Building Homes and Renewing Communities

Debate between Angela Rayner and Melanie Onn

Thursday 3rd September 2026 Commons Chamber

[Angela Rayner]

I welcome the hon. Member to her place, and I look forward to facing her across the Dispatch Box in the months to come. She comes with a good, strong track record: I believe her grandparents met while they were delivering leaflets for the Labour party—so that’s a good start! I welcome her tone, in particular her agreement on supporting those who helped us over the summer with the wildfires. I look forward to working with her constructively, especially as we move towards the summit in the autumn; I will keep her informed.

Some of the challenges we face are of long standing. It would be remiss of me not to gently remind the Conservatives that their austerity measures hollowed out our local services and that the decline in our high streets started on their watch, but the hon. Lady is absolutely right to highlight the challenges our high streets face—that is why we have a strategy. We have made announcements to make sure that we tackle organised crime, giving the police more powers and more funding, with a £30 million boost to police and Trading Standards activity as well as strengthened closure orders and a new high streets organised crime unit. We are tackling the issues that the Conservative party failed to tackle.

The Prime Minister has been really clear about ensuring that we work with local leaders and that they are able to do the things that will help them in their local communities, so they can really start to tackle some of the issues. On tax-raising powers and the reduction of tax—again, that is an ongoing dialogue. The hon. Lady will have seen the statement from the whole of Cabinet and the work we are doing through the National Economic Council to work with mayors and local leaders so we can take those issues forward.

I was bemused by the hon. Lady saying that the state has made it hard to build. The Conservatives missed every single housing target they set, and they scrapped targets completely after pressure from their own Back Benchers. We have brought in new powers and updated the national planning policy framework. We are giving more powers to mayors, we have brought in mandatory housing targets and mandatory housing plans, and we are working with local areas to deliver the housing we need. We have been very up front about that, but we have also been really clear that infrastructure, wildlife and nature have to be taken into account. I will not take lectures from those in the party opposite, when they created a housing crisis where millions of families were locked out of home ownership.

Specifically on London, the city has built significant amounts of council housing, but the hon. Lady is absolutely right to raise the challenges that London faces. When we look at the number of children in temporary accommodation, it is clear that London has an acute need. We recognise that and have provided support through the allocation of money through the social and affordable housing programme. We also recognise the success that the Mayor of London has had in ramping up housing supply where it is needed.

Finally, let me turn to what happened in Greater Manchester under our new Prime Minister. The numbers actually fell originally—as a Greater Manchester MP, I saw that—but because there was not a national programme, the numbers then went up as more people came to Greater Manchester. We want to roll out a programme, working with local leaders and mayors, so we can offer that support. I hope the hon. Member will work with us, because I remember that this used to be a target for the Conservatives: they wanted to end rough sleeping, but then they scrapped the target. I hope they can work with us on this renewed effort, in the spirit of how the Prime Minister wants to work, to ensure that we can roll out a programme nationally where everyone who is rough sleeping has an option of safety and an option to come in.

[Melanie Onn (Great Grimsby and Cleethorpes) (Lab)]

I thank the Secretary of State for very timely and welcome statement. Let me point to a good development in Grimsby—a really good example of town centre housebuilding that is working with local housing associations. The partnership is between Keepmoat and Ongo northern Lincolnshire housing association, and it will provide a mix of private accommodation and social housing. She will find in her mailbox a letter from the leader of the Labour group, Emma Clough, who has written to her to raise the issue of town centre houses, and in particular empty homes in town centres, to ask whether the Government will be looking to put in place additional measures to support local authorities to tackle the scourge of empty homes, which number nearly 2,000 across Grimsby.

[Angela Rayner]

My hon. Friend has been a great champion for Grimsby for a very long time—I think we both originally came here together in 2015—and I congratulate her on her work. She is absolutely right to praise the housing associations coming together to build the homes that people desperately need. I will look at that letter, which she is absolutely right to highlight. I will bring forward proposals on how we are working with councils to deal with the empty homes situation.

Renters’ Rights Bill

Debate between Angela Rayner and Melanie Onn

2nd reading
Wednesday 9th October 2024 Commons Chamber

[Angela Rayner]

I understand the right hon. Gentleman’s point, but I disagree on how to resolve the issue. Rent controls restrict housing supply, which does not help anyone, but our Bill takes practical measures to help renters by empowering tenants to tackle unreasonable rent hikes and prohibiting unfair rental bidding, and we will continue to assess potential action on sky-high rents. Hopefully, we are taking measures that will help his constituents and others across the country.

[Melanie Onn (Great Grimsby and Cleethorpes) (Lab)]

Could my right hon. Friend clarify whether, under the Bill, landlords and letting agents will be prevented from requiring individuals who do not have all the correct supporting information to pay excessive deposits, which prohibit people from getting secure properties for their families?

[Angela Rayner]

My hon. Friend makes a really important point about deposits and paying rent in advance. This Bill will protect tenants from requests for large amounts of rent in advance, but we are in listening mode. We will keep this issue under review during the passage of the Bill, and we will take the necessary action. We think that we have done enough on that, but we are open to interventions, if people feel that they would help.

Unlike in the previous Government’s Bill, the tribunal will not be able to increase rent above what was originally proposed by the landlord. In cases of undue hardship, we will give the tribunal the power to defer rent increases by up to two months, thereby finally ending the injustice of economic evictions.

However, that is not all we will do to tackle unfair rent costs. We remain committed to ending rental bidding wars, which all too often price hard-working families out of a home. Landlords and letting agents will be required to publish an asking rent for their property, and will not be allowed to ask for, encourage or accept a higher offer. We are delivering real change for working people.

Public Services

Debate between Angela Rayner and Melanie Onn

Wednesday 16th October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Angela Rayner]

Conservative Members need not scaremonger, because the only thing that schools across England fear is more austerity and more broken promises from the Conservative party. Let me be absolutely clear: what the Labour party will not do is subsidise private education with taxpayers’ money when our state schools are crippled by the Conservative party. I pledge this to every parent across the country: I will not play party politics with their children. I will ensure that every child in this country gets the opportunity they deserve whether that is through a SEND, the comprehensive system, an academy, a free school, or in private schools. All their children matter to me, unlike the Conservative party.

[Melanie Onn (Great Grimsby) (Lab)]

Is not the truth that the proof of this policy pudding is in the eating, and that comes down to the reality of what parents and children see in their schools? In many schools in my Grimsby constituency there is now a policy of non-replacement of support staff. That means there is not enough support to go around for children with special educational needs, those working in offices and those doing lunchtime supervision. That is the reality of education in the country today.

[Angela Rayner]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and nobody can move away from the fact that our schools face a tremendous burden from the pressures of the cuts and the additional costs that have been placed upon them. Our support staff and our teachers have done an absolutely superb job and I want to put on record my thanks to the teachers, the parents, the staff and everybody else who, through these really difficult times, has done their utmost for every child in our education system—and quite rightly so. But they need the support of our Government now, and that is what I am pushing for: no more warm words or jam tomorrow, but actual support in schools, where they deserve and need it most.

If the Conservatives really believe in their own proposals for education, when will they be put into law? If this week was not the earliest opportunity for them to do that, when is?

Another issue where parents have been left paying the price for Government inaction is the spiralling cost of school uniforms. Only weeks ago, the Secretary of State wrote to the Competition and Markets Authority committing to

“put the school uniform guidance on a statutory footing”

and promising to do so

“when a suitable opportunity arises.”

The opportunity surely arose on Monday, but it was not taken. In November it will be four full years since the Government first made that commitment. We are also four Education Secretaries and three Prime Ministers on; each has reiterated the promise made by the last, yet none of them has managed to keep it.