anderson – 2022 Speech on the Resignation of Lord Geidt

    Fleur Anderson – 2022 Speech on the Resignation of Lord Geidt

    The speech made by Fleur Anderson, the Labour MP for Putney, in the House of Commons on 21 June 2022.

    This could have been a very quick debate. The Paymaster General could have stood up at the beginning and just given us a date for when it would all happen—when the adviser would be reappointed, with a lovely timetable attached—and we would all have been happy and could have left it at that. However, I am now, to be honest, more concerned about what is going to happen than I was at the beginning of the debate.

    Labour has called this very important debate today because the whole of our ministerial standards system is unravelling before our eyes. Corruption does not arrive in any country unannounced or with a big bang; it creeps and corrodes, and honour and trust, once lost, are very hard to win back. That is what is at the heart of this debate. This Labour motion would put the Government into special measures and ensure that the ethics adviser is recruited as soon as possible and the post is not ditched. We are concerned about the Paymaster General’s comments about pausing and reflecting, and about having a review instead of appointing. We want to know that a very clear decision will be made about this adviser position, because otherwise ethics and integrity will slip away.

    The Prime Minister is leading the way in being unethical and breaking the rules, and that is why the person whose role it is to hold Ministers to account, to investigate breaches and to stop the rot felt that he had no choice but to resign. The motion calls for urgent action to appoint an ethics adviser because otherwise, quite simply, we do not trust the Government to appoint at speed. We do not trust what Ministers will do without this oversight. We have heard that a review will be conducted before the appointment “in due course”. That is very concerning. We know that for this Government it is one rule for them and another for us.

    I thank all Members for their excellent contributions, including agreement on both sides of the House that we need this urgent appointment. My hon. Friend the Member for Bristol South (Karin Smyth), who is a member of PACAC, the Committee focused very much on today, outlined the evidence given to it by Lord Geidt on issues from wallpaper to the Northern Ireland protocol to leaks by Ministers under investigation, and the need to bring decency back into our politics. My hon. Friend the Member for Brighton, Kemptown (Lloyd Russell-Moyle), also a member of PACAC, said that it is quite simple: the Prime Minister has lost the trust of the people and of his own MPs as well. He highlighted the circularity of the process by which the Prime Minister appoints the adviser, and then has to look into evidence given by himself about himself and to be the judge of it. The system does not work; it needs to change.

    My hon. Friend the Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Justin Madders) talked about how difficult Lord Geidt’s position has been and the fact that he said six months ago that there had been insufficient respect for the role of the adviser. Then there were the fixed penalty notice warnings from the adviser, setting alarm bells ringing, as is still the case, that bit by bit probity is being ignored and it is a dark path we are heading down. That is the dark path we want to stop with our motion today. My hon. Friend the Member for Swansea West (Geraint Davies) pointed out that Aristotle said:

    “We are what we repeatedly do.”

    He talked about the Prime Minister’s corroding of our rules and ethics, the weakening of internal laws, and the attack on international law as well.

    We have a cost of living crisis. My constituents and the British public are worried about how they are going to pay the bills, feed their children and get to work. They have to know that Government Ministers are acting in the public’s best interests and not in their own interests. They have to know that Government Ministers are not acting in the interests of their families or friends, or party donors, or pub landlords, or their own wives. They have to know that they are acting with impartiality, with no fear or favour.

    I realise that the position of the independent adviser will not be an easy position to recruit for, as many hon. Members have said. It will be a tough job description to put together and a tough job advert to write. Last time it took five months to appoint a replacement ethics adviser, and now Downing Street has been hinting at not reappointing one at all. That is why we have tabled the motion today. The outcome of the review could be not to appoint and that will be unacceptable.

    Labour’s motion puts an essential backstop in place, so that if the Prime Minister cannot get his act together in two months’ time, the cross-party Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee will appoint that adviser. That adviser will be given the powers and information that they need to investigate potential breaches of the code by Ministers, and that adviser will report to the Committee, so that there is transparency, honesty and integrity.

    Without anyone in post, with the ethical vacuum that we currently have, there will be no one for Ministers to give their full list of interests to that may be thought to give rise to a conflict. There will be no one to investigate possible breaches of the ministerial code—and there could be many. There will be no one to advise the Prime Minister on the code, which is particularly worrying, given the Prime Minister’s seeming lack of literacy in the code, and no one to complete investigations that have been started, such as the allegations of Islamophobia by the hon. Member for Wealden (Ms Ghani).

    Senior civil servants are also worried. Dave Penman, general secretary of the FDA, the senior civil servants’ union, said,

    “confidence in the process has been severely damaged. If the prime minister does not intend to replace Lord Geidt, then he must immediately put in place measures to ensure a civil servant can, with confidence, raise a complaint about ministerial misconduct.”

    We cannot just leave a vacuum at the top—it is far too worrying.

    Labour would introduce a stronger standards system. We would appoint at speed, but we would go further. We have called for the expansion of the scope of the statutory register of lobbyists, a ban on MPs taking up lobbying jobs for five years after leaving office, and the establishment of an independent integrity and ethics commission with actual powers, not in hock to the Prime Minister.

    The Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport said that voters “don’t give a fig”. They do give a fig. A recent poll showed that 74% of the public think that the Prime Minister is untrustworthy. That is up by 30% in the past two years. Another survey, conducted on the day Lord Geidt resigned, found that nearly 70% of the public believe that the Prime Minister behaves in an unethical way, with 46% thinking he behaves “very unethically”. This is unacceptable. I would counsel the Minister and his colleagues not to insult the British electorate. They do give a fig about honesty; they do give a fig about integrity.

    I want to end by asking several hugely important questions that the Minister failed to answer in his opening speech, but I am sure he will come to now. First, can he confirm whether ongoing investigations launched by Lord Geidt will now be completed? Can he confirm whether there would be an interim position or role holder for the ethics adviser if the recruitment process is not completed within two months? When will the replacement be appointed? Can the Minister assure us that there will not be another five-month gap? When is “due course”? Is it September or October? Is it Christmas? Is it next year? And who is holding Ministers to account in the interim? “Wait and see” is not an acceptable answer. With no ethics adviser in place and no obvious backstop, Ministers are free to do as they please without consequence. It is a blank cheque for bad behaviour. While the cat’s away, the mice will play. This may be an attractive position for the Government, who have always found the rules to be incredibly inconvenient, but it is not attractive and not acceptable to the British public.

    I commend the motion to the House.

  • Fleur Anderson – 2022 Speech on Standards in Public Life

    Fleur Anderson – 2022 Speech on Standards in Public Life

    The speech made by Fleur Anderson, the Labour MP for Putney, in the House of Commons on 7 June 2022.

    I thank all Members who have contributed to this important debate and to the underlining of the importance of standards, which so many have mentioned. Last night, 148 MPs stood up for standards in public life and it is disappointing not to see more of them in their place today. Each one of us is elected to this place based on trust: the trust of everyone who voted for us; the trust of the British people that we would act with selflessness and integrity in every decision we make; the trust that when the country has to rise to a challenge we in this place would set the highest standards; and the trust that if we were found to be failing to live up to those standards, we would take action, decisively and urgently, with transparency, to rectify that.

    The standards system now is broken, so it is up to Labour to bring this motion to push forward the action needed to live up to that trust. The Opposition have tabled this motion now because integrity and trust in politics has never been more under threat. While families up and down the country face the cost of living crisis, they deserve to know who is making the decisions and in whose interests Ministers are acting. These measures are urgently needed to stop the Tory slide into sleaze; to stop the culture of wasting taxpayers’ cash to give a mate a lucrative Government contract; to stop the politicisation of appointments from institutions that have never been political before; to regain our pride as a country that stands up for integrity and decency in public life; and to stop rules being made by convention, which can all too easily become a mate’s rates version of standards. The wink and a nod; the “He’s all right”; the turning of a blind eye; the “Help yourself,” “I’ve earned it,” or “Other people do it”—it is all a short journey from bending the rules to breaking them to bringing all MPs and our democracy into disrepute.

    The report by the Committee on Standards in Public Life is the focus of the motion. As the committee says:

    “Erosion of standards does affect public trust in the democratic process”.

    The polling and focus group research conducted for the committee found:

    “The public have a firm belief that ethical standards are integral to democracy itself, and that politicians have a fundamental duty to the public to abide by ethical codes and rules. However, the public lack confidence that MPs and ministers abide by such standards, and see some politicians as possessing neither the core values expected from leaders in public life, nor matching up to the higher ethical standards displayed by other respected public sector leaders, such as judges, doctors and teachers.”

    What a state we are in and what action we need to take.

    We have heard in the debate excellent speeches laying out the significance of standards. My right hon. Friend the Member for Derby South (Margaret Beckett) talked articulately and movingly about grandmother’s footsteps and the stealthy movement to undermine the health of our democracy, and about ministerial standards, control of the media and public appointments.

    My hon. Friends the Members for Eltham (Clive Efford), for St Helens South and Whiston (Ms Rimmer), for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Justin Madders), for Bristol South (Karin Smyth), for Chesterfield (Mr Perkins), for Warwick and Leamington (Matt Western) and for Ilford South (Sam Tarry) all underlined the importance of standards and the Nolan principles; the slow death of democracy by the degrading of those standards; the damage done by partygate; and the lack of action up till now.

    Today, Labour asks all Members to support the motion—not to abstain, to support it—to recognise the importance of the ministerial code, which has been damaged by the Prime Minister’s rewrite last month. The publication of a new ministerial code was the opportunity to include many of the 34 recommendations in the report from the Committee on Standards in Public Life; instead, we got a watered-down code.

    In the week when the Prime Minister’s misleading denials to Parliament about industrial-scale rule breaking at the heart of Government were finally exposed by the long-awaited Sue Gray report, the Prime Minister should have been tendering his resignation, but instead he was rewriting the rules. He moved to introduce a range of sanctions for minor breaches of the code, a new website and an office for the adviser, but he made no move to make the adviser more independent from the Prime Minister, which was the report’s core recommendation.

    The Prime Minister’s own anti-corruption tsar, the hon. Member for Weston-super-Mare (John Penrose), who is in his place, resigned yesterday, saying it was “pretty clear” that the Prime Minister had broken the ministerial code and:

    “That’s a resigning matter for me, and it should be for the PM too.”

    The second focus of the motion is the endorsing of the report by the Committee on Standards in Public Life and its 34 recommendations. Back in September 2020, the committee’s review opened with the publication of terms of reference. The starting point was that the existing systems were not fit for purpose and were being increasingly scrutinised and criticised. They were not fit for purpose then and they still are not.

    During 2021 there were expert evidence sessions; there was a public consultation; there was an academic roundtable; there was a public sector survey; and there was polling and focus group research. In November 2021, the committee published the report based on all the feedback and all its deliberations. This was not just a small group in a room somewhere, coming up with its own ideas; it was a considered, deliberate report. But we had to wait for seven months for any action at all, and that was the reviewing of the ministerial code. It was seven months of more sleaze and misconduct, including the Owen Paterson scandal, the vote to keep the hon. Member for Delyn (Rob Roberts) in Parliament and the failure to act against the former Member for Wakefield. We need to clean up this culture of sleaze and cover-up.

    The 34 recommendations include: greater independence in the regulation of the ministerial code, which has been talked about in this debate; strengthening the independent appointment and remit of the independent adviser; expansion of the business appointment rules to employment by companies with indirect as well as direct relationships with Government; the introduction of meaningful sanctions such as the five-year lobbying ban, because there are just too many loopholes in the current system; and stopping Ministers from overriding public appointments without having to account for why—side-stepping assessment panels means that things can go unrecorded and unnoticed.

    We need to know what is happening behind closed doors. The recommendations also include bringing in greater transparency when it comes to who is lobbying whom. We need a central register; a wider definition of who is a lobbyist; and monthly, instead of quarterly, reporting of all lobbying meetings that includes all methods of lobbying, including those on Zoom and WhatsApp.

    Those recommendations came out seven months ago. There has been no word on any action for most of them. Earlier, the Minister told us that he would reflect the thinking of the Committee on Standards in Public Life in the rewrite of the ministerial code, but he should not just be reflecting the thinking of the CSPL; he should be including the actual recommendations. If those recommendations are not in the ministerial code, where should they be? When will we see these changes?

    This motion today is just the necessary first step. Once the Committee’s recommendations are implemented in full, the Government should then do more. Labour would go much further. It would introduce an independent integrity and ethics commission—not a convention, not an adviser, and not another Tory MP. And it would not be in the gift of the Prime Minister to decide whether an investigation is carried out.

    This independent commission would bring the existing Committees and bodies that oversee standards in Government under a single, independent body. It would have powers to launch investigations without ministerial approval, to collect evidence and to decide on sanctions. The current system is just too disjointed, too convoluted and too little understood, as the report showed in its polling and evidence sessions. It does not have the transparency or the teeth needed to ensure that high standards are met by everyone all the time, and it is too entirely dependent on the integrity of the Prime Minister—the chap at the top.

    I hope that all Members will vote for this motion today. I do not see how they could not unless they are against the ministerial code and against the recommendations on standards in public life. The truth is that standards have not just been diluted under this present Government; they have evaporated. A vote for this motion is a vote to endorse honesty, integrity, and decency. Let us mark an end to the current system right now. This is the line that we should be drawing underneath things. We want an end to the slide away from the highest standards; an end to rule-breaking by Ministers; an end to the revolving door between ministerial office and lobbying jobs; an end to corruption and waste of taxpayers’ money; and an end to Members of Parliament being paid to lobby their own Government. Let us clean up politics. Let us win back the trust of the British people and do what we came here to do: to serve the British people without fear or favour and never, ever to compromise on the highest standards of public life. I commend this motion to the House.

  • Fleur Anderson – 2022 Speech on Transport

    Fleur Anderson – 2022 Speech on Transport

    The speech made by Fleur Anderson, the Labour MP for Putney, in the House of Commons on 19 May 2022.

    It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for West Dorset (Chris Loder) in what is a hugely important debate to my constituents in Putney, Roehampton and Southfields.

    I am a member of the all-party parliamentary group for cycling and walking. I would like to invite you, Madam Deputy Speaker, to my fun bike ride at 11 o’clock on Sunday, leaving from Putney embankment, as part of the celebrations of the 150th anniversary of Wimbledon and Putney commons. It is my contribution to active travel as part of those celebrations.

    It will not surprise you, Madam Deputy Speaker, that I will start with the closure of Hammersmith bridge. Huge congestion, pollution and danger to cyclists—indeed, potential cyclists are being prevented from cycling in Putney—are caused by the additional 500 to 4,000 vehicles a day that go through Putney as a result of the closure. I urge the Minister to stop playing party politics. Every answer I get in the House suggests that Labour Hammersmith and Fulham Council should deal with the matter. No, there should be working together. People in Putney are sick and tired of the lack of urgency on the issue. I ask Ministers to stop expecting the council and Transport for London to pay two thirds of the more than £100 million cost of the heritage restoration. I urge the Minister to fix a date when the bridge will be open to vehicles and to take action, together with Hammersmith and Fulham Council and TfL, to pay for the bridge. A toll is not the answer, because it will still result in lots of vehicles going through Putney.

    I echo other Members’ comments about disability access to our tube and train stations. I make the case again for step-free access at East Putney station, which has high passenger use and high potential use for those with mobility issues and for parents of small children, but has unusually steep stairs, so many people in the area cannot use it. Covid has paused disability access schemes for trains and tubes, but it can no longer be an excuse. I urge Ministers to work with TfL to move forward on access schemes and to put East Putney tube station at the top of the list.

    I was disappointed by the lack of comment on active travel in the proposed transport Bill. In 2020, the Prime Minister announced £2 billion of ringfenced funding for the next five years for active travel, which is only about a quarter to a third of what is needed to meet the Government’s active travel targets. After three years of allocations, the Government are not on course to deliver the £2 billion, and in the meantime, local authorities do not have the funding that they need for active travel. In Putney, many constituents write to me that they do not have safe cycle routes and safe places to store cycles. The council does not have the funding to deliver all that is needed. A huge number of people would cycle if our local authority had the funding. I urge Ministers to step up and release the promised funding, but also to beef up the provision in the transport Bill.

    I look to the transport Bill to provide for far better connection between cycling and trains, and cycling and buses. On the continent, there are many buses where people can put their bikes at the front. They can cycle up, then take the bus, enabling them to make longer journeys and meaning that those who would otherwise need to use a car do not have to. That should also apply to trains: it should be far easier to take a bike on the train. There should be many more spaces for bikes and a much easier booking system. That would transform urban transport in areas such as Roehampton, which has poor transport links.

    I would like much more emphasis on cleaner and greener buses. We have many greener buses on Putney High Street, which are essential for increasing our clean air—a real problem in Putney. However, the 39, 93 and 424—I am following other Members in naming bus numbers; it is important to get them out there—need to go green. We must have no more diesel buses.

    I welcome the inclusion of e-scooters in the transport Bill. I have met constituents who are blind or have visual impairments and who will not leave their homes for fear of e-scooters because of their silence and speed. Regulation is key. E-scooters are here to stay, for sure, but we need to ensure that we do not inadvertently trap people in their homes because of them. It was heartbreaking to hear those stories, so I welcome that aspect of the Bill.

    The Government have consulted on proposals to set up a road collision investigation branch. Last year, 55 pedestrians and nine cyclists were killed in London. We must have more investigation into the reasons for such deaths, not only in London but across the UK. A road collision investigation branch could do that far more effectively. I would like to hear from the Minister whether the transport Bill will include powers to establish such a body.

    I look forward to seeing inclusive and ambitious transport policies that increase active travel and cut air pollution.

  • Fleur Anderson – 2022 Speech on the Cost of Living Crisis

    Fleur Anderson – 2022 Speech on the Cost of Living Crisis

    The speech made by Fleur Anderson, the Labour MP for Putney, in the House of Commons on 17 May 2022.

    The Queen’s Speech had two challenges. One was to tackle the cost of living crisis and the other was to tackle the climate crisis, but I feel, on behalf of my constituents in Putney, Roehampton and Southfields, that it does neither. The number of people in energy poverty across the UK has gone up from 4 million last September to more than 6 million today, and it will continue to rise. Pensioners are at the sharp end of the Tory squeeze on finances. They are paying twice as much for energy and facing the biggest real-terms cuts to the state pension in 50 years. On the other hand, energy companies have recorded record profits of £12.4 billion in the first three months of this year alone and petrol retailers are profiting from the cut in petrol and diesel duty, keeping about 2p of the 5p that should be passed on. The Government have not got a grip of these issues. We need a windfall tax on oil and gas producers’ profits to bring down bills, and an emergency Budget.

    Over the past few days, Conservative MPs and Ministers have been lining up to show how out of touch they are, and it really worries me that this kind of “on yer bike” thinking is still guiding decision making. Increasing poverty is not a failure of budgeting, it is not a failure of cooking skills and it is not a failure of magically being able to get a new job.

    Dan lives in Putney and he wrote to me last weekend about his dilemma. He has two young children and his wife stays at home to look after them. They cannot afford childcare. He works 40 hours a week for £9.50 an hour, and he has been offered additional hours. He could take those hours, which would mean he was working 60 hours a week and would not see as children very much. After the resulting cut in universal credit, that would give him only an extra £177 per month, the equivalent of £2.95 an hour. That is not a fair decision for him. He says that

    “the system is broken for people like me”.

    It is for people like Dan that the Queen’s Speech should have had more policies.

    A pensioner has contacted me. She has active Crohn’s disease and she cannot afford to turn on her heating. Steve also wrote to me. He is 77 and self-employed, and his energy bills have gone up from £246 to £890. He has no idea how he will afford that.

    They are just three people, but they are examples of so many among all our constituents. Wandsworth food bank says that six out of 10 parents have skipped meals in the last month to put food on the table for their children. People on the lowest incomes are the best at budgeting and the best at knowing how to make meals stretch. They cannot just work extra hours. In fact, half of all referrals to Wandsworth food banks are people in work. Their income just does not cover the essential bills. So where was the employment Bill in the Gracious Speech?

    We also need to see the green homes grant return in the energy Bill. We need to see a retrofit revolution really tackling the climate emergency—one that covers all homes and that will be there for 10 years or more. The current boiler upgrade scheme is the absolute least we can do. We should do so much more. On behalf of my constituents, I demand more action on the climate emergency, more action on employment rights and more action to tackle the cost of living crisis. I hope that all MPs will vote for the windfall tax tonight.

  • Fleur Anderson – 2022 Speech on Long Covid

    Fleur Anderson – 2022 Speech on Long Covid

    The speech made by Fleur Anderson, the Labour MP for Putney, in the House of Commons on 31 March 2022.

    I am grateful to the hon. Member for Oxford West and Abingdon (Layla Moran) for securing this debate, and I reiterate what has been said by many: we understand that so many people are suffering from long covid, and it must be taken seriously by the Government. We understand the impact it is having not only on those individuals and their daily lives, but the workforce. This economic issue will continue to have a serious impact, and it needs to be addressed. I reiterate the main ask that we have and that the all-party parliamentary group on coronavirus has in its very helpful report on long covid, which is for employer guidelines so that people are not at the whim and the mercy of different employers regarding understanding and support for their continuing in or returning to the workforce.

    I have come to this debate for two groups of people. One is all those suffering from long covid across the country—an estimated 1.5 million people, or 4.4% of the workforce. The other is those constituents who have been suffering from ME, who have learned many lessons from that and think they are relevant to working with those with long covid. They have been underestimated, not believed and not supported. When they have gone to their GP, they have been told the wrong advice—advice that makes their ME worse—and they have not been understood in schools, whether by young people or teachers, or by their employers, and they do not want anyone with long covid to go through the same. I have been disturbed to hear some of the evidence given to the APPG about workforce practices that are not conducive to helping people come back to the workforce and not the best for those individuals and our economy.

    A couple of my constituents have written to me. One said:

    “I have now had long covid for two years…We desperately need more investment in potential treatments. It is clear that the illness impacts the blood, autoimmune system, organs, brain and central nervous system. None of these mechanisms are being treated by the NHS so far. Treatments are being trialled in other countries.”

    There are questions being asked about the trials being conducted in other countries and what more could be done here.

    Another constituent said:

    “I contracted covid-19 at the very end of September. Like many people, I suffered mild symptoms…2 weeks on from my initial infection I was suddenly hit with a wave of long covid symptoms and was truly horrified at what was happening to my brain and body. I felt drained and broken, and…I felt as though a foreign body was inside my head—I could no longer hold even a conversation, yet alone work. For the last 7 months I have been unable to function in any sort of capacity.”

    Finally, my cousin has had long covid for a long time. He sent me a list of his symptoms: fatigue, concentration impairment, memory problems, cognitive loss, internal pain, chills and sweats, sleeplessness, sore throat, dizziness, shaking, anxiety, faintness and muscle aches. All these symptoms and impacts of long covid need to be understood by employers, by teachers and education settings, and by general practitioners and all medical workers, as recommended by the report of the APPG on coronavirus.

    I underline those recommendations and ask specifically for the urgent production of clear employer guidelines, otherwise there will continue to be an employer lottery in the treatment of people with long covid as they return to work. I ask for guidance to education settings, because many students with ME found it difficult to get understanding in order to continue with their education. We cannot have the same happen for those with long covid. And I ask for clear guidance to medical practitioners on children and adults with long covid so that everyone gets the proper care, support and understanding they need so that they have hope and do not add being misunderstood to their long list of symptoms, only increasing their anxiety.

    I welcome this debate, and I hope to hear some good news from the Minister about the key recommendations of this report being taken up to create a good situation for everyone with long covid.

  • Fleur Anderson – 2022 Speech on Cladding in Putney

    Fleur Anderson – 2022 Speech on Cladding in Putney

    The speech made by Fleur Anderson, the Labour MP for Putney, in the House of Commons on 21 January 2022.

    Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for granting this debate on the impact of unsafe cladding in Putney. I thank the Minister for taking the time to respond today. I also thank all those who are watching, who may increase the audience for this debate considerably, as it is on an issue of huge importance to my constituents in Putney, Roehampton and Southfields. I have been campaigning on it for over two years now, since I was elected. It is one of my biggest campaigns, so I am very grateful to be given this time—an unusual amount of time to be able to explain the impact of cladding in Putney, which echoes the stories and experiences of people affected by cladding all over the country.

    First, I thank the UK Cladding Action Group, the Leasehold Knowledge Partnership and the End Our Cladding Scandal campaign, and all the cladding campaigners locally, for campaigning relentlessly on the issue. I am with you in the fight.

    I will talk today about some of the failures of the Government to respond to the cladding crisis. Developers have checked out of many developments that they built shoddily and have moved on. So will the Government really be able to bring them to the table? The building safety fund is failing. It is too slow and has too many exemptions, and there is nothing in the Building Safety Bill to actually protect leaseholders. Will it all be hot air? These are the questions that I will be asking.

    Madam Deputy Speaker, imagine that you had worked really hard and saved for your entire life to buy your first property. You find your dream flat—there are many dream flats in Putney; it is a wonderful place to live—and you have your offer accepted. You invest your life savings to complete the purchase. You buy the flat in good faith, no doubt having been serenaded by an estate agent and after the council searches have come back clean as a whistle. You are good to go ahead. Everything has fallen into place. You have planned your new life and you move into your new home.

    Then you are told, after you have signed on the dotted line, that because of the wanton recklessness and corner cutting of a cowboy developer, your new home is actually riddled with fire safety issues. It is a deathtrap. And you are asked to stump up £50,000 or more to get it fixed. You either do not pay, or you will be forced to pay, or bankrupted. Even if you could pay, it will not get fixed straightaway; it might get fixed in two, three or four years. You do not know what the schedule will be; you are at the mercy of the managing agents and the developers. Until then, you are stuck and, as in many cases, bankrupt.

    It sounds like an absurd situation and something straight out of “Rogue Traders”, but it is actually the exact experience of thousands of leaseholders in Putney, Roehampton and Southfields, and it has happened on the Government’s watch.

    As I will explain, the Government’s announcement last week was welcome. It is a step change and new words. However, it will do little yet to change the reality. It is important to realise that behind the numbers, the surveys and the technical language, there are people who are having their lives ruined. I will say something about the impact that is having on them.

    One constituent said to me:

    “I am living this nightmare every day as this mess continues to drag on. I ask you; you tell me, ‘What’s the point of living a life like this?’ I am starting to get sick again and I’m finding it super hard to carry on.”

    Another constituent has said:

    “I’ve been diagnosed with stress-induced epilepsy and I’m now on medication for the next 5 years as a minimum. I’m at risk of being declared bankrupt, and this may mean I am jobless, as my profession depends on this. Critically vulnerable leasees are facing ever-mounting financial pressures and are unsure they can keep going.”

    Another constituent, who is father to a young family, said:

    “We are like prisoners for the mistake we have not made.”

    He finished by saying something that was painful to read:

    “Do we need to commit suicide to be heard by others on this issue?”

    I have heard similar comments by others who feel desperate.

    Another constituent, who has terminal cancer, wrote:

    “At the moment, I am facing a bleak death. I had hoped I could use the capital from my flat (I own 25%, Notting Hill Genesis own 75%) to either fund future hospice care or transfer to sheltered housing… However, I am unable to sell this flat, and am pretty much trapped here.”

    I could go on. The mental and physical health impact on leaseholders across the country is phenomenal.

    I am afraid that the optimism and good words contained in the Secretary of State’s announcement last week belie a real grasp of what is happening. The urgency of the situation has not been seen by the Government so far, because we are years after Grenfell and we are still in this situation. I have had residents from 30 blocks in my constituency reach out to me in the past two years. I have had numerous meetings with them, with developers and with managing agents, and this is the ninth time that I have spoken about this in the House. I will outline some of the cases because they are good examples not only of what is happening to those people—these are specific cases that need to be addressed by the Government—but of what is being experienced by so many people around the country.

    I will start with the Riverside Quarter, a huge development that was developed and owned by Frasers Property Ltd. Shortly after the Grenfell fire, eight of the buildings failed fire safety tests and Frasers told leasees in the four older blocks that, since it had no remaining financial interest in the buildings, under leasehold law those leasees would have to pay. So it fixed the cladding in four blocks but would not fix it in the other four blocks.

    Although Frasers has been able to secure funding through the building safety fund for three of the four remaining blocks, the fourth block was denied funding due to a slightly different final coat of render being used. The internal fire risks are identical in all four blocks, but this seemingly arbitrary technicality resulted in the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government turning it down.

    On 15 December last year, Frasers sent a notice that under its lease terms it will be charging the 204 leaseholders over £4.2 million for unfunded fire repair costs. Charges per flat will be as high as £72,000, on top of those 204 leaseholders having to pay £170,000 a year between them for waking watch, which they call sleeping watch. This is a prime example of developers who are also freeholders ignoring the Secretary of State’s stated intentions.

    The second development is the Swish building, in east Putney. Over two years ago, unsafe, non-ACM cladding was discovered on the Swish. It has been at stage 2 of the building safety fund application for over a year. The timber part of the application has been rejected and the freeholder, Tapestart Ltd, is nowhere to be seen. Work to fix the cladding should have started in September 2021, yet residents are nowhere even close to receiving approval for funding. There has been delay after delay, with no clear transparency from the managing agent, Trinity Estates.

    Next is 2, 6 and 8 Hardwicks Square. Unsafe cladding was discovered, following an EWS1 assessment in 2018, in which it scored a B2 rating. Residents applied to the building safety fund over a year ago. They were left in the dark about the application for nine months, but then told that there were more defects than had been thought, so the application needed to go back to the drawing board. It is still pending and they are still waiting. They are paying for waking watch to the tune of £45,000 a month and have had an eye-watering 500% insurance hike. The ultimate freeholder is Blackstone, a private equity company. Will Blackstone be speaking to the Secretary of State as part of the roundtable discussions?

    Next door to Hardwicks Square is the Filaments development, where the developer has agreed to pay for remediation. That shows that some developers do pay up, and I commend them, but there are several major fire safety defects. Everyone in the development has been waiting for two years. They have experienced delay after delay, and residents are incredibly anxious. Will the Government set a final deadline for works to be done everywhere, no matter who is paying for them?

    The Radial development has not received funding for the remediation of unsafe, non-ACM cladding found on the block, despite the application having been made in July 2020. What is the delay? It is getting ridiculous. I wrote to the freeholder, the ominously named Godfather Investments, 18 months ago, urging them to take responsibility and I received the following chilling response:

    “We have taken legal advice on the whole issue of liability for unsuitable cladding and it is well documented that in circumstances such as described…the Freeholder has no liability. With respect, we find the suggestions contained in your letter to be wholly disingenuous and counterproductive.”

    I hope that the Secretary of State is also speaking to Godfather Investments, that they have changed their tune and that they will be supporting the remediation of cladding.

    One of the smaller affected blocks is Mill Court development, which is interesting because it is under 11 metres high, so it does not come within the remit of the building safety fund. Yet residents have been told they face costs of around £1 million for remediation works. The Building Safety Minister, Lord Greenhalgh, recently said he was “appalled” when he heard about the case and Optivo’s extensive remediation plans for such a small building. However, Optivo is still intending to move ahead with remediation works, subject to the announcement of further Government guidance. Does the Minister agree with Lord Greenhalgh’s assessment? If buildings under 11 metres are declared unsafe, will they be added to the remit of the Fire Safety Bill?

    Finally, I want to highlight Percy Laurie House, which is over 18 metres and was assessed as having a form of cladding requiring remediation. The residents made an application to the building safety fund, but again it has now been a year since they made it and, despite following up frequently, the application has remained pending for 12 months. It is a familiar story, and it is causing enormous anguish.

    Let me be clear: I welcome many aspects of the recent announcement from the Secretary of State, which echo much of what the Labour party and I have been calling for for the past two years. However, the situation on the ground in Putney exposes several realities that the Secretary of State has not yet grasped. First, what assurances are there that developers are coming to the table? I understand that developers had a meeting with the Secretary of State yesterday: I would like to know who came to that meeting, and for leaseholders to be assured that developers are taking action and things are moving ahead. Can they have hope? Will they be able to sleep at night again? Too many developers I am in contact with seem to have just checked out of the process.

    Secondly, the building safety fund is clearly riddled with serious flaws. It is arbitrarily denying funding for certain types of cladding, and it is painfully slow. Application success seems to rest on the competency of the property manager, rather than the safety of the building. As the constituency MP, I should not need to chase application updates for residents: the whole safety fund needs an overhaul. To give perspective, in two years that fund has only funded 18 out of the 1,000 buildings that need work—that is 1.8%.

    Thirdly, what about buildings under 11 metres? There is a gaping hole there, and as the case of Mill Court shows, withdrawing the consolidated advice note has not stopped fire safety works proceeding and the costs being passed on to leaseholders.

    Fourthly, what about non-cladding defects? Why the omission? We cannot just make a building half safe. I have many constituents facing ruinous costs for non-cladding fire safety defects, who seem to have been abandoned by the Government.

    There is only one way to end this nightmare for leaseholders, which is the one thing that the Government have so far refused to do: put cast-iron legal protections for leaseholders from the costs of remediating any historic cladding and non-cladding defects on the statute book. That could have been done this week through the Building Safety Bill, but was not. The Government still have a few more opportunities to do so, but they are fast running out of time. I seek assurances from the Minister that it will be done. Ministers have promised 18 times to protect leaseholders from ruinous fire safety costs, yet leaseholders in my constituency, at least, still cannot sleep at night for worries about their building and the costs they may have to pay for. I stand with my affected residents and leaseholders in Putney, Roehampton and Southfields, and we say to the Government, “No more hot air. Time to put your money where your mouth is and end this misery.”

  • Fleur Anderson – 2021 Speech on Covid-19 Restrictions

    Fleur Anderson – 2021 Speech on Covid-19 Restrictions

    The speech made by Fleur Anderson, the Labour MP for Putney, in the House of Commons on 14 December 2021.

    I thank everyone across the country who has had their booster—everyone who has been lining up at centres across the country and taking the time to ensure that they have done the right thing by getting their booster. I thank all those NHS staff who are enabling that and who are putting in a mighty push to change all their ways of working to get the booster into as many people as possible.

    I thank all those who have written to me about the issues being debated today. There are those who say that we should have more measures and that they will feel safe to go out into public spaces or to take up NHS appointments only if more measures are put in place. There are also those who have written to me about their concerns about more measures being put in place and more restrictions on our lives.

    It is clear that omicron is a threat. It is highly contagious with cases doubling every two days. Most cases in London are now omicron cases and the numbers are increasing all the time. Two vaccines do not reduce the rate of transmission as much as they did for delta, so it is clear that action must be taken. We know that it is more contagious, but although we do not yet know its severity, we cannot wait. Last year, at the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, the Government waited too long. They delayed, sometimes for weeks, and we saw the effects. We have to act now.

    This is a measured and proportionate set of actions. On masks, I do not think we should have dropped that measure in the first place. We should never have stopped wearing masks on public transport and in shops to keep shop workers safe, so I welcome that.

    On vaccine passes, which are not vaccine passports, I am glad that the Government have listened to the Opposition saying that there need to be options. It is absolutely proportionate for people to show proof of double vaccination or a negative lateral flow test to enable big venues and our hospitality venues to stay open, which is so important after last year and the loss of so much income.

    Those venues need to stay open, so this is a freedom to go out and to enjoy events and be out with people while staying as safe as possible. We know that there will be a peak in the number of cases in a couple of weeks, and that a couple of weeks after that, in the new year when we return to this place, there will be a peak—or not—in hospitalisations. It is right that we take these measures now to stop hospitalisations later. I welcome the change on the red list of countries, which the Minister announced earlier. If it is not having any effect, there is absolutely no reason for so many of my constituents to be unable to visit their families in South Africa, but also to pay huge amounts of money to be quarantined. I also welcome the Minister saying that he will look into the quarantine costs of those who were unfairly stuck in the middle of a couple of weeks when they needed to pay. Some of my constituents who have written to me are NHS workers who have had to pay thousands of pounds they cannot afford.

    I will welcome the engagement with the Elections Bill of all those on the Conservative Benches who are now so worried about civil liberties. It certainly will be a “Papers, please” society when we are asked to show our ID to vote. That is far more of an infringement of our civil liberties. Voting is such a fundamental thing compared to going to clubs or large events.

    We absolutely need the schools programme to ramp up. School transmission rates are very high in primary schools in my constituency, but all those facing exams this year must be able to do them. This is not a slippery slope to covid passports, and I am grateful for the assurance on that. We need to ramp up communication and engagement with health staff who face measures later on in the year if they do not get the vaccine. We must see an increase in statutory sick pay. That is only fair.

    In conclusion, the Chief Medical Officer gave a chilling briefing to MPs earlier today, saying that when it comes to the omicron variant the brakes are off. We have to put the brakes on. Too many people have died, and we mourn every single one. Now is the time to take action, and I encourage everyone to get their booster jab.

  • Fleur Anderson – 2021 Speech on Hammersmith Bridge

    Fleur Anderson – 2021 Speech on Hammersmith Bridge

    The speech made by Fleur Anderson, the Labour MP for Putney, in the House of Commons on 14 April 2021.

    I thank Mr Speaker for granting the debate, because this issue is of such interest to my constituents and to people in many other constituencies surrounding mine throughout south and west London. Hammersmith bridge has been closed for over two years. In that time, we have had a pandemic, moved billions of pounds around the country, and vaccinated half the country, yet we still have not fixed Hammersmith bridge. My constituents are really frustrated by that.

    Hammersmith bridge is an early prototype of the suspension bridge. It has a unique historical value, as well as being a major London artery, and we need a unique funding solution to enable a temporary bridge to open urgently, and for the restoration and the future of the bridge to be secured. Hammersmith bridge is not in my constituency, nor in the constituencies of some Members attending the debate, but that shows the wide-ranging impact of the bridge’s closure on hundreds of thousands of Londoners and why its reopening is so important and so urgent.

    Our health in Putney is being damaged by the increase in pollution on our high street from the additional 4,000 vehicles a day that are being diverted. Journeys to school, to work and to healthcare appointments are very long. Businesses are suffering. This cannot go on. Time and again, we have put the case to Ministers. I have raised the matter in Westminster Hall debates, at Transport questions and business questions, in written questions, through a public petition and in letter after letter, yet here we are again, and the bridge is still not open.

    Felicity Buchan (Kensington) (Con)

    Does the hon. Lady agree that the primary responsibility for the upkeep of the bridge lies with Hammersmith and Fulham Council, which owns the bridge and has responsibility for its maintenance? My borough has two bridges: Albert bridge and Chelsea bridge. It takes full responsibility for those bridges. Over the last 10 years, it has invested £12 million to £13 million in Albert bridge, and it is about to do work on Chelsea bridge.

    Fleur Anderson

    I am grateful for the hon. Lady’s intervention. It has been said many times in many places that it is up to Hammersmith and Fulham Council, but that is absolutely not the case. Hammersmith bridge is a unique historical structure with a unique bill—£141 million. No council in London could afford that. Therefore, this issue needs a unique funding solution. I will talk about that and the bid that Hammersmith and Fulham Council has made to the Government, but now is the time for the Government to step up, because Hammersmith and Fulham Council cannot do this on its own.

    I was on Putney embankment on Easter Saturday on what would have been boat race weekend, but the race could not run on the Thames because of the danger to the boats of going under the bridge. I teamed up with local rowing organisations and hundreds of constituents to protest the continuing inaction about Hammersmith bridge and to call on the Government to step up, play their part and fund its restoration. There were boats from the London Rowing Club, Wandsworth Youth River Club and Putney High School Boat Club out on the water, all of which are affected by the closure. Hundreds of local people came by, and it was not necessary for me to persuade anyone to sign the banner and send a clear message to the Secretary of State for Transport to open the bridge.

    Last week, I went out on my first canvass since the start of the pandemic. I knocked on my first door in Roehampton, eager to speak to constituents again, and asked, “What issue is important to you?” The first thing they said was, “Hammersmith bridge.”

    Sarah Olney (Richmond Park) (LD)

    The hon. Member is making an excellent speech, and I am extremely grateful to her for bringing the matter back to the Floor of the House for debate once more. I wonder whether she would mind me taking the opportunity to highlight the massive impact that the closure has had on the residents of Barnes in my constituency. She mentioned the difficulties that people have had in getting to work and accessing healthcare. The biggest growing issue that we have had since the reopening of schools at the beginning of March is children getting to school. They have all already suffered massive disruption to their education, but many are finding that, where they could previously walk to school in 10 to 15 minutes, it now takes them upwards of an hour on crowded public transport during the pandemic.

    On top of the pressures those children are already experiencing—some with exam stress, and all the uncertainty and disruption that they have faced—they now have the additional anxiety of how to get to and from school in a way that they have never experienced. I want to highlight the massive impact that the bridge’s closure is having on young people on both sides of the bridge and the really difficult experience they are having, and to urge the Minister to come to the table and find a solution.

    Fleur Anderson

    I thank the hon. Lady for highlighting the impact on young people. I have had an email from a sixth-former in my constituency who said that they formerly left from home at 7.30 am but now have to leave at 6 o’clock in the morning. This is having a really bad impact on students across the constituency.

    Ruth Cadbury (Brentford and Isleworth) (Lab)

    I, too, congratulate my hon. Friend on securing the debate and on her excellent speech. My constituents are also impacted, particularly by the additional road traffic that is finding its way through Chiswick as a result of the closure of Hammersmith bridge—2 or 3 miles away.

    May I highlight the concern for the businesses and operators that use the river and have been unable to gain access upstream and downstream of Hammersmith bridge? They may not go under Hammersmith bridge unless the RNLI is on an emergency call, or they have to book in advance for very restricted opening—it has been on Sundays. This has had an impact not only on the RNLI’s training, maintenance needs and refuelling, but on businesses such as boatyards and the commercial tour operators, whose core business is travelling up and down the river. There is effectively a block on that at the moment, and that will continue until Hammersmith bridge is made safe.

    Fleur Anderson

    I agree absolutely, and I thank my hon. Friend for sharing the impact that the closure is having on so many businesses and organisations, and even on the RNLI, in London.

    As the Minister will know, the bridge, which is one of the oldest suspension bridges in the world, was closed to cars two years ago and then fully closed to all vehicles in August 2020. The impact that is having in my constituency—and, clearly, in neighbouring constituencies —is catastrophic. However, I am not here to make the case for why the bridge needs urgently to reopen. That is so obvious, and I think it is something the Minister and I can agree on. I am here to spell out to the Minister and her Department that the biggest obstacle to progress at the moment is funding, and that only the Government have the funds, resources and legislative ability to make the changes needed to reopen and restore the bridge and to get south-west London moving again.

    I want to make three points: first, about the taskforce; secondly, about Hammersmith and Fulham Council; and finally, about solutions. The taskforce, which was set up in September last year, seems to have morphed into a significant barrier to any sort of progress, instead of making the urgent progress that we need. It is little task and no force. Hammersmith and Fulham Council, Richmond Borough Council and Transport for London have carried out the actions detailed for them in the taskforce meeting, but the Government have not brought the action needed from their side.

    Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)

    My hon. Friend is making an excellent case, but I think she is being slightly too generous towards the taskforce. A letter from the Hammersmith Society, which is a strictly non-political and very civilised body, to the Prime Minister two weeks ago ends by saying that

    “the communities on both sides of the river are unified in their anger, their disappointment and their despair at the failure of their government.”

    I held a debate identical to this a year ago when the Minister was engaging with the issue and looking at bids. We have actually gone backwards in the past year, and silly political games are being played, as typified by the intervention from the hon. Member for Kensington (Felicity Buchan). What we need is a solution and funding for this major project.

    Fleur Anderson

    I thank my hon. Friend for so eloquently sharing the frustration we are feeling. I think you can understand that, Mr Deputy Speaker, and that you are feeling it from all the interventions this evening.

    The taskforce has come up with no workable solutions, although the ferry will be opening in the summer. It has simply trotted out tired statements and has not discussed financing, which is why funding is the focus of the debate.

    My second point concerns the financial role of Hammersmith and Fulham Council. Many people have said to me, “Why can’t the council pay for the bridge?” To expect the council to fund the restoration of the bridge and any temporary measures is unfair and unreasonable—and in fact impossible. Hammersmith bridge is extremely expensive to fix compared with other London bridges, as was mentioned earlier, in part because it is London’s earliest remaining example of a suspension structure over the river, and because of the unusual materials it is built from—cast iron, which can shatter, wrought iron and wood—and its suspension mechanisms are unique. That puts the cost of repair at an eye-watering £141 million, which is unaffordable for Hammersmith and Fulham Council, as for any council.

    Felicity Buchan

    Will the hon. Lady give way?

    Fleur Anderson

    I will continue to explain and address the point the hon. Member made earlier.

    Since 2010, the Government have cut the council’s annual net budget from £180 million to £124 million this year. Even taking a loan would cause significant cuts to local services or huge rises in council tax, so the cost of repairing the bridge would be more than the council’s entire budget.

    Andy Slaughter

    My hon. Friend is being most generous in giving way. In fact, both Hammersmith and Fulham Council and Transport for London have contributed a sum of about £25 million. The Government have not contributed a penny towards the repair of Hammersmith bridge so far. Hammersmith has come up with schemes for a new temporary bridge, and so has TfL, and for stabilisation and repair. It is all there. The only people who will not engage with this are the Government, and they are doing that for deliberate political reasons.

    Fleur Anderson

    I thank my hon. Friend, and I hope that when the Minister has her opportunity to speak she will not ask again for Hammersmith and Fulham Council to fund an unprecedented 50% contribution to the bridge’s repair. That is clearly unreasonable, especially when the precedent for contributions from councils to national infrastructure projects is 15%. That makes me question whether the Government are genuinely interested in resolving the situation, or are just going to leave it.

    Instead, the taskforce suggested in October 2020 that Hammersmith and Fulham Council come up with a financing plan. The council, together with TfL, had made funding applications to the Government in December 2019, February 2020 and June 2020. All three bids were rejected by the Government, and we do not know why. Instead, Hammersmith and Fulham Council went away, talked to experts and came up with a new plan—the “Outline Financial Plan”—which it submitted on 19 February.

    I want to pre-empt any answer that the Minister may be ready to give about waiting for Hammersmith and Fulham Council to do more, or any repetition of the response of Baroness Vere of Norbiton to a joint letter from me, my hon. Friend the Member for Hammersmith (Andy Slaughter), the hon. Member for Richmond Park (Sarah Olney) and my hon. Friend the Member for Brentford and Isleworth (Ruth Cadbury). The Baroness’s response was:

    “I suggest that it would be most beneficial for you to support the local authority in developing its preferred funding option so that we can progress the business case.”

    The funding option was submitted on 19 February, seven weeks ago, and we are still waiting for a response. This is not the urgent action we need.

    Any response will need the Government to agree to set up a special company or trust fund. It will need Government legislation, financial underwriting and an assurance of future revenue from Government funds or from a toll. The council needs to have that input from the Government to continue. The ball is now firmly in the Government’s court, not that of Hammersmith and Fulham Council. To say that would be to play the type of party politics that local residents are absolutely fed up with.

    That brings me to my third and final point, about solutions. I hope that the Minister will shortly announce how the Government will take responsibility for the Government’s vital role in restoring the bridge. The ferry service is a partial solution—it starts in the summer—but it will not address vehicles going through Putney and it will not stop the long bus journeys for Roehampton residents.

    Sarah Olney

    Briefly, does the hon. Lady agree that one of the significant disadvantages to the ferry service, welcome though it is, is that local residents will have to pay a fare to use it, as opposed to being able to use the bridge perfectly freely?

    Fleur Anderson

    I thank the hon. Member for mentioning a disadvantage of the ferry. I am concerned that that the taskforce will say, “We’ve done the ferry, and now we are not going to fix the bridge.” Putney residents are concerned about that.

    A proposal to build a temporary truss bridge inside the current bridge—so, a double-decker bridge—has been given the green light as feasible, and could be built within a year, as soon as it is funded. We need that funding. The “Outline Financial Plan” was developed by Hammersmith and Fulham Council with a series of sector-leading consultants. That plan would not only see Hammersmith bridge repaired, but offer value for money to national and local taxpayers for the long-term.

    The “Outline Financial Plan” was submitted on 19 February. I would like to hear whether the Government agree with the plan and are going to get on with it, or do not agree with the plan and are going to come up with one of their own. Either way, we need urgent funding solutions. It is important that these plans are engaged with and taken forward.

    To sum up, my asks of the Minister tonight are fivefold. A lot of Putney residents and constituents from across south-west London will be listening tonight. First, the Government must urgently provide up-front funding for the temporary bridge, so that the original bridge can be restored and re-opened as soon as possible and the traffic diverted out of Putney High Street. Secondly, they must drop the requirement for Hammersmith and Fulham Council to provide 50% of the funding—that is not feasible, and the Minister knows it.

    Thirdly, the Government must expedite action on the funding proposals submitted by Hammersmith and Fulham Council on 19 February; they present workable and realistic ways forward and must not be left to simply sit and gather dust. Fourthly, I would like reassurance that the taskforce will start delivering and co-operating, so that Hammersmith and Fulham and Richmond Councils, Transport for London and the Government work together to come up with urgent solutions. Fifthly, I ask that the Secretary of State and the leader of the Government taskforce meet me and other concerned parliamentary colleagues as a matter of urgency.

    Enough talk. Our constituents want action. The Government know what they need to do. It is time they delivered on the funding agreement to finance the temporary bridge urgently and the restoration and re-opening of Hammersmith bridge.