Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Andy Burnham and Lindsay Hoyle

Wednesday 2nd September 2026 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

May I start by paying tribute to my right hon. Friend for everything she has done to stand up for her constituents, but more so for Wales, particularly in her role as Secretary of State for Wales? I understand the point she is making: big cities outside London, particularly a capital city, face extra pressure that is not faced by other police forces. We are reviewing the funding formula as part of a wider programme of police reform. I would be happy to engage with her on that very issue as part of the review. We have ensured that forces, including South Wales police, are receiving a boost in their funding, but I understand the position of cities that are, if you like, the focal point that many people travel towards and the extra pressure that that results in. I know that from my previous job, and that is why I will pay very close attention to what she is saying.

[Mr Speaker]

I call the Leader of the Opposition.

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[The Prime Minister]

I thank my hon. Friend and pay tribute to his campaign on this issue. I was talking about getting an innovation-led economy going in all parts of the country, and that applies to research, including into life sciences. I strongly believe that we must address all barriers to high-quality research in the life sciences. I am happy to look at my hon. Friend’s amendments, and I will ask a Health Minister to meet him to discuss them. Of course, any changes must be evidence-based and proportionate and must maintain our safeguards.

[Mr Speaker]

I call the leader of the Liberal Democrats.

[Ed Davey (Kingston and Surbiton) (LD)]

The Prime Minister said yesterday that Brexit ushered in

“a decade of low growth and stalled regeneration.”—[Official Report, 1 September 2026; Vol. 790, c. 27.]

He is right. Our economy is stuck in this mess thanks to the Conservatives—and the leader of Reform UK—and their terrible Brexit deal. Unless we grow the economy, there is no way that we can end the cost of living crisis or cut the cost of borrowing for the Government. The answer is staring the Prime Minister in the face: join the single market, get a new deal with Europe, and cut costs for families, businesses and Government. It is the bold step our country desperately needs. Will the Prime Minister take it?

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[The Prime Minister]

We certainly will do that. I am in no doubt over the importance of good transport connectivity to young people’s life chances, and I will ask No. 10 North to make contact with my hon. Friend so that we can get that scheme back on track. More broadly, we do need to change the way we support young people, and I have already announced a change to education so that we have a technical path for young people from 14—so that we give young people a path towards good T-levels, BTECs, work placements and degree apprenticeships and we support them with travel costs, which is something that I did in Greater Manchester. Bringing back hope very much starts with our young people—give them a clear path from school towards a good job. That is something that the current education system that was put in place by Michael Gove has sadly failed to do.

[Mr Speaker]

May I say to the Prime Minister that I admire his answering questions in detail, but my problem is I am not going to get through the list, and then we will both be in trouble with Back Benchers?

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[The Prime Minister]

It is about getting a balance, isn’t it? Yes, we need to protect green belt where we can, but we also need to build the homes that people need, and it is about striking a balance. In Greater Manchester, I always took a brownfield-first approach, and that is what I will do. I have asked the Chancellor to work with my Cabinet colleagues to release more public land so that we can build more homes on brownfield land, but I understand the concerns that the hon. Member is raising. I will ask the Housing Minister to meet him, to see if we can further build some common cause, but there is a balance to be struck. I say to Conservative Members that it is important that they do not turn their face away from building the new homes this country needs.

[Mr Speaker]

I call Kim Leadbeater.

[Kim Leadbeater (Spen Valley) (Lab)]

Q9. Thank you, Mr Speaker, and welcome back. I also welcome the Prime Minister to his role. We have many shared passions—sport, music, and a deep sense of community. I know we both have a strong desire to ensure that everyone in our country has a sense of pride, identity and belonging—that everyone feels safe and no one feels lonely—but sadly, that is not always the case. What steps is the Prime Minister taking to support people in communities such as Spen Valley who may feel isolated or are dealing with antisocial behaviour such as speeding and dangerous driving, inappropriate use of e-scooters and offroad bikes, and fireworks, to give residents confidence that their concerns are being taken seriously?

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[The Prime Minister]

That is exactly what I mean when I talk about supporting an industrial transition so that we can reindustrialise Scotland and other parts of the country. It must be done in a pragmatic way so that we can make the transition work rather than being too ideological about it, as other parties are, so I will work with the hon. Gentleman. I intend to visit Scotland soon to look in detail at the issues in the Aberdeen community, because I know that people have struggled with the impact of transition. Let us see what we can do to build common cause, and let us also look at Grangemouth, which could be the home of sustainable aviation fuel. I am interested in making progress on all those issues, and I will work with the hon. Gentleman on that.

[Mr Speaker]

With the final question, I call Samatha Niblett.

[Samantha Niblett (South Derbyshire) (Lab)]

I congratulate the Prime Minister on his first Prime Minister’s questions; this is my first Prime Minister’s question too.

I want to declare an interest: I chair the all-party parliamentary group on sexual and reproductive health in the UK. The campaign for lifelong sex education that I launched with Cindy Gallop has received a tremendous response and support from many, including professionals in occupational health, medicine, nursing, public health and academia, the National Education Union and the police. I have discovered that the shame, guilt and embarrassment around talking about sex—and body parts like penis and vagina—are even leading to late diagnoses of health conditions including illnesses such as cancer for many people in my South Derbyshire constituency and across the country. I have discussed that with the Eve Appeal and with my constituent Louise Clarke, a GP who specialises in cancer of the vulva; they are really great for my campaign. As September is Gynaecological Cancer Awareness Month, and as the summer of sex comes to a close, will the Prime Minister agree to meet me to talk about the campaign?

Direction of Government

Debate between Andy Burnham and Lindsay Hoyle

Tuesday 1st September 2026 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

What I bring back to the House after 10 years away is a clear diagnosis of what has gone wrong. Let me lay it out clearly, particularly for the right hon. Gentleman, since he asked.

From the 1980s, this country took a series of wrong turns. Political power was centralised, economic power privatised and the country deindustrialised. Austerity followed, hollowing out councils and depriving them of the agency to act to reverse any of it, and then Brexit compounded the damage, ushering in a decade of low growth and stalled regeneration. [Interruption.] Change begins with honesty, and I am not hearing much of it this afternoon. Unless we are blunt about what went wrong, we will not turn things around. Far from “taking back control”, the combination of those policies took control out of the hands of communities up and down Britain.

For 40 years, too many places have been drifting. Too many British high streets tell the story of this decline. People yearn to see them restored to what they once were, as the Communities Secretary and I heard on our visit to Ilkeston in the summer, but they see no hope if we continue on the same path with a failed economic model, which does not trickle down much to places like theirs and instead allows wealth to be extracted and siphoned out. Britain’s water industry stands as a leaking monument to that approach—a country run in the private rather than public interest. That is now abundantly clear to voters of all parties, including the Conservative party.

The Government I lead will be relentless in giving people and places what they were promised 10 years ago: ownership and control. From that control over their destiny comes change and growth. I say this with confidence. [Interruption.] I do, and let me explain why. It is backed by a decade of personal experience of turning around one of the UK’s former industrial heartlands and turning it into the fastest growing city region in the country, bucking the low-growth trend. It has given me a clear theory of growth and I will apply it to all parts of the UK, learning from what has been achieved in Greater Manchester. For a long time the country did not have ambitions for its regions outside of London. It even talked of the “managed decline” of Liverpool. It took the devolution of power out of this place to allow our big city regions the ability to set new ambitions for themselves. Now, I want every single place across our regions and nations to be able to do the same, creating the conditions for good growth in every postcode.

In that spirit, I was glad to meet the Liberal Democrat leader of Cornwall council, with my hon. Friend the Member for Truro and Falmouth (Jayne Kirkham), on my recent visit. I know, like many rural economies across the UK, that Cornwall lacks a basic level of infrastructure, which in turn harms growth and holds back living standards and life chances, and I heard the cross-party call for a devolution deal. I understand concerns in this House about the potential emergence of a two-tier England—those with devolved power and those without—and I will not ignore them. So, I have asked No. 10 North to begin work with Cornwall council and its six MPs on a devolution deal with or without an elected mayor.

I today extend the same offer to all parts of England without devolved power. The First Secretary of State, my right hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield Heeley (Louise Haigh) will today write to every Member of this House setting out how they can engage No. 10 North in the service of the places they represent. I extended the same offer to the First Ministers of Scotland and Wales, and the First and Deputy First Ministers of Northern Ireland when I met them over the summer. As they rightly pointed out, their situations are different, but there is interest in what a local model of devolution could look like in each of the home nations, and we will discuss that with them at a special meeting of the National Economic Council next month.

This Government will oversee the biggest redistribution of power this country has seen. In July, we published a statement on the next stage of English devolution. It will include powers long requested by mayors, such as: post-16 technical education; employment support; and fiscal devolution, starting with the ability to set an overnight visitor levy to commence towards the end of the financial year 2027-28. The driving force behind it all will be No. 10 North. It will oversee the rewiring of the British state, the rebuilding of resilience in our communities and the reindustrialisation of our regions. The creation of No. 10 North was one of the first acts of this Administration and I believe that in time it will be seen as one of its most significant. It is a clear answer to the question with which this country has long wrestled: who, in government, drives growth? My theory of growth requires it to be driven with the full authority of the very centre of Government, in close partnership with HM Treasury.

No. 10 North has been set up with that full focus; the single front door on which regions can knock to get quicker, joined-up decisions from Whitehall, and through which power and resources will be passed to them. Resources will include human resources. This is because a state that has grown too large at the national level now needs to redirect civil service capacity regionally and locally, repairing the damage of austerity and making the service of place the state’s first priority. We can already see what is possible. I am glad No. 10 North was able to stand behind Mayor Richard Parker when he took urgent action in August to prevent the collapse of bus services across the west midlands, and I congratulate Mayor Steve Rotheram who this weekend, after four decades of deregulation, will see the first buses return to public control in the Liverpool city region. Taking back control of essential services such as transport is an enabler of a more productive economy, because it allows local areas to grab hold of the levers of power for themselves.

But driving growth demands we go further. It is taking far too long for businesses to get grid connections and they are being quoted prohibitively expensive sums of money if they try to bring those dates forward, as I heard on my visit to a farm near Truro. Household energy bills are the highest in Europe, and the cost of energy is impacting business and inward investment. Too many areas have seen water supplies disrupted this summer due to a lack of reservoir capacity. Our tourism industry is damaged by too many sewage spills. [Interruption.] “Why?” the Opposition say. It is a question they should ask themselves. This summer has shown us very clearly that water companies are failing to rise to the climate challenge. It cannot go on. Later in the year, our 10-year plan for Britain will set out plans for stronger public control over these essentials, making them work for people and places again.

Alongside that, we will empower all areas to expand the public housing stock, building on the first allocations from the social and affordable homes programme announced by the Communities Secretary last week. Bringing forward the biggest council home building programme since the post-war period is the Labour way to get the welfare bill down, as is reforming our education system, so that it balances academic and technical, and offers a path in life for all young people. Michael Gove calls this “bringing back stupid”, when in fact, for too many young people written off by his reforms, it is bringing back hope. Allowing mayors to shape technical pathways and provide work placements for young people, building back into colleges and schools from the needs of the regional economy, is the way to support more young people into work. So is prioritising more accessible, community-based mental health services, as we announced in the summer.

That will be a major part of our response to the forthcoming Milburn report, which will follow its publication in the autumn. For it to work, a more intentional approach to the reindustrialisation of Britain is required. We will support all parts of the country to take more public control over investment strategy, learning from the Greater Manchester model of a consolidated good growth fund drawn from their own funds, prudent loan borrowing and fragmented budgets held by Government bodies. We will back local industrial strategies—a policy of the Theresa May Government I am happy to revive—by identifying priority sectors and developing the triple-helix approach to economic development by entwining business, academia and Government behind the plan. This is the way we will build a pro-business culture and an innovation-led economy in all parts of the UK, finally capturing the long-term benefits of the invention that is in the DNA of our nation, backing our start-ups and scale-ups to stay in the UK where they were founded.

When I stood outside Downing Street six weeks ago, I said that Britain needs a circuit breaker after a decade of turbulence, negativity, point scoring and divisive politics. This is what I have outlined today: a clear, coherent and credible approach to growth that can unlock a feeling of positivity and possibility in every postcode in Britain. Our job here is to make it real by taking a place-first rather than a party-first approach. It starts with reasserting basic standards for Britain—that this is a country where no one sleeps rough and no community is blighted by an illegal waste tip—and, from there, working together to build a new sense of optimism around the country. We can make this next decade better than the last. We can lift the prospects of all our people and places. We can put more power into every postcode. We can let Britain believe again. We can bring back hope. I commend this statement to the House.

[Mr Speaker]

I call the Leader of the Opposition.

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[The Prime Minister]

I thank my hon. Friend. I look forward to my first appearance before the Liaison Committee. On the question of public land, she raises a really important issue. We have got to look at how we build as many council and social homes as we can to bring down the housing benefit and temporary accommodation bill, which is ruinous in London for London councils. We must find ways of doing that within the public purse. Public land is one way in which we can achieve that. I will be looking at a programme for the release of public land to build council and social homes, and I look forward to working with her on that.

[Mr Speaker]

I call the leader of the Liberal Democrats.

[Ed Davey (Kingston and Surbiton) (LD)]

I thank the Prime Minister for advance sight of his statement and I welcome him to his place. I associate myself with the condolences that he has sent to the family and friends of the police officers killed on the A66 and with his comments on the disaster on the Nepal-China border.

I wished each of the Prime Minister’s predecessors well, but given how that went for them perhaps he would prefer that I did not bother this time. I sincerely hope that he can turn things around, and quickly, because we all know how fed up people are. We hear it all the time. Every year, it gets harder to make ends meet, waiting lists seem to go up, more and more things seem broken, and the populists and extremists are eager to keep things that way so they can profit from it.

Everything the Prime Minister has described in his statement would be possible only if we fundamentally change the way we do politics in our country. Growing the economy, cutting the cost of living, fixing our public services, restoring people’s trust: those are things that every new Prime Minister has talked about. Yet they failed because they stuck to a broken political system; a system that makes it impossible to really change things for the better. The reason so much is broken in our country and can never be fixed is partly that our political system concentrates too much power in the wrong hands —in Westminster, in Whitehall and in big multinational companies. I think the Prime Minister gets some of that, judging by what he has been saying.

There are so many more problems in our political system: too much power in the hands of social media barons who interfere in our politics and crypto billionaires who use donations to buy influence; and too little power in the hands of our people. Britain’s political system too often rewards corruption and leaves everyone else feeling powerless. Our great country is being held back, and it will only be free to thrive again if we put real power in people’s hands.

We have been campaigning on that for decades and the Prime Minister has written about it. His decision over the summer to finally start cross-party talks on social care—talks I have been desperate to start for years and which Conservative and Labour Prime Ministers promised but failed to deliver—is a welcome step in the right direction. There is, however, a lot more work to do, and more fundamental change is needed to make our politics work for the people we serve. Will the Prime Minister start that work today? Listening to the calls of over 170 Members on the Opposition Benches and on his own, will he launch a national commission to change politics so that we can fix our country?

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[The Prime Minister]

I thank my right hon. Friend and agree with her very strongly that we need to restore trust, particularly when it comes to foreign donations that seek to influence our politics. I am pleased she recognises the amendments that have been brought forward to the Representation of the People Act, which will be debated in this House later this week. I mentioned the defending democracy taskforce, which has been set up in the Cabinet Office. It needs to continue to look at these issues, and this will not be the last chance. We can come back to these issues in this Parliament, such is their importance.

[Mr Speaker]

I call the Father of the House.

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

May I congratulate the Prime Minister on what he said about Ukraine and on how he conducted himself there? Our enemies should know that this House is completely and utterly united in standing behind the Ukrainian people. That was the most powerful part of his statement, precisely because we are working together, so may I encourage him in that direction? We all know that we are under mortal threat, that we must increase the defence budget and that the decisions to pare back the bloated welfare bill are extremely difficult, so why does he not take up the offer of the Leader of the Opposition to deal with this, to meet our international commitments, to reduce dependency, to ensure that we are living within our means, to work together and to do this now? “Action this day.”