Over the past week, Barry’s office has received an unprecedented number of emails regarding the situation in Jerusalem, Israel, Gaza and the occupied Palestinian territories. The sheer volume of correspondence makes it quite evident just how strongly people feel about this ongoing conflict.
Barry has set out his position in the letter below.
Barry has submitted a letter objecting to a proposed planning application in Barham Park, Sudbury. The application seeks to demolish the former park keepers’ dwellings and erect a four storey residential building.
You can see his letter below.
Barry has also written to Lord Greenhalgh, Minister for Building Safety.
Barry reminded Lord Greenhalgh of his own words in a letter he wrote to Barry in January 2021- “With regard to the question of who pays for remediation, we have been clear that it is unacceptable for leaseholders to have to worry about costs of fixing historic safety defects in their buildings that they did not cause…”
Barry called on the Minister to honour this commitment.
Barry also states that whilst he welcomes the policy intention behind the draft Building Safety Bill, he remains concerned by the lack of detail on how a new regulatory system will operate and how requirements will be enforced.
Barry finally calls for the Government to step in and levy a Windfall Tax on the sector in order to pay for the necessary work, and to spare leaseholders footing the bill.
You can read Barry’s letter to Lord Greenhalgh below.
Barry has written to Housing Minister, Chris Pincher, after the passing of the Fire Safety Bill.
The Housing Minister has in the past stated that “the buck stops with those responsible for the development of these buildings” Barry calls on the Minister to keep his word and ensure that no leaseholder anything towards the cost remediating historical building safety defects for which they were not at all responsible.
Barry also referenced the £3.5 billion for cladding remediation on buildings over 18 metres, announced by the Secretary of State.
Barry questioned the Minister strongly on how they arrived at this figure and what support there will be for buildings under 18 metres.
You can read Barry’s letter in full below.
We have all seen the heart breaking scenes from India over the past few weeks, and Barry was greatly privileged to take part in a fundraising effort set up at the temple.
By the time Barry had left, BAPS had already raised over £500,000 — no thanks to his meagre efforts — but because of the incredible community spirit that Mahant Swami Maharaj has inspired. You can give to their JustGiving page below.
There are certain things we British just don’t like to talk about.
Poo is one of them.
Few of us bother to think what happens when we flush and walk away. As long as the air freshner is at hand and the toilet is left clean we think it is someone else’s problem now.
So the recent Panorama documentary that revealed that water companies released raw sewage into our rivers more than 400,000 times last year, was quite a disgusting shock. And it’s not just poo -- residents in one part of London now call the stretch of the Thames riverbank in their area the ‘Great Wet Wipe Reef’.
This matters! In fact it stinks: both physically and metaphorically. That’s why last week I was grilling witnesses to the Environmental Audit Select Committee to get to the bottom of the problem – if you will excuse the pun!
The Water companies say they are operating within the law, and any spills are rare, minor and unintentional. But that’s not the data which we were given. It is clear that these are not spills – spills are what happens with a cup of tea – these are deliberate discharges of hundreds of tonnes of raw sewage into our rivers and brooks. Despite being legally required to seek a permit to use storm overflows and dump sewage, and then only allowed to do it during periods of exceptionally high rainfall, our local sewage treatment works down at Mogden appears (along with others) to be doing it on a daily basis.
We heard that there is a lack of transparency about how often water companies illegally dump sewage and the volume of untreated sewage that they dispose of at a time. This is hindering enforcement by the Environment Agency and only 4 water companies were actually prosecuted for illegal dumping in the last year. That is 400,000 illegal dumpings of raw sewage but only 4 prosecutions!
The Victorians took this shit seriously. The famous engineer Joseph Bazalgette built an amazing sewar network for London 150 years ago that was able to cope with 10 times the volume of sewage the city was producing then. He knew that the city’s population would expand. But now that Victorian network is literally bursting at the seams. Government must act to get the water companies to invest properly into this creaking infrastructure. These are the companies that have paid out £60billion to their shareholders whilst polluting our rivers and coastlines.
Our rivers are not supposed to be open sewers. They should be places where people can fish and swim and picnic and play. At the moment they are a health hazard, and our committee heard reports from swimming groups and canoeists and anglers about people who had experienced all too close encounters with sewage and contracted serious diseases from their contact with polluted rivers.
It may seem incredible that there is only one river in the whole of England that has secured certified Bathing Water status. That should be a cause not just for national shame, but for action. Prosecutions must follow. Infrastructure must be modernized and our rivers restored to the beautiful places for nature and recreation that they once were.
In this speech, Barry focused on the impact of the EWS1 regulations and the callous way vulnerable residents in Blackberry House are being treated.
Barry goes on to say “ Charitably, EWS1 forms are the Government’s attempt to force a proper assessment of fire safety defects. Less charitably, they appear to be an attempt to outsource the crucial work of assessing dangerous buildings after Grenfell Tower to an unregulated private market.”
You can watch Barry’s speech below.
Barry has spoken in the recent Fire Safety Bill- Lords amendment. Barry referenced constituents in Wembley Central apartments, a large group of residential tower blocks in Brent North.
Barry spoke of his dismay that leasholders are being forced by government to pay billions of pounds retrospectively for the misconduct of others: such as the builders, the developers or even those producing the government’s own advisory documents, and, in particular building regulation control.
It is vital that the government focusses on addressing the very real issues in building control regulations that allowed this scandal to happen in the first place.
You can watch Barry’s speech below.
In today’s Urgent Question on the reductions in the Offical Development Assistance (ODA) budget, Barry questions the Minister over the timing of the cut in the aid budget.
As the Covid crisis in India worsens, many Brent North constituents are traumatised by the scenes we are seeing in India. Barry questions that if “no country is safe until the virus is under control in every country” why is the government continuing to endanger lives both at home and overseas?
Another Earth Day, another government announcement. Barry’s latest article for LabourList can be found by following the link below.