Westminster Hall

Tuesday 6th May 2025 Westminster Hall

Tuesday 6 May 2025

[Clive Efford in the Chair]

Parking Regulation

Tuesday 6th May 2025 Westminster Hall

11:30

[Baggy Shanker (Derby South) (Lab/Co-op)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered parking regulation.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Efford. I thank the hon. Member for Newton Abbot (Martin Wrigley) for his support in securing this important debate. I also thank my hon. Friends the Members for Darlington (Lola McEvoy), for Sheffield Central (Abtisam Mohamed) and for Derby North (Catherine Atkinson) —my good friend and constituency neighbour—for their tireless work in challenging the rip-off fines that private parking companies across the country are charging our constituents day in, day out. Irrespective of industry pressure, we will continue to fight on behalf of our constituents who face unfair parking fines. I also thank the RAC and the AA for their ongoing work to advocate for drivers across the country.

I will keep my contribution brief to allow other Members to speak for their constituents. I know that MPs are here from across the country and across party lines because their constituents, like mine in Derby, are fed up. They are fed up of wrestling with a faulty payment app or an out-of-order ticket machine only to find that they will still be fined. They are fed up of the hassle of appealing a parking fine that should never have been issued in the first place. Most of all, they are fed up of feeling scammed by private parking companies that are unfairly pocketing their hard-earned cash.

In my constituency, the Copeland Street car park is a repeat offender, ripping constituents off—both workers and visitors—with unfair fines. Do not just take my word for it; listen to my constituent who fell foul of unclear signage while doing jury service at Derby Crown court. He will now have to defend himself in court against fines in excess of £1,000. Another of my constituents is a member of Derby’s community with hearing difficulties, who uses the car park to attend essential hearing appointments. After receiving an unfair fine, he is understandably worried that this will happen again and again.

[Clive Efford (in the Chair)]

Order. Please refrain from mentioning any matter that may be sub judice.

[Baggy Shanker]

Another resident contacted me and said:

“I’ll probably just pay the fine without contesting it, because the hassle of appealing would be too much.”

The data shows us that those people are sadly far from alone. Although almost one in two motorists who appeals gets their fines cancelled, 80% of private parking fines are paid straight away. A lack of proper regulation has written these companies a blank cheque to collect unfair fines. According to insurance company Churchill’s data, they are on course to make 15.4 million requests to the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency for vehicle records this year. That is a record average of more than 43,000 private parking tickets issued every single day—one every two seconds. Shockingly, 2,700 will be issued during the course of this debate. It is time to say enough is enough and introduce a legally binding code of practice, to put an end to the extortionate fines.

Earlier this year, I wondered why private parking companies introduced a voluntary code of practice, after years of doing everything they could to block a legally binding code of practice being introduced. To nobody’s surprise, the voluntary code goes nowhere near far enough to stand up for drivers and give them the protections they need. The cap on parking charge notices is still too high. The debt recovery fees are still allowed under the industry code. Put simply, they are setting their own rules and marking their own homework, or at best their mates’ homework. That is just not good enough.

Private parking companies need to act with fairness and common sense. To achieve that, we need a robust code of practice put into law, which stands up for drivers and holds these companies to account. Voluntary guidelines are failing drivers. We need clear, enforceable rules that cover signage, the grace period, appeals processes and the use of CCTV. We also need to put an end to the threatening letters that use legal jargon to intimidate people into paying fines, and we need caps on those fines. Ultimately, we need accountability.

I wholeheartedly welcome the Labour Government’s determination to drive up standards across the private parking sector by committing to publishing a statutory code of practice. Today, on behalf of every driver who has faced the nightmare of an unfair fine, I urge the Minister to commit to introducing such a code without any further delays. Most importantly, the emails that flood our inboxes every day show that drivers across the country are willing us to stand up for them. Now it is time for action.

[Clive Efford (in the Chair)]

I remind Members that they must bob if they want to speak in this debate. A lot of people want to speak, so if anyone intends to intervene, they should prepare their interventions carefully, because if an intervention is too long I will cut you off.

11:36

[Martin Wrigley (Newton Abbot) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Efford. I congratulate the hon. Member for Derby South (Baggy Shanker) on leading this debate, which has been a collaborative effort and is beautifully well attended.

Many private parking companies aim to make their record-making profits from the demands they issue via penalty charge notices, not being satisfied with their advertised parking fees. There is no incentive for them to operate fairly, to make PCN rules straightforward or clear, or to run a genuine appeals process. This model has worked on intimidation and threats, with the companies knowing that a fair proportion of people will be intimidated into paying. The process rapidly escalates into debt collection threats and solicitors’ letters. This cycle of threatening letters, which are often referred to as threatograms, tends to continue regardless of appeals or evidenced facts.

The companies will point to their own independent appeals processes; however, such processes are neither independent nor fair. In fact, they are run by the trade associations: the British Parking Association and the International Parking Community. These organisations are directly funded and directed by the private parking companies, the biggest of which are owned by US private equity groups. For too long, this industry has been allowed to set its own rules and mark its own homework, always at the expense of the motorist, and the RAC and AA agree.

There is a legitimate need for parking management to prevent abuse, but costs and tactics are out of proportion to any legitimate aims. Primary legislation already exists to create a truly independent regulator. We urge the Minister to progress the consultation on the existing draft code of conduct and set up the new regulator that is clearly necessary. These private parking companies are out of control, causing misery for far too many motorists. It has to stop.

[John Milne (Horsham) (LD)]

In Horsham town, in my constituency, we have a central car park outside a Sainsbury’s, which is operated by a third-party contractor. The number of disputed tickets is out of control. Does my hon. Friend agree that the voluntary code of practice, which was introduced last year, seems to have made absolutely no difference? I can detect no reduction in the difficulties being created.

[Martin Wrigley]

I agree with my hon. Friend.

I have spoken to a former employee of one of these private parking companies who was dismissed for whistleblowing. In my constituency of Newton Abbot, I have received numerous complaints about the behaviour of some private parking companies and the tactics they use, which include breaching data protection rules by hiding data and failing to comply with subject access requests. They have created a culture of “charge first, think second” and their default position is to refuse appeals. They also use equipment that is designed to be awkward or even to fail, such as machines that will not take cash or card payments, and then they deny appeals, arguing that drivers could have paid by app. They “double-clock” people coming in and out of car parks more than once, even if they have paid for tickets. One victim of this practice appealed and won because the company involved could not provide evidence to support the charges that had been made, but it took the company a further six weeks to cancel the charges.

Other tactics include deliberately targeting people who do not respond to their threatening letters, which are often issued with the wrong address or similar, and selecting them for court action. The companies know that these people are the most likely not to turn up, thus obtaining a default judgment, and that the cost of setting aside a county court judgment is greater than paying it off. There is also a constant use of trumped-up bailiff charges, many times the price of a normal parking fine.

In my constituency, Norma, an elderly driver, forgot to display her blue badge. She received a PCN for £100, which she paid but appealed. She was not offered the discount rate applicable under the company’s own code until I intervened.

[David Chadwick (Brecon, Radnor and Cwm Tawe) (LD)]

I thank my hon. Friend and the hon. Member for Derby South (Baggy Shanker) for securing this debate. At least four unpaid carers attending weekly Dementia Matters meetings in Brecon have been fined. Does my hon. Friend agree that there is more that we can do to protect unpaid carers?

[Martin Wrigley]

Absolutely—this is something that they should not have to put up with.

Norma felt bullied into making the payment to avoid threats of escalation. Complaints go into a flawed process: appeals are simply denied, and the supposedly independent appeal system acts as little more than a tick box, with no real opportunity to argue reasons. This is immediately followed by continued threats of enforcement, action and increased costs—and it goes even further than that.

Private parking companies seem to have licence to go much further than any other form of organisation. Why can such companies set up automatic number plate recognition or CCTV, have cameras literally hidden on any old building—often really high on outside walls—to film entire streets and into the houses opposite, and have them running 24/7 with a 360° view using night vision, when councils or the police would never be allowed to do such a thing? Why are private parking companies allowed to use such cameras with no restrictions, especially when councils cannot use them at all for off-street parking, since the Deregulation Act 2015 banned camera use for parking contravention in council car parks?

We urgently need an independent regulator. The public need information on how the camera systems are used and who is recording. We need to ensure that the appeal system is working, and that faulty parking machines are rapidly fixed. We need a cap on the maximum penalty charge that can be issued for contraventions. We need a proportionate and responsible debt recovery process for operators to use for non-payments, and we need responsible behaviour and transparency from the companies operating in this area. Critically, a new regulator will provide a single code of practice, so that all private parking operators follow the same rules, and a single independent appeals process.

In 2010, indiscriminate wheel clamping and towing on private land was described as a licence to print money due to the firms’ rogue conduct. The practice was banned by the local transport Minister, the then Liberal Democrat MP Norman Baker, who said:

“The rules governing parking on private land should be proportionate and should not result in motorists being intimidated or forced to pay excessive fines.”

Rather than the private parking lobby and finance world learning its lesson, it reverted to an industry based on outrageous practices, charges and threatograms. Let us end this situation. I ask the Minister to take urgent action.

[Clive Efford (in the Chair)]

I am going to have to impose a three-minute limit straight away, I am afraid.

11:43

[Lola McEvoy (Darlington) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Efford. The issue we are addressing today is symptomatic of a country where people who have done everything right are being burdened and bullied by a system that is weighted against them. I want to use this debate to tell the stories of some of my constituents in Darlington, and to outline why I am urging the Government to take action to regulate the private parking industry.

The reason people are so enraged by this issue is because it is a microcosm of people’s broader experiences. What was once an ordinary, day-to-day, unremarkable occurrence has been allowed, through the incompetence of the last Government, to become a truly unacceptable experience for ordinary people. While many simply pay the fine, for a lot of people in Darlington an unexpected bill of £170 really affects their budget.

I pay tribute to the people who have shared their stories; it has helped me greatly in my conversations with Ministers, colleagues and the companies. Each of the 140 people who have reached out to me since I was elected has been treated unfairly, and I am confident that they are just the tip of the iceberg nationally. I am convinced that we absolutely must regulate private parking companies, and that action is long overdue.

The car park that the majority of my constituents have complained about is situated right next to the Darlington Economic Campus, which houses the Treasury. While I was visiting that car park in my first week, a man using a wheelchair was trying to use the machine to pay for his parking. It had taken him longer than five minutes to get to the machine, so he had missed the window to pay without a fine. He was rightly shocked and angry about the unfairness of the rule. The fact that I witnessed him getting caught out in real time convinced me, there and then, that this was happening so frequently that something had to be done. Ten months later, the five-minute rule has been stopped, but we need to go further to protect people. We need proper reporting, proper regulation and an independent ombudsman for appeals, and we need it quickly.

Many Members will be familiar with the story of Hannah Robinson. She received a staggering £11,000 in parking fines from a single company across 67 tickets. In every case, she paid for her parking. Her only fault was that she did not do it within the five-minute window set by the operator. Often that was not even possible. Machines did not work, phonelines were unresponsive and the internet signal was too poor to pay online. The five-minute rule has now rightly been banned following campaigning efforts by MPs such as my hon. Friends the Members for Derby South (Baggy Shanker) and for Derby North (Catherine Atkinson), whom I have been proud to work alongside. However, Hannah and others like her should never have been charged in the first place, or dragged through legal proceedings or forced to fight ruthless companies to prove they had done nothing wrong.

Another Darlington resident, Kim, had her life completely knocked off course for parking in the same facility. Like Hannah, she paid for her parking but was unable to do so immediately because of technical issues. She was sent a £170 charge, but she never received the letters. Completely unaware of the issue, she received a county court judgment. Her credit score collapsed. She and her partner were both working full time, doing the right thing, and were blocked from getting a mortgage. The fact of the matter remains: we must take action on this issue, as it is long overdue.

11:46

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Efford. I thank the hon. Members for Derby South (Baggy Shanker) and for Newton Abbot (Martin Wrigley) for setting the scene so very well. Not a week goes by in my constituency when I do not have complaints from those with parking tickets, so I wish to register my concerns.

Parking regulations in Northern Ireland are managed mostly by the Department for Infrastructure. It is the relevant agency to issue parking tickets, to which I am no stranger on occasion. A lot of the referrals I have every week on behalf of constituents relate to the Department and to private companies. In the financial year 2023-24, the Department for Infrastructure issued approximately £7.4 million-worth of penalty charge notices, commonly known as parking tickets, which perhaps highlights the scope of issues concerning public parking regulation in Northern Ireland.

First of all, machines are not working and people still get tickets. Secondly, payment facilities are not working. Thirdly, disabled bays are not always marked correctly with lines on the road or signage, and people may get a ticket for something that was there in the past and is not there now. People may also be just minutes, or seconds, over their time limit. Disabled people coming back in wheelchairs is an example.

Here’s a cracker—that was something that used to be said. One of my constituents complained to me one day. They went to a shopping centre—I will not mention which—and when they went in, there were no lines. As soon as they came out, there was a line painted right around the car. The paint was so fresh that there were spatters of yellow over the car, and guess what happened? They got a parking ticket. You could not write that story. We fought the case, and to be fair, the company withdrew the fine, as it should have. It should never have happened. What the—it would be unfair to say that; I do not want to use bad language.

I am under time pressure. These are the issues in my constituency of Strangford. I have heard of resident permit parking schemes that have been introduced in some areas across Northern Ireland. For example, Belfast has a system with a £30 annual permit to allow people to park in designated bays. There are ways of doing it better. I know the Minister is a good Minister—he answers questions and always tries to be constructive. There are methods whereby we can move forward, and a bit of common sense and flexibility would help. The Minister is always keen to have discussions with his counterpart in Northern Ireland, so will he tell us what is happening in relation to that? Regulations sometimes differ between Great Britain and Northern Ireland, so I ask him to tell us what has been done in those talks to work together better.

11:49

[Catherine Atkinson (Derby North) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Efford. I thank my constituency neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Derby South (Baggy Shanker), and my hon. Friend the Member for Darlington (Lola McEvoy) for the work they have done on this issue.

I am not the only Member to have people stop me in the street or message me to tell me how angry and frustrated they are at having to fork out for penalty charges in circumstances they think are wholly unfair. I have been there myself: as a mum of three, I have had to get my children out of their car seats, pull out the pushchair, unload the bags and try to ensure they do not run out in front of oncoming cars, all to the chorus of one or more children trying to get my attention—the usual juggle. Try finding a working payment machine or downloading an app when you are the only thing standing between children and soft play.

When I read about the case of Rosey Hudson, who was taken to court for nearly £2,000 of unpaid charges because she had not paid within five minutes, I became really keen to raise this issue in Parliament. The cases that have been raised with me have involved not just those caring for young children, but people with mobility issues, and machines not working. One person could not even find a parking space and was still charged.

Unlike Rosey, not everyone feels able to stand up and contest the fines. Many are put off by the threats of legal action and are worried about going to court. Of the 3.8 million private parking tickets issued in just three months last year, 80% were uncontested. When I convened a roundtable with MPs, car parking firms and consumer groups, I was asked what a fair time limit would be, but if a person pays for the time they have parked, there is no loss to the car park, so they should not face penalty charges. I am glad that the time people have to pay has been doubled to 10 minutes, but the only way to have a fair system is to have a statutory code. We want to protect drivers from unfair practices, plain and simple—particularly given that the number of parking tickets issued to motorists has nearly doubled since 2018.

[Lola McEvoy]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the sheer volume of parking tickets could be having an impact on people’s desire to visit our high streets and town centres, as they worry about parking without getting fined?

[Catherine Atkinson]

I completely agree. Firms hand out more than 43,000 parking tickets to motorists every day—one every two seconds. In line with what my hon. Friend said, I acknowledge the important role that private car parking plays, especially in our city and town centres. I want people to shop in our brilliant independent shops, such as those on Sadler Gate. I want people to be able to go to our fantastic restaurants, such as Lorentes, BEAR, the Dining Room and the Bookcafé. I want them to visit Derby theatre and our brand new 3,500-capacity performance venue, Vaillant Live. We need to ensure that when people use private car parks, they do not feel ripped off.

11:53

[Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)]

Parking regulations are not about where we leave our cars, but about how we shape our communities, support our local economies and respond to the climate crisis. When done well, they should enhance our communities, not stifle them. They should be not a revenue source, but a planning tool to balance environmental priorities, support active travel and nurture vibrant neighbourhoods. They are not about declaring war on motorists; they are about our public spaces, which belong to us all. The Liberal Democrats have proposed a national framework for fair parking standards, with clear rules that ensure transparency in permit pricing, protections for small businesses and common-sense exemptions for essential workers.

My Bath constituency is a beautiful and bustling city, but it is under pressure. Narrow Georgian streets and high visitor numbers mean that space for parking is in high demand. Parking regulations must be implemented fairly, with safeguards for lower-income households. Let us not forget the digital divide, which we have already heard about. As we move towards app-based payment systems, we must ensure that no one—especially the elderly or vulnerable, or those struggling with their kids—is left behind. We call for a requirement that all parking areas retain alternative, accessible methods of payment. Many of my Bath constituents—we have already heard about this issue this morning—have been hit with disproportionate fines from private operators, especially around retail areas and tourist hotspots. We need stronger regulations, and a binding code of conduct to prevent abuse and to ensure that all enforcement is appropriate and clearly communicated.

Today, we are calling for a review of private parking enforcement. Too many of my Bath constituents are being caught out by unclear signage and unfair fines, while appeals processes are skewed against individuals.

[Adam Dance (Yeovil) (LD)]

Constituents of mine in Yeovil have been given unfair fines at car parks run by Parkingeye, Excel Parking and Euro Car Parks due to unclear signs, faulty ticket machines, bad apps and poor road markings. Does my hon. Friend agree it is clear that private parking companies cannot be trusted to regulate themselves?

[Wera Hobhouse]

Indeed. We have already heard this today, but we must have a mandatory code of conduct. I have one constituent who was hit with a £100 fine by a private company, despite having spent the entire time parked in the business that owns the car park. When she went to the Independent Appeals Service—as some people dare to do—the review stated that the charge was in the region of £85, when it was actually a lot higher. That also raises questions about the quality of the appeals process. It is high time that we brought private parking more fully under statutory regulation, with a code of practice that puts fairness first.

11:56

[Patrick Hurley (Southport) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Efford. The Government were elected back in July on a mandate to put more money into working people’s pockets. However, almost as soon as that money goes in, those same pockets are being picked by the increasing costs of just living their daily lives. One of the most egregious culprits is the private parking industry. On average, 41,000 new private parking fines are issued each and every day. We are on course for more than 14 million this year alone. That is an issue that affects pretty much every motorist in the country, whether through being fined themselves or worrying that they will make a mistake and that they are at risk of being fined.

I will tell a couple of stories from my constituency just to illustrate the argument. First, we have Katie Lovett. She parked at the private car park near the railway station but was not sure how the payment machine worked, so approached someone on duty for help. This is what she said when she wrote to me, as her words are far more powerful than anything I could write:

“I received a letter from a debt company in March of this year telling me I had a parking fine of £170 for parking longer than I paid for at the London Street NCP carpark in Southport in January. I’ve never parked here before and even asked a gentleman if I paid on arrival or exit and he told me you pay on exit by putting your registration number in and paying the amount shown. This is exactly what I did although I found the whole process very complicated.”

After a lot of back and forth, she ended up paying the fine because:

“It turns out it was my fault because unbeknown to me you have to put the length of time you’ve been parked for in the machine when you pay. So I only paid for one hour and not two.”

Katie is not alone because, secondly, we have an issue with the Ocean Plaza car park near the beach. One of my residents went to the shops there a couple of months ago—parks up, does his shopping and gets a letter two weeks later to say that he had been parked for three days, four hours and 38 minutes. It was an obvious mistake, but it took the intervention of my office before the parking firm would admit it.

Even I have been caught out. I do not particularly class myself as a shrinking violet on this, nor do I think I am any less competent than the average person when it comes to dealing with these issues; but when someone like me gets a £100 fine through the post, God help the average motorist, who is just trying to navigate the complex multitude of different regimes and approaches. There needs to be standardised regulation in this area, concerning issues such as signage, grace periods, appeals processes and complaint handling. There needs to be a consideration period, so that people can make an informed judgment about whether to accept the terms and conditions.

[Julia Buckley (Shrewsbury) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that private parking firms are running a racket in this country by adding debt recovery fees on top of already expensive parking fines? Will he join me in urging the Minister to bring forward the new regulatory code as soon as possible and ensure that it includes the ability to prevent the addition of bailiffs’ charges on top of already expensive fines?

[Patrick Hurley]

I agree completely. The £70 uplift that the recovery firms are charging is indefensible.

For repeat offenders in the industry, there needs to be a statutory code of practice. It should include the power to remove a company’s access to the DVLA register of keepers, meaning that operators who fail to meet the standards of the code would be prevented from enforcing unpaid parking charges and would therefore effectively be unable to do business. Lastly, the Government need to stop the private operators issuing and enforcing fines due to inadequate signs, broken machines, faulty ANPR cameras and simple mistakes around dealing with the technology. I await the Minister’s remarks with interest.

[Edward Morello (West Dorset) (LD)]

In rural areas such as West Dorset, public transport is limited. Unfortunately, a car is not a luxury; it is a necessity. Our current approach to parking is outdated and increasingly unfair. At Dorchester South station, a lack of parking provision has become a source of real frustration, with drivers forced to park in surrounding residential streets, sometimes blocking access to emergency vehicles or cutting off neighbours in their own driveway. Some beach car parks have been privatised, pushing up charges and limiting access.

Where parking is available, payment systems increasingly discriminate against older people and against those without smartphones. Apps require good signal or wi-fi; large parts of West Dorset have neither. The use of apps and the withdrawal of cash or card options effectively exclude some of the most vulnerable people in our community, including older residents.

West Dorset experiences a dramatic increase in population during the summer, with up to 42% more people during peak months. It puts a huge strain on beach car parks, residential streets and protected natural areas. There must be parking to account for those swells in population, so that it is not our roadsides and verges that pay the price. That is why the Liberal Democrats are calling for the creation of an independent car parking regulator, which would help to ensure national standards for appeals, signage, access and fairness. It would provide much-needed oversight of a system that currently operates with too little accountability and far too much inconsistency.

Hospital parking is another area in which urgent reform is needed. Research by the Liberal Democrats has found that NHS staff, patients and visitors have paid out £1.15 billion since 2018 in car parking fees. More than £300 million has come from NHS staff: people who are caring for others under intense pressure are being charged to go to work. We believe that this must change. We are calling for a visiting and caring fund to reduce parking costs for NHS workers and ensure that patients are not penalised for needing treatment or seeing loved ones.

What we need is a parking system that works for those who live in West Dorset, for those who visit and for those who rely on fair and safe access to work, healthcare and community life. Until that happens, we are letting down far too many people.

12:02

[Abtisam Mohamed (Sheffield Central) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Efford. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Derby South (Baggy Shanker) and the hon. Member for Newton Abbot (Martin Wrigley) on their excellent speeches.

This is not a marginal issue, but a systemic one. It touches the lives of millions of motorists and contributes to the erosion of our high streets and of public confidence and belief in a fair process. Constituents continue to be harassed, penalised and financially extorted by a private parking industry that has operated largely unchecked for over a decade. In my constituency, I continue to receive complaints about one particular operator, which has become notorious. I am extremely disappointed that it has failed to respond to queries raised by my office. The scandal is that there are many motorists who pay up even when they should not have been issued a fine at all. The companies are known to use intimidatory methods to press people into paying high fines. People pay because they do not want the aggro.

I have a number of stories from constituents, but because time is short, I will share just one. Leila told me that she parked in the Broomhill Excel car park for a hairdressing appointment. There is no coin machine, so people are wholly reliant on the app. On that occasion, the machine did not work, but she kept trying for 17 minutes and eventually the payment went through. She thought nothing of it until she received a letter stating that she was liable to pay a fine of £100. She worried that the payment had not gone through, but she checked her statement and it showed that it had. She therefore confidently appealed, thinking that it was an oversight on Excel’s part. She was aghast to learn that her appeal had been rejected because, per its policy, she was seven minutes late. It erroneously states that there is an alternative payment source; there is not. It is wholly reliant on the app, which was not working at the time.

[Catherine Atkinson]

Some car parking firms still believe that their code of conduct is enough—the code of conduct that they decide and that they police. Does my hon. Friend agree that we need a statutory code of practice so that car parking is straightforward, convenient and fair?

[Abtisam Mohamed]

I agree: the private parking code of practice is not fit for purpose. Will the Minister explain whether the Government will consider reintroducing the official private parking code of practice as soon as possible? Will he also consider the immediate suspension of DVLA data access for any operators found to have engaged in predatory practices or information misuse?

Our constituents cannot continue to face this unjust system. The only winners under the current system are the private parking companies that are profiteering at the expense of the public.

12:05

[Alice Macdonald (Norwich North) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Efford. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Derby South (Baggy Shanker) and the hon. Member for Newton Abbot (Martin Wrigley) for securing this debate.

Like many Members here today, I have received complaints from constituents, but I am mainly here because of Janice, who came to my surgery to tell me her story. Her son tragically passed away from cancer in 2023. After his diagnosis, Janice and her husband went to seek support from a local cancer charity. They struggled to access the building, so they pulled over briefly to call for directions; they then went on to get the support that they needed. It was only when they returned home that they received a £60 fine for allegedly having parked on the side road. Understandably, Janice contested the fine, explaining the situation. The company that issued the fine states on its website that it will reply to challenges within 28 days, but Janice heard nothing. She then received a letter saying that the fine had doubled.

Sadly, Janice’s experience is not unique. At Norwich railway station, taxi drivers were outraged to keep getting fines for supposedly staying over the time limit. The CEO of the taxi company says:

“If taxi drivers are facing such issues despite having tracking data to challenge the fines, what about regular commuters and visitors who lack the resources to contest these decisions?”

I am pleased that in that case the parking companies reviewed all the fines, but it should not have come to that.

The common denominator is a parking industry with free rein to do whatever it wants. Where drivers park and how they pay for their parking is a lottery. As many Members have pointed out, it can exclude many people. It is obvious that the voluntary code is not fit for purpose. I fully back the calls for a legally binding code of practice backed by the law, so that we have a fair system with a cap on parking charges, with clear professional standards, with complaints handling and with a single independent appeal system. I add my voice to those of colleagues in this room and across the parties calling for immediate action.

12:07

[John Whitby (Derbyshire Dales) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Efford. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Derby South (Baggy Shanker) and the hon. Member for Newton Abbot (Martin Wrigley) for securing this debate.

The RAC estimates that 14.5 million drivers will receive a parking fine this year. That is more than one in three drivers in this country. In the Derbyshire Dales, I have heard time and again from residents that private parking companies sometimes employ tactics akin to bullying and intimidation, many of which have been eloquently outlined in this debate, to get them to pay unjust fines. It has clearly become widespread: just 2% of drivers state that private parking firms treat fairly those who contravene parking rules.

I will share a few stories from the Derbyshire Dales that highlight the severity of the issue. Rachel Betton is a constituent of mine who was dropping off her grandchildren at a trampoline centre in Derby; I believe it may be the same one that my hon. Friend the Member for Derby South mentioned. Rachel never even parked, but she was charged £60 by Excel Parking Services for entering the car park. Like many constituents, Rachel felt that she did not have the time or energy to appeal, so she decided to pay the fine despite feeling that it was unjust. Unbeknownst to her, however, her payment never went through, leaving her to pay an increased fine of £170.

Other constituents have had the same negative experience with the same company. Kathleen Jackson, who is 76, told me that she was fined £170 after it took her over 10 minutes to figure out how to use the machine. The machine has now been replaced due to serious functionality issues, but that has not stopped her having to pay the fine.

The issue is particularly problematic for disabled constituents, who often need more time to get to parking meters and pay for parking. One such constituent, Claire Ashbrook, has told me that she has been left feeling particularly stressed because she does not have the money to pay the fine, as she is caring for her sick daughter. These stories demonstrate that the private parking companies cannot be allowed to mark their own homework.

Although it is welcome that a voluntary code of conduct has now been introduced, it is voluntary. Only a statutory code of conduct will ensure that private parking companies are held to account. For the good of my constituents, I ask the Government to consider implementing such a code as soon as possible.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Clive Efford (in the Chair)]

Order. Because you have all been so disciplined, and because one Member who had emailed about speaking in the debate is now not planning to do so, I can be a little more flexible with time, but not too much. You have roughly four minutes each from now on.

12:10

[Martin Rhodes (Glasgow North) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Efford. It is clear from this debate that there are systemic weaknesses in how the private parking system is structured and regulated. That is the core issue that I wish to address.

One of the two DVLA-accredited trade associations is the International Parking Community. Members of the IPC are granted access to DVLA data to pursue unpaid parking charges. If a constituent receives a penalty charge notice from an IPC member, they are directed to appeal via the Independent Appeals Service, a body accepted by the DVLA for the purpose of handling appeals.

Although the IAS is an accredited alternative dispute resolution provider, it is not directly run by the Government. The word “independent” may lead consumers to believe that they are appealing to an impartial Government-run body, but the IAS operates independently of both Government oversight and parking operators. The International Parking Community and the Independent Appeals Service are both trading names of one company, United Trade and Industry Ltd. This overlap raises legitimate concerns about perceived conflicts of interest, as the same corporate entity that profits from private parking companies through membership fees is responsible for overseeing the code of practice and adjudicating disputes under it. This lack of separation, clearly, could undermine trust in the fairness of the process.

The IAS asserts that its independence is safeguarded by its use of qualified solicitors or barristers as self-employed adjudicators, all of whom remain anonymous, are duty-bound by their professional codes and are paid fixed fees regardless of appeal outcomes. It is also true that individuals retain the option of appealing a PCN through other means, such as in court, under consumer protection legislation. However, for the average citizen, and particularly for someone without time, resources or legal understanding, the impression of full independence created by the Independent Appeals Service’s name could easily be misleading. At a minimum, the current framework could contribute to a perception of bias and could foster a lack of public confidence.

These are precisely the issues that a Government private parking code of practice needs to address. I therefore look forward to the Minister setting out the progress that the Government are making in addressing the issues. I hope to hear about the progress to be made in how private parking is enforced, to ensure greater oversight, consistency and fairness.

12:12

[Dan Aldridge (Weston-super-Mare) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Efford. I congratulate the hon. Member for Newton Abbot (Martin Wrigley) and my hon. Friend the Member for Derby South (Baggy Shanker) on securing this important debate, and so many others on campaigning on this issue.

I speak on behalf of the people of Weston-super-Mare, Worle and the villages. Our proud coastal community has stunning beaches, three glorious piers and a tourism and hospitality sector that plays an essential role in our local economy, but parking is a growing problem that is echoed across communities up and down the country. Far too often, the cost and availability of parking acts as a barrier, deterring visitors, frustrating local businesses and making it harder for residents to enjoy the very places that they call home. The issue has been hugely compounded by unscrupulous private parking companies, especially in recent years.

In Weston, we want both locals and tourists to come and enjoy our seafront and our high streets. We want them to visit our small businesses, our events and our attractions, but when a family find that parking for a day at the beach can cost as much as their fish and chips, they think twice. They might not come at all. The prospect—so often reinforced by these unscrupulous companies—of unfair and unclear fines further exacerbates the issue. We need to dramatically rethink our approach to parking regulation in coastal areas. That goes further than having a code of practice for private regulators; it is a wholesale issue about how we reinvigorate our town centres generally.

We must see cheaper and more flexible parking options, particularly during peak season, when towns such as Weston thrive on day visitors. Those might include capped daily rates, off-peak discounts, or partnerships with local businesses to validate parking. Too often, we have seen a “computer says no” attitude when such initiatives have been suggested, and far too often we are told, “We’ve outsourced this to private companies rather than innovating in-house.” Governments can make local decision makers shift their thinking on the subject.

Accessibility is also key. We have heard a lot about people with disabilities, older people, and those with Parkinson’s, such as my mum, who has been stung by parking charges simply because she cannot access the app or she does not do things quickly enough. Often, those are the people most at risk of extortionate fines, which are so out of proportion with the perceived error. It is not just about convenience; it is about fairness.

[Lola McEvoy]

In Darlington, there are car parks with no signal, so people have to go outside to download the app, log into it and then pay for their parking, by which point they have often incurred a charge. Does my hon. Friend agree that in our code, we should include the provision of multiple payment methods in every car park?

[Dan Aldridge]

Absolutely, and this goes to the heart of a lot of what we have talked about in this place in respect of the shift to a digital-first world. In many ways, that is great, but it excludes so many people. We need to continue to have other options, including cash payment, available for people who need them.

Coastal towns face unique economic challenges. Hospitality and tourism are two of the few industries that we rely on in Weston. If visitors are put off before they even step out of the car, or are punished by opportunistic private parking companies, we all lose out—local people, shops, cafés and attractions alike.

Let us be clear: better parking regulation is not about free-for-all parking; it is about sensible, locally driven policies that work for both residents and visitors. It is about supporting coastal regeneration by making it easier, not harder, for people to spend their time and money in our towns. Let us make it easier for people to get to our town centres, and for our communities to thrive.

12:17

[Steve Yemm (Mansfield) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Efford. As MPs, we all have a massive volume of casework that is generated from constituents who have come to us with concerns about parking charge notices. My constituency of Mansfield is no different. There is a real sense of anger among local people.

Common complaints that I have come across include problems with parking payment apps, payment machines that are out of order or not functioning properly, difficulties speaking to a real person to query a PCN, and, in particular, PCNs that have been issued wrongly because automatic number plate recognition systems have malfunctioned yet it is possible to prove payment. I have also dealt with many cases in which someone has purchased a ticket but has simply incorrectly entered a digit from their registration number into a tiny payment machine keypad. Many constituents, particularly those with visual impairment or those who are older, have come to me about that.

One company in particular, which manages the St Peter’s retail park car park in Mansfield, has been the subject of hundreds of complaints to my office. I have since met representatives of the company in Parliament, and I am pleased that they have agreed to make numerous improvements, including installing new payment machines, and to refund a large number of PCNs.

However, I still have many reservations about the conduct of car parking companies in my constituency. From my observations, it appears that many companies are intent on generating as many PCNs and as much income as possible, and putting up as many barriers to appealing as possible—for example, not having staffed telephone lines, or insisting that appeals must be made in a very specific manner. Charge income is increasing at a record rate, while the number of vehicles on British roads is increasing only minimally. Clearly, something is going wrong. We seriously need to consider why that is the case and look at the regulatory framework under which parking companies operate. Many operators have told me that they are British Parking Association approved and they adhere to the code of conduct and practice, but that is a voluntary code created by the car parking industry, as the British Parking Association is a membership organisation funded solely by the car parking companies themselves.

It seems to me that these companies act as judge and jury in the regulation of their industry, and I think enough is enough. My constituents in Mansfield demand that we in this House scrutinise these companies and decide whether further action is needed. I therefore urge the Government to look into the matter and to consider statutory regulation as a priority.

12:20

[Anna Dixon (Shipley) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Efford. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Derby South (Baggy Shanker), the hon. Member for Newton Abbot (Martin Wrigley) and other colleagues for securing this important debate, and I thank all Members who have made contributions illustrating something that is a scandal across the whole country.

I want to highlight how my constituents in Shipley are being ripped off with a number of cases that are impacting both residents and shoppers. I spoke to a constituent who lives at Victoria Mills, a beautiful residential development in the heart of Saltaire. He has been trying to register his vehicle with the company that operates the residents’ car park, BaySentry. It has him down as owning two cars and two spaces, neither of which has the correct registration details, so every time he enters or exits his car park—sometimes two or three times a day—he is issued with a fine. The website is extremely difficult and confusing to use. Although he has been contacting the company, which keeps saying it will respond in three days, he has still had no response. Having clocked up several thousands of pounds in fines owed, he has decided to move out. He knows that other residents threatened with the same sort of penalty notices have paid up because they are too scared, as we have heard today.

Another constituent overstayed slightly at a supermarket car park, but saw that the signage was extremely poor and submitted evidence to that effect. She went down the route of appeal using POPLA—Parking on Private Land Appeals. That pretends to look like an independent appeals process, but, as we know, these are not independent processes; they are paid for by the parking companies. She has got into dispute with POPLA, which is not progressing her appeal. This is really undermining people’s confidence in parking.

The third case study is that of Susan, who has a happier story. She was shopping at the new Lidl store—she was there 30 minutes before opening time to use the browsing time before the store opened on a Sunday—and she received a fine from Parkingeye. She paid the fine and went to appeal, but got no joy from the company. It turned out that Parkingeye was not up to date with the store opening times, and it should never have fined her as she was not there out of hours. Thanks to my intervention on her behalf, we got a small victory: the cameras were updated and she got her money back.

It should not require the intervention of MPs with these private companies to stop this rip-off Britain. It seems like the companies have a blank cheque and are exploiting law-abiding residents of my constituency and people around the country. I hope the Minister will respond positively to my call and that of colleagues for properly independent regulation and clarity for consumers, and a legally binding code of practice.

[Clive Efford (in the Chair)]

We now come to the Front-Bench speeches, which I would like to finish by 12.58 pm so that the mover of the motion has the opportunity to sum up the debate.

12:23

[Mr Paul Kohler (Wimbledon) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Efford. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Newton Abbot (Martin Wrigley) and the hon. Member for Derby South (Baggy Shanker) for securing the debate. I know from my personal experience and that of my constituents that private parking can often feel like the wild west. Extortionate fees, poor signage, outrageous fines and an often opaque and unjust appeals process are too often the norm. As one can see from the attendance at the debate, it is a real issue across the country—although oddly not in many Conservative constituencies, it seems. In the words of the AA, private parking operators often act as “shark-like businesses”. I consequently welcome today’s debate and the opportunity it affords to shine a light on this issue.

Some of the stories we have heard are appalling. The time has come to stop wringing our hands and do something about the issue. That is why the Liberal Democrats are calling for the introduction of an independent parking regulator with appropriate power to regulate fees, enforcement and appeals. It is vital that national standards are introduced to protect motorists and ensure transparency across the system.

[Mr Tom Morrison (Cheadle) (LD)]

Trust in parking companies is so low that more and more motorists are moving to on-street parking, including in Heald Green, where nuisance parking outside high-footfall businesses has caused much concern among local residents. Does my hon. Friend agree that more needs to be done to encourage holistic parking strategies, to ensure that motorists and residents get a fairer deal?

[Mr Kohler]

I completely agree. We need a parking system that works. We are not against parking; we are against abuse of the parking system.

It is beyond doubt that the status quo is allowing private companies to act with impunity, preying on the millions of motorists in this country who rely on private car parks to go about their everyday life. As we heard from my hon. Friends the Members for Newton Abbot, for Bath (Wera Hobhouse) and for West Dorest (Edward Morello), and the hon. Members for Darlington (Lola McEvoy), for Strangford (Jim Shannon) and for Derby North (Catherine Atkinson), as well as many others, many of these companies use underhand tactics to increase the fines charged and county court judgments issued. It is simply not acceptable. As the hon. Member for Shipley (Anna Dixon) said, it is rip-off Britain.

As the hon. Member for Derbyshire Dales (John Whitby) noted, the RAC has said that private parking operators are on track this year to hand out a record 14.5 million fines, each costing the recipient up to £100, and potentially more if they dispute or delay payment. Many fines are not for genuine infringements; they are simply devices to raise money, with little to no scrutiny by the Government. As the hon. Members for Derby North, for Derby South and for Shipley noted, some of our constituents face fines that soon escalate to many thousands of pounds. It is truly shocking. Such situations simply should not be allowed to happen.

The Government must urgently stamp down on the abuse of the parking ticket system. In addition to the establishment of a fully resourced and empowered regulator, a clear national code of practice must be reintroduced to promote transparency. Will the Minister confirm when the code of practice will be reissued? We also need a robust independent appeals body, as the industry’s own processes clearly are not working. As the hon. Members for Derby South, for Sheffield Central (Abtisam Mohamed) and for Glasgow North (Martin Rhodes) said, many motorists simply do not bother to appeal, as the process is so difficult and time-consuming.

[Lola McEvoy]

On the appeals process, constituents across the country are attending court to find that their hearing has been cancelled by the company at the last minute. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that that is a waste of their time and a waste of the court’s time?

[Mr Kohler]

I do. These companies use tactics simply to increase their profits and our frustration, and to make people impotent in the face of their abuses.

Even when individuals take the trouble to appeal, the process is opaque and impossible to navigate, as the hon. Member for Mansfield (Steve Yemm) so eloquently noted. I have experienced that myself. When one of my constituents got in touch about an incorrect parking penalty notice from Britannia Parking, it was well-nigh impossible to find the contact details of the company, while the links it provided to appeal did not work.

The Liberal Democrats stand for fairness and accountability in the private parking system. Although we welcome the Government’s promise to introduce a code of practice, as always the devil will be in the detail. We must scrutinise the new code when it materialises, to ensure that motorists are properly protected from rogue parking firms. We remain of the view that the Government should go further and introduce a regulator with appropriate powers to enforce the code of practice and put an end to the abuse.

12:29

[Lewis Cocking (Broxbourne) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Efford. I thank the hon. Members for Newton Abbot (Martin Wrigley) and for Derby South (Baggy Shanker) for securing this important debate. As we have heard from across the Chamber, there are many examples of rogue parking companies. Before I begin, I will just note that this is my first opportunity to reply to a debate on behalf of His Majesty’s loyal Opposition—not bad for a boy from Broxbourne—so please go easy on me.

Luckily, both I and my constituents have plenty of experience of dealing with parking problems—as do many Members across the Chamber, as we have heard, with passionate contributions from Members on both sides of the Chamber, including the right hon. Member—sorry, the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon); he should be a right hon. Member. It would not be a debate in this Chamber without him in attendance. I noted down many comments from Members across the Chamber, but I will not go through them; I will just say that I heard nothing that I disagreed with about these cowboy parking companies. I think everyone has agreed with everything that everyone else has said and that action needs to be taken on rogue parking companies.

Parking is a crucial part of everyday life, but too often it is overlooked because it is not a glamorous political issue. When parking is too hard to find, too expensive or just too complicated, it can have a ripple effect on the local economy and the basic quality of life of all our constituents. I would like to make a number of practical points to the Minister and I look forward to the Government taking constructive steps to make things easier and better as soon as possible.

Although Labour’s manifesto failed to mention parking—its priorities clearly lying elsewhere—the Conservatives pledged to roll out the national parking platform fully, ending the ludicrous situation of someone needing one app on their phone to park in one car park, another app to park in the car park down the road and so on. A single payment system would make paying easier, especially for older people. The Under-Secretary of State for Transport, the hon. Member for Nottingham South (Lilian Greenwood), said in February that options were being explored with the parking industry to deliver that platform, so let me ask today’s Minister: how are those discussions going, and when will we see action on that matter? Can he confirm whether the funding for the pilot version of the national parking platform ceased on 31 March?

While making parking easier for drivers, there is a balance to be struck between making simpler regulations and protecting pedestrians and local residents. At the last election, we promised to give councils the power to ban pavement parking if they so wish, provided that they engage with businesses and residents first to ensure that they are not adversely affected. It is incredibly frustrating for pedestrians to find their path blocked by inconsiderate cars; for those with disabilities or young children in prams, it can mean the choice between a dangerous detour and not continuing their journey at all. My sister has used a wheelchair to get around Hoddesdon and sadly has been forced into busy roads too many times.

At its most serious, inconsiderate parking can be a matter of life and death. I am sad to say that in my Broxbourne constituency there was a case in which an ambulance was unable to reach a person experiencing a 999 medical emergency, with paramedics having to run down the road because cars were parked too closely on both sides of it. In my previous role as the local county councillor, I was able to respond immediately by putting in place practical double yellow lines to ensure that that could never happen again, while ensuring that parking was still available.

[Alice Macdonald]

I totally agree with the hon. Member on the challenge of pavement parking, particularly around the times of the school run. There was a consultation on the issue in 2020, and I hope the Minister will be responding to it. May I ask why the Conservative Government did not respond to the consultation and take action on some of these areas?

[Lewis Cocking]

We did try to implement some of the recommendations from the consultation; the courts and the private companies that threatened legal action were the reason why we could not do that. I hope this Government will answer those questions and reply to that consultation, as the hon. Member rightly says; I would not go near a primary or secondary school in my constituency during school pick-up and drop-off time. Sadly, it is often parents taking their children to school who are parking dangerously, and that affects other children going to the same school. We must do something about that.

I firmly believe that councils and councillors, who understand their local areas, should have the power to tackle inconsiderate parking. The Minister speaks about devolving more responsibility to local authorities. Will that include the power for local authorities, if they so wish, to ban pavement parking?

When it comes to parking, local people also need a say from a planning perspective. In my constituency, a new development has been proposed with just 17 spare spaces for 80 flats. If only half those flats contain two people—a couple who both drive—spaces will run out very quickly indeed, forcing more cars on to already full neighbouring roads.

[Baggy Shanker]

Although the shadow Minister raises some really important issues around school parking and parking on pavements, does he recognise that this debate is focused on the operations of private parking companies, which are ripping off so many of our residents, and that we should not dilute that message?

[Lewis Cocking]

I politely say to the hon. Gentleman that if he will wait, I am coming on to that point in my speech. There are a range of parking issues that all affect this situation.

The issues around planning and getting the right number of parking spaces are already evident in Marsh Close in my constituency. Constituents there have written to me to share their frustrations about struggling to find space to park close to their home—why? Because not enough cars were catered for when the development was built. The Government’s new national planning policy framework expects parking to be integral to the design of new housing schemes. That is vital and should be applied in every new development. Almost every development I see needs more parking spaces, so the Government must prioritise it.

Constituents have also been in contact to tell me stories of dreadful treatment by the handful of rogue parking companies, as we have heard from Members from across the Chamber today. Outrageously, Parkingeye has repeatedly sent threatening letters to one of my constituents, demanding money, without even providing an explanation of why they had received the fine in the first place.

Across the country, 14.5 million parking tickets will be issued to drivers this year. Too often, parking firms deliberately work to fleece motorists for as much money as they can, with misleading and confusing signage, aggressive debt collection and unreasonable fees. That must stop. The Government must get a grip on these cowboy operators, stop this war on motorists and deal with the other parking issues that our constituents are always contacting us about.

12:36

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government (Alex Norris)]

It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Mr Efford.

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Derby South (Baggy Shanker) and the hon. Member for Newton Abbot (Martin Wrigley) for securing this important debate and for the spirit and intent with which they both spoke. I also thank the Backbench Business Committee for granting the debate.

I must say that I am generally not one for diary policing colleagues, and I always say to constituents that the number of people attending a debate does not always reflect the amount of feeling that exists about an issue. However, it is clear that both my hon. Friend and the hon. Gentleman have tapped into a real issue, and the range of colleagues present, of different political persuasions and from around the country, shows that. Something my hon. Friend the Member for Darlington (Lola McEvoy) said particularly stuck with me: I think that all colleagues have experienced, as I have myself, being contacted by frustrated, angry and upset constituents—good people, who go about their days doing the right thing, but end up battling a system that is not only seemingly unresponsive to their challenges, but is actually set up to challenge them and indeed to trip them up.

My hon. Friend the Member for Derby South and the hon. Member for Newton Abbot spoke about the strength of feeling that exists about this issue, but they provided a purposeful and solution-focused approach to lead the debate, which has stood us in good stead. In the contributions that colleagues have made, they have clearly set out the “rap sheet” and the frustrations of their constituents, and I will respond to those points shortly. I hope that their constituents, and indeed constituents from around the country, can hear their voices in this debate; they have been very present.

I have a little more time in which to speak than colleagues did, so I will start by saying, as they perhaps would not have had time to do, that there is an intrinsic importance and value in private parking. Parking is important for our motorists and, as some colleagues alluded to, it is also important for the resilience of towns, cities and communities across the country. People want and need—and must be able—to use their cars to do their shopping, attend medical appointments, go to work and take their children to the activities they need to go to.

As the hon. Member for West Dorset (Edward Morello) said, in many areas across the country, people are totally dependent on their cars and rely on the consistent and available provision of good-quality car parks. All our communities in our towns and our cities rely on having a mix of transport options, of which privately managed car parks are an essential element. That is how important and fundamental car parks are.

If we individualise some of the challenges that exist, such as a number being keyed wrongly here or an overstay by two minutes there, parking might be seen as a granular challenge, but actually it is a hugely significant issue for the vitality of our communities. Like other colleagues, I have heard from those who represent the private parking industry, who say that 99% of the time there is a quality interaction, but we have heard stories in this debate that show that is too often not the case—and too often for seemingly avoidable reasons.

I am grateful to hon. Members for setting out their cases. I am also grateful to those colleagues who highlighted that the issue is on the rise. We heard about the scale of it: as colleagues said, between 2012 and 2022 there was a near 500% increase in DVLA vehicle keeper data requests. Something must be done. As other colleagues said, a parking charge will be issued every two seconds during this debate. The system must be fair, and it must ensure that motorists can park without fear of an unfair charge.

I will speak a little about what we intend to do as a Government shortly, but colleagues have set out an important road map—if hon. Members will excuse a totally unintended pun—for different improvements that could be made to the system. First, the hon. Member for Bath (Wera Hobhouse) and my hon. Friend the Member for Southport (Patrick Hurley) mentioned the clarity of the rules. My hon. Friend raised an important point about his assessment of his own capacity to comply or otherwise with rules. By instinct, I want to follow the rules to their fullest—I definitely do not want to get fined—but they can be difficult and unclear, and they ought not to be. They ought to be something that anybody can comprehend and follow.

Similarly, my hon. Friends the Members for Derby South and for Shipley (Anna Dixon) talked about the importance of signage. It is important that that is not seen as a hurdle to clear—an invisible hurdle, something that people could have known if only they were 15 feet taller. There has to be fairness in ensuring that people know how to follow the rules.

The systems themselves also have to work, as my hon. Friends the Members for Derbyshire Dales (John Whitby) and for Mansfield (Steve Yemm) said. Kimberley, in my constituency, is in a dip, so it is often very hard to use the app because there is no connectivity. The systems have to be ones that people can access and use.

My hon. Friend the Member for Weston-super-Mare (Dan Aldridge) talked about proportionate responses, so that, if people do not follow the rules, the penalties are fair and relate to the transgression. He also made important points about what parking can do in a tourism context. Like him, the last thing I would want is for someone to come to my constituency—perhaps to enjoy Nottingham’s fabulous night-time economy—and for the one thing they remember to be, “Oh, but I got a parking ticket, didn’t I?”. Those things stick, so the system has to be fair and transparent; if it is not, there is a knock-on impact.

My hon. Friends the Members for Norwich North (Alice Macdonald) and for Glasgow North (Martin Rhodes) talked about an appeal system. This is fundamental. People must be able to exercise their right to a fair hearing. People must also have confidence in the appeal system. Otherwise, they will not use it, and the virtuous feedback loop that is created when the appeal system demonstrates to operators areas where there might be challenges—why are they getting a lot of appeals on a specific car park? Is there a signage or technology issue?—gets lost.

My hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield Central (Abtisam Mohamed) mentioned access to the DVLA database. The database is accessible where there is reasonable cause, which underpins the system. I say to her and other colleagues who expressed concerns that there can be consequences for operators who misuse the system.

The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) talked about Northern Ireland. This is a devolved matter, but I reiterate a commitment I have given to him in relation to a number of other issues, which he very kindly mentioned: I talk to my counterparts in the Northern Ireland Executive frequently about a variety of issues, and I am always keen that we learn from each other. There are sometimes good reasons for doing things differently, but we must not create a lack of clarity by doing wildly different things. It is always interesting to hear what they are doing, and I am always keen to borrow the best of what is going on across the UK.

Like a number of other colleagues, the hon. Gentleman also mentioned a local example from his constituency of the importance of political pressure in getting the right thing to happen. I think particularly of the five-minute cap issue raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Derby North (Catherine Atkinson) and the constituent who was fined £2,000. Similarly, my hon. Friend the Member for Darlington mentioned the significant fine—a matter of public record—given to one of her constituents. Reading ahead to where I am going here, colleagues will know that pressure by hon. Members meant that that system was changed under the voluntary code of practice. That is a good thing, but that is not how a system ought to work.

Similarly, in my community we had a number of complaints about the same car park. A member of staff from my office went and saw that one of the cameras had been knocked, so they were getting duff data. We were able to get that changed. That may have to happen sometimes, but that is not a system that is working. It should not rely on politicians intervening in individual cases to change policy. We can and will do much better.

I want to reiterate—or iterate and then reiterate, perhaps—to colleagues our commitment as a Government on this issue. I hope colleagues have seen my strength of feeling on this issue. We are committed to taking action to protect motorists and drive up standards in the private parking industry. We have a helpful bit of support from previous Parliaments in that. I think that, other than the hon. Member for Strangford, only you and I, Mr Efford, will remember the Parking (Code of Practice) Act 2019, which started as a private Member’s Bill tabled by Greg Knight. That was a good use of the private Member’s Bill process.

The 2019 Act places a duty on the Government to prepare a code of practice containing guidance about the operation and management of private parking facilities. However, doing so was an exercise that confuddled four previous Prime Ministers and five Secretaries of State—one of them twice—not to mention goodness knows how many Ministers. The process was too slow and too chaotic. As the Opposition spokesperson, the hon. Member for Broxbourne (Lewis Cocking), said, the Government tried in 2022 but then had to withdraw the code of practice. I give the clear commitment from this Dispatch Box that as a Government we will deliver.

[Sarah Green (Chesham and Amersham) (LD)]

What timeframe is the Department working to? I am not the only Member present who has asked that question, and it would be helpful to get confirmation from the Minister.

[Alex Norris]

I suspect that my reply to the hon. Lady will be the same as I have set out previously to a number of Members, either via written question or in correspondence. The timeframe is coming in due course. I will talk a little more about that, because we are having an important debate. We want to get this right, and I am aware of the potted and challenging history in this space. We want to get it right this time, and we are committed to delivering a code that recognises the importance of this issue to motorists and gets it right for them.

The Department meets regularly with the AA, the RAC and other consumer groups, which have done such important work in this area, to ensure that the code we publish will act in the best interests of motorists and addresses their concerns. As would be expected, we have talked to the accredited trade associations—the British Parking Association and the Internation Parking Community—to ensure that we do not inadvertently make life harder for motorists along the way. I assure Members that we will engage with the issues that have been raised with the Department as we work towards publishing the code.

[Joe Morris (Hexham) (Lab)]

We have talked about the impact of parking practices on particular towns, and I am concerned about some of the towns in the Tyne valley, where a lot of effort is being made to preserve the local environment and clean air, and to drive down car use and promote the use of public transport. Northern Rail has just brought in paid parking at Stocksfield train station, which has dramatically impacted the local community and caused a lot of concerns about future on-street parking in residential areas. It would be good to know that the Government are considering those kinds of moves from train companies, which will ultimately have a damaging effect on local communities.

[Alex Norris]

My hon. Friend’s intervention shows that there needs to be, at the heart of this Government’s work, stronger local say about the full transport balance. The goals that he talks about are those of many of his constituents, who are the experts in ensuring the right balance. Whether that is in regard to bus services or planning, as raised by the shadow Minister, we want to ensure that the tools are in the hands of local communities, so that they can lean in and plan at a community level the amenities and assets that they need collectively.

[Lewis Cocking]

Will the Minister assure us that he will go back and look at the national planning policy framework, to ensure that local development plans include enough spaces? I regularly visit developments in my constituency, and every one needs more parking.

[Alex Norris]

I am slightly loath to start a speech on the national planning policy framework—not least because I think you will smite me down, Mr Efford—but I have heard the hon. Gentleman’s points. We have of course consulted on the NPPF, and have published our changes as a result of the consultation.

On the code of practice, our goal is to find a proper balance to ensure that parking charges and debt recovery fees are fair and proportionate, while providing an effective deterrent against the small number of people who deliberately do not comply. We intend to publish a consultation shortly—and I do mean shortly—to outline where the Government are and give everybody a chance to share their views. I encourage colleagues from across the House to take part—as always, I am available to meet any and all to hear their views—but I cannot say strongly enough that it is coming shortly.

[Martin Wrigley]

I hear stories of places like Cornwall council being so strapped for money that they are considering sub-letting all their parking spaces to independent private parking companies, which will run them for nothing other than the fines they will take from tourists visiting Cornwall and residents. Does the Minister agree that this issue is urgent? I do not hear urgency in his timescales. I repeat the request for a specific timescale for introducing a code of conduct.

[Alex Norris]

I appreciate that this is an urgent issue—that was a feature of all Members’ contributions. I ask the hon. Gentleman to bear with me when I say “shortly”. At the risk of getting into a debate about what is short and what is urgent, all I can say is that we want to get on with this at the best pace we can. We want it to work, deliver and hold up. Last time, in 2022, it did not survive its first contact with reality. We will publish the code shortly, but I ask for a bit of trust that I am getting on with it at the fastest possible pace.

This has been a valuable debate, and I am grateful for the challenges that colleagues set out. I have heard them clearly and they will form part of my considerations as Minister. I hope that the constituents who have had their voices brought into the room feel that they have been represented. I hope those who think, “Well, this happened to me too, and boy am I frustrated about it,” appreciate that change is coming. I very much look forward to delivering that change.

[Clive Efford (in the Chair)]

I call Baggy Shanker to sum up for a couple of minutes. That is not an invitation for a seven-minute speech.

12:52

[Baggy Shanker]

I thank all Members from both sides of the House who took part in the debate. As enlightening as their contributions were, it was really unfortunate to hear so many stories of residents across the country who have been subject to fines and such poor tactics and behaviours from private car parking operators. That needs to stop.

I am grateful for the Minister’s response. He recognised the issues and challenges, and committed to take action. He said he will take a bit of time to ensure we get the regulation right, because it has to be sustainable once it is implemented. I welcome his commitment to start a consultation process shortly. Enough is enough, and we need to protect our residents from rip-off fines. As I said earlier, over the length of this debate about 3,000 more fines have been issued.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered parking regulation.

12:53

Sitting suspended.

Energy Resilience

Tuesday 6th May 2025 Westminster Hall

13:00

[Tom Collins (Worcester) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered energy resilience.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Efford. I submitted this motion before the power failures at Heathrow and the Iberian peninsula, before the latest run of cyber-attacks, and before international conditions led us to increase our spending on defence. A more volatile and uncertain future is changing the question that we expect our energy system to answer but, as an engineer who spent years working on low-carbon energy technology, I know that the question changed before that.

The question changed when offshore wind became our cheapest source of electricity and when the payback period for photovoltaics dropped below just a handful of years. The question changed when the world woke up to renewables and we, an island nation with exceptional wind resource, favourable geology and a skilled energy sector, realised that we could become a clean energy superpower.

The prize is lower bills, increased security and the re-industrialisation of our economy, with all the jobs, innovation, trade and growth that come with it. To win that prize, our electricity system will need to double in capacity, accommodate dispersed, wild and unpredictable generation, and support varying demands that will become more mission-critical for our economy and everyday lives.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I commend the hon. Gentleman for bringing the debate forward. Whether we like it or not, we must be aware of and consider these important matters. The Climate Change Act (Northern Ireland) 2022 established that the Department for the Economy must ensure that at least 80% of electricity consumption is from renewable sources by 2030. Unless we can harness reliable tidal energy, we are dependent on conditions that cannot be predicted. That must be considered.

[Tom Collins]

Yes, diverse energy sources will be critical for future system resilience.

The Minister has clearly shown that the operational constraints for a robust electricity grid are known and in hand. The challenges of a future electricity system go far beyond those we face today. Three quarters of a century ago, when our energy systems were built in the shadow of world wars, resilience was front and centre, but the guiding star was efficiency, ensuring that energy taken from the ground was transferred with minimal loss. The defining challenge of tomorrow is to take energy that appears in places and at times determined by the weather, and deliver it in places and at times determined by the people who depend on it.

[Liam Conlon (Beckenham and Penge) (Lab)]

I was delighted that Bethlem Royal hospital in my constituency recently secured a £725,000 grant from the Government to install solar panels. Does my hon. Friend agree that when used in partnership with back-up generators for essential services, on-site renewable energy generation will protect organisations from rising costs and provide greater energy resilience for their non-essential services?

[Tom Collins]

I agree that with the correct technology, those systems can provide local resilience.

The fundamental change to the core role of the energy system has been from efficiency to storage. How we achieve that future system is already well debated. We start with energy efficiency and insulation, then we move on to shifting the time of demands, and we can enhance that with intraday storage in some buildings. The way we actively control and manage the response to demands and our storage is the big question for the future electricity system.

Currently, moment-by-moment control is achieved technically using the A/C power itself as a signal. Control over longer time bases is co-ordinated and partially directed through markets. In the future, we expect markets to play a bigger part in our electricity system, working in shorter timeframes and in a more distributed way. When we think about resilience, the design of our economic and commercial energy system and the digital systems that enact it will be absolutely critical. The commercial energy system will be as critical as the physical one.

Whereas markets may be good for some resilience attributes such as flexibility and diversity, they are often bad for others, such as redundancy, continuity and headroom. Also, our new digital communications channels offer potential single points of failure for our system. This is a fundamental question of national security. In the light of a string of cyber-attacks, it is crucial that when our digital world fails, our heating, lights, sanitation and vehicles must not. Either our grid must not depend on signals such as dynamic pricing to keep working, or those signals must be multiple-fault tolerant. With distributed generators playing a larger role in future, avoiding cascade failures requires them to support graceful degradation instead of disconnecting in the face of uncertainty.

This dynamic, digitally enabled future can introduce other risks, not only for resilience but for social equity. It must not penalise those who cannot afford battery storage, and each internal system boundary and each new pricing location threatens overall value. Alongside markets, our systems must incorporate core features that function primarily in the public interest. The system must be resilient against market-induced price instability and commercial failures, both for our security and for those markets to function healthily.

That all misses the single largest and most novel component of our future energy system: clean, long-duration energy storage at scale—storage, not just for seconds through inertia, not just for minutes through demand-side response, and not just for a day or night through in-building storage, but intraweek and longer to ride through long stagnant weather events or other major disruptions. Today, our energy resilience is assured by the incredible flexibility and capacity of fuels: oil in transport and off-grid heat, and methane gas for heat in buildings and industry. Those fuels intrinsically store energy indefinitely and carry vast amounts of energy through simple infrastructure, such as pipes and tanks. Our gas system currently carries three times as much energy each year, and up to four times as much in a day as our total electricity system. It shares its energy storage capability with the electricity system through gas power stations, our core electricity resilience assets. We have found our dependency on gas to be a weakness, but only because we depend on it for our system’s strength.

So, we face a crux. How might we win the energy resilience prize, benefiting from the clean versatility of electricity and the stabilising, security-critical storage capability of fuel? There is one answer that the UK has itself pioneered. There is a fuel that is carbon-free and 100% interoperable with electricity, and capable of being manufactured from electricity and cleanly converted back into it again at will: hydrogen. The Government, and others, have spotted the unique potential of hydrogen to fuel a clean and secure future for British industry. I would argue that they could go further, enabling industrial renewal in and around national clusters, but also in our towns and suburbs. As we seek to secure a material supply chain, the UK could deploy our immense wind resource and become a circular economy material recovery superpower of Europe.

Over recent years, however, the debate has become paralysed by an either/or question. Electrification and hydrogen have been presented in some sectors as mutually exclusive. Hydrogen has been presented as scarce and expensive. Policy has been asking whether the answer in various sectors is electrification or hydrogen, but the design answer is resounding and simple: it is both. These two energy vectors are complementary, with hydrogen power stations able to provide our grid with headroom, responsive generation and inertia, and hydrogen storage able to provide our national asset of inter-day and inter-week energy storage. Our future electricity system needs hydrogen, and at a vast scale. The truth of the matter is that hydrogen will be as cheap and abundant as we design it to be.

[Lloyd Hatton (South Dorset) (Lab)]

I thank my hon. Friend for securing this important debate. The Dorset clean energy super cluster, in my constituency, has proposals for fixed and floating offshore wind, carbon capture and storage, and hydrogen storage. Does my hon. Friend agree that having all that energy generation and storage in one place is a really effective way to boost Britain’s energy resilience, and to quickly boost our energy infrastructure and our ability to create, store and distribute energy here in Britain, rather than being dependent on energy coming in from overseas?

[Tom Collins]

I thoroughly agree with my hon. Friend. I am so glad that Members have identified how critical it is that we have a diversity of energy sources, that we have energy storage, that these are distributed around our system, and that we invest ambitiously now to bring them into reality.

Our energy system has always been multi-vector, and it must be in the future, too. By embracing this reality, we have an opportunity to design and choose how our electricity and gas systems are coupled: upstream through underground gas storage and power stations; mid-system with smaller distributed generators, including fuel cells; downstream in areas on constrained legs of the network; or perhaps even in homes through smart hybrid heating systems. We can deploy hydrogen production wherever it is most helpful: offshore, onshore, or at critical nodes in the transmission system. Pipe infrastructure is relatively low cost, high capacity and, being underground, intrinsically secure.

The size of our supply of green hydrogen is our choice. If we choose constrained supply, we choose constrained growth. If we choose ambition and abundance, that will also be worked out in our economy. It is time to move on from old ways of thinking. There is virtually no risk of stranded assets; investment in both electrical capacity and hydrogen production is zero regret. The call to action for both sectors is simple: go big. That is, and must remain, the message of the Government.

Now is the time to convert this ambition into concrete goals in the technical domain. Industry’s voice is clear: there is an urgent need for decision making. We must deliver our ambition not by iterative cycles of consultation, but rapidly through partnership. We need to short-circuit policy silos, get all the stakeholders in a room and thrash it out. We must be open to answers that back multiple technologies. Our problem is not that we need a silver bullet, but that we had one that was literally too good to be true. Moving on from fossil dependency means diversification.

Historically, we have always relied on multiple energy vectors in homes to provide energy resilience. That is still an option now. It means moving away from questions of either/or to answers of both/and. Those decisions are not easy, but they can be made. The end point is not crystal clear, but it is sufficiently in focus. Our industrial community has the knowledge and evidence we need, and the risks from here can be managed.

This is a moment for leadership and, fortunately, this Government have the will and the opportunity to deliver it. As corporate players scramble to shape this debate to create future opportunities, investors are seeking a clear statement of ambition and for the Government to get hands on, set goals and pick winners. Recognising that there will be more than one winner in a diverse and resilient future, we can show ambition now for electrification and a powerful UK hydrogen economy.

In the end, a resilient energy system is about putting people first and making power, warmth and movement dependable, affordable and accessible to all. Seventy-five years ago, the UK built energy systems with world-leading reliability and resilience. Now it is time to do it again, and to secure a new era of economic renewal, growth and security. With ordinary people as our guiding star, through ambition, pragmatism and practical collaboration, we can deliver an energy that, for the next 75 years, through night and day, come rain or shine, dependably keeps every single person in our fantastic nation empowered.

13:13

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero (Michael Shanks)]

Thank you, Mr Efford, for chairing this debate. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Worcester (Tom Collins) for securing it and for all his experience in this area, which is of great value to me and the Government. It is an important topic. I will speak more broadly about the issue of energy resilience, and then come to some of the specific points that he raised. As I said in the House last week, maintaining this country’s energy resilience is a key priority for the Government. As my hon. Friend rightly pointed out, it goes hand in hand with us taking, as fast as possible, the opportunities from new technologies on our path to net zero.

In the context of the widespread power outages experienced across the Iberian peninsula last week, this debate is particularly timely. I praise my hon. Friend for his significant foresight in securing the debate many weeks before both of the incidents that he referred to; that is a real skill that we might come back to. I will repeat what I said in the House last week about all those who were affected. We clearly saw significant disruption in Spain and Portugal on our television screens here, but I was glad that power was restored remarkably quickly.

My thoughts are with all those who were affected, and with those who are now carrying out the work to investigate exactly what happened. A significant number of unfounded claims and speculations have been shared by Members of this House, and across social media, about the cause of the disruption. Clearly, given it was such a significant failure, it will take time for the Spanish network operator to carry out an investigation into its exact cause, and it is important that we wait for that statement before rushing to any kind of judgment.

Turning back to the UK, Great Britain has a highly resilient energy network, largely because of how diverse it is. In recent years, although we have seen high energy prices, our energy supply has remained reliable because we are supplied from more than one source, including the UK continental shelf, our long-term energy partners such as Norway, international markets for liquefied natural gas and interconnectors to the European continent. That means that we are not reliant on any one particular supplier for security of energy supplies, and we are confident that the system operators have the tools that they need to effectively balance supply and demand in a wide range of scenarios all year round. As my hon. Friend set out, storage is also an important flexibility tool in the GB system, allowing us to respond to short-term changes in supply and demand, especially during colder months.

To further protect consumers, Ofgem sets annual targets on customer interruptions and customer minutes lost, which means that companies themselves are directly incentivised to reduce the number of interruptions, no matter the cause. Of course, I work closely with the National Energy System Operator and Ofgem to ensure that resilience is built into our networks wherever possible.

The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), who is an ever-present voice in these debates, is no longer in his place, but I wanted to give my regular response to him: although I take the issues of energy in Northern Ireland very seriously, they are devolved to the Northern Ireland Executive and not my immediate responsibility. I think he probably knew that that was what I was going to say anyway.

My hon. Friend the Member for Worcester raised our journey to net zero and what we need to do to ensure resilience as the system decarbonises. We are obviously committed to maintaining current levels of resilience and reliability through collaborative work with industry, the regulator and other stakeholders, and there is a variety of ways in which we can do that.

Obviously, the most common cause of any disruption in our network, here in the UK, is storms and weather events. We have seen lessons learned from storms such as Storm Arwen, which led us to introduce a number of resilience measures. There is also the role of critical new technologies, such as hydrogen, which my hon. Friend raised throughout his speech and can be used in energy resilience. He is correct, of course, that we now have an opportunity to design a clean energy system, and that is why NESO is carrying out new functions that will shape resilience policies on our journey to clean power.

I will briefly talk about what we learn from incidents. Our system is remarkably resilient, but, of course, no system is immune from disruption entirely, so we must plan for all eventualities and learn from incidents when they happen. We do that through working closely with the energy industry to ensure that robust plans are in place. We learn from every incident, in strong partnership with others.

My hon. Friend rightly raised the dependencies in our energy system. The recent example from the Iberian peninsula really brought home just how much our lives are dependent on electricity in one form or another. The point about our telecoms and communications systems, which are so reliant on mains electricity now, is really important for us to consider in these resilience plans; we must make sure that we have back-ups in place. That complex interdependency was also demonstrated by the recent fire at the substation in Hayes, which resulted in the closure of Heathrow airport. Such incidents are incredibly rare, but they occasionally occur in a complex system with many thousands of assets, such as ours.

The Department for Energy Security and Net Zero continues to lead cross-Government work with the Cabinet Office to enhance the resilience of all critical sectors to major energy risks, such as those listed on the national risk register. Events in the Iberian peninsula last week, as well as those in Heathrow in March, highlight just how crucial electricity is to our wider system.

My hon. Friend the Member for Worcester was right to point out that, as we move to a clean power system, the question of storage will be key. That is why I was delighted the Government announced the funding to build the first long-duration energy storage assets in more than 40 years. We have worked to set out the cap and floor scheme so that major infrastructure projects can be delivered. We look forward to those projects coming forward in due course.

My hon. Friend highlighted the role of hydrogen. Although I am not directly responsible for hydrogen, I am as excited by the opportunities it presents as my colleagues in the Department are. It can play a key role in our mission to make the UK a clean energy superpower by delivering new clean energy industries. Although it can provide near-zero emission hydrogen, particularly green hydrogen, as my hon. Friend said, it is not yet available at scale, but there is a real opportunity. He made the point about trying to bring people together to recognise that this is a really exciting opportunity and moment. It is everything that the Government are about through our approach to delivering the clean power mission and unlocking the potential of these more nascent technologies to provide significant resource into the future. That is an important point to put on the record. We are very supportive of what hydrogen can do in our system in future.

This is a very important debate. The question of energy resilience is one that we will return to, quite rightly, because it is never a settled subject. The Government have credible plans in place that we test robustly at regular intervals to make sure that, in the unlikely event they are needed, they work as we intend. It is clearly important that we revisit them regularly to make sure they are as detailed as possible.

I reiterate the point that I made in the House of Commons last week: the UK has a secure and resilient energy supply. Our mission to make Britain a clean energy superpower is the best route to improve our energy security into the future. When we have experienced incidents that threaten our energy resilience, we have used those as opportunities to prepare better for future threats. Preparing for outages is an ongoing task that Government, industry and the regulator collaborate on. We are also taking this opportunity to build not just the clean power system that will deliver climate leadership, energy security and bring down bills in the long term, but the storage assets and everything necessary to make sure we can capture clean power and utilise it when we need it most.

Once again, I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Worcester not just for securing this timely debate and the points that he has made on storage and on hydrogen in particular, but for all the work that he is doing generally in Parliament on these really important issues. As we progress towards clean power by 2030 at pace, rapidly deploying new infrastructure, we will continue to work with all those in the energy sector to maintain the high levels of resilience and security that this country needs.

Question put and agreed to.

13:22

Sitting suspended.

Dedicated Schools Grant

Tuesday 6th May 2025 Westminster Hall

[Dawn Butler in the Chair]

16:30

[Cameron Thomas (Tewkesbury) (LD)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the Dedicated Schools Grant.

It is an honour to serve under your chairship, Ms Butler. I thank the f40 group for its assistance with this issue, as well as all those in attendance, including the Minister, whose presence is greatly appreciated. I bring this debate forward on behalf of the headteachers, teaching staff, support staff and young people across Gloucestershire and the other local authorities that are among the lowest-funded councils by the Department for Education across England.

In its 2024 manifesto, Labour pledged to

“transform our education system so that young people get the opportunities they deserve.”

There is a clear alignment between that and the Liberal Democrats’ commitment to increase per pupil funding above the rate of inflation every year. Our goal is to support all pupils and expand educational provision, not to shift resources away from more disadvantaged counties like Gloucestershire. Schools in my constituency are faced with increased pressure right now, owing to the inequitable dedicated schools grant, combined with the rising cost of special educational needs provision.

Consecutive Governments have failed our children. With short-term mindsets, they have not adequately resourced education through which our children could otherwise go on to boost every workplace across the country. Those Governments left our children to emerge into a country where every public service is crumbling, but in which they need a university degree to become a police officer. Brexit took away their access to Erasmus and left a bitterly divided society, which is still struggling to readjust following the covid-19 pandemic.

When Sir Kevan Collins recommended a £13.5 billion covid catch-up fund for our children, Boris Johnson’s Government fielded only one tenth of that figure, after thoughtlessly spending billions on botched contracts for personal protective equipment. Our children continue to suffer the consequences of that decision through a mental health crisis; an explosion in demand for special educational needs and disabilities provision; and almost a million young adults not in work, education or training. I entered politics because I believe in fairness. Whatever else we do in this place, I believe there are two routes through which we can improve the future of our country—political, including electoral reform; and education, education, education.

Within every child lies the potential for greatness—the potential to solve tomorrow what seems impossible today. Our children represent our hope for the future. They are yet unburdened by the decades of dogma, societal pressure and institutional inequity that weigh upon us, and dilute our own potential. In every aspect of our lives, we must strive to prepare the ground ahead of them, and leave them a better country and a better world than was passed to us.

Our teachers recognise that more clearly than any of us. They dedicate their careers to the fulfilment of our children’s potential, because there is no more rewarding pursuit than to help others to develop. No salary compares to being thanked in the street by those you have helped, and watching with pride as they go above and beyond what they imagined they could. Labour’s 2024 manifesto described teaching as a “hard-earned and hard-learned skill” and pledged to work to “raise its status.” I commend the observation that we are continuing to fail our teachers, and the commitment.

[Monica Harding (Esher and Walton) (LD)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that teachers and teaching assistants in schools were the first line of defence against cuts to public services from the last Conservative Government, and that, when the Department for Education is asking schools to make efficiencies alongside the extra funding they have received, that means that some TAs will lose their jobs? Last week, in my constituency of Esher and Walton, I walked into a school on a visit and the headteacher had just had to let two TAs go because his school is facing a deficit of £200,000.

[Cameron Thomas]

I wholeheartedly agree, and will come to that point shortly. I hope my hon. Friend will pass on my empathy to her headteacher.

Our teachers are no longer simply expected to educate our children according to the curriculum. Governments and society continue to expect more and more of our already overburdened teachers. Increasingly, four-year-olds are being introduced to school non-verbal, unable to use cutlery, and sometimes wearing nappies—but those are just the headlines. Discipline, time management, self and social awareness, self and mutual respect, moral courage, honesty, work ethic, public service and charity are soft skills and attributes that should be introduced in the home and honed within society as well as at school. This Government, with honest intentions towards our children’s healthcare, now have teachers cleaning their pupils’ teeth—just one additional straw upon the camel’s back. It is no wonder that teaching assistant posts are vacated or lie empty when people can earn more working in the local supermarket.

I understand that fixing the education system will be complex and expensive, and that action must also take place beyond the scope of the Department for Education, but something that can be addressed now is a more equitable allocation of funding. This would go a long way to remedying the situation for many schools in Gloucestershire and elsewhere. The dedicated schools grant is the mechanism through which the Department funds local authorities, which in turn allocate their resources to the schools within their jurisdiction.

[Steve Darling (Torbay) (LD)]

One school in my constituency has a £100,000 bill due to the national insurance hike, which is resulting in redundancies. Does my hon. Friend agree that the national insurance hike is exacerbating the inequity that many schools face in our local communities?

[Cameron Thomas]

I entirely agree. I have long spoken out against the short-sightedness of the national insurance hike, and I will come back to the short-termism that I think it important this Government escape.

The dedicated schools grant is allocated according to the national funding formula, which is outdated and puts schools such as mine in Gloucestershire under increased pressure. Mainstream schools in the lowest-funded local authority receive £5,000 less per pupil per year than they do in the highest-funded authority.

[Freddie van Mierlo (Henley and Thame) (LD)]

In Oxfordshire, we receive an area cost adjustment of just 2%—that is to take into account the difference in the cost of living in different parts of the country. In London boroughs, that adjustment reaches 18%. It simply does not match the cost of living in Oxfordshire, where house prices are comparable to those in London. Does my hon. Friend share my concern that this lack of funding is impacting the education of our children?

[Cameron Thomas]

As somebody who was—let us be generous—barely educated in Oxfordshire himself, I am very much aware of the issue.

My mainstream schools in Gloucestershire fall into the bottom 20% of DSG funding, earning £1,000 less per pupil than schools in the top 20. This means that Cleeve school, for example, with its 1,851 pupils, faces an approximate annual deficit of over £1.8 million compared with a similarly sized school in Middlesbrough.

[Edward Morello (West Dorset) (LD)]

I agree with all the points that my hon. Friend has made so far. This morning, I spoke to the headmaster of the Thomas Hardye school in Dorchester in my constituency. His previous job was at a London borough school in Croydon, where on average he received £10,000 per pupil; in West Dorset, that figure is £5,000. Does my hon. Friend agree that the Government’s funding formula for schools does not take into account the added costs of rurality and providing services in places like West Dorset and, no doubt, his own constituency?

[Cameron Thomas]

With such gravity, my hon. Friend says it better than I could ever hope to. The inequity is there for all to see, and it is interesting that one of his teachers has experienced both ends of that scale.

My four-year-old daughter and her friends will begin their primary school education in Gloucestershire in September. I want them to have, as the Labour manifesto put it, the opportunities they deserve. To me, that means the same opportunities as every other child—but by the time they finish their GCSEs under this inequitable system, the dedicated schools grant will have invested between £10,000 and £50,000 less in our children than in those elsewhere in the country.

The Government might point to an upward trend in the dedicated schools grant in Gloucestershire since 2021, but on the current trajectory, it will take 15 years to achieve equity. By then, my daughter and her friends will have long since left school. Unless the Government act now, their potential will have been diluted by the dedicated schools grant as is. By the time we achieve equity, according to trends based on the Government’s own statistics, the vast majority of those teaching today will have retired. My headteachers have told me that, for most schools, approximately 85% of their funding is ringfenced for staffing costs, but that rises to over 90% in some particularly desperate cases.

The level of teaching experience in our schools is diminishing because our headteachers are having to make their most experienced and highly paid teachers redundant, so that they can recruit less experienced teachers on lower wages just to balance the books.

[John Milne (Horsham) (LD)]

In West Sussex, the deficit on our DSG grant is £130 million, and that will potentially double by next year. Despite that, SEND provision, which is the main driver of that deficit, is deficient across the district. So many schools approach me on this subject. Does my hon. Friend agree that we need to not only find a way to wipe out the deficit but remove the fundamental cause, which is the ballooning cost of SEND provision?

[Cameron Thomas]

My hon. Friend makes eloquent points. Clearly, the SEND crisis is exacerbating the situation to a significant degree. What we look for from the Government is a long-term strategic plan to deal with this, rather than just pushing it down the line.

Since 2014, mainstream schools have been required to contribute the initial £6,000 of additional costs for SEND pupils from their own core budget. Owing to the inequity in the DSG, it is easy to see why that has a greater impact on those schools in lower-funded authorities. Resources have become so stretched many teaching assistants are available only to support pupils with the greatest SEND requirements. Underfunded primary and senior schools are taking drastic actions to balance the books. One primary school head I spoke with spends his holidays in school, completing the tasks of a caretaker he can no longer afford to employ. Across Gloucestershire there is nothing left to cut. Headteachers are overwhelmed and cannot afford to meet the cost of any pay rise that may arise from the Government’s negotiations with teaching unions. The impact of an unfunded pay rise, I have been told, would be ruinous.

I recognise that this Government inherited from the Conservative party an utterly broken country. That was a hospital pass but, almost a year down the line, my teachers remain on the frontline of a genuine crisis, to which they have been given no real answers. They do not have time for more politics as usual. They do not have another 15 years for this system to reach equity, nor do they need more short-termism. They need their Government to step up now with long-term solutions that do not simply pass the challenges down the line.

To support teachers and enable them to plan for the future, rather than simply stave off financial collapse, I ask the Government to review the national funding formula, and target funding to achieve near-term equity. Thank you, Ms Butler, for chairing this debate; I look forward to the contributions of others and the Minister’s response.

16:43

[Richard Foord (Honiton and Sidmouth) (LD)]

It is an honour to serve with you in the Chair, Ms Butler. Let me start with a simple fact: Devon is one of the worst-funded education authorities in the country. For 2024-25, Devon receives just £5,484 per pupil—about £200 less than the national average and about £1,500 less per pupil than in inner London. I have experienced the difference through the eyes of the teachers I have talked to in Devon who have taught in both inner London and rural Devon, and who described to me the difference the funding makes. For an average Devon primary school, it equates to losing the budget for one whole teacher.

Devon is an f40 authority—one of the 40 lowest-funded areas in England. The national funding formula was supposed to level the playing field, but it has left schools in areas like east and mid Devon struggling. Nowhere is the crisis more obvious than in special educational needs. Devon’s high needs block allocation for 2025-26 is £125 million, but the anticipated cost of supporting SEND children is £172 million. Up to now that funding gap has been filled by the so-called safety valve, but I understand that we might not have that safety-valve relief from 2026. If we compare Devon’s high needs allocation per pupil to that of a council such as Camden, we see a real disparity, as we do with Westminster, which receives £2,610 per pupil against Devon’s £1,245 per pupil. Devon is being asked to deliver special educational needs provision on half the budget.

Let me share the story of one affected family. Kathryn Radley lives in Uplyme in the area I represent, and her daughter Sophia is autistic. At one point Sophia was offered just six hours a week of online education, and her family had to borrow money to keep that minimal support going when the council did not fund it. The education, health and care plan that was issued for her was unworkable, did not name a school and was not supported by any deliverable provision. Sophia, who did not misbehave or disrupt her class, and who simply needed specialist support, was left isolated at home with anxiety, and with no place in the system.

Devon currently spends £55 million on SEND provision in the private sector, which is not properly audited or scrutinised. Meanwhile, state schools in the area I represent, such as in Honiton, Axminster and Sidmouth, are crying out for more resources to support special educational needs—more teaching assistants, specialist hubs and early intervention services—but they cannot get them because the per pupil funding is far less than it is elsewhere. We therefore see teachers who are overwhelmed, too few teaching assistants and staff who prioritise behavioural cases over inclusion, meaning that many children like the one I described simply cannot cope.

Devon needs urgent and fairer funding for its schools from the dedicated schools grant. We need to expand local SEND resource bases and give mainstream schools the tools they need to include every child. Indeed, the Department for Education should give Devon’s children the funding for education that they deserve.

16:48

[Joe Morris (Hexham) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Butler. I congratulate the hon. Member for Tewkesbury (Cameron Thomas) on securing this important debate.

For far too long, the state of rural and semi-rural schools has been forgotten, particularly in my part of Northumberland, where Northumberland county council, which is still run by the Conservatives, treats my part of the county with what I can only describe as tender contempt. The previous Government thought so little of my constituency that eight and a half years ago they built a school that is already deemed structurally unsafe. Students have had to be transported to another part of the north-east to continue their education. That is the context in which I situate my remarks.

Generations of rural students have been left behind. I thank the hon. Member for Tewkesbury for his circumspectness in his comments about the awful circumstances that the Government inherited. It is not possible to start any discussion of any policy without recognising that we received a generational hospital pass, as I think he put it.

Having grown up in a rural area, I know that there are foundational characteristics. I confess to not knowing too much about Gloucestershire, having not had the chance to go there much beyond, I think, one family funeral when I was about 10, but I am sure it is lovely. From what I can tell, Northumberland has a lot that is similar, including large distances to travel and restricted access to opportunities and services. I went back to my old high school recently to discuss some of the access to work schemes that staff there try to provide and some of the opportunities for younger people to get employment skills. The teachers are working every hour they get, but they are hamstrung by the lack of local bus routes and appropriate public transport, and the lack of employers with the capacity to take on apprentices or students who are in need of work experience.

For far too long during the 100 years my constituency had Conservative representation down here, the challenges were not given voice or addressed. That was the challenge, dare I say it, of being considered a safe Tory seat: people could vote for their MP but not get a voice as part of that. We need to do more to engender stronger ties between communities and schools, to ensure that those growing up in our communities do not have to search too far outside them to find the opportunities and jobs that they want to progress in life. Unfortunately, the reality for many students is that they do have to.

I will direct the remainder of my remarks to two particular schools. First, Haydon Bridge high school is an incredible school in a beautiful location—and I get to visit a lot of schools. Haydon Bridge is a wonderful town on the Tyne Valley railway line—although the railway could do with running on time a bit more—and it has a fantastic school with genuinely fantastic teachers. Unfortunately, when I visited I had to discuss the funding issues with the headteacher.

I would dearly like to see the new administration at Northumberland county hall put their hands in their pocket to do something about the state of the school, which has been underfunded for a long time. There has not been the political will, nous or leadership among the Conservative group in Morpeth to stand up for students in the west of Northumberland. The teachers at Haydon Bridge could not work any harder, nor put on more opportunities. They are always looking at how to make the school more attractive and at how they can drive employment and employability, but for far too long the voice of rural schools has been shut out of the national debate.

Prudhoe community high school was opened eight and a half years ago. It was built under a Conservative Secretary of State and Education Department, but it was closed due to cracks in the infrastructure. I have been working on that with the staff and the community in Prudhoe. It would be a struggle to find a more inspiring group of people, particularly the headteacher and the teaching staff there. They had to deal with cracks appearing in the structure just months before GCSEs and A-levels—an incredibly challenging situation—and did so to the best of their ability. Everyone accepts that the ultimate, best outcome would have been for the students to be able to go back into the school to receive their education on site, but that would not have been safe. People had to work incredibly hard to find an appropriate site that did not involve travel and enabled the students to continue their education safely.

I urge the Minister not just to look at the matters raised in this debate but to consider—as I know she has many times, because I have chased her down corridors about this—the circumstances of those at the community high school. I also put that point to the exam boards, because the students had a black swan event with their school being deemed unsafe so close to exam times. Some of the boards have said that it falls under the definition of a school with reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete, but I do not believe that—I want to put on the record. For far too long schools in my constituency in the west of Northumberland have been forgotten about and done down. It is beyond time that those responsible, particularly at county hall, stand up and take note.

[Dawn Butler (in the Chair)]

I remind Members that if they want to speak in the debate, they should please stand. We have calculated that Members will have about five minutes per speech.

16:53

[Claire Young (Thornbury and Yate) (LD)]

It is an honour to serve under your chairship, Ms Butler. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Tewkesbury (Cameron Thomas) for securing the debate.

Investing in education is investing in our future, so we need to get it right. The national funding formula creates huge discrepancies in how children are supported in different authorities. My local authority, South Gloucestershire, has long been at or near the bottom of the funding league table, and that lack of investment is having a real impact on children. Thornbury and Yate is largely rural, but most of the rest of South Gloucestershire is urban. Generally, with all sorts of Government funding, when taken as a whole, it has suffered through not being rural enough for rural support but not having the concentrations of deprivation seen in some urban areas. Even within my constituency there is huge variation in the demographics of school intakes.

I recently wrote to the Minister about the case of one primary school in my constituency that I visited. It provides a good example of the pressures caused by the unfairness in the existing funding system. Staff at the school told me that it has developed a reputation for being particularly supportive of children with SEND, and thus has an unusually high proportion of children who require extra support. On top of that, it is being asked to support increasingly high levels of medical needs, which its already overstretched staff are not trained to meet. It also has a high number of children with English as a second language, and a third of its pupils qualify for pupil premium funding.

In many ways, the school’s intake is comparable to a school the staff visited in London, yet that school gets much higher per pupil funding simply because of the local authority it is in. That shows in the services that the London school is able to provide, from having specialist art and music teachers to having two teachers per class. Our children in Thornbury and Yate deserve more than what the funding currently provides.

The disparity is undermining the work that our local schools do and leaving them worse off. We need a fairer national funding formula that supports disadvantaged and rural schools, not just those in more affluent and urban areas, and recognises the wide variation within local authority boundaries.

[Edward Morello]

I agree 100% with my hon. Friend’s point. I have no doubt that in her constituency, as in mine, there is a similar problem: when the Government talk about a fully funded pay increase, it is based on a school average. In many rural places, we do not have the average because we have smaller class sizes, or we have single, large schools that cover a large geographical area and a large number of pupils, which are heavily disadvantaged as a result.

[Claire Young]

I absolutely agree. It is a particular problem for small rural schools, which often have small class sizes because the schools are small overall.

We need action on funding for special educational needs and disabilities, as too many children are being left without the support they need. For years, schools in South Gloucestershire have had to ask the Government to allow them to take money from the schools block to supplement the high needs block. That reduces the funding available for early intervention which, as we know, is so important for better outcomes. It also makes the funding situation worse as more children need higher-cost interventions at a later stage. The high needs block must be protected and expanded to reflect the growing demand and rising complexity in children’s needs.

South Gloucestershire is one of the authorities with a safety valve agreement, which is intended to help councils to manage large deficits in their high needs budgets. It was signed pre-covid, with targets that are unachievable thanks to the impact of the pandemic. Next year, when the agreement ends, the council faces a cliff edge in funding. It, and other councils in that position, face impossible choices between balancing budgets and supporting vulnerable children.

Furthermore, in the case of South Gloucestershire, the previous Conservative Government failed to provide the requested £30 million of funding to provide an additional 200 special school placements locally. As well as being better for the children, that would have reduced costs. Earlier this year, I had a meeting with the Minister and South Gloucestershire’s council leadership in the hope that this Government would take a more sensible approach, but the focus seems to be on providing spaces in mainstream settings. We support that as a goal, with extra funding for early intervention to make it possible, while recognising that there are children who need support now and did not get that early intervention. We also need funding for them.

I ask the Minister to think again about what works now, because otherwise another generation of our children will miss out. Without a solution to the ending of the safety valve agreement, the whole system could collapse, leading to longer waits, reduced provision and more children out of school. We need sustainable, long-term funding for children with high needs, and an end to short-term financial firefighting.

16:58

[Sarah Dyke (Glastonbury and Somerton) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to speak in this important debate and to serve with you in the Chair, Ms Butler. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Tewkesbury (Cameron Thomas) on securing the debate and on his powerful speech. I alert Members to my position as one of the vice chairs of the f40 group, which represents 43 local authorities with historically low funding for education and campaigns for fairer funding for schools and SEND provision.

Somerset is one of those 43 councils. Its 2025-26 dedicated schools grant allocation is just £8,500 per student, while some councils get nearly £5,000 more than that per pupil. The launch in 2018 of the national funding formula for mainstream schools introduced a minimum per pupil funding level, which was designed to level up funding. However, that has continued to lock in historical funding elements, preventing some local authority areas from receiving more funding. The Liberal Democrats understand the need for regional variation to ensure that schools can operate successfully, but that should not come at the expense of schools elsewhere, which often struggle to make ends meet.

As other Members have stated, the DSG is made up of four blocks, one of which is the high needs block, which supports SEND provision for children in both mainstream and specialist schools. Somerset’s 2025-2026 allocation of high-needs block funding is £1,250 per student—more than £2,000 less than the highest-funded local authority. It has been stressed many times that the SEND system is broken; the variance and unequal DSG funding is a big reason for that. My inbox, like that of many other Members, is full of correspondence from parents who all desperately want the best education for their children, but are concerned and deeply upset that their children’s needs are not being met by their schools.

[Tom Gordon (Harrogate and Knaresborough) (LD)]

My area of Harrogate and Knaresborough is covered by North Yorkshire council, which is part of f40, which my hon. Friend mentioned. On high-needs funding, we are 146th out of 151. That is causing real challenges in that rural setting, with children sometimes having to travel for hours to get to school. Does my hon. Friend share my concerns about those low levels of funding, which are compounded by the cut to the rural services delivery grant that local authorities receive?

[Sarah Dyke]

I will touch on that. Delivering education in a huge rural county has so many pressures and complexities and my hon. Friend is absolutely right to bring that up.

Let me give a couple of examples of children who are suffering and whose educational needs are not being met in my constituency of Glastonbury and Somerton. One of them is Jensen from Ilchester. He is only seven years old, but has been experiencing severe mental health distress while awaiting a long overdue neurodevelopmental assessment. His mother told me that he has lost all enjoyment in life. He misses his education and his friends, and all the while he is being passed between services. Jensen is not alone in that situation.

Many other children in Glastonbury and Somerton face similar challenges: Charlie from Castle Cary, for example. He has an EHCP, but his school is simply not able to meet his needs. His mother said that he has been left for months without his educational needs, as specified in his EHCP, being met. As a result, his behaviour at school and his mental health are declining. The differential in DSG funding means that children like Jensen, Charlie and many others heartbreakingly cannot get the support that they deserve. Families are being left to suffer alone, fighting a system that is just not working for them.

We know that the system is broken. The Isos report released last year found that all actors within the system are behaving rationally—schools, councils and parents—but the system is just not up to scratch. The funding model needs to be reformed to make it more responsive to changes so that individual schools can receive funding based on need. I urge the Minister to consider reviewing the funding formulas for both schools and high needs.

The Liberal Democrats have a plan to invest in our education sector above the rate of inflation so that we can ensure that all schools have the capacity to operate sustainably. We must also give our local authorities the financial support that they need. The previous Conservative Government left schools to crumble and forced councils to do more with less, impacting our children’s education. The persistent budgetary strain does not allow local authorities to create long-term plans for children with SEND, so we would also set up a dedicated national body for SEND to act as a champion for children with complex needs and ensure that they receive tailored support.

Without major reforms and changes to funding, we will continue to see a landscape with uneven funding where children are badly let down and schools cannot provide the support that is needed. I urge the Minister to take action, invest in education, invest in our children and invest in our future.

17:04

[Gideon Amos (Taunton and Wellington) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Ms Butler. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Tewkesbury (Cameron Thomas) on bringing us all together for this important debate to highlight the inequity of the system that built up under the previous Conservative Government and became more and more entrenched over those years. I am only sorry that more Conservative Members did not come to pay attention to this issue today. It is a huge factor in the wellbeing of children in all our constituencies, up and down the country.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Glastonbury and Somerton (Sarah Dyke) has pointed out, Somerset is one of the f40 local authorities and therefore one of the worst funded local education authorities. A child educated here in Westminster receives £4,000 more funding as a pupil than a child in my Somerset constituency of Taunton and Wellington. At the same time, the demand for SEND in places like Somerset has risen enormously. There has been a 60% increase in placements between 2014-15 and 2023-24 and, as a result, provision in Somerset, as in a lot of other places, is frankly unacceptable. It is not good enough and it needs to change.

Historical special educational needs funding, and the pattern for the national funding formula, is part of the problem. Spending should be based purely on current local need and not on historical need, as the Institute for Fiscal Studies has pointed out in an important report. It says:

“The use of historical spending patterns as a factor in the 2018 high-needs NFF also helped to cement geographical inequalities in high-needs funding that had arisen over time”.

It goes on:

“The historical spend element determines 25% of the overall formula allocation and drives a large element of the variation in funding across areas. This bakes in…arbitrary differences in council funding that have arisen over time, and lead to large variability in funding per high-needs pupil across councils”.

On the high needs block part of the direct schools grant, it says:

“The present high-needs funding system was introduced in 2018, when numbers were mostly stable, and it incorporates many historical measures of need and spending that already drive substantial geographical differences in spending per pupil. It is ill-designed for the present context of rising need”.

The f40 organisation has said:

“More than 20% of high needs funding is based on a local authority’s historical SEND spending, which bears no resemblance to today’s funding landscape”.

As the Institute for Fiscal Studies has pointed out, the system urgently needs reform.

Part of the problem is the problem of local government funding generally. In Somerset, £2 out of every £3 of council tax goes on care, whether that is adult social care or care for children, including special educational needs funding. It is no wonder that the outgoing Conservative leader of Somerset county council described that as a “time bomb” that “is ticking”. It is unfortunately likely to go off and affect children and families across Somerset, who are suffering the consequences of the legacy that our councillors are now trying to deal with. As my hon. Friend the Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Tom Gordon) pointed out, the withdrawal of the rural services delivery grant has compounded the problems and challenges for authorities such as Somerset, which have a low property base value across the county compared with property values in other part of the country and have historically low income levels as a result.

The national funding formula therefore has to be improved. The f40 organisation—I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Glastonbury and Somerton on her work with f40—has said:

“Government is aware of the unfairness and has indicated that it wishes to level up, but it is a very slow process and, at the current rate, will take around 20 years for equitable funding to be established. That is a whole generation of children. Children should have the same opportunities and resources, regardless of where they live or go to school”.

I am sure Members across the House agree with that and I urge the Minister to make good on that promise to reform the system.

Three things in particular need to be done. First, we need greater support within schools for special educational needs children. That will reduce costs later; we all know early intervention matters for younger children and has the most effect. Secondly, we need more hubs locally providing specialist provision and to not rely on the private, unregistered schools sector for much of our special educational needs provision. That is highly costly and not serving pupils’ best interests because it means transporting them long distances. Thirdly, we need more investment, which comes back to reform of the national funding formula. Liberal Democrats particularly want to see reform of local government funding and social care funding, but also above-inflation increases in school funding and a dedicated national SEND authority. That is the kind of reform we need to see in this Parliament and I hope very much the Government will deliver it.

17:09

[Steff Aquarone (North Norfolk) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Butler. I refer Members to my entry in the register of interests as a serving Norfolk county councillor. Across all the areas that the DSG exists to support, Norfolk is struggling. Early years settings in North Norfolk are under mounting pressures from the national insurance hike, rising wages and spiralling costs.

For many providers, there is simply not enough money coming in to match what they need to survive. It is estimated that 80% of the income from early years settings now comes from Government-funded childcare. When that funding does not match what is needed, these settings get into deep trouble. In North Norfolk, we cannot afford to lose them. Without childcare for working-age parents in my rural constituency, families who have cherished the area for generations will be forced to move.

The risk of a demographic doom spiral is huge. If schools and nurseries close, working-age people will not be able to both work and have families. If working families cannot survive and thrive in rural North Norfolk, people will not have children. We are already seeing an alarming pattern of those with children not going there. If there are no children, there will be no working-age people of tomorrow. That goes for all children, of all ages, abilities and aptitudes. It is a worrying slippery slope for our area both economically and in supporting vital services such as adult social care.

Good, accessible and affordable childcare is a basis on which we can build our rural economy. That is why, as a candidate, I marched 10 miles in protest at the closure of childcare provision in Wells; we got it reopened thanks to the hard work of parents. It is also why, just last week, I protested the proposed closure of East Ruston nursery with worried local parents who depend on it. Early years provision is an often undervalued but vital part of our education system and I am fighting to protect it in North Norfolk.

Meanwhile, Norfolk’s SEND provision is in crisis. The current system is not helping schools, parents, teachers or the local authority. Demand is rapidly outstripping supply, and Norfolk country council was at the last count running a deficit in the high needs block approaching £60 million. That is completely unsustainable, and we have to change the way our system supports these children and young people to give them a far better experience and to set them up for the rest of their lives.

I recently met a mother and her son at one of my constituency surgeries. He was a very smart, engaging and insightful young man. I shared excellent conversations with him about videogame development and computing, and his talent and potential shone through. However, the system has failed him. He has been out of education for three years, and his mother is battling the tribunal system to try to get him access to formal education again. The toll it has taken on both of them is clear and completely unacceptable, and he is not alone in facing such circumstances.

It pains me to think about a lost generation of talented and passionate young people who could miss out on bright futures because of the crisis in SEND provision. Trust has broken down, and we have to do better. We need to enable and encourage more mainstream inclusion for those for whom that is possible, we need to review the tribunal system, which is putting unnecessary stress on families and often producing unworkable outcomes for local authorities, and we need to better support schools in getting the best out of those pupils by ensuring that criteria for their inspection incentivises high-quality inclusion and looks not just at a pupil’s performance on paper, but at their readiness to learn.

Norfolk’s families were failed for many years by the disastrous duo: a Conservative Government and a Conservative-led county council. They have got rid of that Government, and I have no doubt they would have gotten rid of the Conservatives on the council, too, if they had not had their election snatched away from them. I am proud to stand side by side with the parents and children who are demanding better for their futures. I will hold the Government and the county council to account to make sure that is delivered.

17:13

[Ian Sollom (St Neots and Mid Cambridgeshire) (LD)]

It is an honour to serve under your chairship, Ms Butler. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Tewkesbury (Cameron Thomas) for securing the debate and for his powerful speech. The individuals he mentioned, the school staff he represents, and the educators and local authorities across the country grappling with similar financial challenges will surely welcome his putting the spotlight on this pressing issue.

My hon. Friend is quite right that the pressures on all schools and, in turn, on the staff working in them—both the pressures of educating pupils with different and sometimes complex needs and the financial pressure of operating on budgets that simply do not stretch far enough at a time of high and rising costs all over the country—have increased significantly in recent years. I would be surprised if any MP had not had headteachers in their constituency tell them, as they have told me in St Neots and Mid Cambridgeshire, of the impossible choices that they face.

At the heart of this crisis lies a fundamental injustice: an outdated and deeply flawed mechanism for allocating the dedicated schools grant. The national funding formula, developed years ago and based mainly on the typical distribution of funding provided by local authorities at that time, and further ossified by funding protections, has created a postcode lottery that fails children and communities.

Let us be clear what that means in practice: similar schools in different parts of the country can receive dramatically different levels of support. That affects a wide range of children, including those who live in pockets of deprivation in parts of the country that are generally wealthier and so tend to receive lower dedicated schools grant funding. Although we know that there are other mechanisms to mitigate that, it ultimately means that a child with specific needs in one area can receive significantly less support than a child from a similar background and with the same needs in another area. That is not just administratively untidy; it is fundamentally wrong. For the organisation f40, which several of my hon. Friends have mentioned and which represents the lowest-funded education authorities in England—it now counts 43 of them in its membership—that is not a small anomaly but a systemic failure that affects hundreds of thousands of schoolchildren, who are being denied the education that they deserve through absolutely no fault of their own.

We feel that acutely in St Neots and Mid Cambridgeshire. Cambridgeshire ranks 133rd out of 151 local authorities in the funding allocation. Our schools receive £6,133 per pupil in the schools block element, compared with the national average of £6,467. If Cambridgeshire schools were funded at a level equivalent to those of our neighbours in Lincolnshire, a typical primary in my constituency would receive an additional £118,000 per year. If the playing field were level with another neighbour, Peterborough, Cambridgeshire would see £33 million in additional funding. Meanwhile, the demand for EHCPs has grown fast: it has risen by 91% in Cambridgeshire since 2017, far outpacing the 72% increase in funding for the high needs block over the same period. The widening gulf means more children waiting longer for vital support, more pressure on already stretched staff and more families reaching breaking point.

The Liberal Democrats believe that equal opportunity in education is not a luxury, but a fundamental right. Every child deserves access to the same resources and opportunities, regardless of their postcode. Although we understand that regional variation has its place—indeed, we championed pupil premium funding to direct resources towards disadvantaged children—it should not have come at the expense of creating the current disparities.

The problem is reaching breaking point. With schools expected to somehow fund teacher pay rises from existing budgets, those with lower DSG allocations face impossible choices: cutting staff, reducing subjects or eliminating those enrichment activities that are vital to a well-rounded education. The Liberal Democrat solution is clear. We would invest in education above the rate of inflation, ensuring that all schools can operate sustainably regardless of geography. We would extend free school meals to all children on universal credit, relieving pressure on family budgets, and place a dedicated mental health professional in every school, recognising that wellbeing and academic achievement are inextricably linked.

Pupil needs have evolved dramatically and our funding system needs to evolve with them. The time for just tinkering at the edges of the formula has passed. We need comprehensive reform that guarantees an equal base level of funding for all pupils, with appropriate additional support reflecting specific school, pupil and area needs. Our children deserve nothing less.

17:20

[Rebecca Paul (Reigate) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Butler. I draw attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests.

I am pleased to respond to this important and thoughtful debate on behalf of the Opposition. I thank the hon. Member for Tewkesbury (Cameron Thomas) for securing it, and I completely agree with his remarks about the importance of teaching children in the home as well as the school. It is clear from all the contributions we have heard that, across all political divides, we share a desire to see all children, regardless of their location, their background or the complexity of their needs, accessing high-quality education in a setting that supports their potential. That vision depends heavily on fair and sufficient funding for our schools. As we have heard, the dedicated schools grant is at the heart of that.

It would be appropriate, before turning to the concerns raised today, for me to briefly review the last Government’s principal achievements in this space, all of which have a bearing on any debate on the dedicated schools grant. Hon. Members will recall that it was a Conservative Government that took the step of reforming school funding through the introduction of the national funding formula, thereby ending the postcode lottery that, for too long, left similar schools receiving vastly different allocations. The national funding formula delivered greater transparency and a demonstrably fairer methodology, and drew a clearer line between the needs of pupils and the funding schools received. However, as the hon. Member for Tewkesbury set out, there are clearly still some disparities. It is right that we look at those and consider what can be done to address them. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s view on that.

It was also a Conservative Government that increased core schools funding to record levels. Between 2010 and 2023, funding per pupil rose in real terms, with particular investment in the high needs block of the dedicated schools grant. In fact, by the final year of the previous Government, we had delivered a £10 billion increase in overall schools funding compared with 2019-20, including a £4 billion increase to the high needs budget, bringing total high needs funding to £10.5 billion in 2023-24. We backed that up with targeted support for pupils with SEND through capital investment focused on expanding special school places and improving facilities across the country.

It was the Conservative party that took decisive action to address poor-quality provision, cracking down on unregistered settings and increasing the powers of local authorities and Ofsted to take action where provision fell short. Our approach was unambiguously vindicated, as England soared up the Programme for International Student Assessment league tables between 2009 and 2022 in maths, English and science. In that period, England went from 21st to seventh for maths, from 19th to ninth for reading, and from 11th to ninth for science. Moreover, in December 2023, children in England were named best in the west for reading, and in December 2024 they were ranked the best at maths in the western world in the 2023 TIMSS—trends in international mathematics and science study. Regrettably, where England has surged in international education rankings, Labour-led Wales has slumped. While England went from 21st to seventh in maths, Wales went from 29th to 27th. While England went from 19th to ninth for reading, Wales stayed 28th. While England went from 11th to ninth for science, Wales slumped from 21st to 29th.

Ultimately, whether in England or Wales, there will always be more to do, as the hon. Member for Tewkesbury highlighted, but I can say without hesitation that the legacy left by the last Government on school funding and educational outcomes is overwhelmingly positive, based on a relentless focus on sustained investment and principled reform, and a clear commitment to inclusion. It is not just our record; it is the yardstick by which the current Government must be judged.

Our position today is consistent with that record: we support fair funding, we support the principles behind the dedicated schools grant and we believe in the importance of local flexibility and accountability. We support the overarching aims of the SEND and alternative provision improvement plan, and the continuation of investment to support the transition to new national standards, but we also recognise the real pressures that local authorities and schools are facing. While funding has increased, so too has demand, and the current system is struggling to keep up.

The number of pupils with an education, health and care plan has more than doubled in the last decade. Local authorities up and down the country—Conservative, Labour and Liberal Democrat alike—are grappling with high needs deficits, a growing wave of legal challenges and spiralling parental frustration. In my constituency, SEND makes up an ever-growing proportion of casework, and I hear every week from parents struggling to secure the provision that their child so desperately needs. It is little wonder that the Public Accounts Committee recently found that the current system risks creating a “lost generation” of children without intervention from central Government.

The National Audit Office was equally blunt in its 2024 report on SEND provision, which made it clear that, without systemic reform, there will be systemic collapse. The crux of the matter is that, as of January 2024, approximately 1.9 million children and young people in England were identified has having special educational needs, with 1.7 million attending school. Despite the 58% real-terms increase over the last decade in high needs funding, which reached £10.7 billion in 2024-25, the system is not delivering improved outcomes for those children and young people.

The financial strain that is placing local authorities under is deeply alarming. The NAO estimates that, by March 2026, 43% of local authorities will have deficits exceeding or close to their reserves, leading to a cumulative deficit between £4.3 billion and £4.9 billion. The situation is exacerbated by the impending end of accounting arrangements that currently prevent those deficits from impacting local authority reserves. Without a clear plan to manage the deficits, many councils risk issuing section 114 notices, effectively declaring bankruptcy.

Demand for education, health and care plans has surged by 140% since 2015: the number of children with one reached 576,000 in 2024. That increase, coupled with long waiting times—only 50% of EHCPs were issued within the statutory 20-week target in 2023—has eroded confidence among families and children in the system’s ability to meet statutory and quality expectations. Sadly, at the very moment that clarity and support were most needed, the Education Secretary introduced the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill, which would do nothing less than destroy standards in English schools.

No less serious are the broken promises on compensation for national insurance contributions, which have left schools in an impossible funding situation. It is reported that some schools face funding gaps of up to 35% for those additional NIC costs. That shortfall will only exacerbate existing financial pressures, forcing schools to divert funds from essential services, potentially leading to the loss of valued staff, reduced capacity to accommodate pupils with special needs and a generally lower standard of education provision.

In summary, we are at a point where the Government are asking councils to maintain high-quality provision even as they manage large accumulated deficits, some exceeding £100 million, without knowing how or when those will be resolved. Schools have been asked to go further and faster on inclusion without the confidence that adequate support services will be in place to back them up. At the same time, parents are being asked to trust a system that all too often feels both overwhelming and overwhelmed.

I want to put a number of questions to the Minister that reflect the concerns raised by Members, local authorities and professionals across the education sector. First, the Government have confirmed that they will continue funding local authorities through the dedicated schools grant for the foreseeable future, but what is the long-term plan for managing the high needs deficits that many councils have accrued? The safety valve programme and the delivering better value programme provide some support, but they are not available to every authority and they do not provide a long-term solution. Will the Minister confirm whether the dedicated schools grant will remain ringfenced beyond 2025? Will she guarantee that local authorities will not be forced to divert core council budgets to prop up SEND provision at the expense of other vital services?

Secondly, on transparency and accountability, colleagues have spoken of the challenges that their local schools face in not just securing adequate funding but navigating a system that is complex, fragmented and adversarial. Parents are turning to tribunals in record numbers, while local authorities are caught between an ever-growing web of statutory duties and finite budgets with which to deliver them. What steps are the Government taking to reduce the number of SEND tribunals, and what support will be offered to schools to manage rising demand?

Finally, I want to address the issue of place planning and capacity. One of the most frequent complaints we hear from local authorities is about the mismatch between need and availability, particularly in relation to specialist settings. This is not just about funding; it is about the ability to plan, build and adapt provision to changing demographics and trends. Will the Minister set out what work is being done to support local authorities in expanding specialist provision where it is most needed? How will the Department ensure that capital investment keeps pace with rising demand? What role does she see for the dedicated schools grant in ensuring that sufficient places are available for all?

I will end my long list of questions by thanking the hon. Member for Tewkesbury for securing today’s debate. The dedicated schools grant is a critical part of how we deliver education in this country, but if it is to work as intended, particularly in relation to SEND, it must be fair, transparent and sustainable. I look forward to hearing from the Minister how the Government will make it so.

17:30

[The Minister for School Standards (Catherine McKinnell)]

It is a pleasure to serve under you in the Chair, Ms Butler. I congratulate the hon. Member for Tewkesbury (Cameron Thomas) on securing this debate on the dedicated schools grant, and on the important speech that he gave on such an important subject. Getting this right is a key part of achieving the Labour Government’s aim of breaking down the barriers to opportunity for every child and making sure that the link between background and success is truly broken. That is why we are putting education back at the centre of national life again, and why we have prioritised education funding by increasing the overall core schools budget by £3.2 billion in 2025-26, taking the overall core schools budget to £64.8 billion this year.

Like many Members, I regularly visit schools in my constituency. I know that individual schools face different challenges when it comes to their budgets. The unfunded spending commitments that this Government inherited mean that we have to take tough decisions to restore the public finances, but I am proud that against that backdrop we are putting the money where our mouth is and committing more funding to enable every child to achieve and thrive. The Department for Education will continue to support teachers and school leaders to deliver on that as much as we can. We are ensuring that schools are supported to ensure that they spend their money as efficiently as they can while delivering the best possible life chances to as many children as they can. That means supporting them with best practice for budgeting and financial planning, support and mentoring for school business professionals, and giving hands-on support through school resource management advisers who provide independent and tailored advice to schools on how they can best maximise every pound that they spend. More widely, the national funding formula distributes funding for mainstream schools, as we have discussed already, via the dedicated schools grant. It is based on pupils’ needs and characteristics, so that we can direct the funding to where it is needed.

In 2025-26, £5.1 billion of the school national funding formula has been allocated through deprivation factors, with £8.6 billion allocated for additional needs overall. That is 17.8% of total core funding through the formula, so £1 in every £5 goes on those factors, which helps schools in their vital work to close attainment gaps. I have listened very carefully to the debate, but I must reiterate that the purpose of the national funding formula—I think hon. Members appreciate this—is not to give every pupil the same level of funding per pupil. It is right that pupils who need additional investment attract the additional funding that helps schools respond to and meet their needs. That means that schools in more expensive areas, such as London, attract higher funding per pupil to reflect the higher costs of being at school in London, because of the higher costs that are faced.

However, I recognise that schools have historically struggled with chaos and short-termism in school funding. When we came into government, because of the timing of the general election, in 2025-26 we wanted to give schools certainty about their funding and to minimise disruption for them. Consequently, we prioritised keeping the same funding formula, so that schools had certainty about it, and we also prioritised the speed of allocating that funding over making any changes to the national funding formula that might have been made—but I can confirm that for 2026-27 we are reviewing the national funding formula. I have listened very carefully to what has been said today, because we recognise the importance of establishing a fair funding system that directs funding to where it is most needed.

[Richard Foord]

After the Government conduct that review of the national funding formula in 2026-27, will the Minister set out what additional funding she expects to have to put into the formula that urban councils such as Westminster might attract to cover their costs?

[Catherine McKinnell]

I think the hon. Gentleman will appreciate that I cannot get into the detail of a particular local authority area, or indeed a particular aspect of the funding. He will also appreciate that the national funding formula is fairly complex and obviously any changes to it will be very carefully considered, so that we make sure that it is allocated fairly. Nevertheless, I appreciate the issues that various hon. Members have raised today about the different challenges faced by different parts of the country, different demographics and different geographies. Obviously, all those factors will need to be taken into consideration.

Members have also touched on the issue of pay. In its written evidence to the review body, the Department proposed a 2025 pay award for teachers of 2.8%. We were clear that schools will be expected to fund that award from the overall funds they will receive next year, including the additional £2.3 billion provided in the autumn Budget. The schools’ costs technical note, which was published in March, forecast a £400 million headroom in school budgets nationally in this financial year before staff pay awards. As I said at the beginning, I recognise that individual schools will have to balance funding and costs differently, which will matter in how any staff pay award might affect their budget. We will continue to support schools as they navigate these decisions, which are in line with the asks of the rest of the public sector, too.

[Tom Gordon]

I recently met a number of schools in my constituency; part of the problem that they have in balancing the books is the ongoing lack of reasonable amounts of maintenance funding. Last year I met the Under-Secretary of State for Education, the hon. Member for Portsmouth South (Stephen Morgan), who is the Minister with responsibility for early years, to discuss this issue. Will that funding also be considered when we talk about funding allocation, because in places such as Harrogate, where we have schools that are hundreds of years old, the cost of maintaining those schools far outstrips the cost of maintaining new builds in urban areas?

[Catherine McKinnell]

I appreciate the challenge that the hon. Gentleman faces. I also appreciate that some of these capital challenges, which are obviously revenue challenges as well for some schools, are a big challenge. We have seen chronic under-investment in our school estate over many years. However, my hon. Friend the Member for Hexham (Joe Morris) and his constituents have sadly experienced that a school built only eight years ago also appears to be crumbling now. We have a significant backlog of repairs and maintenance, and support that has to be given to schools to get them up to a standard whereby they can deliver the education that we know children deserve. Obviously, we will continue to look at these issues as we navigate a difficult financial situation. We are acutely aware of the challenges that many schools face in maintaining their estate.

Fundamentally, each of our decisions is based on the determination to build a firm foundation upon which to rebuild our public services; some of that is about what we deliver and some of it is about the infrastructure. That is because we are determined that all children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities also receive the right support, so that they can succeed in their education and as they move into adult life. High needs funding will increase by £1 billion in 2025-26, which will bring the total to over £12 billion. Of that total, Gloucestershire county council is being allocated over £105 million through the high needs funding block of the dedicated schools grant, calculated using the high needs national funding formula, which is an increase of over £8 million. The high needs allocation is an 8.3% increase per head in the two to 18-year-old population compared with 2024-25. That funding is to support the ongoing costs of special educational needs and disability provision.

To be clear, we do not expect local authorities to use that increase in high needs funding to pay down historical deficits. The structure of the high needs funding formula is largely unchanged. As I said, we need to take time to consider what changes might be necessary in future years to ensure that the system is fair and directs funding to where it is needed, and supports any reforms that we want to bring forward in relation to special educational needs and disabilities.

The Government recognise the strain that the rising cost of special educational needs and disabilities provision is putting on local government, and particularly the impact on councils’ finances. The statutory override is a temporary accounting measure that separates out local authorities’ dedicated schools grant deficits from their wider financial position to help them manage their deficits, and we are working with the sector to find a way forward. We will set out plans for reforming the SEND system in more detail later this year, which will include supporting local authorities to deal with historical and accruing deficits as part of any period of transition from the current SEND system to any new system. That will also inform any decision to remove the statutory override.

[Tom Gordon]

I thank the Minister for being generous with her time. I want to press her on her point about working with local authorities. Given that some councils now under Reform control seem to be getting their instructions by diktat from their leader, the hon. Member for Clacton (Nigel Farage), is she disappointed, like I am, that no Member of the Reform party is present for this important debate?

[Catherine McKinnell]

The hon. Gentleman makes his point well.

As a Government, we are determined that local authorities will be able to deliver those high-quality services for children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities, but in a financially sustainable way. Those two elements go hand in hand to create a stronger and more prosperous future for children and families. Many hon. Members have spoken about their constituents’ experiences, and we recognise that too many families and children are not experiencing the quality of SEND services and provision that they should expect, and that the rising cost of SEND provision is putting a significant strain on both local authority and school finances.

[Sarah Dyke]

The Minister describes the additional funding but, as I have explained, many parents and children are suffering with severe mental health issues; it is heartbreaking to see. The Liberal Democrats want to provide a dedicated mental health professional in every school, so that every child and parent has somebody to turn to when they need it. What steps are the Government putting in place to support parents and children who are facing mental health challenges?

[Catherine McKinnell]

The hon. Lady identifies an important issue. Yes, we have a big challenge in relation to special educational needs and disabilities, but we also face much wider challenges relating to young people’s mental health right across our school system. The Government are committed to ensuring that we have mental health professionals in every school and community so that children and families can get that support, whether it be within a school setting or outside if that is where they want to access it.

Hon. Members will appreciate that the spending review is ongoing. It is due to conclude in June, but our objective is to ensure that local authorities, schools and colleges can deliver high-quality services for children and young people with SEND. We will set out in more detail how local authorities will deal with their historical deficits as part of that consideration.

I again thank the hon. Member for Tewkesbury for bringing this matter forward, and all those who contributed to what has been a very thoughtful debate. I think there is a large amount of consensus on what we want to achieve for children and young people: getting the best outcomes from our dedicated schools grant. The Government have made clear our commitment to addressing the challenges as part of supporting children and young people to achieve and thrive. I am determined that progress will be made.

I want to give my final word of thanks to all those who work in our school system in the interests of our children and young people, in Gloucestershire and across the country. Indeed, I realise I meant to come back to my hon. Friend the Member for Hexham to particularly commend the staff at Prudhoe community high school, who have been working incredibly hard to minimise the impact on the children and young people who are taking their GCSEs, A-levels, BTECs, T-levels and all the assessments going on this summer. We know that school leaders and teachers are working tirelessly, regardless of any debate we have in this place about school funding or otherwise, to deliver the best outcomes for the children in their area. They should know that they have a Government who are on their side, who will support them to deliver that, despite the very challenging economic circumstances that we have inherited. We need to deliver the very best for all our children and young people. We have pledged to review the funding system to help to support and achieve that.

17:46

[Cameron Thomas]

I thank all hon. Members for their speeches. My hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Honiton and Sidmouth (Richard Foord) equated the differential in funding to an entire teacher’s salary. The hon. Member for Hexham (Joe Morris) contextualised the crisis faced by constituents with inadequate transport infrastructure and unfit buildings. I join him in thanking our teaching staff for their inspiring work ethic. My hon. Friend the Member for Thornbury and Yate (Claire Young) explained how her diverse constituency suffers from not being rural enough and not being urban enough. Her young people do deserve more.

My hon. Friend the Member for Glastonbury and Somerton (Sarah Dyke) highlighted the legacy inequity locked into the current system. My hon. Friend the Member for Taunton and Wellington (Gideon Amos) called for the national funding formula to reflect current need, not historical need. My hon. Friend the Member for North Norfolk (Steff Aquarone) broadened the picture by explaining that families are having fewer children because they struggle to support even themselves.

I thank the Liberal Democrat spokesperson, my hon. Friend the Member for St Neots and Mid Cambridgeshire (Ian Sollom), who spoke of the postcode lottery perpetuated by a systemically flawed funding formula. I thank the Opposition spokesperson, the hon. Member for Reigate (Rebecca Paul), who joined our call to review the national funding formula, even if her recollection of her party’s record differs from that of the rest of the country, not least my teachers.

I thank the Minister, who described her ambition to put education at the heart of the Government’s national rebuild. I am pleased that the Government will commit to reviewing the national funding formula. I am sure she will not mind if my colleagues and I chalk that one up to this debate. Once more, Ms Butler, I thank you for the honour of bringing this debate under your chairship.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered the Dedicated Schools Grant.

17:48

Sitting suspended.

Cullompton and Wellington Stations

Tuesday 6th May 2025 Westminster Hall

18:00

[Dawn Butler (in the Chair)]

I remind hon. Members that they may only make a speech with prior permission from the Member in charge of the debate and the Minister. There will not be an opportunity for the Member in charge to wind up, as is the convention for 30-minute debates.

[Richard Foord (Honiton and Sidmouth) (LD)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the potential merits of reopening Cullompton and Wellington railway stations.

It is an honour to serve with you in the Chair, Ms Butler. The Minister may have heard some of these arguments before, but there have been developments in recent months that he should hear before any decisions are made in relation to Cullompton and Wellington stations.

The south-west has suffered from chronic under-investment in transport infrastructure—a legacy of the Beeching cuts in the 1960s, when communities were cut off as many stations across the country, including Cullompton and Wellington, lost their rail services. The campaign to bring back those stations commenced almost as soon as they were lost. In 1996, Devon county council commissioned a preliminary design for a new station at Cullompton, and by 2013 the metro board had been established, bringing together MPs, local councils, the rail industry and enterprise partnerships.

Since then the metro board has met more than 30 times, co-chaired in recent months by my hon. Friend the Member for Taunton and Wellington (Gideon Amos) and me. The studies have culminated in the submission of a final business case to the Department for Transport in May 2024. Later that summer, my colleague and I received letters from the Chancellor pulling the plug on Restoring Your Railway funding. That was a gut punch for communities across the country with less well-established programmes, but I am pleased to say that Restoring Your Railway had already done a lot of the hard work relating to Cullompton and Wellington stations.

[Sarah Dyke (Glastonbury and Somerton) (LD)]

Somerton and Langport is the largest area without a station between London and Penzance; it represents a 28-mile gap between Taunton and Castle Cary. I have worked hard with constituents in the area, who indeed put together a robust business plan and applied for the Restoring Your Railway fund, only to find that all their work had been turned down, scuppering their plans to build a station in the area. Does my hon. Friend agree that that decision denies my constituents the economic and social opportunities that the connectivity of a station would provide, which would enable them to bring business and new homes into the area?

[Richard Foord]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for mentioning economic and social opportunities. I too have been contacted by constituents about how they think a station in their town would provide those. Neil Perry, a resident of Cullompton who commutes daily to Exeter for his job as a teacher, told me that he spends nearly 10 full days each year stuck in Cullompton traffic—time lost to him simply because there is no local rail option. He leaves the house at 7.30 am to beat the worst of the congestion, and must leave work at 2.30 pm to avoid a 25-minute journey turning into an hour-long ordeal. The train from Tiverton Parkway to Exeter takes just 11 minutes, and we could see a journey of a similar time from Cullompton. Neil estimates he would save over £2,000 a year in parking, fuel, and car maintenance and points out that Cullompton would become an up-and-coming and much more prosperous town, which would help to drive growth.

This Labour Government are very keen on economic growth, particularly the role that development and housing infrastructure plays in it. They have set an ambitious target to build 1.5 million homes by 2029, and its success hinges on delivering the necessary infrastructure to support those homes. I hear time and again from the people I represent in Devon that they do not want to, and cannot, see the homes built in advance of infrastructure that just does not arrive.

Nowhere is that more evident that in the Culm Garden Village project. Located just east of junction 28 of the M5, the proposed development would bring over 5,000 new homes to Cullompton. Without a railway station, those new residents would be reliant on the motorway. That motorway is already under severe pressure; junction 28 sees queues on to the inside lane, making it already a very unsafe motorway approach road to use. Residents welcomed the recent news of funding for the Cullompton town centre relief road. It is a step forward but, on its own, that relief road will not be enough. We have already seen the consequences of building homes without the right infrastructure: gridlocked roads, overstretched public services and growing frustration among residents. We cannot see that mistake made again in Cullompton.

Another of the people I represent from Cullompton, Tim Pethick, has worked in mental health services at Torbay hospital for 20 years. He was recently diagnosed as unfit to drive due to epilepsy, and now faces a 34-mile journey to work using public transport. Cullompton has no direct rail link. He has looked into using a bus pass, but that is not possible because bus passes cannot be used before 9.30 in the morning and the bus journey takes more than two hours. Here is somebody who has worked solidly for the NHS for the last couple of decades and whose career might be over if he cannot get good public access through the train. Those are just two examples, but my concern is that they are just two of many people who feel isolated and forced out of the workforce because of the lack of rail infrastructure in Cullompton.

Thinking more broadly, the south-west as a whole is a region where social mobility is a challenge. The South-West Social Mobility Commission’s 2024 report confirms that our region is one of the worst performing in England for disadvantaged young people. By age 19, 34% of disadvantaged young people in our region have achieved a level 3 qualification, compared with 42% nationally. We can see that the south-west has quite a high proportion of disadvantaged students, but a low proportion of disadvantaged students who progress to higher education. The University of Exeter commissioned a 2019 report called “Social Mobility in the South West”, which revealed that only 17% of disadvantaged pupils in the region went on to university—the lowest rate among all regions in England.

A major contributor to that poor performance is transport infrastructure. Young people in rural towns and villages—places such as Cullompton and Wellington—often struggle to access college, sixth form and any sort of further or higher education. For young people without access to a car, getting to college or university is not just difficult; it is impossible.

The reopening of Cullompton station would be transformative, as would the reopening of Wellington station in Somerset. It would open up opportunities to get to Exeter college, the University of Exeter and FE establishments further afield, and would be fantastic for generating new apprenticeship opportunities. As the Labour Government have said, if we want to get Britain working, apprenticeships will be an aspect to that.

Just two weeks ago, my hon. Friend the Member for Taunton and Wellington and I met the Rail Minister, Lord Hendy, and 30 local residents who had travelled to London to lobby him. Together, we made the case directly that reopening the railway stations would not just be a transport upgrade; it would be life-changing for our communities.

A single journey by rail produces up to 75% fewer carbon emissions per passenger than the same journey by car. We know that transportation as a whole accounts for 27% of the UK’s greenhouse gas emissions, so the railway stations would support and bolster the Labour Government’s climate change mitigation aims. The reopening of Wellington and Cullompton stations is not just some idea that will benefit a few people in the south-west of England; it is very much thought through, supported on a cross-party basis, economically sound and environmentally responsible, and it could be socially transformative.

18:10

[Gideon Amos (Taunton and Wellington) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Ms Butler. I am grateful both to my hon. Friend the Member for Honiton and Sidmouth (Richard Foord), for securing this debate, and to the Minister; I really must be more punctual in asking a Minister’s permission to speak in future, and I am very grateful for his permission to take part in this debate.

A couple of weeks ago, a delegation of 30 to 40 local residents travelled the three or four hours from Somerset and Devon to Parliament to present a couple of letters to the Rail Minister, Lord Hendy, in Westminster Hall, one from Wellington town council and one signed by MPs throughout the Cardiff-Bristol-Exeter corridor. It is important to remember that the station’s reopening project, which combines two reopenings in one, will benefit the whole region, and my hon. Friend and I place on record our gratitude to the hon. Members for Exeter (Steve Race), for North Somerset (Sadik Al-Hassan) and for Weston-super-Mare (Dan Aldridge), who have all signed the letter with us and are fully supportive of the project.

For example, the project will enable thousands of young people who have no access to public transport, in west Somerset and elsewhere, to travel to colleges in Bristol, Cardiff and Exeter. It will also enable thousands of customers to reach businesses.

[Sarah Dyke]

I intervene because Jonathan, a constituent from Somerton, hoped that his son would attend Richard Huish sixth form in Taunton, in my hon. Friend’s constituency. However, the nearest train station is 12 miles away, and there are unreliable bus services right across Glastonbury and Somerton, so it proved impossible for Jonathan’s son to attend the sixth form of his choosing. Does my hon. Friend agree that the lack of rail connectivity creates barriers to education?

[Gideon Amos]

My hon. Friend highlights a practical example of how so many young people in Somerset, a place where sixth form colleges are literally few and far between, have difficulty accessing education because of the lack of public transport. This station project would enable thousands of people to reach Exeter college and the excellent Richard Huish college in my constituency, which is well known to be one of the best in the country.

As I was saying, the station’s reopening will allow young people to reach jobs along the Bristol, Exeter and Cardiff corridor and customers to reach businesses. It is no wonder that a key strength of the case for the project is its benefit-cost ratio of 3.67. For the cost of around £42 million, £180 million of economic growth would go into the region, which I know the Government would want to see. Frankly, there is no other rail project in the south-west that is ready to go and could be built and completed in the next two years, as the project is so far advanced. In fact, had it not been for the review in July last year, the spades would be in the ground and the platforms under construction, because the contract was about to be let and the detailed design was almost finished.

Our letter makes other equally telling points about the benefits of this station. Wellington is a growing town, which has had around 2,000 new homes in the last few years and has a projected 41% increase in housing numbers. That will mean about 6,000 more residents, and without the railway station, that is unlikely to be possible.

Finally, we asked the Department for Transport to tell us what the recent benefit-cost ratios were—the figure for our project is 3.67. The answer we received was that the Department does not routinely share or publish benefit-cost ratios. We were asking not for routine publication, but specifically for the benefit-cost ratio information. I hope that the Minister will look at releasing that information.

18:16

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Simon Lightwood)]

It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Ms Butler. First, I reassure the hon. Member for Honiton and Sidmouth (Richard Foord) that the potential merits of the Cullompton and Wellington rail stations are still firmly under consideration. The Chancellor announced the closure of the restoring your railway programme in her statement to the House last July. Despite the closure of the programme, the Department for Transport continues to consider the project as part of its spending review.

The stations project has already received £6.15 million to complete the full business case and most of the design work. It is estimated that an investment of about £45 million of additional funding is needed to complete delivery of the stations. However, due to the difficult financial situation inherited from the previous Government, it will not be possible for all transport projects to continue, particularly those not yet in delivery, where spades are not in the ground.

Clearly, the Cullompton and Wellington project is not solely about the restoration of historical infrastructure, but about the important benefits that the stations can bring to their local communities and the broader region in future. The two towns share several characteristics and challenges. Cullompton and Wellington are both characterised by low-density residential neighbourhoods surrounding modest town centres, yet despite their rural charm, there is evidence of serious local challenges that affect the towns’ ability to fulfil their economic, social and environmental capacity.

In 2019, for example, indices of multiple deprivation showed that five areas of Cullompton were considerably deprived compared with national averages, reflecting issues such as educational attainment and skills gaps, income deprivation affecting children and young people, barriers to housing and adverse living environments. Despite these challenges, however, Cullompton is projected to have substantial material growth. With development plans in place, the town’s population is projected to nearly double from 8,807 in 2021 to 17,994 by 2033. Further growth, including the second phase of the garden village, could increase the population to approximately 25,000 by 2040.

In short, Cullompton is already nearly three times the size it was when its railway station was closed in the 1960s. It is likely to grow to more than seven times the size it was over the couple of decades to follow. That expansion underscores the urgent need for enhanced public transport to support the growing community. A new railway station in Cullompton would naturally meet that need.

Similarly, Wellington’s population is set to increase significantly due to ongoing and planned developments, including 2,580 additional dwellings. But Wellington is still heavily car-dependent at present, with many residents commuting regionally for employment, education and leisure. The reliance on private vehicles worsens social inequality, particularly for those without access to a car. The result is high levels of deprivation and inequality among parts of the community, with parts of the town having among the highest levels of deprivation in Somerset and falling within the most deprived 20% of wards in England. In turn, those impacts are likely to worsen further with the predicted population increases in Wellington over the coming years.

Car dependency, especially with Wellington’s links to Taunton, the nearest employment hub, has also created environmental challenges due to the impact of commuting on the road network. For example, air quality management areas that cover parts of Taunton and eastern approaches to Exeter have been designated. Somerset and Devon county councils made climate declarations in 2019 and 2020 respectively, featuring reduced transport emissions as a key pillar, and a need to improve air quality in urban areas.

Reopening Wellington station presents the potential for a significant mode shift from car to rail, particularly for journeys between Wellington and Taunton, Exeter, Bristol and Bridgwater. In addition, improved rail connectivity would reduce travel times and enhance journey reliability, while also promoting sustainable transport options.

The strategic objectives for building both stations are clear. As well as benefiting the immediate areas in Cullompton and Wellington, enhancing public transport connectivity will also support economic growth and productivity in Exeter, Taunton and Bridgwater, reducing road congestion, car dependency and associated carbon emissions. The stations would contribute to sustainable development, connecting new residential areas with regional employment, education and healthcare opportunities. With the provision of station calls at both towns, the case for taking a combined approach presents significantly higher value for money, compared with a stand-alone project in either area.

In conclusion, the Department recognises that the reopening of Cullompton and Wellington rail stations would be a strategic investment in the future of those communities. Enhanced public transport connectivity also aligns with the Government’s goals to drive economic growth, reduce environmental impact and improve social mobility, creating a more equitable and prosperous region.

Question put and agreed to.

18:21

Sitting suspended.

Poverty: Glasgow North East

Tuesday 6th May 2025 Westminster Hall

18:30

[Maureen Burke (Glasgow North East) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered poverty in Glasgow North East constituency.

It is a privilege to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Butler. I am grateful for the opportunity to raise this most serious of subjects. I rise to speak not only as a Member of Parliament for Glasgow North East, but as someone who knows what poverty looks like up close. I grew up in Easterhouse, one of the most deprived areas of Glasgow. I left school at the age of 15 when both my parents were diagnosed with tuberculosis. I joined my siblings to help provide for our family, doing what we had to do to survive, like so many in our communities still do today. It is that experience that drives me now, recognising that behind every stat about poverty, there are people—families, children and friends—facing impossible choices. Fighting for them is the sole reason I am an MP.

The idea for this debate was born a number of months ago, when I discovered data from Health Equals, which revealed that my constituency of Glasgow North East has the lowest life expectancy of any UK parliamentary constituency. The truth is that although those figures are shocking, they are sadly not surprising. In Glasgow North East, wages are lower, and the percentage of people with a disability is higher, than the Scottish and UK averages. Deaths from preventable health conditions such as coronary heart disease are higher than compared with Scotland as a whole. Tragically, nearly 38% of children in my constituency live in poverty.

As Health Equals tells us, deep inequality between the poorest and the richest cuts lives short. In the UK, one of the richest countries in the world, people are dying because they are poor. When we think about poverty, we need to think of it in context. Glasgow North East having the UK’s lowest life expectancy does not happen by accident, and can be changed only through progressive Government action. For too many years, people in my constituency have operated under a system that has allowed inequality to fester. Opportunities and wealth have been unevenly distributed, and public services have failed people time and again.

The last Labour Government made the eradication of poverty a national mission. Families the length and breadth of the UK felt the benefit of that determination, but after a decade of Tory austerity and nearly two decades of SNP neglect in Scotland, that progress has been reversed and the living conditions of far too many are reminiscent of days we thought had been consigned to history. The Britain that this Labour Government inherited was broken. It was a Britain whose leadership had tolerated the intolerable as more people slid into destitution. That cannot be fixed overnight, but it cannot be allowed to continue either.

The Trussell Trust tells us that 3.1 million food parcels were handed out across the UK between 2023 and 2024—262,000 in Scotland and 5,846 in Glasgow North East. Sadly, tonight 10,000 children in Scotland will go to sleep in temporary accommodation—a number that has risen every single year in the past decade, bar a slight decrease during the pandemic—and one in six Scots will continue their agonising wait for NHS treatment. This is a wealthy country, but its people are poor.

The real lived experiences of people should always be at the centre of debates such as this one, because I believe that they make the most powerful case for change. In the Stobhill area of my constituency, there is a Marie Curie hospice. I am in absolute awe of the work done by Marie Curie to treat people in the final stages of their life with compassion and dignity. However, the staff working at the hospice will openly say that far too many of the people who come through their doors should have more time to live. That is not a hopeful attempt to comfort grieving families, although I am sure it does that too. Rather, it is a reflection of the direct effects that poverty has on people’s living standards.

Funded by UK Research and Innovation, Marie Curie and the University of Glasgow conducted a research project that was titled, “Dying in the Margins”. This research showed that one in four working-age people with a terminal illness in Scotland dies in poverty. That challenges the idea that terminal illness is an equaliser of social classes, recognising instead that it actually worsens inequality.

In addition, there is a 24-year gap in healthy life expectancy between the most deprived communities and the least deprived communities. When faced with a diagnosis of a terminal illness, poorer people are forced into making difficult choices or find themselves suffering hardship because of the associated costs. It is, as one participant in the research noted, a “double burden”.

Let us take, for example, Max. He is a 65-year-old gentleman who really wanted to spend his last days in his community and—importantly—with his dog, Lily. On one occasion, despite being in serious pain, Max even fled the hospice to be reunited with Lily, but his home was unsuitable for someone in his condition. He lived in a fourth-floor flat and could not climb into his bath. Sadly, the housing association failed to carry out adaptations to his home and so, in the final days of his life, Max was forced back into the hospice. He died, with his wish of dying in the comfort of his own home and with his beloved companion Lily by his side unrealised. We cannot change Max’s experience, but we can take action to ensure that we treat people who are in similar situations with greater respect and dignity.

Poverty can strike at any point, suddenly disrupting lives. That is what happened to my constituent Martin. He was a working homeowner who, because of a relationship breakdown, found himself homeless with three children, one of whom has additional support needs. Martin had to leave his job to care for his children during this traumatic period. Glasgow city council placed the family in a hotel, where Martin and his three children had to pack up and move rooms each night. Although Martin tried to keep his children in a routine and in school during this time, their school attendance suffered and their situation has obviously affected their education.

Martin remains in temporary accommodation that is unsuitable for his family. He has been trying to find permanent accommodation since November, but the social housing stock is just not available. Martin wants to work and provide for his family, but he is not receiving the housing support he needs to get him to that point. In short, poverty has put his family’s lives on hold. That is why, when I think of poverty, I think of it as theft. It steals potential and robs opportunity. It denies the world of the brilliance, warmth and talent of so many who may never be seen or heard.

Our duty, surely, is to do all we can to make better the lives of people we may never know or ever meet. I am encouraged by the work already being undertaken by the Government to do just that. The Government are legislating to ensure that work can be a genuine route out of poverty, as well as the realisation of a stable and enjoyable life. Our Employment Rights Bill delivers fairer working conditions, stronger rights and improved pay for millions. These are the steps that show our values: that work should offer dignity and security, not trap people in in-work poverty.

More recently, the “Pathways to Work” paper outlines additional steps through reforms to the welfare system. I welcome, for example, the scrapping of the work capability assessment, which many charities described as dehumanising and distressing. I also welcome the commitment to reduce assessments for people with longer term health conditions.

It would be remiss of me, however, not to acknowledge concerns about other aspects of the proposals, and I hope to hear answers from the Minister today. Can the Government ensure that people receiving end-of-life care will not lose access to their benefits as a result of the plans? Can the Minister set out how new employment support programmes will be delivered in a way that is supportive and empowering, rather than patronising and disparaging? Can the Minister confirm that the Government recognise that for some people work simply is not possible, and that they should continue to receive financial support and assistance?

I ask those questions because I recognise that our welfare system is failing people. I support the efforts to fix it, but reform cannot mean regression. Let us also remember that so much of the responsibility for welfare provision lies with the Scottish Government. They hold powers, so they must bear responsibility. My constituents are waiting too long for support, with the majority of adult disability payment applications taking four months to process. In 2023, shockingly, 116 people died while waiting for the outcome of their application. I will hold the UK Government to account, but I expect the Scottish Government to do more than posture on this issue, which I am afraid has been the extent of their contribution so far.

When my time as an MP ends, I want to be judged on the following questions. Did I make life better for the people in my community who had the least? Was I part of a Government who worked tirelessly to root out the causes of poverty and low life expectancy? Are people living better lives now than they were under the previous Government? We can be the Parliament that ends the era of excuses, and we can be the country that declares poverty not inevitable but unacceptable.

[Dawn Butler (in the Chair)]

I would like to get to the Front Benchers by 7.08 pm, so everybody has about three and a half to four minutes.

18:43

[Kirsty Blackman (Aberdeen North) (SNP)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Glasgow North East (Maureen Burke) on bringing forward this debate. I particularly liked her driving force, which is: did I make life in my community better? That should be the driving force of all MPs and I commend her for taking that stance.

I want to say a couple of things about the social security safety net, and what is being provided to protect people from the worst of poverty to ensure that life expectancies are equalised. Those of us who are lucky enough to live in a level of privilege have the luxury of being able to make mistakes and cope with a few rough barriers in our way. We can cope with our washing machine breaking down and our child needing a new pair of shoes in the same month, whereas people who are living on the breadline do not have that level of privilege and luxury. If two of those things happen at once, through no fault of their own, then getting through that and working out whether to buy a washing machine or a pair of shoes for the child—when someone is struggling to make ends meet as it is—is the most difficult choice. If we can get to a position where people have the luxury of being able to make some choices, and are able to ensure that their children can thrive and not just survive, then we have done a good thing and made life better for our communities.

There are issues with the social security safety net. The essentials guarantee has been put forward by the Trussell Trust and the Joseph Rowntree Foundation among others. In order to pay for an essential basket of goods, someone needs about £120 a week. That includes the most basic food, ensuring an internet connection, heating and rent—it covers those basic things. The universal credit standard allowance is only £92.

Most people agree that the essential basket is a reasonable level for the social security safety net to be at. It would be sensible to look at where we are with the universal credit standard allowance, and whether it does meet basic needs. That is before we talk about things such as the child poverty strategy, and the possibility of cancelling the two-child cap, which people are asking for across the board, as well as scrapping the total benefits cap.

In Scotland we are doing what we can to mitigate some of that. We have managed to ensure that child poverty in Scotland is reducing rather than increasing, but it is much more stagnant than we would like it to be because we are having to mitigate some of these cuts. I echo the views of the hon. Member for Glasgow North East on disability payments; 55% of children in Scotland who live in poverty have a disabled family member. We do not know how the cuts to eligibility in the personal independence payment are going to interact with the Scottish benefits system.

Will people have to do assessments for both adult disability payment and PIP in order to ensure their eligibility for the UC health element, or will the UK Government work out the UC health element on the basis of the ADP assessment? I am not clear on how that will work, or on how the welfare Bill that is hopefully coming in the near future will make it clear. For my constituents, and for those people in Glasgow North East, how those things will interact and what difference it will make to their lives is really key. It would be helpful if the Minister could give us clarity as soon as possible on the interaction between the welfare Bill and the Scottish Government systems on, for example, adult disability payment.

I again commend the hon. Member for Glasgow North East on raising this really important issue. I understand why it is the most important issue in her constituency, and more power to her elbow for making life better for her constituents.

18:48

[John Grady (Glasgow East) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Butler. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow North East (Maureen Burke), who is my neighbour, for securing this important debate. Glasgow has disgraceful levels of absolute poverty, with families who cannot afford the essentials to live: food, heat, school uniforms and clothes.

We do not help those in desperate poverty by making unaffordable promises. But despite the constrained public finances, our Government have taken action. Our last Budget raised billions in extra taxes to fight poverty. In Scotland, that means an extra £4.9 billion for the Scottish Government, so that they can tackle record NHS waiting lists and arrest the alarming decline of Scottish education. Our Employment Rights Bill tackles the evil of in-work poverty, with the biggest upgrade to workers’ rights in a generation. Our Government have increased the living wage well above inflation.

Our Government have been in power for 10 months; the Tories were in power for 10 years and the SNP have been in power for 18 years—at the helm of an incredibly powerful devolved Administration blessed with significant powers. The SNP have run Glasgow city council for eight years.

[Kirsteen Sullivan (Bathgate and Linlithgow) (Lab/Co-op)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that many of the essential services that families rely on are delivered by local authorities, and that local authorities have had their budgets slashed year on year by the Scottish Government, which impacts their ability to protect and support the most vulnerable people in our societies?

[John Grady]

I agree. Local government has been emasculated by the Tory Governments in England and Wales and the SNP Government in Scotland. I must say that they are pretty non-discriminatory in their emasculation, because they have failed to properly fund the SNP council in Glasgow for years.

In Scotland, one cause of poverty is the shocking state of the NHS. Record waiting lists do not just delay people getting back to work; the delays mean that their conditions deteriorate to a point where they cannot return to work, and we should be incredibly angry about that. In 2007, the Scottish Government promised to establish a ministerial taskforce on health inequalities, yet Scotland continues to have the worst health inequalities in western and central Europe. On disability health checks, following a successful pilot in 2019-20, the Scottish Government committed to carry out annual health checks for people with learning disabilities in 2022. It was to be completed by 2023, but as of 2023-24, only 6.9% of eligible people had been offered a health check. The SNP’s record in Holyrood on health is absolutely shameful.

Education is an essential pathway out of poverty. However, the attainment gap in Scotland is widening, which means that kids in my constituency and others with large working-class populations have fewer life chances, and they are getting worse—it is an absolute scandal. College education is in crisis. Again, this should be a source of anger.

Glasgow city council has an opportunity to help some of the most vulnerable in Glasgow. Homeless Project Scotland has a food and night shelter in the Merchant City in Glasgow. It serves free hot meals and provides an immaculately clean shelter for homeless people. However, it has had its planning permission refused. The shelter is at serious risk of closing, but I am heartened to hear that Glasgow city council has said:

“We are available to engage...and do whatever we can to help them secure suitable property”.

I hope that the council does that. It has two golden keys to a resolution. It has an extensive property portfolio and it is the planning authority. I cannot think of an organisation better placed to help.

I helped at the shelter on Sunday night. That night, it served over 100 men and women, but because children are also homeless in Glasgow, it serves them too. On Sunday night, there was a boy—just like my boy—with his dad, a teenage boy with his mum, and a girl perhaps the same age as my daughter. If the shelter is closed, where will those children and their mums and dads get a hot meal? Where will the most vulnerable in my city get a safe bed for the night? I hope that Glasgow city council delivers on its promise.

18:53

[Martin Rhodes (Glasgow North) (Lab)]

It is a privilege to serve under your chairship, Ms Butler. I commend my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow North East (Maureen Burke) on securing this debate and on her heartfelt speech about the impact of poverty in her constituency. My constituency of Glasgow North, which adjoins hers, also faces many of the same factors that contribute to low life expectancy—factors that are clearly linked to poverty.

Recent data from the Office for National Statistics has shown that the average life expectancy in Glasgow North is 75.9 years, which is 8.7 years shorter than in the healthiest parts of the UK. However, in a way, that number also acts as a smokescreen. Because it is an average that includes the most affluent areas, it conceals the true life expectancy of the most deprived communities in my constituency. Where someone is born, where they live, and even which streets they grow up on, can help determine how long they live. Although the figures highlight a shocking level of health inequality, they ultimately reflect the deeper and more complex realities of poverty. Poverty does not come from one place; it stems from a web of economic, social and cultural factors. Those are shaped by issues related to class, health, social security, wages, job security, education, housing and access to credit, to name just a few. It is the way that those pressures interact, often reinforcing one another, that sustains the poverty that we see in Glasgow and across the country.

The history of place can accentuate those issues, Glasgow’s history being an example. The deindustrialisation of the city combined with the lack of necessary support, planning and investment in the late ’70s and ’80s led to mass unemployment and growing inequalities that are still felt in communities today. Although the previous Labour Government made great progress combating child poverty rates, that has not been sustained. Subsequent national policy choices and global events have only made those systemic issues of poverty worse, with the financial crash, the cuts to public services from Tory austerity and the long-term impact of a global pandemic hampering Glasgow’s prosperity.

Poverty can also create vicious cycles, which can appear in many different aspects of someone’s life. For example, if someone’s job is insecure, it is harder for them to afford stable housing. Without a fixed address, it is harder for them to access social security. Without that safety net, the risk of homelessness rises and the cycle continues. That is why it is not enough to talk about employment alone. We need to ensure that work provides security and pays a real living wage. I welcome this Government’s decision to uplift the minimum wage, a vital move that ensures that more people can earn enough to live with dignity. The Employment Rights Bill will go further, ending exploitative zero-hours contracts and helping to ensure that anyone in paid work has stability and protection.

But let us be clear: no single policy will solve poverty. What is needed is a joined-up approach—one that brings together housing, health, education, employment and social security. That is why the Government’s focus on building houses, improving the education system, restoring the NHS and promoting economic growth is vital to helping to deliver for those who are most vulnerable. I am also confident that the work of this Labour Government’s child poverty taskforce will be vital in delivering a cross-Government child poverty strategy to reduce and alleviate child poverty. That will be essential in improving children’s lives and life chances now and address the root causes of poverty in the long term.

Glasgow is a city of immense potential, rich in culture, talent and resilience. The fact that some of its communities have the lowest life expectancies in the UK is not an inevitability—it is the result of decisions taken in the past. If we make different choices, we can build a city and a country where every child has the opportunity to thrive and every community the chance to prosper. I look forward to hearing what the Minister has to say in her response.

18:58

[Patricia Ferguson (Glasgow West) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Butler. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow North East (Maureen Burke) on securing this important debate and on being such a doughty champion for her constituents.

Poverty is experienced by many communities across Glasgow, as we have heard, and my constituency of Glasgow West is no exception. In 2022-23, 19.3% of all people in Glasgow were income-deprived, compared with 12.1% in Scotland across the board. In Glasgow in 2023, 41.1% of secondary pupils were registered for free school meals. The figure for Scotland is just 13.2%. The Drumchapel/Anniesland ward in my constituency has the greatest depth of poverty in Glasgow. That is a lot of statistics, but as my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow North East says, there is a family or an individual behind every single one.

Earlier this year, I held a child poverty taskforce event. The submission from that has been fed into the Government’s taskforce. It was attended by many organisations that work with children and families in Glasgow West. The stories they told and the evidence they offered were truly shocking. One participant, a volunteer with a youth club, reflected on her experience of taking a group of children on a day out and giving each child £5 to buy lunch. One child asked if he could forgo lunch and give the money to his mum so that she could buy bread and milk for the family. As you will gather, I find that story horrific, but that is the reality for many children who are all too aware of the financial pressures that their parents are facing. In effect, it takes away their ability to enjoy their childhood and be children.

As we have heard, since 2013-14 the funding received by Glasgow city council has reduced significantly, putting severe pressure on services across the city. Hopefully, the record settlement that this Government has passed to the Scottish Government will allow them to address what is now chronic underfunding. Over recent years, I have been disappointed that the SNP administration in Glasgow has not seemed to feel it either necessary or required that it should challenge its colleagues in the Scottish Government at Holyrood about that funding situation, because it should not have been allowed to continue.

We have heard a lot about the mortality rate in Glasgow. I will not rehearse that; I will just say that we have known for a very long time that health inequalities, housing conditions, educational opportunities and poverty are all connected. A lifetime ago, I worked in the health service, and we were proud of but challenged by the Black report, which drew attention to all those facts. We have known about them since 1980, and have had the opportunity to do something about them over the years. We made some progress under the Blair Government, and we began to look at poverty, particularly child poverty, in the early days of the Scottish Parliament, but we need to do much more. All these issues are connected. If one part of that jigsaw is in the wrong place, the life chances and life opportunities of all those families and young people are badly affected.

I close by thanking my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow North East again. She was absolutely right to be challenging about what we all have to do, what all Governments have to do and what all local authorities have to do. It is only by working together that we will begin to make a difference for the people who rely on us to do that.

[Dawn Butler (in the Chair)]

I would like to leave a couple of minutes at the end for the mover of the debate to wind up. I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.

19:02

[Susan Murray (Mid Dunbartonshire) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Butler. I thank the hon. Member for Glasgow North East (Maureen Burke) for securing this important debate and for her very moving speech. It is clear that she is committed to her constituents.

We need to break the cycle of inequality. As we heard, on the streets of north-east Glasgow and in parts of my constituency of Mid Dunbartonshire—including Auchinairn, which neighbours Glasgow North East—too many young people begin life weighed down by poverty rather than uplifted by potential. Across Glasgow, 33% of children are growing up poor, but that figure rises to over 37% in the Glasgow East constituency, the highest rate in Scotland.

Behind every percentage point are hundreds of pupils whose concentration is broken by hunger, and whose homework, if it is done at all, is done under blankets because the heating is off. New figures from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation reveal that 6 million people in the UK today are living in “very deep poverty”, and nearly half a million of them are in Scotland.

Poverty on that scale is not just a social failure. It is an economic own goal and a drag on growth. The OECD has long shown that inequality depresses GDP by stunting skills and productivity. A cold, hungry child suffering from illness and missing school is unlikely to become the skilled, creative adult our economy needs. We need investment, not in handouts but in the human capital that will pay Scotland dividends for decades.

Three interventions stand out. First, we must extend free school meals to every child in poverty throughout primary and secondary school. Scotland rightly offers universal provision in primary 1 to 5, yet pupils in primary 6 and 7 and early secondary school still fall through the net. Research by the Institute for Fiscal Studies finds that a reliable, nutritious lunch raises attainment by the equivalent of two months’ learning each year and boosts lifetime earnings. That is growth economics in a dinner hall: healthier children today, higher productivity tomorrow, and lower long-term welfare and NHS costs.

Secondly, we must make every home in north-east Glasgow and beyond warm and efficient. The Warmer Homes Scotland programme helped over 7,000 households last year, cutting bills and carbon alike, and demand has soared as energy prices climb. Accelerating retrofits in social housing across the region would create skilled jobs and boost economic activity through local supply chains. For families, it means that money saved on energy bills can be spent on essentials such as food, school shoes or a local after-school club.

Thirdly, we must ensure universal access to NHS dental care for all children. Despite school dentists, all too frequently families simply cannot get an NHS dentist. Routine care is being missed and tooth decay remains one of the leading causes of hospital admissions for children. That is not just a public health failure; it is a productivity issue. Dental pain keeps children off school, affects their speech and self-esteem and entrenches disadvantage. Good oral health must be seen as a core part of a child’s educational and developmental success.

[Kirsty Blackman]

I spoke in a debate in Westminster Hall on NHS dentists a wee while ago. Something like 95% of people in Scotland are registered with NHS dentists, whereas the figure in the England is that only about 50% of adults will ever see an NHS dentist in their life. Is the hon. Member making this case specifically for Scotland? I would love to hear more about where the gaps are in service provision in Scotland.

[Susan Murray]

That is not my experience in my constituency of Mid Dunbartonshire. We did a survey recently that showed that there was quite a lot of difficulty in finding an NHS dentist, and that many people who were with NHS dentists found that they were moving to private practice. In fact, I know of many constituents in east Dunbartonshire who are travelling to Springburn to reach an NHS dentist, so they have to travel quite a long distance.

Tackling poverty means addressing the full range of barriers that hold children back. Hunger, cold homes and preventable health issues are among them. Those are devolved levers that Holyrood can and should pull. The Scottish child payment is a start, but Westminster must also play its part. The Liberal Democrats are calling on the UK Government to tackle child poverty by removing the two-child limit and the benefits cap, and to reduce the wait for the first payment of universal credit from five weeks to five days. Instead, a UK-wide poverty premium continues to strip cash from low-income households through their higher tariffs and costlier services.

Scotland cannot build fairness on funding shortfalls. Hungry children cannot learn. Cold, unwell children cannot thrive. Nourished pupils, warm homes and healthy children are the engines for future growth. By investing in all our children, school meals, energy efficiency and basic healthcare access, we will not only spare a generation the misery of deprivation, but unlock the skills, health and enterprise that can power north-east Glasgow and the whole of the United Kingdom to a more prosperous future. This is not just a moral choice; it is the smart one, both socially and economically.

19:09

[Danny Kruger (East Wiltshire) (Con)]

May I start by acknowledging the very powerful speeches that we have heard this afternoon from the Members for Glasgow? I would not say that my view is that the people of Glasgow are generally well represented by Scottish Labour, but they have been very well represented in this debate.

I pay particular tribute to the hon. Member for Glasgow North East (Maureen Burke) for the way she highlighted the tragedy of low life expectancy and of poverty in general in her constituency. She mentioned Easterhouse, which occupies a particular place in the pantheon of Conservative thinking about welfare because my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith) visited it 20 years ago and had his epiphany about what she described as the context of poverty. He described the interconnectedness of the different factors that drive poverty, which go so far beyond simple income poverty—issues around welfare itself but also joblessness, family breakdown, addiction and so on.

The hon. Member for Glasgow North (Martin Rhodes) talked about the long consequences of deindustrialisation, which are relevant across our country but especially in places such as Glasgow. He also mentioned the consequence of the 2008 global financial crisis.

The hon. Member for Glasgow North East mentioned the stagnation of wages in her constituency. Low wage growth has been a problem across the United Kingdom since that time. When my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green became the Welfare Secretary in 2010, he introduced reforms that offered real, direct benefits and improvements in welfare and in worklessness. There were 1 million fewer workless households in 2020 than in 2010 and, after housing costs, 1 million fewer people in absolute poverty—100,000 fewer children, 200,000 fewer pensioners and 700,000 fewer working-age people in poverty.

The last Government did make a real impact on poverty. Nevertheless, I want to acknowledge some of the points that have been made in this debate. The fact is that the fiscal situation that we inherited and the choices made by the coalition Government meant that insufficient support was given to people who needed it, particularly as a result of cuts to local authority budgets and reforms to the DWP budgets.

I echo what the hon. Member for Glasgow North East says about the neglect of Glasgow under the SNP since devolution and over the past decade, but I do not agree with her about the value of the reforms being introduced by the new Government. What we have seen is a rushed effort driven by the imperative to balance the books in consequence of a failed Budget last year, leaving a real crisis in the public finances that is now being felt by the recipients of benefits. The Government are balancing the books on the backs of the people least able to sustain that weight.

[John Grady]

On failed Budgets, my constituents go to the shops with terror at the rising prices that followed the Budget of Liz Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that that is the very definition of a failed Budget—one that plunged many of my constituents into poverty?

[Danny Kruger]

I am not going to defend the mini-Budget to which the hon. Gentleman refers, but I do not accept that the rise in prices that all our constituents have experienced are solely, or even in large part, due to that event. They are a result of wider global events—and since this Government came in, I am afraid to say, of a failed economic policy that has driven the necessity of the disability benefit cuts that have been introduced and the winter fuel payment cut, causing 10 million people to lose a vital part of their income. Since the cut, 100,000 more pensioners have been admitted to A&E and 50,000 children have been plunged into poverty in consequence of what is happening at the DWP.

I am very concerned about the announcement of cuts to the benefits regime before the review of the assessment system that gives people the entitlement to benefits. We have a genuine failure at the DWP. In addition to that, jobs are being destroyed by Treasury decisions to raise national insurance on employers, drive up energy costs and introduce a new Bill that will make employers much less keen to take on new workers.

My suggestion to the Minister, if she will allow me to make it, is to rethink the changes to winter fuel payments. I am conscious that in Scotland the Scottish Government are taking over responsibility for this area of policy and I echo the point made by the hon. Member for Aberdeen North (Kirsty Blackman) that it would be good to hear from the Minister about how the interaction of the benefits reforms will work in the light of Scottish Government policy. I also hope that the UK Government will rethink the disability benefit cuts until we get the review of the eligibility assessment schemes. We need more support for people who need help to navigate the system and get into work.

Let me return to the point I made in response to the reference to Easterhouse by the hon. Member for Glasgow North East. We need to attack the drivers of poverty—the interconnected factors that account for the demand for welfare, which is so high. It is social breakdown rather than purely DWP systems that account for the high— indeed, unsustainable—benefit bills that we have. We need to grow the economy to create jobs—good jobs, as the hon. Lady said, that will be right for Glasgow and right for the UK.

19:15

[The Minister for Employment (Alison McGovern)]

As ever, it is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Butler. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow North East (Maureen Burke) on securing this debate on a topic that could hardly be more important. I will take the transcript of this debate as a submission to the child poverty taskforce because Members have made significant points today. I know that my colleagues in the ministerial taskforce and in the Child Poverty Unit in the Cabinet Office will read the transcript of this debate with interest, because, as I say, Members have made very important points.

I thank the hon. Member for Aberdeen North (Kirsty Blackman), and my hon. Friends the Members for Glasgow East (John Grady), for Glasgow North (Martin Rhodes) and for Glasgow West (Patricia Ferguson), for their contributions. I had the pleasure of reading the submission from the child poverty taskforce event that my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow West held recently. I, too, read the story of the child she mentioned. We should not apologise for engaging emotionally with this issue, because nothing matters more than the fortunes of our kids in this country.

I also thank the hon. Member for Mid Dunbartonshire (Susan Murray). I welcome all the contributions that have been made as we move towards the publication of our child poverty strategy. I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow North recently met some of my DWP colleagues at the Springburn Jobcentre Plus office. I hope that she found them to be really helpful, because they will have enjoyed meeting her. I encourage all Members from all parties to engage with their local DWP teams in their local jobcentres. They are brilliant human beings and all constituency MPs can get a lot out of working with them, so I thank my hon. Friend for doing just that.

As has been made evident by this debate, poverty is a stain on this country, and tackling it is a priority. Our plan for change as a Government includes giving children the best start in life, as well as raising living standards in each and every part of the United Kingdom. Reducing poverty is vital to achieving both those ambitions, and to the lives and life chances of millions of people living in hardship right now. That hardship has been caused, as Members have said, by a combination of social and economic failures.

I feel an affinity with Glasgow. It is a wonderful city and shares many features with my own Merseyside. As on Merseyside, Glasgow’s industrial past of shipbuilding and the long-running effects of deindustrialisation have had huge consequences. One of the points that has come out of this debate really clearly is that all of that not only has poverty consequences but consequential health impacts. I know that picture in Glasgow and it is true for my home as well, so I feel it. These problems are acute and places like Glasgow have felt the consequences of policy failures over a very long period. We have heard some of the statistics already. Glasgow, the city, has the second highest level of people on out-of-work benefits in Britain. That is not a good enough future for a wonderful city.

In my role as Minister for Employment—though in my life, many times before—I have been fortunate to be in Glasgow to hear directly about not only the problems that the city faces, but the opportunities and the work to support people in Glasgow. Last October, I was pleased to meet a number of partners tackling child poverty there. We see good results when we are able to join up support for people, and that is the kind of approach I want to feed into our child poverty strategy when it is published. I apologise in advance for not being able to give all the details of what will be in the strategy, but I know that Members will understand and be patient. The strategy, which we are all anxious to have, is coming.

The DWP in Scotland is working closely with partners in Glasgow, including on identifying where we can join up support to make it better and employers that can help to give people a good chance in life. In November, as part of the child poverty taskforce, I was fortunate to meet child poverty charities, experts, parents and children in Glasgow. They told me their stories, their challenges and their priorities, putting those into the development of our strategy, which is focused on increasing incomes, reducing costs and supporting families with better local services, so Glasgow will influence it. We have heard from people, as we have done again today. We understand what they need. This has to be a cross-Government strategy. Members have mentioned health, housing and education, and we will work across the UK Government and with the Scottish Government to ensure that it is an effective strategy.

I will take a moment to describe action we have already delivered to tackle the scourge of poverty. We have taken some urgent steps before being able to publish the strategy. We extended the household support fund, which councils in England can use to support low-income households, so there was extra funding for Scotland through the Barnett formula. That support is there for crises, which is important, but beyond that, we know that we need to act on incomes and ensure that people can do better.

Just last week, therefore, our fair repayment rate for universal credit came into effect, reducing how much people in debt can have taken off their benefits to pay what they owe. A maximum of 25% of someone’s universal credit standard allowance has been reduced to 15%. On average, affected households will benefit by £420 a year, reducing the impact of debt on people. As my dad always used to say, “Out of debt, out of danger.” As a result of the change, 110,000 of Scotland’s poorest households will now be better off. That marks the Government’s first step into a wider review of universal credit to ensure that it works to help lift people out of poverty.

Thanks to our commitment to the triple lock, more than 1 million pensioners in Scotland will benefit from as much as £470 a year being added to their state pension this year, following the increase we implemented last month. That is on top of the biggest-ever pension credit take-up campaign, helping to drive up claims by 81% in the 30 weeks since July, compared with the same period a year earlier.

My hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow North East asked a couple of questions about the Green Paper and our proposed changes. She asked me specifically about end-of-life care—I agree that the work of Marie Curie and others is deeply impressive. The DWP supports people nearing the end of life through the special rules for end of life. Those rules enable such people to get faster and easier access to certain benefits without needing to attend a medical assessment or to serve waiting periods. In most cases, they receive the highest rate of benefits. Those rules have been extended to apply to people who have 12 months of life to live, rather than six months, so that people can receive that vital support through the special rules six months earlier.

My hon. Friend also asked me about new employment support and how we will protect people where work is simply not possible. That is a really important point, because we know that there are people who need to be protected. The Green Paper outlines how we will consult on that and work on our safeguarding policies to make sure the process of protecting those people is improved. My particular passion on employment support is making sure that people are treated with real dignity, and that our fantastic frontline staff in jobcentres are able to see the person in front of them, not for it to be a box-ticking exercise, but to make sure that person has access to great opportunities. That is the whole point of our employment support changes.

The hon. Member for Aberdeen North asked about the process in Scotland. That will be finalised as we get towards the White Paper in autumn. As she pointed out, we need to make sure that we have got the solution right for Scotland. We will work with the Scottish Government to do that.

In her maiden speech last year, my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow North East said:

“Education and further education are a route out of poverty. It gives you a sense of achievement, self-belief and the confidence that anything is possible.”—[Official Report, 15 October 2024; Vol. 754, c. 765.]

My hon. Friend was absolutely spot on with that sense that anything is possible. She was also right when she said earlier that poverty is theft, because you rob people of that sense of what is possible when you leave them with the indignity of poverty. That is why our whole strategy is about giving people chances and choices in life, with them learning skills and gaining qualifications. We are creating more good jobs through the modern industrial strategy. It is about unleashing the full potential of great cities like Glasgow so they have the growth and prosperity that they should have. Good jobs, with our plan to make work pay, will put money in the pockets of people in Glasgow and give them the dignity, self-respect, chances and choices that they deserve.

We need radical change to the help that we give people to escape poverty and to get a good job, but we need the whole Government to act together, and with devolved Administrations, collaborating in work that will see people do much better. I know that Glasgow is a wonderful place, which I have been welcomed to many times, but I also know the truth of what we have heard today—that people in Glasgow are robbed of years of good life that they should have, because of the shame of poverty. I am glad to be able to work with good colleagues from all parties who care about ending poverty to get the right set of policies in our strategy and to make those policies real, so that people have the chances, choices and dignity they deserve.

19:28

[Maureen Burke]

I will have to talk quickly. I thank the Minister for her speech. I put on the record that the Springburn jobcentre is doing an amazing job at getting people into work; I was blown away by what they are doing, and wanted to state that here today. I thank all Members for their contributions; it has been a very good debate. We are here because we care for our constituents.

On a more personal note, I have to say that people are, and will be, dying sooner than they should. My sister died in her 30s, leaving her 10-year-old girl behind. My brother died in his early 50s with pancreatic cancer. My mum died of a heart attack. I know what it is to lose people, and it is all because of where they lived and what shaped their life. Was it their fate being where they were—where we were brought up? There is lots more that I wanted to say, but I obviously do not have time. This has been a great debate. I am here for my constituents, and for the loss that I felt that I do not want anybody else to feel going forward. I thank the Minister for being here and I thank everybody for their contributions. Thank you, Ms Butler, for giving me this opportunity.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered poverty in Glasgow North East constituency.

19:29

Sitting adjourned.