English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill

Abtisam Mohamed Excerpts

Report stage
Tuesday 25th November 2025 Commons Chamber

A community asset could be a pub, a community hall, an allotment or a village green. Only local people know what really matters to them, and only local people can be trusted to keep the faith. The democratic gap that has been opened up between town and parish councils and unitary councils is vast. The new unitary system will leave English people with arguably the lowest percentage of local representatives per head of any western European country. That is the opposite of devolution. I therefore urge the Minister to support new clause 10, to strengthen access to community ownership funds. That needs active thought, or we will see much-loved assets vanish as mere collateral damage of wider reform. It takes decades to create those oases of local culture, but just a few short years to destroy them.

[Abtisam Mohamed (Sheffield Central) (Lab)]

I will address Government amendments 152 and 153. I thank the Minister and her predecessor, my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham West, Chadderton and Royton (Jim McMahon), for responding to our concerns at the outset of proceedings on the Bill.

As we reach the end of debate on the Bill, I am struck by how significant this moment is for local democracy and for communities like mine in Sheffield, where residents won a referendum on how the city will be run. They chose to adopt the committee system of governance, and secured a democratic mandate to change the culture of the council. When the Bill was introduced, I and my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield Hallam (Olivia Blake), along with the leaders of Sheffield council and grassroots campaigners, made the case for our constituents’ decision to be respected through the inclusion of Sheffield’s example in legislation. As a result, Government amendments 152 and 153 now provide the legal basis for what Sheffield has decided, and will, in turn, protect the democratic process.

Amendment 152 clarifies that the committee system can operate where it already exists, while amendment 153 sets out how a council such as Sheffield can continue that operation through a review and a resolution to confirm that it should remain. Those amendments mean that our system of governance is both recognised and protected. For Sheffield, it means confirming that our referendum result was not just symbolic but an expression of democratic choice. It also means that that choice is honoured, not overwritten, and recognised in law.

I acknowledge the collaborative work that has brought us here. We have spoken constructively for many months with campaigners from It’s Our City Sheffield, which has been instrumental in ensuring that Sheffield’s voice was heard; with local government leaders who have taken on the mantle of embedding a culture of inclusivity and opening up decision making; and with Ministers, to ensure that the Bill protects the system chosen by our residents, and offers the legal clarity needed to support effective local government. For Sheffield, that is the right outcome.

Finally, I would like to express my support for new clauses 67 and 68 and amendment 168, which stand in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Crawley (Peter Lamb), and new clause 83 in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Heywood and Middleton North (Mrs Blundell), on the issue of cross-border taxi licensing. I declare my interest, as a member of two unions—GMB and Unite—that have been actively campaigning on this issue.

Those amendments would strengthen the Government’s new clauses 49 to 57 on setting national minimum standards for private hire, but they go further in explicitly ending out-of-area taxi licensing—an issue that is repeatedly raised by my constituents and has been raised by the Transport Committee, as well as Baroness Casey’s recent review. However, constituents have contacted me to urge slight caution on some of the wording in new clause 83, especially in proposed new section 55C of the Local Government (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1976, to ensure that it does not lead to the prevention of legitimate cross-border journeys such as airport journeys. To echo the words of Sheffield residents, this is a decisive moment with the potential to resolve a problem that has undermined public safety and the integrity of our licence system for far too long.

[Manuela Perteghella (Stratford-on-Avon) (LD)]

I am pleased to speak to several amendments, tabled by my Liberal Democrat colleagues, that relate to community assets, planning and local democratic engagement. These are practical proposals designed to strengthen the community empowerment provisions in the Bill and make them work in our communities.

The Bill removes the long-standing duty for councils to publish notices in printed local newspapers. In a constituency like Stratford-on-Avon, that is a serious concern. Not everyone is online, especially in our rural villages, where digital connectivity is still patchy, and many older residents rely on the local newspaper for essential information. Printed notices remain one of the clearest ways that residents hear about planning applications, road closures, licensing changes and council decisions that affect their daily lives. They also support a local press sector that has played a vital role in maintaining transparency and scrutiny and informing citizens. I have tabled amendment 28 to keep that requirement in place. It is a simple safeguard to ensure that residents are not excluded from the democratic process because they happen to live in an area with poor broadband or simply prefer print.

Turning to community assets, I have tabled amendments 30 and 32 because the current system contains a glaring flaw. Once listed, an asset of community value drops off the register automatically after five years, regardless of whether it is still important to the community. For many villages and towns, the asset might be the local pub, the village green, the village hall or a community shop. These remain part of the fabric of local life for decades, yet community groups often discover only after the fact that the listing has expired, and they have lost the right to bid.

Amendments 30 and 32 would remove the automatic expiry so that protection does not vanish simply because a bureaucratic deadline has passed. It shifts the burden away from volunteers and neighbourhood groups and ensures continuity for assets that people rely on. It is exactly what the community value regime was meant to achieve.

Linked to that is amendment 33, which concerns planning decisions affecting assets of community value. At present, even if an asset is listed, there is no obligation for planning authorities to give that status special weight. Communities see treasured buildings or spaces demolished or redeveloped despite having taken the trouble to secure recognition. Amendment 33 would allow the Secretary of State to issue guidance requiring planning authorities to consider community value properly and give this weight when determining applications.

New clause 6 goes one step further in safeguarding these community assets once listed. It gives local councils a clear duty to oversee how land of community value is managed. If an owner lets the land fall into neglect or deliberately runs it down to justify redevelopment, councils would have the tools to intervene, including compulsory purchase where necessary. It creates real accountability for absentee owners and ensures that assets meant for community benefit remain so in practice.

Taken together, these amendments reflect a simple principle: devolution cannot just be about shifting powers upwards to remote large combined authorities; it must also strengthen the tools available to people and places at the most local level. Communities know best what matters in their area. They should not have to fight to keep their village hall or their community green space because of arbitrary deadlines or loopholes in planning policy.

Local people have the ability to revive and strengthen the places that they call home, but they can only do that if power is shared with them, rather than concentrated in the hands of a few distant mayors. If Ministers are committed to meaningful community empowerment, they should take these proposals seriously and accept them, along with the wider set of amendments tabled by my Liberal Democrat colleagues.

English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill

Abtisam Mohamed Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 2nd September 2025 Commons Chamber

[Abtisam Mohamed (Sheffield Central) (Lab)]

I congratulate the Deputy Prime Minister on bringing forward this Bill, which embeds our ambition and champions the promise of devolution. It will mark the biggest transfer of power from Whitehall to our regions in a generation. It means that the protection of our public spaces will result in the improvement of our infrastructure and the strengthening of our local economy. Devolution should promote local accountability and bring decision makers closer to the people who feel the impact, and I wholeheartedly welcome the parts of the Bill that will ensure that. The creation of a community right to buy, offering more oversight on local policing and placing a duty on authorities to improve health and reduce health inequalities are also welcome steps in the right direction. The spirit of the Bill is one we should all support.

I bring clause 57 to the Government’s attention. It effectively abolishes the committee structure and introduces a measure that will impact on Sheffield, one of 38 councils running under the committee governance system. More than 80,000 people in a democratic referendum in Sheffield voted decisively in favour of a modern committee structure over the leader and cabinet model that clause 57 imposes. Through the referendum, Sheffield citizens chose collaboration through their committees, instead of decision-making powers being concentrated in fewer hands. Six years on from that referendum, the committee system works for Sheffield. It has delivered meaningful scrutiny where it was lacking before, and it has proven its worth in those moments where public trust has been under threat.

However, we are not here to discuss the merits and disadvantages of these two models of local governance. What matters is that residents have made a democratic decision at a local level, and it is important for that mandate to be respected and upheld. If the Bill passes in its current form, Sheffield is one of several councils that will be forced to undo those years of democratic engagement. I have received countless emails from constituents and campaigners, such as It’s Our City!, who have stressed just how important this democratic engagement has been for Sheffield, and they are right. One size does not fit all, and the LGA echoes that view.

[Iqbal Mohamed]

The hon. Member is making an extremely informed and important point in her speech. Does she agree that for Sheffield and her council the committee system has been better, more inclusive and more democratic for her residents than the original cabinet system? Does she endorse the view that any council that wants to go down a committee route, or any community that has already decided to do so should retain that right?

[Abtisam Mohamed]

The point that I am going to make is about existing committee structures retaining their models, rather than about new committees.

The Local Government Association has also called for councils to be able to retain their structures until local communities choose otherwise, and for my constituents, similarly, this is a matter of principle. Until the people of Sheffield choose another structure in another referendum, as promised, their decision should be allowed to stand, with the same flexibility that is being offered to those who chose to directly elect council mayors. There is still time to reflect that flexibility in the Bill, so I ask the Deputy Prime Minister to meet my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield Hallam (Olivia Blake) and me, as well as our local council leaders, to discuss the impact that these proposals will have on our communities and their trust in local governance and, more importantly, to ensure that devolution works for Sheffield.

Parking Regulation

Abtisam Mohamed Excerpts

Tuesday 6th May 2025 Westminster Hall

[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.

Renters’ Rights Bill

Abtisam Mohamed Excerpts

Wednesday 9th October 2024 Commons Chamber

[Abtisam Mohamed (Sheffield Central) (Lab)]

I congratulate everybody who has made their maiden speech today and made excellent points in this debate. I thank the Secretary of State, Ministers and everybody involved for their hard work in preparing this Bill. They have already demonstrated a greater level of ambition on tackling housing security than the Conservatives showed in 14 years.

I receive a significant amount of correspondence from private renters concerned about high rents, insecurity and poor living conditions. Nearly half of my constituents are private renters, many of them students. I have visited some of their houses and been horrified by the extent of the damp, mould and disrepair that many are forced to live with. Sadly, many have become resigned to accept that this is what they have to deal with. Far too many families live in appalling conditions, which in turn significantly influences their physical and mental health. That should never be acceptable.

I am reassured to hear the Secretary of State talk about safety first. Safety should come first and it will be a relief to many tenants that this Bill will extend Awaab’s law to the private rented sector, to ensure that repairs are undertaken in a timely manner. The Bill will also make homes safer by applying the decent homes standard to the private rented sector for the first time. I welcome that but, as a lawyer who used to practice in social welfare law, I know that many people struggle to navigate the system and will struggle to take on landlords on disrepair cases. I urge the Minister to work with colleagues to look at how we can extend social welfare law legal aid to people who need support to navigate the system.

This legislation is a major step forward and I have no doubt it will help to tackle housing insecurity and affordability in the private rented sector. However, it clearly will not solve all the problems in the sector, because many are due to the wider housing crisis. I call on Ministers to go further and investigate the possibility of introducing legislation to cap in-tenancy rent increases at the lower end of either inflation or wage growth. We must make it a national priority to fix the housing crisis to ensure that everyone can live in affordable, safe and secure homes, so I welcome our Government’s ambition to build more affordable homes. I am delighted that we have already started this process through our plans to reform the planning system and to reinstate home building targets, which the Tories scrapped. However, affordable must really mean affordable—for far too long affordability has come without a definition, and deposits have remained unaffordable for many.

These policies will make a difference in Sheffield Central, as home ownership rates are much lower than the national average and its constituents are among the youngest in the country. We need to build more green, sustainable and genuinely affordable homes so that more of my constituents, especially young people, can leave the private rented sector and get on the housing ladder. I look forward to supporting the Government in this House to deliver their mission of building the homes we need—affordable homes—so that people in Sheffield Central and across the country can benefit.