Local Councillors: Recruitment, Retention and Well-being

Lord Sahota Excerpts

Thursday 4th June 2026 Grand Committee

[Lord Sahota (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Forbes of Newcastle for bringing forward this important debate. It is a subject that matters deeply to me, not only as a politician but as someone from a ethnic minority background who has experienced these issues personally. This is not simply a political matter; it goes to the very heart of our democracy.

I speak not only from my principles but from my personal experience. I have been in politics for more than 30 years, with 22 years as a serving local councillor. I have witnessed at first hand the ugly reality of racial hatred in public life. At an election count, a returning officer would sometimes refuse to show me the spoiled ballot papers because they contained racial abuse directed at me. When I stood for Parliament some years ago, I received numerous racist email messages, and I quote just one of them. It said: “I’m not voting for that rag head”, referring to my turban and my Sikh faith. On another occasion, during an election campaign, a party stake board outside in my garden was vandalised with deeply offensive racial language scrawled all over it.

Despite everything I have experienced, I still firmly believe that politics is a noble profession. Serving the public and my community is the greatest honour of my life. Our democracy depends on ordinary people coming forward to represent their community. We should be encouraging more people from every background to stand for public office, not fewer. But that will only happen if they feel safe, respected and properly protected. Therefore, I ask the Government what steps they will take to strengthen the protection for councillors and candidates to tackle racial abuse, online harassment and intimidation, to ensure that those responsible for such behaviours are properly held to account. We cannot allow hatred and intimidation to become accepted as a part of political life. Our democracy deserves better.

Social Housing Bill [HL]

Lord Sahota Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 1st June 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sahota (Lab)]

My Lords, I am another former council leader. When I was leader of Telford and Wrekin Council in Shropshire, we took a bold and innovative decision to address the growing shortage of good-quality, affordable homes for local people. Rather than simply discussing the housing crisis, we decided to act. We established a wholly owned housing company called Nuplace with a clear and practical purpose to build high-quality homes for rent on council-owned brownfield sites, to regenerate neglected land, to provide homes for local families and at the same time to generate income that would support vital local services. At the time, some questioned whether the council should be involved directly in housing delivery in this way.

However, I am proud to say that the result has more than justified our decision. So far, around 1,000 homes have been built or are in the process of being completed in the near future through this scheme. Tenant demand has remained constantly high, which demonstrates the real need for well-managed, affordable rental homes. Approximately 25 acres of previously underused derelict land has been regenerated, transforming eyesores into thriving communities. Our policy focused on delivering high-standard, energy-efficient properties that local people are proud to live in. I am told that the tenant satisfaction rate remains at around 96%, which is a remarkable achievement by any standard.

The financial benefits have also been substantial—this is some years ago in Telford and Wrekin when I was leader of the council. The scheme has generated more than £8 million in net income for the council, alongside more than £3 million through council tax receipts and new homes bonus funding. At a time when councils across the country were facing severe financial pressures, our innovative housing policy both met social needs and strengthened our council finances. Although I am no longer with Telford and Wrekin Council, I am told that the scheme continues to perform strongly with high demand.

Does my noble friend the Minister agree that councils across the country should seriously examine models such as that of Telford and Wrekin Council? It is not a complete solution to the national housing shortage, but it is certainly a part of the answer. This approach delivers multiple public benefits simultaneously. It increases housing supply, regenerates brownfield land, improves the local environment, creates construction jobs and apprenticeships, supports local economic growth, provides secure homes for working families and generates long-term revenue streams for local authorities. It also demonstrates something very important: that local authorities, when given the freedom and confidence to innovate, can become active partners in solving national problems rather than just waiting for a diktat from central government.

At a time when housing pressure continues to affect so many families, particularly young people and key workers, we should encourage practical, locally driven solutions that combine social purpose with financial sustainability. I hope the Government will continue to support councils that are prepared to take this kind of ambitious and entrepreneurial approach to local housing policies.

Local Government Pension Fund

Lord Sahota Excerpts

Monday 18th May 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

The Fit for the Future reforms do not seek to undermine the fiduciary duty of local pension funds in any way. The responsibility to set investment strategies—the key driver of investment returns—remains with the funds, making sure that they retain local accountability. New LGPS regulations will continue to require administering authorities to include preferences on environmental, social and governance factors in their investment strategies.

[Lord Sahota (Lab)]

My Lords, I congratulate the Government on planning to reintroduce the pension scheme for local councillors, which was abolished in 2015 by the noble Lord, Lord Pickles, when he was the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government in the other place. Thousands of councillors lost their pensions. Does my noble friend the Minister agree with me that the noble Lord should apologise to all those councillors, of all political parties, for the loss of their pensions?

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

We took a different view from the previous policy, and I think that was the right thing to do. Many local councillors will potentially give up many hours of their working life to undertake their duties. It is absolutely right that they should be eligible for the Local Government Pension Scheme.

Local Resilience Forums

Lord Sahota Excerpts

Thursday 16th April 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

The noble Lord raises a very interesting question. I do not have a direct answer for him but, having been through the process of being the leader of a local authority during the Covid period I pay tribute, first, to the voluntary and third sectors, which absolutely stepped up during that period, and, secondly, to colleagues in the services who also supported what both local government and national government were doing. We need to think very hard about where we are going to need significant resources and how those will be co-ordinated and arranged. I am sure that the 2027 review of the Civil Contingencies Act will take great consideration of the kind of issues the noble Lord has raised.

[Lord Sahota (Lab)]

My Lords, the West Mercia area has an elected police commissioner at the moment, but we have no elected mayor in Hereford and Shopshire. What is the Government’s plan for devolution here? Will we be offered a mayoral deal to run the police?

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

The local government reorganisation and devolution programme is still ongoing, as I am sure my noble friend will be aware. It is the Government’s intention that when police and crime commissioners come to the end of their terms, there will be mayors in place to take over their duties. We will be making announcements towards the summer in response to all the proposals that have come in for the rest of the country where announcements have not already been made.

Local Government Reorganisation

Lord Sahota Excerpts

Wednesday 4th March 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

I very much agree with what the noble Baroness says about encouraging people to get engaged with local elections and with their local authorities. We take local people’s views very seriously. Community engagement and neighbourhood empowerment are both part of our criteria for judging the proposals on new councils, and new councils, like current councils, must listen to their communities and deliver genuine opportunities for people to shape the neighbourhoods where they live, because people generally judge their well-being by what they see when they walk out of their front door. We are determined that communities should have their say in the future of public services, so we have gone through an extensive consultation process and we have made sure that, as we judge the proposals put forward, the authorities putting forward those proposals have done that as well.

[Lord Sahota (Lab)]

My Lords, in 2015, the previous Government abolished the pension for local councillors— I believe that the noble Lord, Lord Pickles, was responsible for that. Do the Government have any plan to reintroduce the pension for councillors?

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

I am delighted to tell my noble friend that the Government are bringing back pensions for local councillors. It is very important that they do that; local councillors provide outstanding service for their communities and many of them have to give up considerable aspects of their working life to do so. I am delighted that this Government see the value of that and have brought back pensions for councillors.

Donations to Political Parties

Lord Sahota Excerpts

Thursday 12th February 2026 Grand Committee

[Lord Sahota (Lab)]

My Lords, I rise with a profound sense of responsibility because the issue before us goes to the very heart of our constitutional settlement: the integrity of our democracy. At the moment there is a growing and deeply troubling perception that British democracy is simply on sale to the highest bidder. That perception alone should alarm us all. We are witnessing donations whose true origins are unclear and that are rooted through opaque structures, sometimes linked to foreign interests and are too often beyond the effective scrutiny of the regulator. This is not a theoretical concern; it is a present and pressing danger. The principle is simple: decisions about the future of the United Kingdom should be made by the British people, not shaped by unknown donors, overseas interests or hidden financial powers.

Democracy is about equality of voice, not inequality of wealth. The Committee on Standards in Public Life has recommended a cap of £10,000 on donations to political parties. Such a cap would not stifle political participation; it would protect it. It would ensure that political parties are funded by broad public support rather than a narrow group of wealthy benefactors.

The integrity of our democracy is at stake. The United Kingdom is respected around the world as a beacon of democratic governance, often described, rightly or wrongly, as the mother of all democracies. That reputation has been earned over the centuries through reform, restraint and a shared commitment to fairness and accountability. It must not be squandered now. Democracy cannot be treated as a commodity traded to the highest bidder. It is a trust handed down to us and held on behalf of future generations. Safeguarding requires courage, transparency and a willingness to confront uncomfortable truths. This House has a duty to act. If we fail to strengthen our law on political donations, we risk allowing money to speak louder than the citizen. We cannot and must not take that risk.

New Homes Target

Lord Sahota Excerpts

Wednesday 11th February 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

New measures were introduced in the Planning and Infrastructure Act to make sure that we deal effectively with nutrient neutrality. We have had to do this without causing the impact on housebuilding that had been done under the previous Government. We have taken the steps needed. We have the nature restoration fund. Developers can work as part of this to make sure that they are able to deliver the homes and meet the needs of the environment at the same time.

[Lord Sahota (Lab)]

My Lords, in order to deliver these homes, local authorities need to co-operate with the Government, particularly in preparing local plans, allocating land, speeding up planning decisions, working with developers and communities, and so on. Are local authorities co-operating with the Government to deliver these 1.5 million homes in this Parliament?

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

As I stated, I remind my noble friend that we see our partnership with local authorities as critical to delivering the housing numbers we need. The Planning and Infrastructure Act that we passed last year will accelerate housebuilding while preserving important environmental protections, making sure that we get the consenting process sped up and a more strategic approach to nature recovery, and improving certainty in the decision-making and planning system. We have supported local authority planning capacity with the funding and training that are needed. We are working together with our partners in local authorities to make sure that we get this moving as quickly as possible.

Holocaust Memorial Day

Lord Sahota Excerpts

Monday 26th January 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sahota (Lab)]

My Lords, I congratulate the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Coventry on her moving and illuminating maiden speech.

I rise with a profound sense of solemnity and responsibility. Holocaust Memorial Day is not merely a day of remembrance but a day of moral reckoning—one that calls on us all year after year to confront the darkest capacities of humanity and reaffirm our shared commitment to ensuring that such horrors are never repeated.

The Holocaust was a heinous crime—an atrocity of the worst kind in human history. Six million Jewish men, women and children were systematically murdered, alongside millions of others, including Roma, disabled people, political dissidents, and members of the LGBT community. This was not an accident of war but a deliberate and industrialised attempt to eradicate an entire people. We must continue to remind the world that such inhumanity to humanity must never be allowed to happen again.

We also remember that many of those responsible were ultimately brought to justice. That matters. Accountability matters. It reaffirms our fundamental principle that no state, no Government and no individual are beyond moral or legal judgment.

However, Holocaust Memorial Day also invites us to reflect broadly on the lessons of history. It asks us not only to remember one atrocity but to recognise and remember others committed across different times, different continents and different cultures, so that memory itself may serve as a safeguard against repetition. In that spirit, we must acknowledge other grave injustices that occurred that scar our collective past.

One such example is the Amritsar massacre of 13 April 1919, when hundreds of unarmed men, women and children were brutally killed at Jallianwala Bagh. They had gathered there peacefully, yet they were met with indiscriminate and lethal force. This was a profound moral failure and a tragedy that continues to resonate, particularly for British Indians and the wider Commonwealth. There have been other atrocities across the world as well, such as Rwanda, Srebrenica, Cambodia, My Lai and many more. Each reminds us that the promise of “never again” must be renewed continually, not spoken once and then just forgotten.

Remembrance without reflection is hollow. Reflection without responsibility is incomplete. Acknowledging historical wrongs does not diminish a nation. Rather, it strengthens its moral standing and demonstrates the courage to confront uncomfortable truths. In reflecting on the lessons of the Holocaust, we are also invited to look with honesty and humility at our history.

Amritsar remains a source of deep sadness, particularly for those whose families were directly affected. In that context, I respectfully ask my noble friend the Minister whether His Majesty’s Government have any plan to offer a formal apology for the Amritsar massacre, in recognition of the hundreds of innocent men, women and children who were mowed down on that tragic day. Such an apology would not undo the past, but it would carry a profound symbolic weight and reaffirm our enduring commitment to justice, humanity and historical truth.

Fair Funding Review

Lord Sahota Excerpts

Monday 24th November 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

I very much agree. I have seen on the front line how cuts to local government funding have affected so much the provision of social activities, culture and leisure in our communities. It is very important that local government has the ability to make provision for local communities in those areas. What happened was that the harder it was for a local council to raise funds, the more they seemed to be penalised through the system. The more deprived a community was, the less likely they were to have the headroom to deliver the kinds of services the noble Earl speaks about. We need to change that, and we are working on reversing that.

[Lord Sahota (Lab)]

My Lords, what assessment have the Government made of the reasons so many local authorities are failing to meet their housing delivery targets? What steps are being taken to support them in doing so?

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

The first thing we did was restore the mandatory housing targets because, first, it did not make any sense to us. We wanted to deliver an overall target across the country but we were not saying what part in that each local authority played. Secondly, we know there are a lot of pressures facing local planning authorities. We have invested £46 million in this year’s funding to strengthen the capacity and capability to deliver planning reform to enable local authorities to meet their housing targets. We have made a commitment to recruit 300 additional planners, alongside wider planning policy changes—we will be discussing these later this afternoon—and legislative changes. That will help us deliver the housing and economic growth our country desperately needs.

New Homes Target

Lord Sahota Excerpts

Tuesday 21st October 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

I am very happy to take back whether we need some more communication on this. We have been very clear that we take a brownfield-first approach, but we know that brownfield alone will not be enough to deliver the country’s needs. That is why we have asked all local authorities that cannot meet their needs to review green belt and to identify opportunities. We expect them to prioritise the development of brownfield and the low-quality grey-belt land that the noble Baroness referred to. High-performing green-belt land and land safeguarded for environmental reasons will still be protected. The green-belt reforms support a more strategic and targeted approach to green belt. However, as I said, we are looking at brownfield first. Then, we expect local authorities to look at grey belt. I will take back to the department whether we need to communicate any further on that issue.

[Lord Sahota (Lab)]

My Lords, before I ask the question, I wish all noble Lords a happy Diwali.

What role do local authorities play in achieving the 1.5 million homes target, and how are they supported?