Gareth Thomas: What discussions has the Minister had with Boris Johnson about the impact of these cuts in London? I ask in the context of the Mayor having already decided to cut 455 police officers, and refusing to guarantee the long-term future of safer neighbourhood teams in each London borough.
Gareth Thomas: ...Harrow, five police sergeant posts have been axed and Wealdstone police station is being closed. Is that the Chancellor’s fault for cutting public services too far and too fast, or should I blame Boris?
Gareth Thomas: ...has been drawn to media reports about the future of RAF Northolt, which is next to my constituency. Apparently, there might be Government plans to develop RAF Northolt as an alternative to the Boris island airport, or as a satellite terminal for Heathrow. That is potentially of huge concern to my constituents, and I wonder whether you have received a statement from the Government setting...
Gareth Thomas: ...the intervention from my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Steve McCabe), is not what has happened in London particularly instructive in terms of the context for this debate? Mayor Boris Johnson has presided over almost 1,500 police officers being cut and almost 2,000 police community support officers being lost. Is that not part of the Conservative record and to be regretted?
Gareth Thomas: ...’s plans are at pains to appear committed to safer neighbourhood policing—they retain that language—in practice, it is clear that that model of policing is as good as over. There is talk in Boris’s plans of one borough-wide safer neighbourhood panel, but local ward-based panels, which enable local people to develop a relationship with the local police teams and talk through the...
Gareth Thomas: ...—unusual, there have been several in recent years, and a noticeably higher number under Labour Governments. Not for us the dismissive attitude to some of the British people of Conservatives like Boris Johnson—we instinctively trust the British people. Under Labour we had the 1975 European Communities membership referendum. We have had the various Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish...
Gareth Thomas: ...-party support in London as a result of the London Finance Commission, which Tony Travers chaired and which was established by the Mayor of London, the hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Boris Johnson). That commission recommended that the full sweep of property taxes—not just business rates, but council tax, stamp duty, capital gains, property development tax and the annual...
Gareth Thomas: ...financing mechanisms for these grants, instead of just the option in the Bill of the forced sale of high-value council housing. Lord Kerslake and the hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Boris Johnson), the Mayor of London, have suggested that the Chancellor of the Exchequer might want to replace the cash discount that sales are offering with an equity loan, as the Chancellor is...
Gareth Thomas: ...right to buy that do not involve the forced sale of council homes. As I have indicated, one of them is the proposal from the current Mayor of London, the hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Boris Johnson), and the former head of the civil service, Lord Kerslake, for an extension of the Government’s equity scheme. I wonder why the Minister is not willing to contemplate such an...
Gareth Thomas: ...not be able to be carried until much later. Some estimates suggest that that could be as much as £270 million lost. In the eight years in which the hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Boris Johnson) has been Mayor of London, fares have rocketed. Some of my constituents, such as those who travel from West Harrow on the Uxbridge branch of the Metropolitan line, have seen a 60%...
Gareth Thomas: Does my right hon. Friend not think that the forced sale of council homes will exacerbate the homelessness crisis? Will he encourage the hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Boris Johnson) to speak in this debate to set out his view of the potential for extending Help to Buy to pay for the voluntary right to buy for housing associations?
Gareth Thomas: ...who live under the flight path just 4 miles away. The Ministry of Defence did not even consult the then Conservative Mayor of London—now the right hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Boris Johnson)—who publicly opposed the plans on the grounds of air quality and traffic. At about the same time, the Ministry of Defence commissioned a report by Ernst and Young to explore the...
Gareth Thomas: ...Met police is so tight that it cannot fund town centre police teams in every part of London. The constituency of the former Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Boris Johnson), gets a town centre police team, but my Harrow West constituency does not. I must say that this was a very disappointing Budget. I hope we will see a Labour Government soon to put...
Gareth Thomas: ...debate will tell the House why he thinks other countries of similar wealth and status have been doing better at exporting their goods and services than us. One of last year’s Prime Ministers, Boris Johnson, thought poor export figures were down to a lack of ambition from businesses themselves; I hope the Minister does not share that view. Hidden deep in the last White Paper on trade was...
Gareth Thomas: Does my hon. Friend remember that once upon a time, one of the Prime Ministers not so long ago—I think his name was Boris Johnson—backed the idea that we should buy British? However, we have not heard anything recently about that concept. Certainly, the approach in the CPTPP—the lack of an enforceable labour standards provision, for example—suggests that Ministers have given up on the...