We come to the moment we have all been waiting for: the last piece of business before the summer recess. It is the Sir David Amess summer Adjournment debate. For just a moment, we pause and remember our late and very greatly missed honourable Friend.
A great many people want to speak this afternoon. There is plenty of time, but if everyone keeps their contributions under 10 minutes, we will manage without a formal time limit, which will make for a much more pleasant and easily flowing debate. It will also be fair. Everybody will get a decent crack of the whip—oh, I do not mean “the Whip”; let me be more precise: everyone will get the chance to speak for the same amount of time. To move the motion, I call the Chairman of the Backbench Business Committee, Mr Ian Mearns.
That this House has considered matters to be raised before the forthcoming adjournment.
As Chair of the Backbench Business Committee, I am grateful for the opportunity to open this debate, and to commemorate the memory of our lost friend, Sir David Amess. I have had the privilege of holding my role as Chair since 2015, with the support of colleagues from both sides of the House. These debates offer me and other Members from across the House a great opportunity that the parliamentary timetable might not otherwise allow to raise issues from the constituency. I express my gratitude to those Members who had the fortitude to resist the temptation to attend one of the three by-elections, and who are here on the day of a national rail strike—and, of course, the final day before the summer recess. As I say, this is an opportunity to raise a whole range of issues, and with your patience, Madam Deputy Speaker, I will do that.
Last month marked the sixth anniversary of the Grenfell Tower tragedy. I am certain that colleagues will remember that night with great sadness, and I know that many of them share my desire to see lessons learned from that tragic evening, and to ensure that constituents in buildings with similar cladding and fire safety issues are protected from physical risks and financial burden. In the six years that have passed, a series of Ministers have made bold statements about protecting leaseholders from the costs that those leaseholders might incur in protecting themselves. Even today, hundreds of my constituents, and equal numbers of constituents in nearly every urban constituency, are living in limbo. Those affected are predominantly in properties that are under 18 metres high, which the Government deem not to require surveys, though mortgage companies, conveyancers and insurance companies most certainly do. Constituents in defective buildings are suffering from a cocktail of potential dangers, and they have no funding or recourse to remedy, and no ability to pay for the works required, to move, or to move on with their life. There is complete imbalance between the power of the freeholder and that of the leaseholder and tenant. The Government continue to make positive statements, but I am afraid that they continue to let down many hundreds of my constituents.
On a more positive note, I have been delighted to learn of the continuation of funding for the next 12 months for the special school eye care service; small pilots of that service are running across the country. I was delighted to visit the service in action at the excellent Gibside School in my Gateshead constituency. I urge the Government to commit to a national roll-out of the service in the long term. It is a service for visually impaired children with special educational needs and disabilities, for whom it is difficult at the best of times to get accurate eye tests and spectacles.
May I apologise to you, Madam Deputy Speaker, to the Chair of the Backbench Business Committee, the hon. Member for Gateshead (Ian Mearns), and to all Members? I have not missed a Sir David Amess Adjournment debate in 13 years. I am sorry, but I am going to have to miss this one because I have an event to go to back home. It is the 50th anniversary of the women who served in the Ulster Defence Regiment; I am one of their guests, and I wish to be there to support them. I wish the hon. Member for Gateshead, you, Madam Deputy Speaker, Mr Speaker, all the Deputy Speakers and every Member here—friends all—a very good recess. May the Lord bless you for the summer that comes ahead and all you do.
Before I hand back to the Chairman of the Backbench Business Committee, I hardly need point out that the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), in his inimitable way, has not missed the debate. He has managed to put in his tuppence-worth, as ever, in a way that is procedurally acceptable, because the hon. Member for Gateshead (Ian Mearns) gave way to him, which is perfectly proper. The whole House appreciates his good wishes.
In his inimitable way, the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) has secured, through his kind words, his season ticket for the Backbench Business Committee.
Madam Deputy Speaker, may I thank you and Members across the House for the indulgence of allowing me to lead this debate? I will get a chance to reply at the end, and I will leave my best wishes for the summer until then.
David Amess and I had a common interest in the all-party parliamentary fire safety and rescue group, which is one of the groups of which I am an officer. That is relevant to the debate we had yesterday, when the House sort of came to a conclusion on the Standards Committee’s rules on all-party groups, but that is for another day, when it has had a chance to review what is going on.
I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Gateshead (Ian Mearns) for his work with me on the High Speed Rail (London – West Midlands) Bill Committee a long time ago, for nearly two years, and for the exemplary way in which he and his Committee run the Backbench Business Committee. All who come to make applications are grateful for the serious consideration given by members of that Committee and the way they manage to schedule so many debates that are of interest to our constituents and important to the nation, and that give MPs the chance to say what they want to say.
I am afraid that I cannot be here for the winding-up speeches at 5 o’clock, because today is the day of St Margaret of Antioch, the patron saint of St Margaret’s church, Westminster, across the road from here. As parliamentary warden, I will be at that service.
I want the Minister to get others together and have a meeting with me and representatives of the former sergeant Gurpal Virdi, an excellent police officer. In my previous constituency, I represented the family of Stephen Lawrence after he had been attacked. One police officer in that investigation did well; many others did not. There was a similar attack—not a fatal one—on a foreign student in Ealing. Gurpal Virdi left his police station, found two of the suspects, found the attack weapon and went to see the family. Later on, he asked whether the attack had been recorded as potentially racist. When he came back from holiday, his home was turned over by a terrorist search squad because he was thought to have sent a message to himself saying, “You’re not wanted here. National Front.” He is Sikh, and that message was also received by other minority ethnic officers.
It is a pleasure to rise today to speak once again in the aptly named Sir David Amess summer Adjournment debate. Although we sat on opposite sides of the House, the one thing that he and I had in common was our fierce passion for the communities that we represented. Few fought harder for their constituents than Sir David and the summer Adjournment debate was always the pinnacle of that.
I wish to open today by talking about my own little corner of the world and the fabulous things that are happening in Swansea East. I have spoken a lot about the Everyone Deserves project, which provides lunch clubs, hampers and cooked meals to families across the constituency who might otherwise go without during the school holidays and festive times. Thanks to a host of generous donations and the support of colleagues, both here and in the Senedd, I was delighted last year to be able to extend the provision to communities in Neath, Aberavon and Merthyr Tydfil. I am as delighted to be able to do the same during the upcoming summer break.
With households across the area feeling the pinch, demand is higher than ever, but, throughout the holidays, Everyone Deserves will be providing lunch for some fantastic free activities to ease the burden for parents who are struggling with the extra costs that school holidays incur. I thought that, as we head into the summer recess, it would be a perfect opportunity to thank everybody who has played a part in making Everyone Deserves the success that it is. There are the companies that readily donate funds and resources every time I pick up the phone and ask—I apologise to anyone I forget: Budget Carpets, Hygrove Homes, Low Cost Vans, Coastal Housing, Greggs, Warburtons, Morrisons, the solicitors Peter Lynn and Partners, Morganstone, JCR Wealth, ADS Ltd, Dawsons and AB Glass; the wholesalers, Bidfood and Castell Howell, who go out of their way not just to process and deliver our initial orders, but to accommodate my ever changing last-minute requests; the Swans, the Ospreys, the Evening Post, Rob Stewart and Swansea City Council, which we could not do this without. I thank, too, Huw Cooze from Visions Creative for volunteering his time to design our posters and advertising, and my friend since childhood, the hugely talented Mal Pope, for recording his music and donating the proceeds from his album sales to the campaign.
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Swansea East (Carolyn Harris). I would never accuse her of Godwottery, because she is a plain speaker. Indeed, one of the things I enjoyed in her speech was her mention of Gareth Bale, who was born to play for Tottenham Hotspur.
I am particularly pleased to participate in the debate because we well remember Sir David Amess, who would be sitting not too far away from me here and rattle through 27 or 28 different individual cases. I do not intend to try to emulate him in that.
I congratulate my friends on Harrow Council—the new Conservative-led council—who have got to grips with the Labour overspending and disastrous services that have gone on for more than 13 years. The administration has had to get to grips with providing decent services and dealing with a budget that was not properly constructed.
In local government, ridiculous bureaucratic situations can arise, and I will mention one case. One of my erstwhile constituents has been transferred from Harrow Council to Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole Council. Under current legislation, Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole Council does not have to take up the case of this vulnerable individual, so we are left with the ludicrous position where Harrow Council is trying to provide care and fund someone who is literally 100 miles away. That, to me, is something that we need to consider and to fix.
Let me move on to the key issue of the day: the ridiculous decision by the Mayor of London to expand the ultra-low emission zone to outer London. The judicial review took place on 4 July. The Mayor is currently doing everything he can to distract everyone from the disastrous expansion. We are waiting for the result of that review and the judge in the case has agreed to try to get the review announced by 31 July. The Mayor is now recruiting a propaganda specialist to promote the scheme, at a salary of £75,000. He might actually just withdraw the scheme and let us get on with our lives. Even Labour MPs in London are now turning on the expansion. The Labour candidate in the Uxbridge by-election was apparently in favour of ULEZ, then he was against it, and now he has been kidnapped by his Labour minders in case he actually speaks to voters about the subject.
Does my hon. Friend agree with me that academics need to recognise that they do not live in a status free of geopolitics and national security? We need to see prosecutions brought against some of those academics because they broke sanctions legislation, evaded sanctions and helped undermine sanctions. If we see that, we may finally see academia recognise that it cannot continue to partner with the Chinese Communist party’s military organisations or Iranian military organisations. Academics must recognise that, unfortunately, in some situations they are aiding those who would undermine our national security.
I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention, and I agree completely.
Moving on briefly, I am delighted that my Supported Housing (Regulatory Oversight) Bill was passed, and has in fact received Royal Assent. It has been a long journey, and I would like to thank everyone involved, including Crisis, Ministers, stakeholders and councils. Now we will get on with regulating the rogues and forcing them out of their unfair treatment of vulnerable people.
On the India trade deal, I hope we will see it come out very quickly. A lot of progress has been made, but we still have not got to the final trade deal.
On smoking, yesterday it was four years since the then Health Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Winchester (Steve Brine), announced the Government’s ambition for a smoke-free 2030. I was pleased to celebrate that yesterday with the all-party parliamentary group on smoking and health, which I chair. At the event, Dr Javed Khan, the Public Health Minister—my hon. Friend the Member for Harborough (Neil O’Brien)—and others, including the Opposition spokesman, the hon. Member for Denton and Reddish (Andrew Gwynne), spoke extremely well. However, we are not going to hit the target unless prompt action is taken.
Swifties everywhere will be delighted that Martyn’s law has been introduced, making it clear that there must be risk assessments for all large venues.
I am pleased to have restarted my tours of Parliament for constituents, following a break during the pandemic. So far, we have brought in more than 6,000 residents for a tour and an often intense question-and-answer session.
While all of us will be returning to our constituencies after today, I will be hosting some 60 students in my constituency for work experience. It is the biggest group I have ever had, and I give warning to my colleagues that there will be an onslaught of photos appearing on our WhatsApp groups with this huge number of people on the streets of Harrow. I am pleased that many of my colleagues have been in touch with my office seeking to know how to run such work experience programmes, and I am sure that as a result young people across the country will be having the opportunity of working with MPs over the summer.
I thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for the opportunity to speak in this afternoon’s debate, and all the Chairs for the many times they have called on me this year. I thank all the House staff who keep this place running day to day, whether that is the Library, the Table Office, or the kitchen staff who provide sustenance over the long sitting days—we are all grateful. It is hard to believe that this is the second year that we are holding this debate without its now namesake and star contributor, Sir David Amess. He was certainly a hard act to follow, and even in his absence today, that remains the case. He was an exceptional MP, someone who showed me great kindness, as I know he did for many colleagues.
There are lots of things I want to speak about. The first is a case that was opened by my office in August 2021 following the withdrawal from Afghanistan. My constituent was desperately trying to help his young wife leave Kabul—I spoke about this case many times in the Chamber. She is the daughter of a translator who worked for the allied troops, and was in immeasurable danger. There are some cases that you cannot help but form an emotional attachment to, and for my team, this was one of them. As such, when we found out last month that the young woman had finally reached Scotland after almost two years, countless letters to countless Ministers and hundreds of calls to UK Visas and Immigration, there was enormous relief.
I have taken many an opportunity in this place to criticise the Home Office and its processes, but today I want to give some praise. The change to an account management system for Members has transformed the relationship my team has with the Department, with open and honest dialogue about cases now being the norm. I am grateful that the majority of cases my team takes to the Home Office these days are resolved within a reasonable timeframe.
The thing about casework is that Members never know what is going to land on their desk next. Some cases are straightforward, some are frustrating to resolve, and some are a little bizarre, but every single one of them relates to a real person facing a real problem that is having a detrimental effect on their life. Even during the busiest periods, it is so important that we do not start looking at casework as a numbers game. That, I am proud to say, is something that my team and I are always keenly aware of. There are some cases where we do not even know where to start in order to resolve it, such as the one that had my chief of staff calling around registry offices in Mexico to track down a marriage certificate on behalf of a couple who contacted me with a visa issue when they were moving overseas. Despite having a very short timescale to work on, we managed to pull off a great result for them.
Does the hon. Member share my disgust that, years after I was told by Ministers in this place that they were quite willing to accept that all Helms customers had essentially been ripped off and should be recompensed, we are still waiting for compensation for our constituents?
I could not agree more. A lot of us have been fighting for those affected by green deal mis- selling. Unfortunately, Helms did not get its comeuppance.
Child Maintenance Service-related casework has also dominated a lot of time in my office this term. A short while ago, I was delighted to bring two of my constituents to an all-party parliamentary group meeting, where they spoke about their experiences with the system and the difficulties it has caused them. Letting someone explain in their own words how the system has failed them can be very powerful. Some CMS cases have been open with my office for two years or so, and not for lack of effort to get them resolved. I am pleased to say, however, that the longest standing case was recently resolved, with a constituent finally being allowed to move to collect and pay after years of her ex-partner refusing to keep up with payments. Perseverance is key in many of these cases—never taking no for an answer—because I recognise that ultimately it is the children who lose out.
There is another kind of inquiry that every Member gets from constituents—often hundreds every month, spanning a broad spectrum of issues. I am of course talking about lobby emails. I have always been clear that any constituent who writes to me will get a response, so every one of these emails relating to any policy is read and gets a personal answer—over 1,200 since the start of this year alone. No matter the issue, be it the cost of living, the minimum wage, pensions, or perhaps the sale of live lobsters on Amazon, or new classifications and restrictions on imported reptiles, wherever possible I take my constituents’ concerns and turn them into action. Sometimes I send a letter to the Minister responsible; sometimes, if the opportunity presents itself, I raise it here in the Chamber, as I did the “Boys Need Bins” campaign, which aims to improve the provision of sanitary bins in male public toilets and to remove the stigma around male incontinence.
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I am also delighted to report to the House that the state-of-the-art conference facility earmarked for a site in the heart of Gateshead—close to the Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art, the Sage Gateshead, which is our regional music centre, and of course the Gateshead Millennium bridge—will begin construction in the autumn. I hope that, over the course of the next 10 years, many Members will have the opportunity to see Gateshead in all its glory at this brand-new facility.
I want to take a moment to recognise the groundbreaking district heating system developed by Gateshead Council in my constituency. The system supplies many households and businesses in the centre of Gateshead and is continually expanding. The system operates using natural gas, but there are plans in the near future to convert the plant to use the heat of mine water, using the north-east’s proud industrial heritage to generate clean energy for the people of Gateshead. As we continue to deal with the climate crisis, I am sure that all Members will commend Gateshead Council’s cutting-edge investment in clean power and energy efficiency.
I am afraid that that marks the end of the more upbeat chapter of my speech. I have long campaigned against the council tax system, which I believe has been unfit for purpose from the outset. We all breathed a sigh of relief when we got rid of the poll tax, but my constituency has among the highest council tax rates in the country despite featuring highly on every single measure of poverty and need.
The system hands a huge financial advantage to authorities whose properties are above band D on average. By their very nature such authorities are often in the more affluent areas of the country. Conversely, areas such Gateshead have a council tax base made up almost exclusively of band A and band B properties. Coupled with the removal of the majority of the revenue support grant, Gateshead Council has had to hike council tax rates to fill some of the gap
I want to draw this House’s attention to local government finances more broadly. Gateshead Council’s annual budget has been almost halved in real terms since 2010, hugely reducing the council’s ability to maintain vital and good-quality public services. That is happening despite a significant hike in demand for adult social care and children’s social services. This summer, two of the six public leisure centres in Gateshead will close as the council battles with a huge hole in its budget in the face of rising costs and need.
The areas of highest deprivation and poverty are seeing council tax rates skyrocket while services plummet. We in Gateshead are watching the gap between wealthy and less wealthy areas widen rapidly. We are paying far more for services that are a mere shadow of their former selves, while people in many areas of the south-east pay much less for far more. No Government should be taking decisions that make the lives of ordinary people more arduous, difficult and poverty stricken. This cannot be allowed to continue.
Gateshead has a proud track record of offering safe haven for those seeking protection from some of the worst regimes and war-torn areas around the world. I regularly meet families who have settled in Gateshead and now call it home, but I also meet many families and individuals who are the opposite of settled. Many of them have been in the United Kingdom for years. Many are still waiting for decisions on their applications. Many have skills and qualities that our communities and our economy urgently require.
The latest figures from the Home Office demonstrate the disgraceful scale of the problem. As of 31 March this year, 172,000 asylum applications were awaiting their first decision, and 128,000 have been ongoing for more than 12 months. It is desperately worrying that the number of people waiting for a decision has grown exponentially from 16,000 in 2016 to 133,000 in 2023. The Government must get a grip on this crisis as a matter of urgency, yet they appear to be using the figures to justify an incredibly troubling policy direction. The majority of those people have fled some of the worst tragedies in our world, and our communities are better for having them.
Finally, let me turn to a couple of more topical issues. Just this week, following a BBC investigation, it has been revealed that more than 100 current or former workers for the McDonald’s fast food chain, many of them vulnerable young people, have complained of 78 instances of alleged sexual harassment, 31 relating to sexual assault, 18 of racism and six of homophobia. That is a very poor employment record for any employer. No one should go to work having to run the gauntlet of sexual assault or harassment, or discrimination on the grounds of their race, gender or sexuality. I declare an interest, because these allegations were brought to light following tireless campaign work by the Bakers, Food and Allied Workers Union, whose parliamentary group I chair.
McDonald’s has allowed sexual assault, bullying, harassment and racism to happen on its watch, but while all that has been happening on its premises, it has steadfastly ensured that one kind of activity certainly is not allowed—trade union activity. Workers are prevented from getting together to protect themselves from some of the worst excesses of an employer that has clearly been turning a blind eye to all sorts of nastiness on its premises.
It is necessary, but not enough, to look at whether any laws or guidance have been breached here. As the TUC general secretary, Paul Nowak, has said:
“All the guidelines—and indeed laws—in the world count for little if workers don’t have access to strong, independent unions.”
This is not just a matter of a toxic culture developing inside one company, McDonald’s. This kind of abuse results from power differentials arising from a situation where vulnerable young workers, often on zero-hours contracts, are desperate for shifts and therefore dependent on the largesse of their managers. It is critical that the next Labour Government act to ban the use of zero-hours contracts and ensure that trade unions have a statutory right of access to workplaces in order to communicate to workers and free them from the anti-union scare- mongering of their employers.
Finally, noting my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests as chair of the RMT’s parliamentary group, I want to say that our public transport network has been dismantled and decimated by the patchwork quilt of private operating companies running trains and buses for shareholder profit, not for passenger service. If, as a country and a Government, we are remotely serious about tackling climate change and lethally poor air quality in some places, we must urgently address the inadequate and, for too many communities, non-existent public transport network.
The most recent decision to close almost all ticket offices across the country shows once again that this Government are intent on running our vital infrastructure simply as a profit-making entity. Although it is shrouded in the pretence of offering greater accessibility to staff, it is clear to me and many of my constituents that it is nothing more than a naked attempt to cut costs, sack hard-working staff, reduce access for the frail, disabled and vulnerable, and bolster profits. Not only will it have a negative impact across the network; it will have an exclusionary impact on those who are not able to use smartphones or to see or properly access automatic ticket machines, or who have significant disabilities and accessibility issues.
Good quality, affordable and reliable public transport is the backbone of any modern and high-performing economy, but for too many years we have seen that vital public infrastructure chopped up and sold off, handed to companies with neither any experience nor any interest in operating for the public or economic good of the country, which carve out profits at the expense of their staff, their customers and the local and regional economy, then hand back the reins when they have squeezed out every last drop of profit. That is why Network Rail, London North Eastern Railway, Northern and TransPennine Express are all now in public ownership.
We have seen cuts to services, cuts to staff, and cuts to maintenance, yet huge increases in prices, cancellations and delays, with taxpayers—many of whom have no access to any of these services—footing the bill for the Government’s largesse. We must put an end to this merry- go-round and return to running our public transport in the public interest.
There is no need to take too many notes, because most of this is recorded in a book he has published called “Behind the Blue Line”. I contributed one of the forewords, and the other one was contributed by Dr Richard Stone, the Jewish human rights doctor who was one of the advisers on Macpherson’s Stephen Lawrence inquiry. Both Richard Stone and I knew what we were writing about, and we know Gurpal Virdi.
Gurpal Virdi managed to get out of the difficulties that some people in the police were putting on him. He was later commended by Bernard Hogan-Howe when deputy commissioner. One of his tasks in the police was working in the Battersea police station when one of the sergeants was Cressida Dick. People who have been at the top of the Metropolitan Police Service have known about him and his case for a long time.
In 2014, I wrote to the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, the Director of Public Prosecutions and the Home Secretary explaining why the proposed prosecution of Gurpal Virdi for what was originally described as indecently assaulting someone under the age of 16 in a police van in 1986 was an impossible prosecution and should not go ahead. The prosecution did go ahead, and after a week and a half’s trial in Southwark Crown court, ending on 31 July 2015, the jury took about 50 minutes to come back to court with their conclusion. If we allow them 10 minutes to get back to the jury room, five minutes to go to the rest room, five minutes to have a discussion and 10 minutes to get back to the court, we can see how long it took them to decide that the case was not a proper one to have been brought and to establish his innocence.
I then asked whether the police could review how the prosecution happened. I also asked the Crown Prosecution Service and the Attorney General how it happened. What is now the Independent Office for Police Conduct put to the Metropolitan police the question of whether it had acted properly. The Metropolitan police referred that to its directorate of professional standards. Most cases of historical sex abuse were investigated by the Sapphire group, but it was not interested in this; it had passed it to the directorate of professional standards, who were the people who actually did the investigation. When the IOPC or whatever it was called in those days referred it to them, the directorate of professional standards came to the conclusion, “There’s nothing wrong here.”
I am going to spell out briefly some of the things that were wrong. First, the Metropolitan police and the CPS held a press briefing announcing that Gurpal Virdi had assaulted somebody under the age of 16. They had known from the day after they started investigating that the complainant was over 16. They accused Gurpal Virdi of using a collapsible police baton up the bottom of this young man, when there was another police officer in the back of the van and another in the front. They have never found the driver and the person they believe was the other person in the van denied there was an assault. Secondly, they said the arrest was made in a different place from where the complainant said it happened. Thirdly, they said it was a different kind of police van. Fourthly, they said there was no serious assault and, most importantly, that there was no collapsible police truncheon or baton. That is not a big surprise, because the alleged events were in 1986 and collapsible police batons were issued in 1995, years later. This case was supervised by a gold group at Scotland Yard—so we are talking about senior officers—with the CPS. How did they manage not to notice that the case was impossible?
I could go on at greater length, but I make this point, through the Minister, to those responsible. When we have this meeting, I would like them to explain how the prosecution managed to avoid paying any attention to the only documentary evidence that was left. Gurpal Virdi’s notebooks had been taken by the police and destroyed. What was available was a conviction notice in the Lambeth East juvenile court from spring 1987 about the complainant. He had been arrested a month before by an officer with Gurpal Virdi. The complainant never mentioned that arrest, which definitely did take place. He had made up nonsense about the time he was arrested in the autumn of 1986, but there was no evidence whatsoever that Gurpal Virdi was involved. Other officers were named—the officer in charge is named, but he made no statement. When asked, he said, “I know nothing about it.” If the complainant thought that he had been mistreated by Gurpal Virdi in the autumn of 1986, one would expect that he would have mentioned that at the time of his arrest, which certainly did happen, in the spring of 1987. He did not mention it at all. The investigating officers did not even interview the other police officer who was known to have been part of that arrest. That is the level of either incompetence or targeting of a good police officer that we are seeing here.
I want the police, the IOPC, the CPS and Ministers to get together in a meeting, preferably with me, Gurpal Virdi and his lawyer, Matt Foot of Birnberg Peirce, to go through what needs to be established, so that people can have confidence in the Metropolitan police in the future. If they decline, that confidence is not going to return. We have all heard Sir Mark Rowley speaking recently about historical things that he is going to put right and about the officers he says he does not want to keep in his force.
Many of those involved in what I have been talking about will have retired. I wish them no ill, but I want to know that no other person like Gurpal Virdi—one of the best people I have known—can be subjected to something like the earlier incident with the racist material he did not produce or be put through a totally bogus charge after they have retired. All the evidence available showed that he was not involved, and that the crime did not happen and could not have happened. I am not satisfied and I will not be. Therefore, if I have to come back this time next year for another Adjournment debate, I will, but I will name names. I will name the names of every officer involved, everyone involved in the Crime Prosecution Service and the others. I would prefer not to do so; I would prefer to get this sorted out. I believe that, if the commissioner agreed with the IOPC and the CPS, they could get two people to look together at what was available and what happened. They could then produce a report. The Metropolitan police could then say that they had learned the lessons and, if they felt like it, apologise to Gurpal Virdi for the third time.
I also wish to thank my political partners who help to spread the support from Everyone Deserves to more and more people across our little part of south Wales—Julie James MS for Swansea West, Jeremy Miles MS for Neath, my hon. Friend the Member for Aberavon (Stephen Kinnock)—can someone please tell him that I said something nice about him, so I do not have to do it again?—and my hon. Friend the Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney (Gerald Jones), about whom I am always happy to say nice things.
Then there is my team, who spend not just their working hours, but their own time chasing orders, organising deliveries, packing hampers, and doing whatever they can to make sure that no one goes without. So I say thank you from my heart to Emma, David, Ellie, Sarah, Tom, and Jo. Finally, I thank my long-suffering husband, David, who has no choice but to get involved. There are so many people who make Everyone Deserves happen, so to all those I have mentioned, and to all those I may have forgotten, thank you.
We were almost the best team in Wales last year, but might have been pipped to the post by the Welsh football team who got to the World Cup for the first time in 64 years. They showed great generosity by letting the other teams win, but I hope that they know how proud we are of them as a nation, and to see them on the world stage was fantastic. I can only echo the words of another supporter of Everyone Deserves, Michael Sheen, who in his rousing speech, before the boys left for the tournament, told them:
“Every man, woman and child stands with you.”
I take this opportunity to once again congratulate all the boys, particularly our captain and national hero Gareth Bale, who retired from international football at the end of that season. Gareth very generously supports Everyone Deserves and I was delighted to see him collect his MBE recently, as he is someone who truly deserves to be recognised for everything he has done. I was quite emotional when I saw his name on the last Queen’s honours list.
I was equally emotional when I saw in the first King’s honours list the name of another person with whom I work closely and who I am honoured to call a friend: menopause warrior and all-round superwoman Davina McCall. Davina has led from the front and used her platform, like so many others, to break down the barriers and shatter the stigma that has surrounded the menopause for so long. I have no doubt that she would join me in championing those who do not have the platform that we do, but who have campaigned tirelessly and passionately to change the narrative and ensure that all women have fair and equal access to the support that they need, be that medical support and treatment, support in the workplace or holistic lifestyle support.
Over the last year, we have seen some real progress and that is largely thanks to all those who are campaigning so vehemently at grassroots level. Awareness is being raised. We now have a prepayment certificate available to reduce the cost of hormone replacement therapy, and more and more women are feeling supported by their clinicians, employers, partners and society more widely. We are certainly not there yet; we will not be until every woman is able to easily access the treatment she chooses and able to stay in work and seek promotion, if she wants to.
We should celebrate the progress that we have made, and I hope to stand here at next year’s summer Adjournment debate welcoming even more progress. But for now, I wish you, Madam Deputy Speaker, colleagues across the House and everyone who makes this place work a very happy and healthy summer break.
The Mayor completely ignored residents’ views, as 66% of the population of outer London were against ULEZ. I started a petition in my constituency against it, which more than 1,000 people have already signed. I am looking forward to the judge striking down the position, so that we can get back to a consultation and turn the mayoral election next year into a referendum on ULEZ. The key is that a nurse or cleaner working a night shift and on a much lower income than most of society will have to pay £25 to get to and from work. If they start their shift at 8 pm and finish at 4 am, they pay twice in order to get to and from work. There is not even an option to use public transport because there is no service at 4 am and frankly Transport for London is frequently on strike anyway.
The Mayor is a true snollygoster. Unfortunately, he has dreadful dealings with TfL, especially on the Metropolitan line, which runs through part of my constituency. In 2022-23, more than one in seven trains were cancelled. Bear in mind that many of the stations that we are talking about in outer London receive only one train every 30 minutes. That means that many commuters wait up to an hour or more just to get to and from home. I am very disappointed that TfL continues to disrupt the service by striking. It is causing havoc for travellers who need to get to work, hospital, school and so on. I hope that, rather than taking strike action next week, and Labour colleagues joining the picket lines, we can engage in a sensible discussion and get everyone back to work as fast as possible.
There is a truly ridiculous proposal, which has astonished even me, concerning a cluster of high-rise buildings in Edgware. Technically, it is in the neighbouring borough and constituency, but on a small site there are plans for one block of 29 storeys and five other blocks of 24 storeys. That will totally change Edgware town centre, morphing it into a Canary Wharf twin and overwhelming the infrastructure. It will affect my constituency as well. To make matters worse, the construction will take more than four years, killing the businesses and small and medium-sized enterprises already on the high street. I am pleased that my constituents are responding to my consultation on that, and so far 96% are totally opposed.
After a long and challenging selection process, I am delighted that the former leader of Harrow Council, Councillor Susan Hall, has been selected as the Conservative candidate to become the next Mayor of London next year. She has a track record of making Sadiq Khan feel very uncomfortable, having been leader of the City Hall Conservatives since 2019 before standing down to focus on the mayoralty. Many of us will have watched the debates that she has had with Sadiq Khan, often knocking him off his pre-written script and exposing his failure to tackle issues head on. The vision is very clear: London is safer with Susan. As the Mayor of London is also the police and crime commissioner, I am confident that she will bring to the role exactly what she is promising, as the chair of the Greater London Authority Police and Crime Committee. She will reverse ULEZ on day one and invest £200 million in the Metropolitan police.
Carrying on the good news, I am pleased that Stefan Voloseniuc, who is a good friend of mine, has been selected as the Conservative party’s candidate for Brent and Harrow, which is currently represented by Labour’s ULEZ-backing Krupesh Hirani. Stefan emanates from Romania, and we have a very large Romanian population in north-west London, including 12,000 adults of Romanian extraction in my constituency alone. Clearly, it is great to see people from Romania taking an active part, and I am sure that Stefan will be an excellent candidate for us.
In my position as chairman of the all-party parliamentary group on Israel, I am concerned that there has been a lot of false and misleading propaganda, both in Parliament and online, regarding the recent counter-terrorism operation in the Jenin camp. We should be clear that the Jenin camp is being used as a base for terrorist organisations and used to orchestrate attacks against innocent civilians. The Israel Defence Forces have acted on precise intelligence information and directly targeted terrorist organisations. Indeed, during the operation several hundred improvised explosive devices and thousands of grenades were discovered, and even holy sites such as the al-Nasr mosque have been found with piles of ammunition and explosive devices. The IDF neutralised 11 concealed IEDs in densely populated areas, clearly highlighting the extraordinary terrorist activities in the area, and I am sure that the Israeli security forces will continue to combat the threat of terrorism.
One of the areas I have been particularly active on in this Parliament has been the holocaust memorial and learning centre. I am pleased that the Holocaust Memorial Bill has passed on Second Reading and now goes on to the Select Committee stage. I am grateful to the Whips for appointing me to the Committee to examine this— I am not sure that I will be feeling grateful by the end of September, but we will wait and see. This will act as a memorial to commemorate the men, women and children who were lost during the war. It will also be an education and learning centre, with an accurate account of this slice of history, with testimonies from British perspectives.
On the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in Iran, the position in Iran remains at a critical stage. There has been progress from the Government on tougher sanctions, but frankly it is not enough. We must proscribe the IRGC in its entirety. It is a terrorist organisation and should be highlighted as such. The Jewish Chronicle has highlighted the fact that UK universities have funded drone research, which was transferred to Iranian universities and used directly to produce drones. These were then transferred to the Russians to combat the Ukrainians, whom we support, and we salute their brave war against the illegal invasion by Russia.
Lest I be considered a flibbertigibbet, I come to the closing elements of my speech. I thank all colleagues in the House, those in the other place, the staff in our teams, the security teams, the catering teams, and everyone else who plays a key part in keeping everything afloat. I wish them a very restful, jolly and fruitful summer recess, spending valuable time with family and friends and, perhaps, on the streets as the general election comes ever nearer, and I wish those celebrating earlier in the week a very happy Muharram. I also thank the Backbench Business Committee for initiating this debate; I have served on the Committee for some 12 years, and I enjoy working with its Chairman, the hon. Member for Gateshead (Ian Mearns).
Finally, I pay tribute to my great friend—who will always be remembered in this place, not least for his input to these debates, but also for his bright and lovely service to this House and to this country—Sir David Amess. [Hon. Members: “Hear, hear.”]
Some cases seem like they should be straightforward but getting the right result is harder than it should be. My office and I do not admit defeat easily, though, which is how one of my team managed to secure £4,173.28 in backdated pension credit for a constituent, along with a £100 goodwill payment.
Some cases are complex by nature, because we are limited by the provisions of Government policy, and only a change in policy and legislation will provide the support a constituent needs. There is no better example of that than the green deal mis-selling scandal, which was widespread in Scotland and has had long-lasting, hugely devastating effects on many households, impacts that were worsened tenfold by the soaring cost of energy over the past year or two. I still have open casework relating to that scandal, but very little recourse is available to those constituents. I have written to Ministers and met with a number of them, but unfortunately there is little appetite to reopen the cases. The ones left, those that were not resolved by the initial response to the scandal, are the ones that will not be easy to fix. Instead, some victims have had to take their case to tribunal, and my constituents now have to wait for the outcomes of those cases. I will continue to advocate on their behalf, though; I will not accept that there is nothing Ministers can offer.
When a constituent asked me, following her father’s bicycle accident, to raise the importance of wearing a helmet on the roads, I did so during a recent session of business questions. Constituent requests dictate the majority of my diary even when I am down here in London, attending specific debates at their request or dropping in at parliamentary events to hear more about particular issues. They elected me to make their voice heard, and that is what I strive to do every day I am here.
One of the most rewarding aspects of this job is seeing the impact our work has on real people and spending time with our local communities. I had a lovely time at two big constituency events recently, starting with Landemer day in Rutherglen. A long-standing traditional gala day, it was wonderful to see young Rutherglen High School student Ruby crowned the Landemer queen, supported by her court and the many attendees on the day. I also enjoyed Summerfest in Cambuslang earlier this month, although, sadly, it looks as though that may be the final one, after a quarter of a century. Organisers Liz and John and the event committee have done their community proud, and I know that I am not alone in my appreciation of their hard work over the years.
There was set to be another community fun day event in Hillhouse this year, but unfortunately, thanks to a group of youths, the community council now has a mountain to climb to make it happen. The youths broke into the storage unit where donations for the local food bank and equipment for the fun day were being stored and set it on fire—a deliberate act of destruction, just for the sake of destroying something. Thousands of pounds-worth of equipment used for the benefit of the community now needs replacing. The community council has my full support, and I hope it can reach its fundraising target. Unfortunately, antisocial behaviour seems to be an issue in many parts of the constituency at the moment. That has been voiced to me by many small businesses in the area. It is not abnormal to see a rise in that behaviour over the summer months as schools break up and good weather pushes more people outside. I find myself speaking to local police officers about it often, and I place on record my thanks to the local inspectors for my area, who have engaged openly and regularly with me and my team. I also wish to place on record my thanks for the hard work of the Royal Burgh Of Rutherglen, Cambuslang, Halfway, Hillhouse, Blantyre, Burnside and Meikle Earnock Community Councils, which do so much work for the residents in the local area. It is very much appreciated by me and many of my constituents.
I have five more thanks to give today, and I have saved the best for last. As Members of the House, we all know how important it is that every member of our staff cares about our constituency as much as we do. After all, we could not do our jobs effectively without their support behind us. I can say with absolute confidence that every member of my staff has the same passion for the work and the people we serve as I do, so I take this opportunity to thank Kim Glendenning, Natalie Burgess, Gillian Mair, Hannah Nicol and Rowan Clark for their continued dedication, loyalty and hard work for the constituents of Rutherglen and Hamilton West. I will come to a close now. I am surprised I was called so early, so thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I wish every colleague across this House, members of staff and House staff a restful summer break.