Clive Efford MP: speeches 2024

85 published records · newest first.

Speeches

8 Oct 2024 · Chalk Streams: Sewage Discharge · Hansard source
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Order. Interventions have to be short; this is a half-hour debate.
8 Oct 2024 · Chalk Streams: Sewage Discharge · Hansard source
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Order. I think that the debate will finish at 4.46 pm.
8 Oct 2024 · Chalk Streams: Sewage Discharge · Hansard source
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Order. Can you bring your comments to a conclusion? This is a very short debate, but there are long interventions.
8 Oct 2024 · Edinburgh Festivals: Cultural and Economic Contribution · Hansard source
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Order. I remind Members that they should stand if they intend to contribute to a debate.
8 Oct 2024 · Edinburgh Festivals: Cultural and Economic Contribution · Hansard source
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Order. I call Patricia Ferguson.
8 Oct 2024 · Edinburgh Festivals: Cultural and Economic Contribution · Hansard source
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Order. Apologies, but I have to call the Front-Bench spokespersons.
8 Oct 2024 · Edinburgh Festivals: Cultural and Economic Contribution · Hansard source
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Order. We move on to the next speaker.
8 Oct 2024 · Edinburgh Festivals: Cultural and Economic Contribution · Hansard source
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I intend to call the Front Benchers at 5.26 pm. A number of Members did not indicate to the Chair before the debate that they wanted to speak. We will get everybody in, but I will have to impose a four-minute time limit.
8 Oct 2024 · Edinburgh Festivals: Cultural and Economic Contribution · Hansard source
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Order.
8 Oct 2024 · Edinburgh Festivals: Cultural and Economic Contribution · Hansard source
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Minister, I wish to call the mover of the debate at 5.45 pm, so I ask that you give him a minute at the end of your speech.
8 Oct 2024 · Edinburgh Festivals: Cultural and Economic Contribution · Hansard source
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Just to warn the two last Members: I will have to drop their time to three minutes after the hon. Member for Edinburgh West (Christine Jardine).
8 Oct 2024 · Edinburgh Festivals: Cultural and Economic Contribution · Hansard source
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Order. I call Jim Shannon.
7 Oct 2024 · Anniversary of 7 October Attacks: Middle East · Hansard source
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May I associate myself with the condemnation of the atrocities committed by Hamas a year ago? That said, there is a growing humanitarian crisis in Gaza, and the restriction on aid is unacceptable. What more can the international community do to achieve the free movement of aid into Gaza?
12 Sept 2024 · Business of the House · Hansard source
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I associate myself with the words of the Leader of the House about Terry Wiggins. I knew Terry over 50 years ago, as we grew up in the same area. He is also a commissioner of scouts in Greenwich, and he puts a lot into our local community. Will the Leader of the House consider the contaminated blood scandal as a possible subject for debate on Thursday 17 October? We were promised a full day’s debate on the scandal following the publication of Sir Robert Francis’s report on the compensation scheme.
12 Sept 2024 · NHS: Independent Investigation · Hansard source
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Thank you, Mr Speaker. I will rise to the challenge. I welcome the Secretary of State’s statement. In 2008, the previous Labour Government commissioned a report from Sir Michael Marmot on the state of society and health, and he found that there was health inequality, particularly in deprived areas. Ten years on, his second report found that health inequality had become even worse against the backdrop of an underfunded NHS. Does that not demonstrate the urgency of the need to invest in those communities under this Government? What can my right hon. Friend do to direct resources into the most deprived communities in order to turn around those health inequalities?
11 Sept 2024 · Building Safety and Resilience · Hansard source
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Yes, insurance costs are driving up service charges. I have heard of 60% increases in service charges that are attributable to insurance costs. Insurance companies are gouging prices and making money on the back of this situation. Given what has brought us to this debate, it is absolutely appalling that they are behaving in that way. Remedial works are ultimately the responsibility of freeholders, and contributions from leaseholders should be capped. Management companies are obliged to provide the detail of what they intend to spend on such work but, unfortunately, they are withholding that information. The managing agent should not be able to charge residents anything until the information is supplied. The cap should be spread over 10 years, and no more than one tenth of the cost should be charged in any one year. In the absence of the relevant information, leaseholders cannot check whether the charges that are being imposed on them are reasonable. If they do not pay them and they challenge them, they risk being in default of their leases and receiving a letter from solicitors. The reality is that the terms of leases prevent people from being able to get justice. The outstanding safety work in the block in Master Gunner Place is simply not being done. A survey was done at the end of 2019, and it was clear that the work needed to be done. In the intervening years, none of it has been carried out. The developer, Vistry Group, is supposedly in the process of handing over the freehold to Samnas, but because the legal documents have not been signed, the leaseholders have been left in limbo and are unable to progress any of the work. The leaseholders engaged lawyers to write to the developer in order to get a reply on the scope of the work that needed to be carried out, and they were informed that the work was due to start in August 2024. Here we are in September, and nothing has been done. They still have no idea about what work is in scope or what contribution the residents will have to make. There are three blocks involved in the development and, to date, none of them has had any of the remedial work done. It is now time to draw a line under all this. It has gone on for too long. We know that the work needs to be done, we know who is responsible for it and we should not be allowing them to drag their feet any more. It is time for the remediation acceleration scheme to put a rocket under those developers and freeholders. We should be ensuring that they carry out this work, and that if they refuse to do so, they are fined. Only fines will make these people see reason; it is only if they are hit financially that they will change their ways. The remediation acceleration scheme must also include compensation for leaseholders for all the unreasonable charges they have been forced to pay because the management companies and the freeholders have withheld the information needed to ensure accurate fees and charges and that the cap is being properly applied. Where those companies have not done that, we should be making sure that they are fined.
11 Sept 2024 · Building Safety and Resilience · Hansard source
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I do not know whether my hon. Friend heard the example that I gave earlier of a management agency not giving the information to leaseholders to check whether they were being charged the right amount of money or even to seek legal redress. There seems to be no power to force those agencies to give that information.
11 Sept 2024 · Building Safety and Resilience · Hansard source
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I commend all the maiden speeches that we have heard today: I feel as if I have been on a tour of England following the descriptions of so many constituencies. May I associate myself with what was said by the hon. Member for Bromley and Biggin Hill (Peter Fortune) about his predecessor, Bob Neill? I now represent part of Bob Neill’s former constituency, and I know from talking to people during the recent general election campaign that he was held in high regard by his constituents. I wish him all the best for the future. I am sick and tired of coming here and raising the issue of Master Gunner Place in my constituency. It has been in need of remedial work for a very long time, and still nothing has been done. It was built by Countryside Properties, now Vistry Group Ltd, and we understand that it is about to be handed over to a company called Samnas, although that is yet to happen I have written many times to the managing agent, Rendall and Rittner, about issues that have been raised with me by my constituents, but to no avail. I was approached by one of my constituents who lives in Master Gunner Place. He had tried to sell his property on four occasions; at the final attempt he had one bidder, whose bid he accepted. However, the bidder was refused a mortgage owing to the size of the service charge. The charge for 2022-23 rose by 107% in 2023-24, to £6,100, and such charges are now trapping people in homes they are unable to sell. Under section 22 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985, the leaseholders are entitled to demand from the freeholder or the managing agent an explanation of how those charges were arrived at. When the residents of Master Gunner Place asked for that, they were given only partial information, and on several occasions the managing agent failed to meet the requirement to respond within 30 days. In the end, the agent flatly refused to supply the missing information. When my constituent complained to the managing agent, it did not answer; it just got its solicitors to respond and threaten him with a county court judgment. As a result of that, my constituent had no option: because of the terms of the lease, he had to pay up; otherwise, he could have been in default. He ended up paying the service charge, plus nearly £1,250 in legal fees and interest for being two months late with his payment. The residents tried to mount legal action but, ironically, they feared that if they were to take on the freeholder over the costs, they would risk the freeholder adding the cost of defending the action to their service charges, because of the terms of the lease. They are absolutely trapped in a situation whereby they need the information to be able to legally challenge the freeholder, but the freeholder and the managing agent are withholding the information that is needed to undertake the action. That cannot be a fair situation for the residents to be left in.
9 Sept 2024 · Post Office Horizon: Redress · Hansard source
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I welcome the Secretary of State’s statement. I heard what he had to say about the involvement of the Post Office in the appeals process, but may I press him a little further? Given the mistrust in the Post Office that has built up over many years, even though the Post Office may only be providing information to the Department, is his Department satisfied with how the Post Office is providing that information? Have there been any occasions where the Secretary of State has had to challenge the Post Office? That is the degree to which people mistrust the Post Office in this process, and that has been the case for many years.
9 Sept 2024 · Government Policy on Health · Hansard source
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The sheer brass neck of the Conservatives to turn up on the very day that Transparency International UK published its report showing that £15 billion of contracts were red-flagged during the covid epidemic— [ Interruption. ] I am not reading. Those contracts have been red-flagged and are worthy of further investigation, and £500 million of them were given to companies that had not even lasted 100 days. Should the Conservatives not have taken that into consideration before coming here with this urgent question?
4 Sept 2024 · Grenfell Tower Inquiry Phase 2 Report · Hansard source
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How many times must we come here and hear another example of how the state, which should be on the side of ordinary people, becomes the enemy of working-class people? We have had Hillsborough, the Horizon Post Office scandal, the contaminated blood scandal, Windrush, and the treatment of former armed forces personnel who are members of the LGBT community. In each of those, the state has become the enemy of the people and delayed paying compensation to them. Can the Grenfell inquiry be a watershed when we end the process by which the state becomes the enemy of working-class people, we treat them with the dignity they deserve, and we ensure that their compensation is paid rapidly and not delayed, as it has been in all those other cases? In the case of freeholders who are still holding out and not paying for the remedial work to their properties, it is about time they paid fines for delaying that work.
3 Sept 2024 · Fly-tipping · Hansard source
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Order. You won’t. I call James Asser.
3 Sept 2024 · Fly-tipping · Hansard source
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I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson, Josh Babarinde.
3 Sept 2024 · Fly-tipping · Hansard source
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Order. I will bring in the Front Benchers at 5.8 pm. In order to do that, I have to bring the time limit down to three minutes.
3 Sept 2024 · Fly-tipping · Hansard source
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Order. I call Robbie Moore.

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