Building Homes and Renewing Communities

Andrew Pakes Excerpts

Thursday 3rd September 2026 Commons Chamber

[Angela Rayner]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for raising this issue. He is a champion in knowing and recognising the challenges that his local area faces. We announced £442 million of support for tackling rough sleeping this winter, and that is based on a formula that recognises the challenges that local areas face. I will get my Department to contact him so that he can understand the effect of that, and he can shape what comes forward in his area. He is absolutely right to recognise that the programme has to have settled accommodation as well as intensive wraparound support to help people leave rough sleeping behind. We have to learn the lessons of what happened in Greater Manchester and how it was able to achieve great outcomes for people. As I mentioned in my statement, when I have met people whose lives have been transformed by it, I can understand why the Prime Minister says he wants us to make sure this happens nationally.

[Andrew Pakes (Peterborough) (Lab/Co-op)]

One of the most inspiring housing projects I have ever seen is Coin Street, a housing and worker co-operative a few moments’ walk from this House on the banks of the thriving Thames in London. It does not just build houses; it builds homes and communities and gives pride back to working people in the heart of London. The same spirit of pride runs through the Pride in Place funding that Peterborough has received and the ambitions of this Government with devolution. Can my right hon. Friend put on record her support for the co-operative and mutual ideals as part of our devolution agenda, and as part of our mission to rebuild communities in our country?

[Angela Rayner]

I thank my hon. Friend for recognising some of the fantastic work being done by the co-operative movement. Is our Prime Minister the first ever Labour and Co-operative Prime Minister? I do not want to mislead the House, Madam Deputy Speaker, but I think he might be—he is definitely a Labour and Co-operative Prime Minister and I think he is the first. Coin Street is the type of development that can happen when homes are built with a sense of community. Our Pride in Place work is about rejuvenating our local areas. In Tameside, in my local area, I have seen people going through difficult times. There have been some difficult times for our nation and our country recently, whether because of the covid pandemic, the austerity years or what has been happening locally, but people have come together. Pride in Place has allowed us to look not just at how we can stop the flow of some of the challenges, but at how we can work together as a community to tackle them together, and I am incredibly proud of that work.