Fire and Rescue Services: Funding

Anneliese Dodds Excerpts

Tuesday 28th April 2026 Westminster Hall

[Matt Vickers]

A lot of fire services across the country are facing huge challenges. The debate will draw out some of the challenges that are unique to rural and coastal communities.

We want firefighters to be backed, for their safety and for the safety of the communities we serve. Our firefighters work tirelessly, day in, day out, to protect our community, and we all owe them our thanks. We should be incredibly proud of their work in challenging circumstances. Of course, it is right that efforts be made to ensure our public services are as efficient as possible, optimising outcomes and spending public money wisely.

[Anneliese Dodds (Oxford East) (Lab/Co-op)]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that it is very important that any reorganisation of services involve the engagement of firefighters, because they know the service and its needs best? Does he share my relief that Oxfordshire county council has backed away from what would have been a botched reorganisation that would have reduced support both for my constituents in Oxford city and across the county by not listening enough to what firefighters said was needed?

Foreign Financial Influence and Interference: UK Politics

Anneliese Dodds Excerpts

Wednesday 25th March 2026 Commons Chamber

[Anneliese Dodds (Oxford East) (Lab/Co-op)]

I strongly welcome the report and the Government’s speedy and decisive response to it. Evidence from Germany and from Moldova shows how online attempts at foreign interference can combine with real-life attempts at foreign interference in the run-up to elections. First, was I right in hearing that the Government will look at a transparent protocol for dealing with information emergencies related to foreign actors in the run-up to elections? Secondly, is the Secretary of State aware that in countries where crypto interests have unfairly influenced elections, donations have often been given in domestic currency? Will he look at that broader context?

[Steve Reed]

There are recommendations covering precisely the points that my right hon. Friend raised. I have accepted the report, in general terms, in full. We will respond in detail to each of the 17 recommendations, which I hope will address her concerns.

National Plan to End Homelessness

Anneliese Dodds Excerpts

Thursday 11th December 2025 Commons Chamber

[Alison McGovern]

As part of the strategy, I have worked closely with my colleagues in the Home Office to support their priorities, which are to secure our borders, deal with the dreadful criminality of people trafficking across borders and get the backlog down. That is the best way to achieve what the right hon. Gentleman suggests, which is to have the resources to support people who have fled conflict and need to rebuild their lives. We want to ensure, through this strategy, that we get help quickly to the people whose cases have been decided, with the outcome that they are a refugee and will be settling in the UK. That means councils knowing where the people are and the support being available. I welcome the right hon. Gentleman’s support for that approach.

[Anneliese Dodds (Oxford East) (Lab/Co-op)]

As my hon. Friend knows, homelessness pressures in Oxford are some of the worst in the whole country. Will she join me in commending Oxford city council’s plan to purchase 260 additional homes for temporary accommodation to get kids out of hotel rooms and other unsuitable accommodation and into decent-quality, much cheaper accommodation? What will she do to back initiatives such as that and to preserve councils’ ability to impose requirements on developers so that they also provide social accommodation?

[Alison McGovern]

I will join my right hon. Friend in commending Oxford city council’s plans. That is exactly the sort of action that this strategy envisages. We must get kids out of totally unsuitable B&B accommodation and help councils to have the resources to acquire much better accommodation that can stabilise family life. In order to back councils to do that, we have the £950 million local authority housing fund, which I mentioned earlier. I want to see local authorities charging forward to tackle this problem. Oxford’s council is not the only one that is getting this right—there are others across the country—but I would encourage all local authorities to look at the approach that Oxford is taking.

Oxford to Cambridge Growth Corridor

Anneliese Dodds Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd December 2025 Westminster Hall

[Anneliese Dodds (Oxford East) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to be part of this important debate.

I very much share the assessment given by my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge (Daniel Zeichner): after many years of rhetoric, we are finally starting to see delivery for the growth corridor under a Labour Government. Recent months have seen so many announcements and so much practical action, including the creation of the Oxford growth commission, under the excellent Neale Coleman, on top of local financial commitments—with money, at last, for the reopening of the Cowley branch line. I am pleased to see that East West Rail is powering ahead, and there are new towns, artificial intelligence growth zones and reservoirs as well. Now is the time to drive this forward.

I will focus my remarks on areas where we need to see even more action, particularly so that we can realise Oxford’s potential for contributing to the corridor and to economic, scientific, social and cultural growth. First, local government reorganisation has to align with the goal of inclusive growth, not push against it. It is imperative that LGR delivers a greater Oxford, rather than the growth-sapping, democracy-reducing option of a great Oxfordshire or a split of the county into two. Research from Volterra shows that by focusing growth on Oxford city, Oxfordshire-wide annual gross value added could increase by 70%.

Housing is critical, as has already been mentioned. Oxford has extreme housing need, for a range of reasons, from the under-bounded nature of our city to the anti-housing approach of neighbouring local authorities. We are the least affordable city in the whole UK, with average wages at 68% of average rent levels and average house prices 13.6 times the average wage. As was mentioned, there is an overwhelming need for social housing, as well as genuinely affordable homes, as part of the corridor.

The duty to co-operate, such as it is, will cease to apply from early next year, so it is really important that LGR leads to a greater Oxford, not an anti-growth unitary Oxfordshire, and that that is confirmed quickly so that the city can be in control of housing delivery. We also need a homelessness prevention grant that is based on genuine needs, not on inaccurate proxies such as claimant count, and there must be no dilution of the ability for high-demand areas such as Oxford to impose conditions on developers for genuinely affordable and social homes. I would be grateful if the Minister could refer to that in his response.

We also need inclusive growth. I was encouraged by the launch of Equinox by the University of Oxford. The clue is in the name: Equitable Innovation Oxford. Some amazing companies are already delivering on this locally, and the city council has been pushing the Oxford living wage.

We have heard about motorsport. BMW Cowley is a jewel in the crown of advanced manufacturing not just in Oxfordshire, but nationally. We need the changes in industrial energy to speed ahead as quickly as possible to support production, including at BMW Cowley. We also need a campaign to show the public that electric vehicles are still cheaper. We must recognise that, although our country will need luxury electric cars in the future, it will also need affordable ones, such as those produced at BMW Cowley.

We need to tackle educational inequality. Sadly, some of the schools in my area of Oxford have some of the worst results in the whole country. We are trying to deal with London-style problems with a shire’s budget. That needs to end.

Finally, we need transport infrastructure that matches the challenge. That means getting the Kennington bridge sorted out so that the Oxford flood alleviation scheme can be unblocked. [Interruption.] I am pleased to see the Minister smiling; I know that he will persuade his Department for Transport colleagues to also smile, and to give it the green light.

Political Donations

Anneliese Dodds Excerpts

Monday 31st March 2025 Westminster Hall

[Irene Campbell]

I thank the hon. Member for his contribution, and I agree with his point.

At the time of the Elections Act 2022, the House of Commons Levelling Up, Housing and Communities Committee, whose corresponding Department was responsible for introducing the Act, also concluded that there was no need for such statements and no evidence to justify their introduction. The recent Backbench Business Committee debate on political finance rules mentioned some case studies and evidence from previous elections of overseas donations. For example, the 2020 report of the Intelligence and Security Committee found that Russian oligarchs had used their business interests, donations to charities and political parties to influence UK affairs.

[Anneliese Dodds (Oxford East) (Lab/Co-op)]

My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech. She talks about the considerable parliamentary interest in this issue; we know there is considerable interest among the public too, because of the number of signatures on Mr Stone’s petition. Is she also aware that survey evidence has indicated that over three quarters of those polled do not want foreign nationals not registered to vote here to be able to donate to our political parties? As a result, does she agree that we need to see legislative change?

Local Authorities (Changes to Years of Ordinary Elections) (England) Order 2025

Anneliese Dodds Excerpts

Wednesday 26th March 2025 General Committees

[The Minister for Local Government and English Devolution (Jim McMahon)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Hobhouse. This Government have been clear on their manifesto commitment to widen and deepen devolution across England. We have moved at pace to realise the benefits of devolution for more people in more places. However, a lot of change is being undertaken at the same time. That requires focus and capacity. We have been clear on our vision for simpler, more sustainable local government structures and the transfer of power out of Westminster through the devolution revolution. Taken with the work being undertaken to fix the broken audit system, introduce a new standards regime and rewrite the local government funding formula so that it truly takes into account needs and resources, we are doing the hard work of rebuilding—not simply returning to what was there before, but using a new approach that is both efficient and more effective.

[Anneliese Dodds (Oxford East) (Lab/Co-op)]

I note that, in his helpful statement released two days ago, my hon. Friend made it very clear that core to the Government’s approach is ensuring that there is a starting point, which is

“to support and empower local leaders and to respect their knowledge, expertise and insight.”—[Official Report, 24 March 2025; Vol. 764, c. 25WS.]

That listening approach was also in evidence in the comments that he made to the District Councils’ Network conference, where he stated clearly that the 500,000 figure was potentially an “average”. Does he agree that the clarity that bids of significantly below 500,000 are acceptable is useful for smaller cities that are engines of economic and housing growth but which have populations significantly below the 500,000 mark?

[Jim McMahon]

We have tried to strike a balance between answering the demand—the fact that all 21 counties have submitted to the interim phase is testament to the support in the system for this—and finding enough of a framework at a national level so that areas know what to report to, while building enough flexibility to take into account that England is very different in its construct and make-up. There are huge variations between urban centres, rural communities and coastal communities. In forming local authorities that have a clear anchor that can be understood and respected by the local community, we have to allow for flexibility in that system.



The statutory invitation that went out was clear that that means population sizes of 500,000 as a starting point, but we have been clear with the County Councils Network, the Local Government Association and the District Councils’ Network, and in trade press interviews, that we will see a range. Some will say that the mid-300,000s is right for them, and we are seeing some city districts looking at moving their boundaries outwards. But others will say, “Actually, our county does not have that characteristic—we haven’t got that city anchor or coastal issue that might be present elsewhere—and we think the best option for our place is maybe 600,000 or 700,000”.

We want to be flexible enough to take into account local representations as we receive them. Our working assumption is that when all that balances out, we will end up with an average of 500,000, but who knows? We need to see the submissions that come in, but flexibility is important, and it challenges the idea that this is a top-down, mandatory system of uniform councils that all look the same, regardless of local circumstances. It is not that. It is very important nationally that we give the framework and direction—and we have done that—but this is about co-operation and partnership. I appreciate that that point has been picked up on.

We have been clear about our willingness to drive forward to deliver this vision, and to work with local councils to support communities to fix the foundation of local government in delivering that ambition. Alongside the English devolution White Paper, I wrote to all places in the 21 areas inviting them to express a clear commitment to delivering to the most ambitious timeframe, and to flag any requests for a delay in elections to take place.

Where authorities made such a request, we have judged it to meet a very high bar that was rightly set, and we have kept our commitment that clear leadership locally would have to be met with an active partner at a national level. We have taken the necessary decisions to postpone local elections where it will help to smooth the transition process and deliver the benefits of mayoral devolution, supported by strong and stable local government reorganisation as quickly as possible. We are now working with those areas to prioritise in parallel the necessary steps to explore the establishment of new mayoral authorities in time for the May 2026 mayoral elections, and to deliver plans for new unitary local government.

On devolution, public consultations are already under way, running from 17 February to 13 April in these areas. More than 12,500 responses have already been received in that process. We are getting on with delivering reorganisation as well. All district and county councillors in the two-tier areas, and their neighbouring smaller unitary authorities, were invited, and I am pleased to say that every area—comprising of councils of all political stripes—has responded to the invitation to reorganise. They shared with Government an interim plan containing updates on their thinking about options for creating new unitary councils. The response demonstrates without doubt the groundswell consensus from communities that change is overdue and needed. Earlier this week, I made a written statement setting out the details of this, providing parliamentary transparency and supporting the commitment we made to ensure there was active reporting during the course of the process.

Local engagement with Members of Parliament, public sector providers, residents and other key local partners will now be led by the councils as they develop detailed proposals to establish strong, stable unitary councils that are fit for the future. This order is essential to allow the first wave of this ambitious programme to be delivered. It grants postponements for 12 months only, and only for the nine councils whose requests met the high bar we set.

We are extremely clear that these decisions were made on the basis of local requests to free up capacity and enable the practical steps needed, which would not be feasible so quickly if the 2025 local elections went ahead in those areas, for reasons that are self-evident. These areas have demonstrated the clear and strong local leadership and the necessary ambition to drive forward the programmes to the timelines that the Government have set out to deliver for those areas, including taking the difficult decisions that are needed.

Let me address the points that have been made. I sense that a lot of the debate today has picked this process out as being unusual in English local government, but it is not. Members will know that between 2019 and 2022, 30 sets of elections were cancelled: 17 to allow preparatory work for local government reorganisation, which is what we are talking about here, and 13 as part of legislation to allow the unitarisation process to take place after the proposals had been submitted. So this is not unusual; it is a natural part of the cycle to free up capacity and enable those proposals to be developed— I can go through the list, and provide the details in writing.

But I do think we need to be careful here. First of all, we absolutely believe that this is the right thing to do, and that is not because we have an ideological view about how local government should sit. All the Members in this room are here because we care about local government and local communities, and we cannot have a hand-to-mouth funding regime where local government is just not sustainable. We have to find a solution that really fixes the foundations, and this is one small part of that—there is a lot more we need to do—but it is important. If we did everything else but not this, it would just not hold together. I think that it would devalue—I will be honest and direct about this—the work that local leaders have put into this at a local level to build consensus and show leadership. I am not talking about exclusively Labour leaders; in many areas, they are Conservative, Liberal Democrat or independent. We have a collective responsibility to at least mirror the leadership that they have shown across political parties in the interests of their communities, and to reflect that here in the national Parliament. I do not think that is too much to ask.