Local Government Reorganisation

Debate between Angela Rayner and Mark Francois

Monday 7th September 2026 Commons Chamber

[Mr Mark Francois (Rayleigh and Wickford) (Con)]

Local government reform in Essex has been a farce from the outset, because the people never wanted it. The council tax payers themselves never had any desire for this process. I welcome the fact that Labour’s five gerrymandered unitary authorities are clearly now stone dead, but I want to give the Secretary of State some honest advice: drop it and walk away—including the mayoralty. We have got by in Essex for 1,000 years without a mayor, and the last thing we want in our county is another Sadiq Khan. Just get rid.

[Angela Rayner]

I will not drop it, because I believe that the people of Essex and people all over England deserve good local services. Where there is something that I believe will improve local services and is worth exploring with local leaders, whether in Essex or elsewhere, I am up for that challenge. I am not ready to drop it. I think we can work together to improve local services, and I would be happy to meet the right hon. Gentleman, or any of his local leaders, to progress that.

--- Later in debate ---

[Angela Rayner]

The right hon. Member for Rayleigh and Wickford (Mr Francois) raised these issues before, and I do appreciate the frustration in Essex. In response to the right hon. Member, who was here a while ago and raised these issues, I made it really clear that local government reorganisation is about delivering—

[Mr Francois]

I’m still here!

[Angela Rayner]

I know you’re still here! I made it really clear that local government reorganisation is delivering for people across Essex. I understand the pressures on local services. Essex does have a need for more housing and more infrastructure, and a need for local government reform. This Government are there to work with the local people of Essex to deliver that.

Building Homes and Renewing Communities

Debate between Angela Rayner and Mark Francois

Thursday 3rd September 2026 Commons Chamber

[Angela Rayner]

It was a great pleasure to visit the site with my hon. Friend. I outlined in my opening statement something that touched me, which is how people spoke about getting a home and the conditions they had before. They literally said it was like winning the lottery—it was life-changing. As I outlined to the shadow Secretary of State earlier, I think about those children affected, especially those impacted by the acute housing crisis that London faces. I congratulate the Mayor of London and London councils working to deal with that. We announced the funding grant to help London with the particular problem it has had. My hon. Friend is right to raise the subject of protection of spaces. That is what we have done through strengthening the national planning policy framework. The Housing Minister would be happy to chat more with my hon. Friend about that—I am sure they already do, as they are neighbours—but it is important that we continue that work, too.

[Mr Mark Francois (Rayleigh and Wickford) (Con)]

The Secretary State mentioned mandatory housing targets. Under Labour’s targets, in south Essex—from Grays across to Shoeburyness—we are expected to accommodate more than 100,000 houses. That is 7% of the Government’s entire 1.5 million target in one half of one county alone. That is despite the fact that our medical infrastructure, our sewage capacity and in particular our roads—the A13 and the A127 are maxed out as it is—simply cannot cope, even now. [Interruption.] Labour Members can chunter all they want. Why is Labour so determined to cover south Essex in concrete and gridlock our roads, purely for ideological reasons?

[Angela Rayner]

We can look at it another way: I am confident that the right hon. Member and local councillors can work in partnership with us to recognise the acute housing need within his local area and to deliver, with well-connected local transport, the homes that are so desperately needed. His Government failed to deliver them, and I am sure his inbox is full of people who need those homes. We will work with his local leaders to deliver the homes and infrastructure that people in his constituency desperately need.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Angela Rayner and Mark Francois

Monday 7th April 2025 Commons Chamber

[Angela Rayner]

I agree with my hon. Friend that the housing crisis is a challenge across the whole of England. The independent new towns taskforce is reviewing submissions to the call for evidence as it continues its work on recommending locations for new towns. The responses to the call for evidence will support the taskforce’s work of developing its recommendations, and the responses demonstrate significant enthusiasm across the country.

[Mr Mark Francois (Rayleigh and Wickford) (Con)]

Our local paper, The Echo, revealed last week that Labour-led Southend council and Lib Dem-led Rochford council are planning to build a new town of up to 10,000 houses on the border between the two. I understand that if this is done under the new towns fund, those numbers would be in addition to Rochford’s housing target, rather than making up part of the target. We would be talking about building nearly 20,000 properties by 2043, which is totally unsustainable, given that our infrastructure is creaking as it is. Can the Secretary of State confirm whether those new-town houses on the Rochford side would go towards our meeting the target or be in addition to it?

[Angela Rayner]

We have not selected the positions for the new towns; the new towns taskforce is still working on those. We have been clear that what the new towns will deliver will be over and above the targets for housing produced through the standard methods, but this is not one of those new towns, because we have not chosen them yet.

English Devolution and Local Government

Debate between Angela Rayner and Mark Francois

Wednesday 5th February 2025 Commons Chamber

[Angela Rayner]

We value local community assets and are bringing forward plans for greater powers, including community right to buy. We will ask all councils to ensure that heritage assets are considered. He will know that the Under-Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham North and Kimberley (Alex Norris), who is not in his place today, has been doing vital work in this area. If my hon. Friend wants a meeting with him, I will make sure that he gets one.

[Mr Mark Francois (Rayleigh and Wickford) (Con)]

Labour is cancelling the local elections for antidemocratic reasons—it is as simple as that. [Interruption.] Labour Members do not want to hear it, but it is as simple as that. If the Secretary of State really believes that there is widespread public support in Essex for this devolution process, let us have a referendum to prove it. And finally, if local government is as skint as she says, why is this Government going pay 18 billion quid to Mauritius to rent back a base that we already own? How does that help local government?

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)]

I want short, on-point questions.

Building Homes

Debate between Angela Rayner and Mark Francois

Tuesday 30th July 2024 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)]

I call Mark Francois.

[Mr Mark Francois (Rayleigh and Wickford) (Con)]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, and good luck in your new role.

It is possible to have successful development, but from experience it has to be something done with people and not to people. This policy is the latter. These pernicious top-down targets have the practical effect at ground level of setting one town against another, one village against another and one local community against another; and given the Chancellor’s statement on public spending yesterday, who will pay for the tens of billions of pounds-worth of infrastructure that would be required to make all this work? All experience shows that, on development and house building, the man or woman in Whitehall really does not know best. Why then, is the Secretary of State going back to the old, failed way of doing it, which will not work?

[Angela Rayner]

I am shocked to have to tell the right hon. Member that the NPPF was an NPPF before we came into government. National targets have always been there; this is not something that I have dreamt up.

The important thing is that our new method is clearly based upon the housing stock, the affordability and the need in an area. That need has created a housing crisis in this country, and that is why the electorate gave the Labour Government such a mandate, because we said that we are going to fix the housing crisis that we have inherited. Again, this is about local plans. I implore the right hon. Member to get with his local authority, to get a local plan, to engage with local people and to listen to those who are waiting desperately—probably thousands in his constituency—for a home that they know will never come.