Peter Lamb MP: speeches

Speeches

• 18 Dec 2024 · Gatwick Airspace Modernisation Review · Hansard source

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  I am well aware of many of the points the hon. Member is making. In fact, back in 2014 I was on Gatwick’s consultative forum as a community representative and I was well aware then of the impact that the trial route had, in terms of concentrated noise in some areas and the consequent storm of community feeling. However, I suppose that one of the key problems will ultimately be that if we are trying to rationalise airspace with a complex set of interconnecting airports, there will only be a finite number of routes that can reasonably be taken in order for that rationalisation to happen. Beyond that point, my broader concern is that in enabling a far more efficient set of flightpaths, ultimately what we are doing is enabling far greater capacity in terms of flights in our region. As I am sure both the hon. Member and the hon. Member for Mid Sussex (Alison Bennett) will agree, north Sussex’s infrastructure is already completely overloaded from dealing with the existing levels of demand from the airport and the associated industries. Any growth in capacity will require someone—either the airport or the Government—to step in and significantly invest in our communities to make sure that they do not suffer the ill effects of far greater levels of aviation in our region.

• 18 Dec 2024 · British Indian Ocean Territory: Sovereignty · Hansard source

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  Under the Mauritian criminal code, anyone who questions the integrity of Mauritian territories, including the Chagos archipelago, is potentially subject to 10 years’ imprisonment. Most British Chagossians have, at one time or another, effectively given that level of disconsideration to the Mauritian Government. What conversations has the Minister had with the Mauritian Government to ensure that this part of the code is removed so that it is possible for British Chagossians to visit Chagos, in the event that the deal goes through?

• 18 Dec 2024 · Provisional Local Government Finance Settlement · Hansard source

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  I commend the Minister for his work in bringing forward the settlement to secure a fair deal for the sector, but, as many hon. Members have alluded to, the elephant in the room is temporary housing. That is in large part due to decisions taken by the last Conservative Government to freeze the housing benefit subsidy at 2011 levels and cap the local housing allowance at a far lower level than local housing tends to cost, with the end result being that local government is subsidising central Government’s welfare bill to an astounding extent, with two thirds of the council tax in my local area going towards paying that bill. As an advocate for the sector, will the Minister meet with counterparts in the relevant Departments to try to lift that cap, so that people are housed at a rate that is cheaper both financially and socially?

• 11 Dec 2024 · Engagements · Hansard source

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  Q8. Following years of real-terms cuts to its funding, St Catherine’s hospice, which serves my constituency, has recently made a number of redundancies. Palliative care is hugely important to our communities, and I pay tribute to those who work in it. Will the Prime Minister join me in thanking St Catherine’s for its work and outline how the Government will look to support palliative care moving forward?

• 6 Dec 2024 · European Union (Withdrawal Arrangements) Bill · Hansard source

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  The hon. and learned Gentleman has already outlined that there are 300 tightly bound areas where the EU influences Northern Irish legislation, but it sounds very much as if he is now suggesting that the United Kingdom should operate under whatever remit the President-elect of the United States chooses to set for us. Policy is made here in Parliament, not in DC.

• 3 Dec 2024 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  T6. Crawley’s public services, not least its schools and the NHS, are set to benefit significantly from the measures set out in the Budget. Does the Minister agree that Opposition parties cannot have it both ways, claiming to support the investment in our local public services while rejecting every one of the measures necessary to fund them?

• 2 Dec 2024 · Chagos Islands: UK-US Defence Relationship · Hansard source

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  Chagos belongs to the Chagossians. A quarter of the global population of Chagos lives within my constituency. I am aware of statements made by Ministers that they have met representatives of the Chagossian community; I do not know who those representatives are, but I know of representatives in my constituency who have not yet been consulted. Does the Minister agree that before any further dialogue takes place, the Government should engage fully with the community representatives in my constituency?

• 2 Dec 2024 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  In five years, the cost of West Sussex county council’s Oracle upgrade has risen from £2.6 million to £28 million. Is that the kind of contract mismanagement that the Office for Local Government can look into?

• 25 Nov 2024 · Non-Domestic Rating (Multipliers and Private Schools) Bill · Hansard source

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  National non-domestic rating multipliers: is there any more interesting topic for nearly 9 o’clock on a Monday night? [Interruption.] Quite right: absolutely not. I am sure that the regular readers of my blog would say much the same. Our system of taxation and local government is the product of evolution and not of design. It has its roots in Elizabethan forms of taxation that have been inherited and altered during the passage of time to adapt to modern realities, and what we are talking about today is yet again adapting to those modern realities. Like many other Members, I am a former local government leader, and I might well have been one of those who were bending the ear of the Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury, my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing North (James Murray), in asking for this change, because it is well overdue. We have heard town centres described as the heart of the community. What do we actually mean by that? Without a clear public space where the whole of society interacts, towns lack identity and a common sense of bonds between them. They tend to fall apart, and we see social degradation. Council leaders such as me have spent the last 14 years trying to adapt to the new realities of our economy, spending a fortune in public money and investing countless hours—including countless officer hours—in trying to reinvigorate our town centres to ensure that they live on for the next generation, not simply because that is what we think best but because, overwhelmingly, it is the response that people say they want for their areas. They want their town centres to be vibrant again, and to be a fundamental part of their communities. The problem is that no matter what we do on the ground, no matter how much effort we put in, we simply cannot overcome the huge cost disparity between online retailing and physical retailing in the high street. One would expect that, where these challenges exist, the state would use the levers at its disposal to encourage an extra boost for what we consider to be socially beneficial, as opposed to what we consider to be detrimental to society. The proposals under discussion do exactly that. They ensure that the parts of our community that our constituents want, which are fundamental to their identity, survive into the coming decades, while also ensuring that those that no longer have the profit margins they once had—surprise, surprise, in Elizabethan times the most profitable businesses were buildings next to the local church—are given a comparable break. We have heard a great deal from Opposition Members about what parties in government over the last 14 years could, would or should have done given the opportunity, but I am sorry to say that they did not do any of it. As a council leader during that period, I was regularly making the case for changes. We were promised changes at various times, but they never happened. The one thing that we did end up with was full business rate retention. My local authority collects £120 million worth of business rates each year and we get to keep £4 million, which puts paid to the idea that words have any real meaning when they are used in connection with some of these policies. This is the single biggest change that can be introduced to ensure that our high streets survive in the future. I am very proud that, regardless of whatever idealised form the Opposition may wish to imagine could exist, the policy being delivered in the Bill enables us to support the businesses that our communities desperately want, and will ensure that businesses that can afford to carry a bigger load do so.

• 5 Nov 2024 · Income Tax (Charge) · Hansard source

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  I am grateful for being called to speak in the Budget debate, particularly during this discussion of the UK’s most beloved national institution. The NHS may be well loved, but unfortunately it has not been well cared for over the past 14 years—and don’t we all know it: our inboxes are filled with messages from people crying out for our support in getting the treatment that they desperately need. All the data shows the problems. In my area, we are more than four times over the NHS national target rate for people waiting in A&E for over four hours. Elective operations are being cancelled at the last minute. In the first quarter of 2010, when the last Labour Government were in power, just 75 such operations were cancelled in my area, but 520 operations were cancelled in the first quarter of this year. That shows the scale of the problem that we face. We know from personal experience—from whenever we come into contact with the health service—that NHS workers bend over backwards to try to make things work for us, often when they are in overtime, but mistakes and delays are inevitable in an organisation that has been systematically under-resourced. NHS workers need a Government who are on their side. In this Budget, we are providing exactly that by delivering a £22.6 billion increase in NHS funding, with 40,000 new elective appointments per week, and new surgical hubs and scanners. That will get on with the job of clearing the Conservatives’ backlog. I found some of the comments made by Conservative Members deeply surprising. They are best summed up by what the right hon. Member for Tonbridge (Tom Tugendhat) said. He wrings his hands for millionaire families, but was perfectly happy to see child poverty grow to include over a third of children in the UK. Conservative Members talk of the Budget plunging people into debt, when they racked up £2.6 trillion of debt—three times the amount they inherited from the Labour Government. They talk about the amount of tax on businesses while ignoring the fact that working people in the UK have never been more highly taxed than under the last Government. They talk about being on the side of businesses, but ignore the fact that a Prime Minister who they put into office used a very rude four-letter word to say what he thought about businesses in this country. When it comes to NHS investment, there is one thing that we can all rally around: it is desperately needed for research on the collective amnesia of Conservative Members. While the Chief Secretary to the Treasury is in the Chamber, it would be remiss not to mention that Crawley could do with a brand new acute hospital, if they are being dished out. However, as this Government do not tend to promise hospitals and then not put any funding aside for delivering them, I will leave that debate for the future. The services that we have need to deliver for patients once more. The Darzi report has shown us the way forward, and this Budget puts us back on course to deliver the world-class, cradle-to-grave health service that Labour Members gave to the country in the 1940s, that Labour Members rescued in the 1990s, and that Members here will save again in the 2020s. If Conservative Members wish to save that service, they are perfectly welcome to join us in the Division Lobby later in the week.

• 23 Oct 2024 · Paternity Leave and Pay · Hansard source

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  I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Telford (Shaun Davies) on bringing forward the debate. I similarly have an appalling personal experience. My employer was down-sizing, so I was forced to change jobs during my wife’s pregnancy and, despite being open with my employer about the situation, I was completely ineligible for any statutory leave. They were a good employer—they actually happen to campaign on this specific issue—but the reality is that the overwhelming majority of people do not have that opportunity. Most people in this day and age do not stay with employers for an indefinite period of time, either through their choice or that of the employer. They cannot be cut out of the system, particularly when 92% of the cost of paternity pay is being paid out of their taxes by central Government in the first place. No father will be operating at peak levels of efficiency under those circumstances. Frankly, we have an appalling birth rate in this country that is dropping, and this is one of the reasons why that is happening.

• 11 Sept 2024 · Building Safety and Resilience · Hansard source

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  I am grateful to be given the opportunity to speak on such an important topic. Much like everyone else, I have enjoyed the various maiden speeches given today. They have certainly given me a detailed lesson in local history and geography. I was startled to discover just how many constituencies apparently think they are the best. We will see if that survives the next few minutes. I begin by paying tribute to my predecessor, Henry Smith. Henry and I had many areas of profound disagreement over the many years we sparred together, but one surprising area of overlap was that we are both vegetarians. Animal rights was clearly an incredibly important topic to him, and his parliamentary record shows that he served that cause diligently throughout his many years in Westminster, pursuing it at every possible level. In my time here, I hope to pursue my policy priorities just as diligently. I also pay tribute to my Labour predecessor, Laura Moffatt. I have known Laura for many years. In fact, the first time I ever entered the Chamber was when I was a 15-year-old student at Holy Trinity, on work experience; I sat in that far corner, which I understand was not correct procedure. The support Laura has given me over the years has been incredibly significant; it contributed greatly to my being here today. After many years of hard work, this year we had an amazing win for the reds in Crawley—I am of course speaking about Crawley Town’s league two play-off win. It was a fantastic result. For me, as one of the town’s foremost cheerleaders, it was great that for one day, we were absolutely everywhere. If people typed “Crawley” into Google, fireworks popped up in their browser. Crawley is my home. It is where I was born and where I went to school. It is where I have fought on behalf of my community for the last 14 years as a councillor, council leader and now as an MP. I honestly believe that Crawley is not only the best constituency in the UK, but the best town outright. Our economy is a powerhouse, delivering one of the greatest concentrations of employment in the country. We are one of the UK’s most visited constituencies, even though, frustratingly, every time we are asked where we are from, we still have to add, “It’s where Gatwick airport is.” Crawley was home to Mark Lemon, who during his tenure as editor of Punch magazine inspired fear on both sides of the House. We were home to pioneering electrical engineer Dame Caroline Haslett. More recently, Crawley has given Britain one of our leading journalists in Dan Walker, one of our most influential bands in The Cure, and the nation’s favourite—or at least most ubiquitous—comedian in Romesh Ranganathan. It has given us Gareth Southgate, England’s greatest football manager since Alf Ramsey, and victorious Paralympians Jodie Grinham and Katie-George Dunlevy. Thanks to the long history of municipal socialism in the town—our early fathers and mothers include Alf Pegler, Bert Crane and Brenda Smith—we are blessed with fantastic facilities, such as K2, the Hawth and Tilgate Park, home to many of my happiest memories, including marrying the love of my life. I feel privileged to live in a town that has so much to offer. However, before Members pack in their constituencies and move down to mine, let me say that Crawley is not without its challenges. Despite so many accomplished Crawleyites, social mobility in the town is the lowest in the south-east. I often have to get into real arguments with northern MPs to demonstrate that Crawley has some of the lowest social mobility in the country, far lower than most of the north. Over recent years, rising deprivation has meant that exceptionally high levels of employment have done little to assuage poverty in the constituency, and over a third of Crawley’s children are now growing up in poverty. Earlier this year, Crawley borough council became the first council in the country to declare a housing emergency. I love my town, and I am here to fight for it and solve those and other issues facing the constituency. If there is one issue that I intend to prioritise above all others during my time in this House, it is housing, which is not only essential to solving Crawley’s immediate challenges but part of the history of the town. I fear that this part of my speech may echo many of the sentiments expressed earlier by my hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes North (Chris Curtis). Crawley is mentioned in Domesday Book and we are home to an Anglo-Saxon church, but the town as it is known today began in 1946 with the passage of the New Towns Act, an amazing achievement that I believe rivals Labour’s creation of the NHS. It had been intended that Crawley would be the first of the post-war new towns, but unfortunately, Stevenage pipped us to that title following a last-minute legal challenge to the development—some things never change. In creating the town, planners drew inspiration from the garden city movement, designing each neighbourhood to be its own self-contained village incorporating a neighbourhood centre with its own school, GP, community centre and shopping parade, and fostering a strong sense of neighbourhood identity. At the centre of the town was a modern town centre, and to the north was one of the country’s largest industrial estates, located away from residential areas where pollution might affect people and providing skilled employment in light industry. Across the town, those planners built comprehensive infrastructure, green urban space and high-quality council housing, ensuring that residents from every walk of life could move to Crawley. If you talk to that first generation of new towners, they talk about being able to walk down the street and pick out which of the houses they wanted. Imagine if that were the case today! They could do that because the new town development corporations were granted the power to buy land cheaply at agricultural prices, and the ability to grant themselves planning permission to deliver at pace. I believe that the model that worked almost 80 years ago remains the most effective means through which new housing can be delivered, in terms of quantity, quality and affordability. Indeed, the only period over the past century in which the growth in housing supply exceeded the growth in demand was when the UK was building the new towns. The lesson of history—certainly recent history—is clear: no matter how easy it is to get planning permission, builders will not build housing if that will result in a drop in house prices. Direct delivery can overcome that obstacle. I was proud to campaign in the election on a Labour platform championing the development of new towns as an alternative to the high-cost, low-quality urban extensions and infilling that we have all too often seen. I am pleased that the Government have already announced their first site, and I hope that many more will now follow, using the same mechanisms developed and deployed by Nye Bevan to bring an end to the appalling housing conditions that the country faced in 1946. Is that not what today’s debate is about? In 1946, the country faced not only a shortage of housing but cities filled with slum housing in the most appalling conditions. A failure to learn the lessons of history has resulted in far too many homes today posing a danger to those living in them, from the horror of Grenfell Tower to the mould that eats away daily at people’s health. The steps needed to address those risks to life are urgent and necessary. We must put residents’ safety back at the heart of housing, but we cannot forget that—now as in 1946—for too many, the choice remains between dangerous housing and no housing at all. With an intense programme of housing construction based on the new town model of the 1940s, we have the chance to bring an end to the housing shortages that affect so many of our constituencies, mine included. In the process, we can once again ensure that everyone has the dignity of a safe place that they can call home.