Bell Ribeiro-Addy MP: speeches 2025

Speeches

• 29 Jan 2025 · Outsourcing: Government Departments · Hansard source

  More

  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir Jeremy. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough and Thornaby East (Andy McDonald) for securing the debate. As the chair of the all-party parliamentary group on immigration detention, I want to raise the deeply troubling subject of the outsourcing of the management of immigration removal centres to private companies. I do not believe in Government outsourcing for public services —I struggle to think of an example that demonstrates good value for money—yet our asylum system, and particularly immigration removal centres, is being run for profit. In 2019, the Conservative Government awarded asylum contracts worth £4 billion for 10 years to just three companies: Serco, Mears and Clearsprings Ready Homes, each of which raked in millions. Although some might point to the profit-sharing agreement that they are meant to have with the Government, the threshold for payback has not been disclosed. A freedom of information request to the Home Office revealed that not a penny of profit has actually gone back to the Treasury under that agreement. We would hope that those companies were at least providing a good service, but that is not the case. We have seen reports of several deaths, suicides and suicide attempts at those facilities. Almost every single one of the removal centres operated by those companies have seen numerous recorded cases of overcrowding, hostile and unsanitary conditions, and mistreatment and abuse of detainees, both physical and psychological. I have seen some of those conditions for myself. Almost every one of the companies have had severe accusations of mismanagement levelled against them, backed up by hard evidence. I do not believe that our asylum process should be run for profit, and I certainly do not believe that companies doing a shoddy job should continue to be handed lucrative contracts while making the lives of some of the most vulnerable people in this country absolutely miserable. I urge the Government to review those contracts, and if they are not willing to bring the entire asylum system in house, they should at least revoke the contracts of the awful companies that I have listed.

• 23 Jan 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

  More

  T8. Travelling and working abroad can be an incredibly enriching experience, and I welcome the Government’s steps to strengthen our relationship with the EU. My young constituents would like to know specifically what steps are being taken to increase their opportunities in Europe. What discussions has the Minister had with Cabinet colleagues and EU counterparts regarding an EU youth mobility scheme and any other further actions to ease work and travel for young people in Europe?

• 15 Jan 2025 · Endometriosis: Women in the Workplace · Hansard source

  More

  I thank my hon. Friend for the fantastic speech she is making. Endometriosis UK, which provides the secretariat of the all-party parliamentary group on endometriosis, of which I am the chair, released a report last year that found that 47% of women had visited their GP 10 or more times with symptoms prior to diagnosis. Many of those women are likely to face issues with getting time off work to attend these appointments, or experience some form of disciplinary action because of it. Does my hon. Friend agree that being understanding and tolerant about the number of appointments needed to secure a diagnosis is critical to being an endometriosis-friendly employer, and that, ultimately, we need to take steps to ensure that the process does not take several years and so many appointments?

• 15 Jan 2025 · Women’s Changed State Pension Age: Compensation · Hansard source

  More

  I thank the right hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Sir John Hayes) for securing this important debate. I state on record my support and admiration for the WASPI campaign. They have campaigned tirelessly for an acknowledgment of the wrong they face and, crucially, for compensation. I have been pleased to meet many of them on a number of occasions during my time as an MP, and I stand in complete solidarity with them. The Government have rightly accepted the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman’s findings of maladministration and apologised for the 28-month delay in writing to 1950s-born women, but what good is that apology if there are going to be no steps towards redress? These hard-working women contributed to the economy, raised families, cared for others and contributed to society in countless ways. They planned their lives based on assurances that the state pension would be available at 60. Instead, they have faced financial hardship, uncertainty and, in many cases, significant distress. As a result of the previous Government’s maladministration, these women have spent the bitter, cold winter rationing their heating because 84% are concerned about soaring energy costs. I know that that reality is faced by people up and down the country, but it is doubly so by WASPI women. What is the cost of failing to address the injustice and leaving thousands of women in financial hardship, without the support they were promised? What is the point of an apology without redress? Some precedents have been mentioned already for providing compensation where the Government have failed. Those include schemes for Equitable Life investors and for the victims of blood contamination and the Post Office scandal. Even though the scheme was poorly administered, victims of the Windrush scandal have rightfully been awarded compensation for the suffering they endured. Ultimately, the principle has to be the same and has to apply in this case: the Government made a severe mistake, and thousands suffered as a result, so compensation should be paid. It goes without saying that the mistake was not made by the current Government, and the blame does not lie at their feet, but unfortunately the responsibility for redress does. There is a strong moral imperative for the Government to accept the ombudsman’s recommendation. We have heard during the debate how many WASPI women have died since the campaign began. People voted for a Labour Government that would act in a more compassionate way than their Conservative predecessor, and we still have the opportunity not to let them down.

• 14 Jan 2025 · Renters’ Rights Bill · Hansard source

  More

  I declare an interest: like one in three households in my constituency, I rent my home. As a renter and an MP who represents a large number of renters, it will come as no surprise that I rise to speak in favour of the Bill, which will bring in some important, long-overdue reforms to provide private renters with decent and secure homes. Crucially, I am pleased to see the abolition of section 21 evictions, which was promised by the Conservative party, including in its 2019 manifesto, but never delivered. Close to a million people faced no-fault eviction notices in the last Parliament because of that failure, which added to the homelessness crisis that we now face. I am happy to see measures in the Bill that focus on affordability. In my borough of Lambeth, renting a one-bedroom home now costs the average person more than half their take-home pay. When teachers, rail staff, nurses and other key workers went on strike to call for inflation-matching pay rises, the last Government attacked them and rejected their demands, calling them greedy, but that Government shrugged their shoulders as private landlords collected above-inflation rent hikes from some of those same key workers year after year. In recent years, the situation has been particularly pronounced. In March 2024, the Office for National Statistics reported that monthly rents rose by 9.1%, the highest annual increase since records began in 2015. I am glad that the Bill brings some common sense to the situation, ensuring that rent increases can no longer be written into contracts and that landlords will be able to legally increase rents only once a year, and protecting tenants from egregious rent hikes. Also highly positive are the new measures to strengthen enforcement against slum private landlords, to extend the decent homes standard to the private rental sector and to widen council enforcement powers while extending the range of financial penalties available to local authorities to fund enforcement activity. I am pleased that the Bill legislates for a consultation on improving energy efficiency standards in rented homes. The UK has some of the most energy inefficient homes in Europe, with 2.6 million private rented homes falling below minimum energy efficiency standards in England and Wales alone. Almost a quarter of renters live in fuel poverty, the highest rate of any tenure. The Bill contains important measures to provide renters with some basic security and to place some basic responsibility on landlords. However, so much more could be done to strengthen it. I am pleased to see that the Government are supporting the amendments tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds Central and Headingley (Alex Sobel), and I am pleased to support amendments 9, 5 and 6 tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool Wavertree (Paula Barker), which would better protect sitting tenants from unaffordable rent increases. In its current form, the Bill caps rent increases only at market rate—the prices that landlords set. The amendments would instead cap them at the rate of the consumer prices index or wage growth, whichever is the lowest. I have yet to hear a compelling reason why landlords should see their incomes grow faster than people who actually work for a living. I place on record my support for the Renters’ Reform Coalition’s call for a national rental affordability commission, to investigate methods to bring down rents relative to incomes.. Although there are not many Members on the Opposition Benches, the few speeches that they have made have talked about homes almost entirely as assets, forgetting that people need to live in them. I welcome the amendments that remember that people with a variety of different circumstances are living in those homes, and they should be viewed with compassion. I welcome and support new clause 10 tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Dulwich and West Norwood (Helen Hayes), as well as new clause 9 tabled by the hon. Member for Bristol Central (Carla Denyer) on adaptations for disabled people. It is welcome that the legislation would make it illegal to discriminate against benefit claimants and families for exactly the same reason. I would like further changes to prevent discrimination, such as scrapping right-to-rent checks and reforming the laws around guarantors more generally. I would like the legislation to go further on preventing illegal and back-door evictions. As the London Renters Union has pointed out, for the many families struggling with housing costs, a 20% rent hike is simply a no-fault eviction under a different name. During my time as an MP, I have seen too many unscrupulous attempts to remove tenants to be unconcerned about a likely increase in illegal evictions in response to scrapping section 21. I welcome new enforcement powers, but we have to acknowledge the financial difficulties that local authorities face after 14 years of massive cuts. The Government must ensure that local authorities have the resources to use these enforcement powers.