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Tag: Theresa Villiers

  • Theresa Villiers – 2023 Speech on the Loyal Address

    Theresa Villiers – 2023 Speech on the Loyal Address

    The speech made by Theresa Villiers, the Conservative MP for Chipping Barnet, in the House of Commons on 7 November 2023.

    I would like to begin by highlighting my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests, which includes some shareholdings and a long-leasehold flat let to tenants.

    I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud (Siobhan Baillie) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Scarborough and Whitby (Sir Robert Goodwill) on the wonderful start that they provided for the debate. They both performed brilliantly, but I want to single out my right hon. Friend the Member for Scarborough and Whitby. We first met many years ago in 1999, when we were candidates in the European elections. He is a truly great parliamentarian, and he has always been a very good, kind and wise friend to me.

    There is much to welcome in an ambitious and important set of legislative proposals in the first King’s Speech for 70 years. For example, the Data Protection and Digital Information (No. 2) Bill will modernise data regulation so that firms can grow while protecting privacy and ensuring that people can exert control over information held about them. Brexit makes that kind of regulatory reform possible. I advocated it as part of the work done by the Taskforce on Innovation, Growth and Regulatory Reform. Like my right hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg), I think that this is just the beginning and that we need to go further, as it is crucial to our becoming more competitive and raising living standards.

    The carry-over of the anti-boycott Bill is welcome. Singling out Israel for boycotts by councils is divisive and unjustified. The boycott, divestment and sanctions movement has driven increases in antisemitism, so I welcome the continuation of that Bill.

    I am really pleased to see progress on leasehold reform, which is important to a number of my constituents who have suffered distress, anxiety and financial hardship as a result of the current system. I welcome the fact that the proposals announced today will make it cheaper and easier for leaseholders to extend their lease. This is a complex area, and we do need to take care to avoid unintended consequences that could jeopardise investment or unfairly penalise the funds on which so many people’s retirement income depends and which they may well have invested in freehold interests. However, I feel that, with careful scrutiny in Parliament, we can deliver reform that works for leaseholders and tackles the abuses that have occurred.

    The ban on selling new houses on a leasehold basis is absolutely right, and I also welcome the additional protections and transparency measures for leaseholders, but constituents tell me that the rights they already have to challenge unreasonable charges are cumbersome and expensive to operate and it can feel like a very unequal struggle with the freeholder. I hope Ministers will bear in mind that the measures they are announcing today will work only if leaseholders can actually use the new rights they are being granted. With that in mind, scrapping the presumption that leaseholders pay freeholder legal costs when they challenge poor practice is a much needed change, and I welcome that aspect of today’s announcements.

    Another landmark measure in this King’s Speech is the Renters (Reform) Bill, which is continuing its progress. It is absolutely right that we legislate to help renters and encourage more stable and longer-term tenancies. We also need to remember that landlords play a crucial role as housing providers. We should absolutely be tough on bad landlords, but we do not want to end up unfairly penalising the whole sector when a majority of landlords look after their tenants and their properties, and act responsibly.

    Sadly, a number of landlords are already leaving the sector and selling their properties. We must ensure that we do not inadvertently intensify that and jeopardise the good rental stock available. Key to that is ensuring that the removal of section 21 is accompanied by a major improvement in the way the courts system operates. My constituent Paul Shamplina, the founder of the solicitors firm Landlord Action, believes that delays are worse than he has experienced in his 33 years in the sector. He has told me of three bailiff applications with Willesden court that have taken six months to be issued. In Swindon, it took three months to send a notice of issue for a basic N5B claim, and Central London county court took seven months to appoint a bailiff and grant transfer to the High Court for enforcement. Other constituents have told me about bailiff delays in removing tenants who have not paid rent for many months.

    The Minister for the courts—the Under-Secretary of State for Justice, my hon. Friend the Member for Finchley and Golders Green (Mike Freer)—assures me that the courts are working flat out, that 1,000 new judges have been recruited and that digitisation is under way. That is welcome, but we need to make progress to ensure that our courts are working as efficiently as possible.

    Action against crime is another crucial element of the programme in the Gracious Speech. Concern about crime is one of the issues raised most often with me on the doorstep in Chipping Barnet. In particular, I find it shocking that in modern Britain the Jewish community have such great fears for their security. The antisemitism and hate crime on display at recent mass protests have been both frightening and unacceptable. I have appealed directly to Sir Mark Rowley, the head of the Met, to apply the full force of the law against any law breaking at these protests. I was one of the signatories to a letter from Conservative MPs and Assembly Members asking last week that the protest planned for Armistice Day on Saturday does not go ahead. It would seem to be both insensitive and disrespectful to have such a protest on 11 November.

    Turning to policing more widely, the Conservatives have delivered on our pledge of 20,000 additional police officers. That means the Met has more uniformed officers than at any time in its history. It could actually have had 1,000 more, and it is a regret that it fell short of its recruitment target. I am afraid that that is just one of a significant number of failures on policing by London’s Mayor, Sadiq Khan, who is the police and crime commissioner for London. In his seven years in office, we have seen the Met in crisis and poor clear-up rates for offences such as burglary, car crime and shoplifting. These are not victimless crimes, and they need to be taken seriously. Of course, we also need a tough approach on antisocial behaviour.

    One thing that I am disappointed was not in the King’s Speech is a Bill to ban the import of trophies hunted from endangered animals. Such legislation has strong support, but the private Member’s Bill—the Hunting Trophies (Import Prohibition) Bill—has been blocked in the House of Lords. The ban is a manifesto commitment. We must do this, and I call on Ministers to bring forward such a Bill.

    Lastly, I want to welcome the Bill to ban the live export of animals for slaughter and fattening. I have campaigned for two decades for that ban. This trade leads to serious and unnecessary animal suffering both on the long journeys and in destination countries that have lower standards of animal welfare than we do. These exports would have been banned years ago if that had not been forbidden by single market rules. Although no exports have taken place in recent months, there is as yet no law to stop them starting again. I regret the demise of the Animal Welfare (Kept Animals) Bill, though I appreciate that there were issues and problems with amendments, but now that we have a dedicated Bill to end this trade once and for all, let us get on with it. This Conservative Government have led the way on many animal welfare matters. Banning live exports would be a historic step towards a more compassionate and kinder treatment of animals. It is a benefit from Brexit, and I urge the House to support the Bill when it comes forward.

  • Theresa Villiers – 2023 Speech on Police Stations

    Theresa Villiers – 2023 Speech on Police Stations

    The speech made by Theresa Villiers, the Conservative MP for Chipping Barnet, in the House of Commons on 10 July 2023.

    The hour is late, but we still have an important issue to discuss this evening: police stations. In November 2017, the Mayor of London announced the closure of a substantial list of police stations around the capital, including Barnet police station. Ever since, I have been campaigning to save it. A key justification given for the Mayor’s decision was that the number of crimes reported at police station front counters has fallen. It is true that the way people report crimes has changed in recent years—it can, of course, now be done by phone or online—but being able to attend a police station front counter and talk to someone face to face is still an option valued by many, especially the elderly or those who may not be comfortable in the digital environment.

    Moreover, police stations perform other vital functions in addition to front counter services. Crucially, they are a place to locate officers, but they also provide facilities such as evidence and equipment storage, police vehicle parking, and custody suites and cells. As such, what is even more worrying than the loss of a front counter is the loss of the physical presence of the police in a particular locality. In the six years since Mayor Khan announced the closure of Barnet police station’s front counter, that police station building has thankfully remained in use by officers, both neighbourhood police and other teams.

    Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)

    Will the right hon. Lady give way?

    Theresa Villiers

    I will.

    Mr Speaker

    I thought you would at least allow the right hon. Member to get under way. I call Jim Shannon.

    Jim Shannon

    Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. The right hon. Lady is right to mention community policing—it is about not just the buildings, but the community officers and the contact with their local communities. She made a very helpful intervention in the debate on the Northern Ireland budget that referred to that issue. I echo her request to ensure that not only the buildings, but the community policing is there, because it is the eyes and ears of the community. It is about making policing better.

    Mr Speaker

    I am sure that the right hon. Member, if given time, would have got to that.

    Theresa Villiers

    I absolutely agree that community policing is vital. As I will explore in my speech, the presence of police stations is an important part of keeping policing close to communities. If we shut them down or retreat into a handful of buildings around the capital, we make it more difficult to deliver genuine community policing. Closing Barnet police station altogether and selling it off for redevelopment would leave officers with nowhere at all in my constituency from which to operate. That would be disastrous, not least because it could mean ward officers having to undertake long and complex journeys to and from the only remaining police station in the borough, which is in Colindale.

    At engagement meetings linked with the 2017 closure announcements, I remember City Hall representatives indicating that one of the reasons police stations were now less important was that officers would be given iPads for processing paperwork, which they could use anywhere. Frankly, it is wholly unrealistic to expect a police officer sitting in Starbucks with an iPad to be an adequate substitute for a functioning police station. Apart from the noted reliability problems with many such devices issued by the Metropolitan police, that approach would violate confidentiality and data protection obligations. There is also the concern that a number of the Met’s IT upgrade programmes have yet to be fully delivered, as highlighted in the Casey report. Moreover, officers would undoubtedly be approached by members of the public, making it harder for them to focus on the work they need to do. Their office time would inevitably become advice surgery time.

    In February last year, I secured a promise from Sophie Linden, the deputy mayor for policing, that Barnet police station’s building would not be disposed of until a base was found for ward police teams that enabled them to reach their areas in 20 minutes by walking or cycling. That was of course welcome, and it amounted to a partial reprieve for the station, but it is not an adequate substitute for a properly functioning police station.

    Mr Louie French (Old Bexley and Sidcup) (Con)

    On this point about the connection with communities, particularly in Greater London, does my right hon. Friend agree that the basic command unit model that the Mayor has adopted since 2018 is having a negative impact on the ability of police to connect with communities, but also to respond to crimes in a timely manner?

    Theresa Villiers

    I am very much aware of the concern felt in many parts of London about the tri-borough policing model, and I think it is important to review it.

    I turn back to the idea that new bases for police officers could be found. There is still real uncertainty about where these would be and what they would involve. The suggestion remains that a new base for police officers could be in a corner of a library or the backroom in a high street shop, but providing a base for police officers is not a straightforward matter. Officers have access to highly sensitive personal data, and they hold evidence from cases for which it is vital that they keep rigorous and reliable records of custody. Moreover, some police equipment is potentially harmful, such as tasers, and it would be dangerous if this kind of kit fell into the wrong hands. Special storage facilities would need to be built in new alternative accommodation. They could not just set up a few lockers in a local library. Flogging off existing police stations could end up being a false economy if multiple new premises for ward teams in different areas need to be bought and fitted up to replace them.

    I also want to highlight the sense of confidence that the presence of a police station gives people—a sense that would be entirely lost in the areas where police stations are currently under threat. For example, the East London Advertiser reported that people felt that police station closures in Tower Hamlets meant that the area felt less safe. Complete loss of the remaining police presence in Chipping Barnet town centre would inevitably leave my constituents feeling more insecure. Serious concerns have been reported to me about crime, thefts and antisocial behaviour in Barnet High Street, including what appears to have been a serious assault that took place recently outside McDonald’s. The sale of the police station and its complete closure would make it harder to grapple with the existing crime issues in the local area.

    These worrying local crime problems were discussed recently at a meeting I attended of the High Barnet police community action panel, under the chairmanship of my constituent Mahender Khari. I take this opportunity to pay tribute to him, and to everyone who chairs or takes part in police action panels in my constituency. They do a vital job. That includes Councillor Jennifer Grocock, who has done excellent and innovative work on making neighbourhood police teams more visible by involving them in Barnet Council’s community safety hubs, which were pioneered by the previous Conservative administration in Barnet.

    I am also worried about the impact of police station closures on the viability of our high streets. We all know that town centres have suffered in recent years for a range of reasons, particularly the big shift to online retail. It has become harder and harder to get footfall to high streets, and I fear that losing police stations could lead to a further hollowing out of our struggling town centres, adding to the list of vacant buildings.

    Richard Foord (Tiverton and Honiton) (LD)

    I thank the right hon. Member for her speech and for giving way. Last November, Devon and Cornwall police launched an online poll using SurveyMonkey, and invited the public in Devon and Cornwall to vote to reopen three front desks out of a list of 44. I was pleased to help promote that poll and to attend the reopening of Tiverton police station—and I hope to attend that of Honiton later this year—but does she think that we should not have to fill in SurveyMonkey polls to get to speak to a human being?

    Theresa Villiers

    The hon. Member makes the important point that much of what we are talking about is the ability of the police to maintain appropriate contacts with members of the public. That distance from members of the public is one of the problems that the Met is grappling with, and I think it is useful to hear his point of view about police stations and police services elsewhere in the country.

    During this difficult era for high streets, we should try to enhance the visible presence of public services, not scale it back. That is another good reason to maintain the police station estate, both in Barnet and in other towns and cities. In her report on the Met, Baroness Casey highlighted that station closures are likely to have affected efficiency, with police spending more time travelling, and longer police response times. Recent research by Elisa Facchetti, published by the Centre for Economic Policy Research, pointed to a correlation between reduction in police stations and poorer crime clear-up rates. That suggests that the capacity to collect the evidence needed to solve crimes might be impeded by police having to travel increased distances, although I acknowledge that many other variables could be relevant, and it is difficult to establish a clear causative link.

    Four important recent developments make this debate very timely, and mean that the Mayor of London should reverse his closure programme. First, the Government have delivered on the Conservative manifesto pledge to recruit 20,000 additional police officers. That means that the Met now has more uniformed officers than at any time in its history—and we need somewhere to put them. That radically changes the situation we faced in 2017, when the Mayor wielded the axe against Barnet police station and others.

    Secondly, Baroness Casey’s damning report on the Met cited the closure of 124 police stations as one of the reasons behind what she describes as “eroded frontline policing”. She concluded that the combined impact of various efficiency measures, including police station closures, had led to

    “a more dispersed and hands-off training experience for new recruits and existing personnel, which gives them less sense of belonging to the Met…greater distances for Response officers and Neighbourhood Policing teams to travel”,

    and

    “fewer points of accessible contact for the public”.

    At a time when culture and conduct at the Met have come under huge scrutiny, we should not persist in making disposals from the police station estate—disposals that are calculated to make officers less connected to one another, more isolated and more distant from the communities they serve.

    David Simmonds (Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner) (Con)

    My right hon. Friend is making a speech that will entirely resonate with my constituents. Does she agree that the Mayor’s U-turn on the closure of the Uxbridge police station, which serves my constituents, as well as those in Uxbridge and South Ruislip, demonstrates that the argument that there was simply no alternative but to press ahead with the closures no longer holds water? Does it give her a stirring of hope and optimism that other police stations, such as that in Northwood, already closed and disposed of by the Mayor, will be replaced with operational police stations, or that other stations closed by the Mayor will be reopened forthwith?

    Theresa Villiers

    I agree entirely. The Mayor’s U-turn on Uxbridge should be a lifeline for police stations across the capital. That is one of the reasons why I am delighted to have the opportunity to make this speech.

    I come to the third reason why the Mayor should change his approach. As part of the big changes that he is taking forward, the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, Sir Mark Rowley, has asked his team to carry out a review of the list of police stations earmarked for closure and sell-off. I have made the case strongly for saving Barnet police station in a number of meetings with senior police officers, including Sir Mark. That includes at a meeting in May, at which Sir Mark acknowledged how important it is for the police to be close to the communities they serve. He also accepted that whether physical premises are retained or closed inevitably has an impact on whether officers can genuinely be close to the community.

    I understand that that is one of the reasons why the review, expected to report at the end of the summer, was set up. I sincerely hope that it provides a lifeline for Barnet police station and other communities experiencing the same closure threat. That includes Sidcup, Notting Hill and Wimbledon. My hon. Friends the Members for Old Bexley and Sidcup (Mr French), for Kensington (Felicity Buchan) and for Wimbledon (Stephen Hammond) have all fought hard for their local police station, as has my hon. Friend the Member for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner (David Simmonds).

    Until a few days ago, the places where police stations were in jeopardy and teetering on the brink of sale and redevelopment included Uxbridge. That brings me to my fourth and final point. Uxbridge was on the same closure list as Barnet in 2017. When the Mayor announced its shut-down, Conservative Hillingdon Council offered to buy the site at the market rate, and to provide a £500,000 revenue contribution and a leaseback arrangement, so that the community could keep its police station and the services it provides. At the time, the Mayor rejected this plan out of hand. Undeterred, Hillingdon Conservatives campaigned energetically to save their police station, led by Councillor Steve Tuckwell, the excellent Conservative candidate in the by-election.

    For years, those efforts fell on deaf ears at City Hall, and then there seemed to be a Damascene conversion. Suddenly, out of the blue, the Mayor announced that he had

    “written to the Met Commissioner saying that the case for now retaining more police station sites across the capital is strong”.

    He is yet to specify exactly which police stations may escape the axe he threatened them with six years ago, but this looks suspiciously like a by-election stunt to take credit for a plan to safeguard the police station put together by Hillingdon Council and Steve Tuckwell. It would be massively cynical if the Mayor’s U-turn were confined just to Uxbridge. I therefore take this opportunity once again to call on Mayor Khan to remove the threat to Barnet police station and confirm that its future is secure, along with other stations under threat around the capital.

    In conclusion, when the plan to close Barnet police station was first floated in 2013, I fought successfully to stop it. I saved our police station back then, and I am doing all I can to save it again. I have raised this issue in Parliament many times, including twice at Prime Minister’s questions. The online version of the petition for this issue, which I presented to Parliament last year, now has more than 1,600 signatures. I assure the House and my constituents in Chipping Barnet that I will continue to do all I can to resist the Mayor’s threat to our local police station so that my constituents are safer and more secure and can have the visible police presence in their local town centre that they rightly believe is so important.

  • Theresa Villiers – 2023 Speech on the Budget

    Theresa Villiers – 2023 Speech on the Budget

    The speech made by Theresa Villiers, the Conservative MP for Chipping Barnet, in the House of Commons on 16 March 2023.

    The worst health emergency for 100 years and the worst energy price shock for 50 years have done severe damage to our economy in the last few years, but the Budget has demonstrated the positive impact of the difficult decisions taken in the autumn statement to repair the public finances and restore stability after the damage done by global economic turmoil. As we have heard, unemployment is near a 50-year low, productivity is higher now than it was before the pandemic, and the OBR predicts that we will not go into recession, that inflation will fall and that growth is returning. That means we are on track to meet the first three of the Prime Minister’s five priorities, which are to halve inflation, grow the economy, reduce debt, cut NHS waiting times and stop the boats.

    At the heart of the Budget and the Government’s wider economic policy is helping people with cost of living pressures. Taken together, the measures in the Budget and those previously announced are worth £94 billion over this year and next—one of the largest support packages in Europe—which is an average of more than £3,300 for every household in the country. In advance of his statement, I asked the Chancellor for the continuation of Government support for energy bills. I also made the case for families struggling with childcare costs, raising the issue alongside others in Parliament just a week or two ago, so I am really pleased with the plan to extend the 30 hours of free childcare for working parents to cover children from the age of nine months to four years. It is also very welcome that the childcare component of universal credit can now be paid up front.

    This package is a truly radical set of changes, and investing in early years education and childcare is a sound economic move. Not only will it bring more parents back into the workplace to help address labour shortages; high-quality early years provision can also be an engine of social mobility, helping children to get the best start in life in order to enable them to realise their potential and succeed in their aspirations. The increase in the rates to be paid to childcare settings for delivering the free entitlement is a crucial part of this endeavour. It has been a key ask of the sector, but what is now proposed is still a very big change and implementation will not be easy, so I will be scrutinising progress carefully as a member of both the all-party parliamentary group for nursery schools, nursery and reception classes, and the APPG on childcare and early education.

    I welcome the changes to the pension tax rules, which have been pushing experienced GPs and hospital doctors to cut their hours and retire early, just when we need them most. I have raised that problem with successive Health Secretaries and Chancellors of the Exchequer. The lifetime allowance is, I am afraid, a classic example of where taxes get so high that they deter work and depress economic activity. It is not just about the very high taxes paid if a person hits the lifetime allowance limit; it is also about the uncertainty, which means that doctors have cut their hours even if they have not hit the limit, because they fear reaching it. Both are causing problems with the retention of our hard-working doctors, so I believe that the changes announced by the Chancellor yesterday will play an important part in reducing those NHS waiting times in the way that we all want. I hope that it will also mean that my constituents have faster and better access to GP appointments.

    Finally, I want to highlight some areas where further action is needed in relation to Budget matters. Implementation of reforms relating to the regulatory climate for artificial intelligence and the approval of medicines, as announced yesterday, are welcome, but I would like to see a more concerted push to improve regulation to make it more targeted and more agile and to ensure that it keeps up with technological change. This area can play a crucial role in raising productivity, boosting growth and making this country the science super-power that the Prime Minister wants it to be. It is also crucial to raising living standards in the long term.

    The taskforce on innovation, growth and regulatory reform set out a blueprint for starting this reform process, and I would ask the Minister to report back on progress in implementation of the taskforce’s recommendations. I welcome the indication by the Chancellor that he will come back with a plan for one of TIGRR’s key proposals —to unlock productive investment from pension funds—but we do need to get on with this. The freedom to make our own choices on regulation and design these rules according to our own national interest is a key benefit from Brexit, and we need to grab the opportunity that it presents.

    Lastly, I fully back, of course, the caution shown in this Budget on the public finances. Bearing down on inflation and getting debt under control must be our top priority. But as the economic situation, I hope, continues to improve, I would ask my right hon. Friend the Chancellor to strive to find the room for further pay increases for the public sector and, of course, for wider tax reductions in the longer term.

  • Theresa Villiers – 2023 Speech on Brownfield Development and the Green Belt

    Theresa Villiers – 2023 Speech on Brownfield Development and the Green Belt

    The speech made by Theresa Villiers, the Conservative MP for Chipping Barnet, in Westminster Hall, the House of Commons on 9 February 2023.

    It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Ms Fovargue. I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Wendy Morton) on securing the debate. It is an honour to follow the powerful speech from the hon. Member for Hemsworth (Jon Trickett).

    I am delighted to be taking part in this debate as the Member of Parliament for a constituency that contains substantial amounts of green belt land. I know how hugely my Chipping Barnet constituents value the breathing space that green belt gives them. It has kept urban sprawl at bay for more than 70 years, but excessive housebuilding targets have been making it harder and harder for councils to turn down bad development proposals. In a number of areas, that is leading to loss of greenfield and green belt land around the country, and to increasing pressure to urbanise the suburbs.

    I was very struck by the comments of the hon. Member for Hemsworth on the progressive blurring of the gaps between different communities and communities being merged together, and the crucial importance of giving people access to the countryside on their doorstop. For all those reasons, green belt protections are crucial.

    Even where councils refuse planning applications, there is a risk that a planning inspector will overturn the decision on the basis that the development is needed to meet the centrally set, top-down housebuilding target. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Aldridge-Brownhills said, that is why I tabled new clause 21 to the Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill, which was signed by 60 Members of the House. In response, the Secretary of State brought forward significant concessions to rebalance the planning system to give local communities greater control over what is built in their neighbourhood. That is very welcome. It is being taken forward in the consultation now under way on the new national planning policy framework, but the battle is by no means over because the extent to which the compromise delivers real change depends on how it is implemented. It depends on that consultation.

    Let me give an example. I very much welcome the new NPPF footnote 30, which promises that brownfield development will be prioritised over greenfield, but even on brownfield sites, it is crucial to respect factors like local character and density. “Brownfield first” must not mean brownfield free-for-all. We need more detail on how the “brownfield first” approach will be delivered in practice, including how the new developer levy will be used to promote it.

    I very much welcome the proposal that councils will no longer be required to review green belt boundaries, even where doing so would be the only way to meet the centrally determined target. I also welcome the crucial concession that if meeting a top-down target would involve building at densities significantly out of character with the area, a lower target can be set in the local plan. Wording needs to be added to the new NPPF to make it clear that a substantial proportion of councils are likely to be able to benefit from that new flexibility and to depart from the target determined by the standard method. We also need additional wording in the NPPF to give more strength and clarity to what will be considered sufficiently “significantly out of character” to justify lowering the target, and how councils will be able to satisfy the test for establishing it.

    As the Better Planning Coalition says, the whole target- setting process should focus on housing need, rather than housing demand. They are not the same things, and should be properly distinguished. The consultation also proposes removing the test that local plans have to be “justified”, which would be a welcome way to reduce the evidential burden councils face in establishing the exceptional circumstances that justify reducing their target. However, if that measure is to deliver the outcome promised by the Secretary of State, firm and clear instructions must be given to the Planning Inspectorate to accept local plans from councils that are based on reasonable evidence.

    Scrapping the duty to co-operate was a key part of the compromise, too. The duty has created great pressure to build on green belt and greenfield areas outside our major towns and cities. Although the consultation proposes abolition, which is welcome, it envisages that the duty will be replaced by what is called an alignment policy. It would be good to hear from the Minister about this, as we need to know what that policy is if we are to be confident that the duty to co-operate is being scrapped and not simply relabelled.

    Giving councils new powers to set design codes is also welcome, but design standards need to be additional to, not a substitute for, existing planning protections on matters such as green belt and greenfield density, height and character. A project that is an overdevelopment cannot be cured with high-quality design.

    I would also highlight continuing concerns over national development management policies. Local development management policies provide a bulwark of defence against bad development, protecting greenfield sites and open space, constraining height or preventing loss of family homes to blocks of flats. Central control over all those policies could be deeply problematic and undermine the primacy of the local plan. Ministers say that that is not intended and that the NPPF consultation delivers on the Secretary of State’s promise to consult on NDMPs and their scope, which is welcome. However, NDMPs could still be used to rewrite the entire planning system and significantly restrict local decision making. I therefore urge the Minister and the Secretary of State to look again at this issue in debates in the other place and consider amendments that restore the primacy of the local plan in the event of a conflict with an NDMP.

    Finally, I want to say a brief word about London. I welcome the indication by Ministers that the new flexibilities contained in the compromise proposals in the consultation will apply in London, but there is still an urgent need to curb the power of the Mayor of London to impose targets on the boroughs. We are the party that promised to scrap regional targets, yet they are alive and kicking in our capital city. The Mayor has used the London plan to try to load additional housing delivery obligations on to the suburbs, especially boroughs such as Barnet, which have already delivered thousands of new homes in recent years.

    Crucial progress has been made as a result of the discussions between Ministers and Back Benchers on the Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill and my new clause 21, but my long-running battle to safeguard the local environment of Chipping Barnet, which it is my honour to represent, must continue. Know this: I will fight with diligence, determination and perhaps even a little obstinacy.

  • Theresa Villiers – 2023 Speech on Holocaust Memorial Day

    Theresa Villiers – 2023 Speech on Holocaust Memorial Day

    The speech made by Theresa Villiers, the Conservative MP for Chipping Barnet, in the House of Commons on 26 January 2023.

    I feel immensely privileged to be called to take part in what has been an outstanding debate this afternoon that has shown this House at its best. I particularly commend the contribution of my right hon. Friend the Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart).

    Before turning to the appalling events of the holocaust, I want to speak about another European genocide that took place in Europe in the 20th century: the holodomor. Ninety years ago, during the winter of 1932-33, the confiscation of crops led to the death of millions in the Soviet Union, mainly Ukrainian peasant farmers. It is hard to say how many Ukrainians died, but it was probably at least 7 million. The almost universal view of historians is that the famine was man-made, inflicted as a deliberate policy by Stalin to force Ukrainian farmers into collectivism. His regime wanted to break the resistance of Ukrainian identity and culture, which it viewed as a threat to Russian Soviet rule.

    Entirely unrealistic quotas for agricultural production were set. When not achieved, all produce was confiscated, and mass starvation followed. At the height of the crisis, around 25,000 were dying every day. Bodies piled up at the roadside and at railway stations as people tried desperately to flee but never made it. With the return of Russian aggression towards Ukraine, surely now is the time for us to formally recognise the holodomor for what it was: an attempt at genocide directed against the Ukrainian people.

    Turning to the holocaust, I want to talk about my constituent, Mala Tribich. She was born in 1930 in Poland. In 1939, her family were forced into a ghetto, but she and her cousin Idzia were taken in by a Christian family in another town. They lived in dangerous and vulnerable circumstances, constantly at risk of discovery. Idzia was moved to live with another family and was never seen again. Her death remains a mystery to this day. Back in the ghetto, Mala’s family were living in increasingly appalling conditions, crammed in the corner of a room with many other families. Her mother and sister were taken away and imprisoned in a synagogue. They were brutalised, starved, shot at, and then taken away and murdered in nearby woods.

    By this time, Mala was in the ghetto with her father and brother and had become caregiver to her five-year-old cousin, Hania. When the ghetto was liquidated in July 1943, the two children were put in line to board lorries going to concentration camps. Mala bravely asked one of the SS guards if she could return to the ghetto. Incredibly, he said yes, but as she turned to go back she was told that the permission to re-enter applied only to her, not to little Hania. Mala was faced with the agonising choice of either leaving this vulnerable little girl behind to certain death or staying with her, losing her family forever, and potentially losing her own life. In the end the guard relented, and they were both allowed back. The Nazis inflicted these appalling choices on millions of people during the holocaust.

    Mala and Hania were in the ghetto for another year, until November 1944, when they were put into cattle trucks with no food or water and transported first to Ravensbrück concentration camp and then to Bergen-Belsen. They arrived to scenes of unspeakable horror, with bodies strewn around the camp and thousands dying of starvation and disease. Somehow, those two little girls survived and were liberated from Bergen-Belsen on 15 April 1945. Having gone through all that, Mala was still just 14 years old.

    I feel that I just do not have the words to do justice to that story, but I wanted to tell it to the House today because I believe that one of the reasons the personal testimony of survivors such as Mala has so much power is that it reminds us of the individual people behind the horrific statistics—the ordinary people who, before the rise of the Nazis, were living such ordinary lives, just like us, with the same hopes and aspirations, no doubt the same anxieties and irritations, and the same strengths and weaknesses.

    My 92-year-old constituent told her story to a gathering in Woodside Park synagogue at the weekend, as she has in hundreds of other settings over many years. She told it with incredible poise, dignity, courage and resilience. The gathering was hosted by the shul in partnership with the Barnet Multi Faith Forum, and people of all faiths and backgrounds were there to remember the holocaust and its victims, and to pledge to root out anti-Jewish racism wherever it emerges. That is a commitment I repeat to the House today, because we must never, ever let this appalling history repeat itself.

  • Theresa Villiers – 2023 Parliamentary Question on Maintained Nursery Schools

    Theresa Villiers – 2023 Parliamentary Question on Maintained Nursery Schools

    The parliamentary question asked by Theresa Villiers, the Conservative MP for Chipping Barnet, in the House of Commons on 16 January 2023.

    Theresa Villiers (Chipping Barnet) (Con)

    What steps she is taking to support maintained nursery schools.

    The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Claire Coutinho)

    Maintained nursery schools make an invaluable contribution to improving the lives of disadvantaged children. We are investing an additional £10 million in their supplementary funding from 2023-24, taking the total to approximately £70 million. We are reforming the distribution of the funding to make it fairer, ensuring that all authorities with maintained nursery schools receive supplementary funding.

    Theresa Villiers

    I warmly welcome that extra funding, because it means for the first time that maintained nursery schools in Barnet will get a share of the supplementary funding. Will the Minister join me in welcoming that funding and express her strong support for the maintained nursery school sector in the future?

    Claire Coutinho

    My right hon. Friend has consistently and passionately campaigned for the maintained nursery school sector. I agree that it is doing an excellent job, not only in supporting some of the most disadvantaged children, but in sharing expertise and knowledge with other providers.

    Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)

    Sadly, Midford Road Nursery in my constituency was forced to close its doors. Staff shortages were the major reason. Many nurseries in Bath face similar problems, and parents struggle to find alternatives. What advice would the Minister give to parents in Bath who are struggling to find a nursery?

    Claire Coutinho

    We have increased the funding set out for early years by about half a billion pounds since 2020-21. I agree that workforce is an issue; we are looking at recruitment and retention very carefully and will be setting out proposals as and when we can.

  • Theresa Villiers – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

    Theresa Villiers – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Theresa Villiers on 2016-09-02.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps her Department is taking to prevent the pollution of urban waterways caused by the misconnection of household drainage pipes.

    Dr Thérèse Coffey

    I recognise that misconnection of household drainage pipes can cause problems in urban areas. Defra and the Environment Agency have been working with water companies to highlight and target areas of greatest risk. Water companies that have a greater risk of pollution have also allocated resources for dealing with misconnections over the next five years.

    Defra and the Environment Agency are working with Water and Sewerage Companies and the Consumer Council for Water through a National Misconnections Strategy Group (NMSG) to develop good practice for the industry, as well as looking at measures to limit misconnections being made in the first place. We see that continued proactive communication direct with customers, white goods manufacturers and trade organisations, is a key preventative tool.

  • Theresa Villiers – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the HM Treasury

    Theresa Villiers – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the HM Treasury

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Theresa Villiers on 2016-10-13.

    To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, what the Government’s policy is on transitional arrangements for financial service providers to minimise disruption to financial markets during and after the process of the UK leaving the EU.

    Simon Kirby

    The Government is working to deliver the best possible exit from the European Union. As the Prime Minister has said, we will not give a running commentary on the negotiations or our position.

  • Theresa Villiers – 2022 Speech on Sri Lanka

    Theresa Villiers – 2022 Speech on Sri Lanka

    The speech made by Theresa Villiers, the Conservative MP for Chipping Barnet, in the House of Commons on 9 November 2022.

    I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Elliot Colburn) for securing this debate and for his powerful opening speech, and it is a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Ed Davey), who also contributed effectively and powerfully to this debate. I thank, too, the Backbench Business Committee for making the debate possible.

    I would like to declare an interest: I am vice-chair of the all-party group on Tamils. Members of the British Tamil community have supported me in many ways, including in assistance with fundraising and making it possible for me to visit the UN in Geneva to make the case for justice for Tamils in Sri Lanka.

    Many thousands of Tamils died in the closing months of the terrible civil war, and many are still unaccounted for. The descriptions we heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Carshalton and Wallington were truly harrowing. No matter how often one is told about these appalling episodes of gender-based violence and other sorts of violence, it is still deeply disturbing to hear about them happening in the modern era in a Commonwealth country.

    Margaret Ferrier

    I am deeply concerned about the lack of progress on women’s rights in Sri Lanka: girls can still be married from as young as 12 and women remain second-class citizens, which should not be the case in the modern world. Does the right hon. Lady agree that women need further support in Sri Lanka and this must be our focal point?

    Theresa Villiers

    I do agree. It is a development priority for the UK Government to support the empowerment of women and girls around the world. I hope that Ministers will raise these matters with their counterparts in Sri Lanka.

    Families of the disappeared have been protesting for more than 2,000 days, demanding to know what happened to their missing loved ones. The establishment of the Office on Missing Persons looked like such a positive step forward—tangible progress following UNHRC resolutions—but the depressing reality is the OMP has not been able to trace a single person on its list of over 6,000 cases, nor has it clarified the fate of the disappeared in any meaningful way. Such was the conclusion of UN Human Rights commissioner Bachelet. She is also clear that the human rights situation in Sri Lanka is deteriorating. It is not just Tamils who suffer as a result; Muslims have also been targeted, as have Sinhala people who have joined some of the widespread protests about economic failure.

    So let no one think that the great questions we are debating today here in the mother of Parliaments are only about legacy, important though they are. The oppressive security apparatus of the Sri Lankan state is still being used to exert control over the country’s citizens. People are still arrested and detained under the Prevention of Terrorism Act, despite the promise made by the Sri Lankan Government in resolution 30/1 seven years ago to repeal it. The military remains entrenched in economic activities across the north and east; it retains control of swathes of land confiscated from Tamils, and senior military figures still hold prominent positions in Government, some of them appointed only in recent years. It is, frankly, astonishing that spending on the armed forces is greater today than at the height of the conflict, outstripping the combined total of the health and education budgets. This must have contributed to the debt crisis in Sri Lanka. In short, the Rajapaksa regime wrecked the economy and, as yet, there seems little visible progress under its successor. So, as Members have already acknowledged, there is a deep crisis in both economic and human rights terms.

    In his response to the debate, I hope the Minister will commit the Government to the following actions: first, that they will push strongly in the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva for the Sri Lankan Government to meet the obligations that they undertook in resolution 30/1, and which the Human Rights Council reiterated recently in resolution 51/1. The UK Government have a good record of being the penholder in that process and making a real difference, but they must keep up the pressure in the light of a deteriorating situation. Secondly, in the light of continued failure to bring war criminals to justice, progress must be made on an international mechanism to deliver accountability at last. This issue cannot wait any longer.

    Thirdly, the Government must impose sanctions on those figures credibly implicated in war crimes and human rights abuses, as has been the case in countries such as the United States. Fourthly, they must find a way to ensure that any bailout from international institutions be accompanied by rigorous efforts to root out cronyism and corruption in Sri Lanka, and cut the irrationally large military spending budget. Finally, the UK Government must advocate for a new constitutional settlement in Sri Lanka that delivers power sharing and political equality, to meet the legitimate aspirations of the Tamil people to have a real say in how they are governed.

    Sri Lanka has a tragic past, as shown by the film “Continuing Cycles of Violence and Genocide in Sri Lanka”. The film was created by members of the British Tamil community and screened here in Parliament at an event I hosted for the British Tamils Forum in July. It is truly shocking to see the recurrent pattern of violence and injustice directed towards Tamils over many decades. However, there are grounds for hope. Recent protests saw people from diverse backgrounds, faiths and ethnicities coming together to demand change and a better future for all Sri Lankans. Let us all in this House and in this Government play our part in helping them reach that historic goal.

  • Theresa Villiers – 2022 Speech on the Carer’s Leave Bill

    Theresa Villiers – 2022 Speech on the Carer’s Leave Bill

    The speech made by Theresa Villiers, the Conservative MP for Chipping Barnet, in the House of Commons on 21 October 2022.

    Like other speakers, I am delighted to support this Bill and I am very happy to follow on from a great speech from my hon. Friend the Member for Loughborough (Jane Hunt). Introducing a day one right to carer’s leave is a really good step forward in the crucial task of making life easier for the millions of unpaid carers who do such dedicated work across our United Kingdom. I thank the hon. Member for North East Fife (Wendy Chamberlain) for bringing the Bill forward.

    As we have heard today, very often caring responsibilities fall on women—although not exclusively, of course. Like the first Bill we reflected on this morning, this Bill is another way to ensure gender equality and that we are doing all we can to support women to pursue the opportunities and careers that they wish to pursue. We started out this morning reflecting on pregnancy and maternity leave; many women go through that in their 20s, 30s or 40s. We now are going on to the caring responsibilities that many women take on in their 40s, 50s and 60s. We have covered that spectrum today.

    As I said in an intervention, I feel that this is just one point on a longer journey. There are many things in this country that we will have to change if we are to adapt to an ageing population that needs more care. Finding different ways to make life easier for those heroes who care for their elderly relatives will be an important task for us as a generation. Like others, I highlight the incredible economic value of the work done by unpaid carers. If that burden fell on the state, it would have a massive impact on the public finances and cost billions of pounds. We all owe carers a massive debt of gratitude. This Bill is just one small step in trying to repay that.

    I recognise that many employers would already go well beyond what is in this Bill, and I encourage them to do that. In terms of legislation, I hope in the future we can go further than what is currently in this Bill.

    I will close my brief remarks—I do not want to jeopardise this Bill or subsequent ones on the Order Paper—by commending all the carers in my constituency. I have met many of them in the 17 years I have had the privilege to represent Chipping Barnet in this House. They are incredible people who are incredibly dedicated. Sometimes they work 24 hours a day, seven days a week. I single them out for their compassion and dedication, as well as the groups that support them, such as Friend in Need in east Barnet and the Barnet carers centre.

    We all know that we face difficult decisions on spending and the public finances over the coming weeks and months for many reasons, not least the overhang of covid and the debts that has left us with. We must always ensure that we do as much as possible to ensure that the social care system is funded, not least because of the crucial importance of respite care in giving all of our wonderful unpaid carers support, respite and the opportunity to live their lives. I look forward to supporting this Bill today.