Summer Adjournment — House of Commons, 2016-07-21
Topic: Mixed Topics
James Fitzpatrick (Labour, Centre-left): I am grateful for the opportunity to contribute to the debate. I am very pleased to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon)—I call him my friend despite having been on different sides of the argument earlier, and despite having been brought up in Glasgow, where the Apprentice Boys and the Orange Order were not as affectionately remembered by my community—as it was, my maternal grandfather was a member of the lodge and the order. My hon. Friend brings to the Chamber an important message about the tolerance, understanding and mutual respect of the peace agreement in Northern Ireland. That is really important, and we need to make sure it is absolutely solid. If there is anything we can do to help, we ought to do that I have welcomed the Deputy Leader of the House to his place. I welcome the hon. Member for Tamworth (Christopher Pincher) to his new place as well, and I wish him success in his role I want to raise a few issues. The first is London’s new cruise terminal, which is very welcome as part of London’s tourist infrastructure. It is being built at Enderby Wharf in Greenwich, and it is causing a bit of controversy. One of the big issues in London, as we know, is air quality, and Mayor Sadiq Khan has made it a priority of his administration. The one deficit in the planning application for the cruise terminal in Greenwich is that there is no shore-to-ship power supply, which means that cruise ships will be parking in Greenwich, in the middle of London, and having to run their big diesel engines 24/7 to provide their electricity. There is no planning requirement or planning regulation in that respect from the Port of London authority, the London boroughs, the European Union or the UK Government, although other European ports do make it a requirement and Southampton would want it I had a long-standing meeting planned for Monday with the then Minister of State at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and my hon. Friend the Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Matthew Pennycook), but I got an email from the Government on Sunday saying that the Minister had been reshuffled and that the meeting was postponed. I would therefore be grateful if the Deputy Leader of the House would feed back to DEFRA that we really need that meeting to be reorganised as quickly as possible There are a whole number of major issues on leasehold reform. England is one of the few countries in the world that still have leasehold—it does not exist in Scotland—resulting in unfair ground rents, excessive service charges, retirement home rip-offs, restricted lengths of leases and expensive dispute resolution procedures. It took us two and a half years to get the Department for Communities and Local Government to recognise that there were not 2.5 million leaseholders in Britain. It has now recalculated the number at 4.1 million, but the leasehold reform MPs who are active in the Chamber think there are more like 7 million, and those people are being ripped off This area of legislation urgently needs reform, and I am grateful to the Leasehold Knowledge Partnership—the charity campaigning on this area—which helps the hon. Member for Worthing West (Sir Peter Bottomley) and me. We are forming an all-party group on the issue in September, and I invite all colleagues to join it to ensure that we can put pressure on the Government and get leasehold reform Bangladesh was raised during business questions by the hon. Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman). He may have raised it again during this debate, but I missed his speech. There is great concern among many friends of Bangladesh in this House about the recent terrorist activity and murders of secularists, intellectuals, academics and bloggers. The hon. Gentleman organised a very good meeting earlier this week about attacks on members of minority communities. I would be grateful if the Government could do all that they can to help the Government of Bangladesh to address the question of terrorism and intolerance in that country On the Chennai 6, I commend the work of the all-party group, especially its chair, the hon. Member for East Renfrewshire (Kirsten Oswald), which recently held a meeting in Portcullis House. I am wearing my shipwrights tie—I am a member of the Worshipful Company of Shipwrights—and, as a former shipping Minister, I know a thing or two about shipping. There are six Brits in jail in India. They were armed security guards protecting a ship against piracy when it left India, but they breached security regulations. The courts in India cannot make up their minds—they were convicted, freed and then convicted again—and they have been languishing in jail for 1,000 days. I urge the Deputy Leader of the House to impress on the Foreign Office the need for it to redouble its efforts to get them released. The Mission to Seafarers and Rev. Canon Ken Peters have been working really hard to look after the families. I have already mentioned West Ham United playing their first game in the Olympic stadium. Like the hon. Member for Southend West (Sir David Amess), I wish them well in their new home. They will go from strength to strength I congratulate the 31 Tower Hamlets air cadet training corps in Mile End. I am its honorary president. Lieutenant Rex Nichols and his volunteers have been responsible for another fantastic year for the young people in the air cadets Secondary schools in Tower Hamlets were on the floor 20 years ago, but they are now all punching above the national average in the educational performance league tables. That means that our young people in east London, who are as bright and smart as kids anywhere else in the country, are having a great start in life. East London is sharing in the wealth of this great city for the first time in history, and a very important generation is coming through I congratulate all of my constituents who received honours in either the new year’s honours list or the Queen’s 90th birthday honours list on their achievement, especially Dr Sheila Fitzpatrick, who I declare happens to be my wife, on being awarded an MBE for her work as a national trustee of the Marine Society and Sea Cadets and as a trustee of the Sreepur village orphanage in Bangladesh, as well as for other activities. That is obviously very important to her and to me. I am very proud of what she has achieved In conclusion, I wish you, Mr Speaker, and your team, as well as every other colleague and all the staff of the House, a very restful recess. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak.