Grenfell Tower Annual Report

Florence Eshalomi Excerpts

Wednesday 25th February 2026 Commons Chamber

[Steve Reed]

I thank the hon. Member for his questions and for his commitment, shared by the whole House, that we need to resolve the problems that led to the tragedy at Grenfell Tower. He asked about building control. We set up the independent panel under the chairmanship of Dame Judith Hackitt last year. That looks at decisions that may need to move into the public sector. The panel is due to report shortly, so I will not anticipate the findings that we can expect.

The hon. Member asked about the construction products White Paper, which was published today. I hope that he will take the opportunity to consider what it includes. I am sure that he will let me or the Minister for building safety know his thoughts on it. On remediation for buildings under 11 metres, it is important that we prioritise buildings based on safety risk, and that is what we are doing. We will of course keep that under review. There is a commitment to fund by exception those buildings under 11 metres where the risk is assessed to be high.

[Florence Eshalomi (Vauxhall and Camberwell Green) (Lab/Co-op)]

In 109 days, on 14 June, the community and many of us will come together to remember the 72 people who tragically lost their lives. Almost nine years on, the Government’s acceptance of the 58 recommendations is an acceptance that the tragedy at Grenfell should not have happened. That tragedy was born out of systemic failure. I stand here today wearing my green heart to recognise the fact that the community had to come together in the aftermath of that fire. That fire happened because no one listened to them—no one believed them. I commend them on their ongoing campaign to get full justice, including criminal justice.

I thank the Secretary of State for his statement. When the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee had the Grenfell community before us, we heard about the valid concerns that my hon. Friend the Member for Kensington and Bayswater (Joe Powell) highlighted about the national oversight mechanism. It cannot be right that the Government will mark their own work on that. The community wants full transparency.

I also thank the Secretary of State for outlining the fact that the Government will lay papers with regard to the spending authority for the memorial. If we are really to allow the community to have a lasting and fitting tribute, it is important that the memorial is built and designed with them, working with the memorial commission. Most importantly, can he confirm that the funding has been ringfenced and there will be no issues when the funding is discussed?

[Steve Reed]

I thank the Chair of the Select Committee for her questions and comments. She raises perhaps the most important point in all this, which is that no one listened to the voices of the people living in Grenfell Tower when they raised their concerns. That must never happen again. That is why the Government are seeking to strengthen the voice of tenants in social housing. Awaab’s law is one example of the way that has been achieved. It is gratifying that that, too, was done with cross-party consensus and support.

On the memorial, the Minister with responsibility for fire safety, my hon. Friend the Member for Chester North and Neston (Samantha Dixon), will introduce the legislation to the House this afternoon. We expect it to proceed at speed through both Houses, so that it can support the commission and the community in funding and securing a lasting memorial that will remind us all for evermore of what when wrong and why it must never happen again.

Local Government Finance

Florence Eshalomi Excerpts

Wednesday 11th February 2026 Commons Chamber

[Steve Reed]

I am going to make some progress, I am afraid.

There are a few councils facing extremely challenging financial pressures that the previous Government turned into a crisis by ignoring their problems for over a decade. In response to requests from those councils, I am giving them flexibility to increase their council tax above referendum principles next year. Unlike the previous Government, we will not agree any increases that could lead to households in these areas paying above national average council tax, but we will not let councils go to the wall and see their residents punished with failing services. These flexibilities will apply to Warrington, Trafford, Worcestershire, Shropshire, North Somerset, Windsor and Maidenhead, and Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole. One fire authority will also be granted additional flexibility. These are caps, not targets, and no area with additional flexibility will see bills rise above the national average.

[Florence Eshalomi (Vauxhall and Camberwell Green) (Lab/Co-op)]

I thank the Secretary of State for making that point about council tax and flexibility for local councils. Does he agree with the Local Government Association, which is worried, stating that

“council tax is not the solution to the financial challenges facing local government. It places a significant burden on some households”,

including the poorest. Does he agree that we should now be looking at council tax reform?

[Steve Reed]

I agree with the Chair of the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee that council tax cannot be the only means to fix these problems. That is why we have increased the level of funding overall and reconnected it with the deprivation indices that tell us which areas have the greatest need, and should therefore get a fair share of the available funding.

The Home Secretary and I have also agreed an additional £3.50 council tax flexibility for six police and crime commissioners in 2026-27, where that was critical to financial sustainability in maintaining law and order. It is for councillors, mayors and police and crime commissioners to set their own council tax, and to take into account the impact on households when making those decisions.

Nationally, council tax will not increase by more than it did last year. Six local authorities set council tax bills between £450 and £1,000 lower than the national average because of the high value of homes in their areas. The previous Government made no adjustment in the funding formula for this, creating unfairness. It is not fair that people living in our poorest communities should subsidise rock-bottom bills in some of our wealthiest areas, so I am giving those councils additional flexibility to manage their budgets as we align funding with need, as we should.

For councils that need some support to balance their budgets this year, we will no longer just sign off borrowing or the sale of assets without a credible approach to reforming services to get back to financial stability. Later this month, I will confirm arrangements for supporting councils in the most difficult positions, but they will be expected to bring forward plans for more effective and sustainable services, built on sustainable budgeting into the future.

--- Later in debate ---

[Florence Eshalomi (Vauxhall and Camberwell Green) (Lab/Co-op)]

I thank the Secretary of State, who is not in his place, for opening this debate on the settlement. I know the work that he and the Local Government Minister have led on in bringing forward this statement, and they have been strong voices for our local government colleagues. I should declare that the Secretary of State and I served at Lambeth council, and the Minister served as a councillor in Southwark, one of my neighbouring boroughs. I also want to pay tribute to the former Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham West, Chadderton and Royton (Jim McMahon), for the work he did with many councils to get us to the place we are at.

I know that many local authorities across England will be delighted to see that the Government are going to be covering 90% of the debt that has built up through supporting children with special educational needs and disabilities. The issue of SEND appears in all our inboxes, and it has been a big ongoing issue for many councils, regardless of which party leads them. The issue is how we continue to support some of the most vulnerable children, so we must ensure that councils are adequately funded in this area.

If we are honest, SEND costs are not of councils’ making. As the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner (David Simmonds), highlighted, the costs are a result of the broken system, which is finally being addressed by this Government. I hope that the Government will continue to address this issue in the upcoming schools White Paper.

One of the first things that everyone across local government asks for is certainty from the Government—certainty that authorities can make long-term investments in infrastructure; certainty that they have the funding to build the homes that we need; and certainty that they can start turning around the 14 years of under-investment in local government. I know that Opposition Members do not like to hear about it, but we saw 14 years of under-investment in SEND, temporary accommodation and adult social care. We should all welcome the first multi-year settlement in a decade, which ends the year-on-year waiting game that held back investment for too long.

This settlement has been called for not only by the current Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee but by its predecessor Committee, which was chaired by my wonderful colleague, my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts). It is good to see that the Government are finally listening on this issue.

We welcome the reduction in the number of grants. We have been asking our cash-strapped councils to continually bid for small pots of money. That means officer time being taken away from frontline services. Councils are bidding for those pots when, in some cases, they will not even be successful. That is not a good use of vital officers’ time, and in some cases the councils had to justify submitting the bids in the first place. We really do welcome this crucial change.

There are two other areas I want to focus on, one of which has been raised by right hon. and hon. Members this afternoon. The reality is that even with this welcome funding, a number of councils will still face budgetary issues. The Local Government Association anticipates that more councils may apply for exceptional financial support. When we see more councils having to apply for emergency funding, there is nothing exceptional about it. We cannot have a situation where councils have to rely on emergency funding to carry out day-to-day services and to avoid declaring bankruptcy. I hope that the Government will look at this area.

[Mr Will Forster (Woking) (LD)]

I agree with what the hon. Lady is saying. I am concerned that the Government’s support package for councils such as Woking borough council—which effectively went bankrupt several years ago following Conservative mismanagement—is allowing them to borrow more money to pay off their Government loans. Does she agree that the exceptional financial support process needs to change immediately?

[Florence Eshalomi]

I thank the hon. Member, an excellent colleague on our cross-party Select Committee, for his intervention. The Committee looked at this in our report on local government finance, and he will remember that our report stated:

“Exceptional Financial Support (EFS) by means of capitalisation direction is a stopgap measure that avoids section 114 notices and allows councils to produce short-term balanced budgets, but can weaken councils’ finances and capital investment in the long term.”

There is an issue, and we cannot keep sweeping it under the carpet and thinking that it is going to go away—it is not. In the long term, we are building more debts for those councils, which we have to look at addressing. I am pleased that the Government are going to ensure that councils applying for ESF have a wholesale root-and-branch review of how that money is to be allocated.

We know that this multi-year funding process will not solve the underlying issues facing all our councils. Another area at the heart of this issue, which I have mentioned on many occasions and on which there is growing cross-party support, is the reliance on the most regressive form of taxation to pay for mandatory demand-led services, where councils have little control over that demand. Council tax amounts to about half of the settlement total, with an assumption of the maximum increase across the board, despite the fact that the Government have little control over how much that figure will be. The Secretary of State has highlighted that in boroughs where the referendum principle will be lifted, the Government are assuming that increasing council tax will help, with some councils having to increase their council tax by over 30% just to reach their core spending powers and the figures in the settlement.

I think we all understand the challenges the Government face when it comes to balancing the books and the inheritance they were left with after 14 years. These are difficult decisions that we have to make, but let me take us back to when the former Local Government Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham West, Chadderton and Royton, told us:

“There is a real danger to the democratic process if there is not a link between the tax that people are paying and the quality of public services that they are getting in return.”—[Official Report, 5 February 2025; Vol. 761, c. 850.]

[Mark Garnier]

On exactly this point about the democratic process, my constituents were promised by the Reform candidates that they would cut council tax, but Worcestershire county council’s council tax is going up by 9%. It is a shame that not a single Reform Member of Parliament has turned up to defend what they have done. The worrying point is that we are being denied a referendum even though this goes above the 5% threshold. That bit of the democratic process has been removed from Worcestershire.

[Florence Eshalomi]

I agree. I think many residents are feeling the pinch. Yes, we have seen fantastic initiatives and new legislation from this Government, but that is not trickling down quickly enough. Many residents will be seeing their council tax bills in the next few months, and for a number of them, those bills will be going up. It is important that we look at that democratic link.

[Graham Stuart]

A £200,000 house in the East Riding of Yorkshire will be paying between £3,000 and £4,000 in council tax, depending on its 1991 valuation. A £2 million flat in Westminster will be paying £2,000. There is an opportunity to put that right. I know that the hon. Lady is from London and the Secretary of State is from London—it feels to a lot of us out in the provinces that everybody in charge is from London—but this system is so egregious and wrong. Does the Chairman of the Committee not agree that something needs to be done about this? We did not do it in our years in office, but this Government said they would have a fairer system, but it is not fair yet.

[Florence Eshalomi]

I think it is fair to say that successive Governments have put the issue of council tax in the “too difficult” box. I hope that it will fall on this Government to finally address that and bring an end to this regressive form of taxation.

[Antonia Bance (Tipton and Wednesbury) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the work being done on the draft local government settlement to get us to this final local government settlement has actively put the principles of fairer funding into place? My local authority in Sandwell—the fifth most deprived local authority in the country—is getting an extra £28 million as a result of the continuation and increase of the recovery grant. That money will go on crucial services that we were deprived of in my area during 14 years of Conservative austerity. I know my hon. Friend will want to join me in welcoming the work being done by the Local Government Minister and our friends in the Treasury to make sure that the principles of fairer funding are put into place.

[Florence Eshalomi]

My hon. Friend is a doughty champion for her constituency and for her council’s needs. I think it is fair to say that the outdated and opaque previous funding settlement caused a number of issues for councils up and down the country. It is good to finally see this Government responding to that and ensuring that we have a fairer and more simplified settlement, so that our councils can get on with the day job of providing vital services for residents.

We have to be honest and ask: if councils have to impose a council tax hike just to fulfil mandatory services—going back to the question raised by the hon. Member for Wyre Forest (Mark Garnier)—where is that democratic choice for residents? If council tax is collected locally, how can it be right that what it is largely spent on is dictated by central Government? We know from the settlement today that the Secretary of State and the Minister have shown a boldness by ensuring that they continue to engage with local leaders, the Local Government Association, and cross-party colleagues and councils, to get to grips with the day-to-day issues facing local government, but I urge the Minister to continue on that road of being bold. The Government need to continue working, especially with Treasury colleagues, to properly address the growing demand on the mandatory costs that councils face, from SEND to adult social care and temporary accommodation. That demand for those core services will continue to grow no matter how much money the Government put into them.

There is a real need for a fundamental review of council tax and wider council funding. I urge the Government to go further and bring about a cross-party consensus, and to truly reform council tax and bring an end to this regressive form of taxation once and for all.

Inner-London Local Authorities: Funding

Florence Eshalomi Excerpts

Tuesday 10th February 2026 Westminster Hall

[Helen Hayes]

I am grateful to the hon. Member for his intervention. I will come on to talk about those sites in my constituency that have planning permission but currently are not funded to build the social homes that could be on those sites. I think that is an important part of how we solve these challenges.

The Conservatives’ interventions to reduce social housing rents have also been disastrous for the ability of our councils to fund the maintenance of social housing and to fund new social homes. Southwark council calculated that Conservative-imposed rent cuts and freezes will cost the council’s housing revenue account £1 billion over 30 years. What is a very small saving for tenants has had a really big impact on the ability of councils to keep up with the maintenance needs of their social housing stock.

The Conservatives were happy to cut our councils’ budgets to the core and did not worry about the erosion of services that inevitably followed. Reform imagined that our councils were full of waste and profligacy, only to find that they are lean organisations that have constantly innovated in the face of austerity but that, over time, have become stretched, sometimes to breaking point.

A budget settlement based on a definition of deprivation that did not include housing costs, as was originally proposed, would have had absolutely dire consequences for inner-London councils. The reality is this: if rent eats up so much of someone’s income every month that they cannot afford the bare essentials, or if the only property they can afford to rent is so bad that it causes them and their family to become ill, then they are deprived and they face exactly the same consequences of that deprivation as anyone else anywhere in the country who simply does not have enough money to get by.

[Florence Eshalomi (Vauxhall and Camberwell Green) (Lab/Co-op)]

rose—

--- Later in debate ---

[Helen Hayes]

I give way to my hon. Friend the Member for Vauxhall and Camberwell Green (Florence Eshalomi), the Chair of the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee.

[Florence Eshalomi]

I thank my hon. Friend, my constituency neighbour, for making such an impassioned and powerful speech. I declare an interest in that my constituency also covers both Lambeth and Southwark. She is talking about housing costs, which we know are so expensive in London. We have seen housing costs rise over 15 years, pushing more people into homelessness and temporary accommodation. Does she agree that the Government should look at the subsidy paid for temporary accommodation, which has been frozen since 2011? In real terms, rents have continued to go up in our constituencies.

[Helen Hayes]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The maths on temporary accommodation costs simply does not add up at the moment. I have more to say on that a bit later in my speech.

Commonhold and Leasehold Reform

Florence Eshalomi Excerpts

Tuesday 27th January 2026 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the Chair of the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee.

[Florence Eshalomi (Vauxhall and Camberwell Green) (Lab/Co-op)]

I pay tribute to the Minister for his hard work in getting us to this stage. There were a few occasions when he saw me and went the other way, because he knew what I was going to ask him, but we would not be here without his tireless work. I also highlight what the Minister said about this being a cross-party issue, and pay tribute to the former Member for Worthing West, Sir Peter Bottomley, for his work chairing the all-party parliamentary group on leasehold and commonhold reform.

For far too long, many leaseholders up and down the country have been caught up in this medieval system, leaving them with soaring rents and unreasonable fees—people who bought their homes in good faith and have seen a nightmare transpire. It is right that the Government are finally bringing in a change that will help millions of people up and down the country. The Minister has agreed to support the Committee’s inquiry with the necessary evidence. Can he also confirm that he will support us by providing the Government’s response to the 2023 ground rent consultation in the coming days, so that we can get a better understanding on how that underpins the Government’s decision to cap ground rents at £250?

There were some things that we were expecting to see in the draft Bill—yes, I have read it—that are not there, including the Law Commission’s unimplemented recommendations on enfranchisement and the right to manage, and Lord Best’s recommendations on managing agents. Lord Best has called for a regulator with teeth for proper enforcement; can the Minister clarify what work the Government are doing to ensure that this will be in the final version of the Bill, or if it will be addressed elsewhere? The Minister also outlined a rough timeline for implementation. Can we get more clarity on when we expect to see that, so that those leaseholders around the country who have been waiting for a long time will finally get the help that they desperately need?

[Matthew Pennycook]

I thank my hon. Friend, the Chair of the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee, for those fair and pertinent questions. I will answer each of them in turn. We published a whole series of documents at 7 am, including a copy of the draft Bill. That also included a policy document setting out our rationale for the £250 per year ground rent cap, but we will make available to the Committee other information, evidence and documentation as needed and at the earliest possible opportunity.

As for the other recommendations made in the three reports from the Law Commission, the Leasehold and Freehold Reform Act 2024 implemented a significant number of the Law Commission’s enfranchisement recommendations, a small number of its right-to-manage recommendations, and none of its recommendations on commonhold. We cannot do everything in this Bill; hon. Members who have had a chance to look will have seen that is has a large number of clauses already. But we are committed to enacting those remaining recommendations relating to leasehold enfranchisement and other things over the course of the Parliament.

On implementation, different provisions will come into effect at different times. For example, we aim to switch on the rent charge provisions I described soon after Royal Assent. Other measures will require secondary legislation. We expect the ground rent cap to be in place in 2028. We will work with the Committee to ensure that it can do the fullest and most robust job possible when it comes to giving the Bill the enhanced scrutiny it deserves.

Local Government Reorganisation

Florence Eshalomi Excerpts

Thursday 22nd January 2026 Commons Chamber

[Steve Reed]

I have to say that the right hon. Gentleman’s case would be much stronger and would sound less self-righteous if he had not done exactly the same thing, for exactly the same reasons, when he was in government—only, unlike him when his party was in government, I have imposed nothing. This was a locally led approach. [Interruption.] He was a member of the Cabinet, and he is trying to claim that Cabinets do not take decisions collectively. He was in the Cabinet that took these decisions and he backed them to the hilt. Now, in opposition, he believes the opposite. He seems to think he has become a Lib Dem. He is supposed to have consistency in what he believes.

This is a locally led approach. I was guided by local councils, which came to me with their views. I respectfully suggest that his argument is with those Conservative councils and leaders who have requested postponement so that they can get on and deliver a reorganisation that will benefit their residents, but which he is now trying to block for party political reasons.

[Florence Eshalomi (Vauxhall and Camberwell Green) (Lab/Co-op)]

I thank the Secretary of State for coming to the House with his statement. Although he has outlined that there is a clear precedent, from 2019 and 2021, for postponing local elections, he reassured my Select Committee back in November that these elections would go ahead. Residents in those areas will be disappointed that their elections are being postponed.

I want to challenge the Secretary of State on what he has outlined and on his talk about eliminating waste. I agree that we need to respond to local leaders, especially where they have valid concerns about the process of reorganisation. We all knew that this would be a resource-intensive process, and we are aware that all our councils are dealing with many demands—adult social care, children’s social care, temporary accommodation—but our councils should not have to face choosing between frontline services and elections. Democracy is not an inefficiency that should be cut out. Every council should have the resources to run local elections. Can he assure the House that councils that have applied for their elections to go ahead will still have the resources to manage frontline services?

I also want clarity from the Secretary of State on any potential legal challenge. I understand that the court has given a date on which it will consider a legal challenge. Is there any possibility that the elections will go ahead if the Government lose? That would leave little time for councils, councillors, political parties and the Electoral Commission to go ahead. Can he outline any contingency planning that has been done, should that happen?

[Steve Reed]

I thank the Chair of the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee for her questions. I reassure her that I have imposed nothing. I took representations and listened to local councils, and today I am merely responding to the representations that I heard. Most councils will go ahead. It is the councils themselves that have reassured me that they have the resources to go ahead with elections and deliver the reorganisation that is so important to improving frontline services for local people. I am acting on the information that they have given me; I am imposing nothing. She will, I hope, appreciate that it is not appropriate or possible for me to comment on legal proceedings.

Local Elections: Cancellation

Florence Eshalomi Excerpts

Monday 19th January 2026 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)]

I call the Chair of the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee.

[Florence Eshalomi (Vauxhall and Camberwell Green) (Lab/Co-op)]

I thank the shadow Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for Braintree (Sir James Cleverly), for raising this important issue. I accept that the Minister highlighted that there are concerns from councils, but again, we find ourselves in quite a disappointing area. Just before Christmas, the Minister highlighted that councils were asked to delay elections, after the Secretary of State had repeatedly told our Committee that they would be going ahead. As a former election organiser, I know how key dates will be etched in a lot of our minds. It is 108 days until polling day. The deadline for people who have to re-apply for postal votes is 31 January, while the deadline to register to vote is in April. We want people to vote, so I am concerned that we are seeing a postponement yet again. Can the Minister outline when the Government will make the final decisions? Do they plan to reject any of the requests for delays?

The Minister outlined that the Government want councils to be up to date and not have to stress with reorganisation. Reorganisation will take a lot of time and resources, but we are effectively asking councils to choose between running day-to-day services and running an election. It should not be either/or. Councils should be in a state to deliver those services. Can the Minister outline that she is confident that the reorganisation will not distract hard-working frontline staff, impacting residents across the country who rely on the council’s day-to-day services?

[Alison McGovern]

My hon. Friend mentions how important it is for elections to take place. As she knows, large numbers of people will be voting in May. We are talking about a relatively discrete number of local authorities undergoing reorganisation. She asked when the Secretary of State will make the decision. He will do that as soon as he possibly can, and we have set out the further information that we have asked for.

My hon. Friend also asked about resources. This is really important, because the whole point of reorganisation is to ensure that we use our resources in the best way possible. It bears repeating, as I have done on many occasions in this House, that local authorities bore the brunt of austerity. We have reconnected council funding with deprivation, and I am anxious to make sure that all local authorities move towards financial sustainability. I look forward to discussing that with my hon. Friend’s Committee further.

New Towns

Florence Eshalomi Excerpts

Thursday 15th January 2026 Commons Chamber

[Florence Eshalomi (Vauxhall and Camberwell Green) (Lab/Co-op)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Cumbernauld and Kirkintilloch (Katrina Murray) on securing this debate, and I thank her for outlining her experience, and for her passion in representing a new town. When we talk about the next generation of new towns, it is important to listen to the experiences from new towns like Cumbernauld. I am pleased to see many other Members who represent new towns; I am sure that they will give us a flavour of what they have seen in their area. We must think about the challenges that those towns have faced, and what Members for those areas may say in this House in 70 years’ time, when we have all left.

The Town and Country Planning Association’s new towns network highlighted some of the common features of new towns in a 2021 report. It highlighted both the positive legacies, to do with innovation, accessibility and social housing, and some of the challenges to do with town centre renewal, and the need for whole estate regeneration, not rushed, poor-quality housing. If we want new towns to last, it is critical that the Government listen to the experiences of new towns today, so that we get the place-making element of the new towns programme right, and so that current and future new towns get the support that they need from Government, in recognition of the unique challenges that each location faces.

When the Government announced the new towns, they described the original new towns programme as

“the most ambitious town-building effort ever undertaken in the UK”,

saying that it

“transformed the lives of millions by providing affordable and well-designed homes”

in well-planned and beautiful surroundings.

The new towns taskforce made 44 recommendations; I am sure that hon. Members have read them all. They include making sure that new towns are built at a density sufficient to enable residents to walk to local amenities, and ensuring that they support public transport, unlock better social infrastructure, and create active and liveable neighbourhoods with clear minimum density thresholds. New towns should also provide a diverse range of high-quality housing, as Members have highlighted. This should include a minimum target of 40% affordable housing, with at least half of that being available for social rent. New towns should support thriving communities by ensuring access to schools; to cultural, sporting and healthcare facilities; and to other social infrastructure that meets new residents’ needs from the outset.

Another recommendation was that the starting point for the delivery of all new towns should be the development corporation model. The Government must also be clear on the interactions between new towns and local housing need targets, which the hon. Member for North Bedfordshire (Richard Fuller) highlighted. The taskforce found through its place investigations that there was strong support for homes delivered through new towns to count towards local housing targets.

It was good to see the Government and the Secretary of State welcome the taskforce’s recommendations. The Government have announced the commencement of a strategic environment assessment to understand the environmental implications of new towns. This assessment is intended to support the final decisions on location.

I welcome the Minister to the House to discuss new towns for the second time this week, following our session of the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee on Tuesday. I do not want to completely rehash that session, but I do want to follow up on a few things that were said, and I hope the Minister can give some answers today. In response to the taskforce report, the Government agreed that development corporations should be the primary delivery body for new towns. That is welcome, but on Tuesday the Minister acknowledged in answer to questions from my hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes North (Chris Curtis) that development corporations can take a long time to set up, and that may come after rounds of consultation. How soon after making a final decision on location will the Government seek to set up the first development corporations? I know we are all keen to see spades in the ground on at least three sites by the end of this Parliament. How many does the Minister expect will have development corporations in place?

Secondly, our Committee recommended, in our report last year on land value capture, that the Government should enable greater use of tax increment financing instruments to fund infrastructure in new towns. That model allows local authorities to borrow money against the anticipated tax receipts resulting from the future infrastructure. TfL used that system to finance London Underground’s Northern line extension to Battersea and Nine Elms—I declare an interest, in that the lovely new Nine Elms station is in my constituency. Our committee heard that this method of financing could be used more widely across England. Are the Government considering that, and if not, why not?

The Minister told our Committee that funding for new towns will come from the Department’s existing programmes, including the £39 billion social and affordable homes programme. That pot of funding is welcome, and it is the biggest investment we have seen in the affordable homes programme; it shows the Government’s commitment to building those much-needed new homes. Bidding for the social and affordable homes programme opens next month, but answers to our Committee indicate that we will see significant building on the vast majority of the sites in only the early 2030s. That could mean that it is years before those homes come down the line; that will do little to address the acute homelessness crisis facing 300,000 people in the UK today. What discussions has the Minister had with Homes England on prioritising funding from that pot? Will any new weighting be given to social housing in the shorter term?

The Secretary of State told our Committee in November that he was committed to the new towns delivering a minimum 40% affordable housing, but the Minister told us on Tuesday that this was “an aspiration” and that

“we cannot discount viability entirely”.

Affordable housing was at the centre of the taskforce’s report, at the centre of the recommendations around place-making, and part of the Government’s gold standard for new towns. Can the Minister confirm that, as the Secretary of State highlighted to us in November, he is committed to the recommendation that new towns should deliver a minimum of 40% affordable housing, at least half of which should be for social rent?

Finally, stakeholders, and Members this afternoon, have stressed the importance of local communities being involved in new towns from the beginning. Dr Victoria Hills, chief executive of the Royal Town Planning Institute, said:

“The first wave of new towns showed what can be achieved when government and planners work at scale, but they also highlight the importance of getting design, infrastructure, and community voice right from the very start. Public support for new towns will depend on learning those lessons and making sure they reflect the aspirations of the people who will live and work in them.”

I know that the Minister is committed to ensuring that the public are brought along, and to the important principles of community engagement and community leadership. It is important that the Government continue to listen, to provide opportunities for local communities to shape the infrastructure and the vision, and to make sure that everyone is committed to the end goal of new towns being built.

I hope that the Minister agrees with us, and shares our ambition that the new towns should offer the opportunity for economic growth, support communities and build the new homes that we desperately need. We cannot keep saying that we are in a housing crisis and not doing anything about it. They should secure those national objectives and make sure that we get good, honest infrastructure at scale and pace. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Cumbernauld and Kirkintilloch for securing the debate, and I know that there will be many more discussions to come.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

Oral Answers to Questions

Florence Eshalomi Excerpts

Monday 12th January 2026 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the Chair of the Select Committee.

[Florence Eshalomi (Vauxhall and Camberwell Green) (Lab/Co-op)]

I thank the Minister for his answer. I know that he has been taking a lot of time to debate and look at the issue of leasehold, and he can see the cross-party concern on behalf of many constituents up and down the country on this big issue, as well as the support for tackling it. We on the Select Committee are ready to help him by making sure that the legislation is right, fit and proper. I just want to tease out a further answer from the Minister. Can he confirm for the House that he is still on track to ensure that we end the issue of leasehold and commonhold by the end of this Parliament?

[Matthew Pennycook]

I thank my hon. Friend, the Chair of the Select Committee for that question. We remain steadfast in our commitment to the promises in our manifesto to bring the feudal leasehold system to an end. Despite the noises off from the usual naysayers, the imminent publication of our ambitious draft commonhold and leasehold reform Bill will be the beginning of the end for that system, which has tainted the dream of home ownership for so many households across the country. As my hon. Friend knows, this is a large, incredibly complex and technical piece of legislation, and I hope she and the rest of the House would agree that it is worth a brief extension to ensure that we get things right and avoid a deficient Act, such as the one that the previous Government left us with, which we are now having to fix through primary legislation.

Local Government Reorganisation

Florence Eshalomi Excerpts

Thursday 18th December 2025 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)]

I call the Chair of the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee.

[Florence Eshalomi (Vauxhall and Camberwell Green) (Lab/Co-op)]

I thank the Minister for her statement. I appreciate that she outlined that she has listened to valid concerns from councils about reorganisation. I have raised with Ministers the uncertainty that councils will face in transitioning into new councils, and in running vital day-to-day services.

I am a bit disappointed in the Minister, in that this announcement has come so late in the day. This is an issue of grave importance to so many hon. Members right across the Chamber, but many of them will not be here today to raise their concerns with her. In addition to the Secretary of State’s comments two days ago, he said this when he appeared before the Select Committee on 11 November:

“Where the elections are intended to go ahead, they will go ahead.”

What has changed since then?

The deadline is in a few weeks—the Minister asked that representations be made no later than 15 January—which leaves councils little time to prepare, if we are to make sure that we inform the Electoral Commission as well. What advice would she give to election officers who are planning elections, which takes time and costs money? Should they go ahead or should that work be paused? After that date, when will the final decision be made? Can Members have sight of that date?

We appreciate that local government reorganisation is complex, but we cannot have a situation in which the Government keep postponing elections. Local elections are vital and a sign of a healthy democracy.

[Alison McGovern]

I thank the Chair of the Select Committee for raising those points. First, I take seriously her point about the timings. She will understand that it has been a particularly busy time, given all that is happening in the Department, but I absolutely accept her point. I have been in touch with many Members of the House on reorganisation, funding and other matters, and I anticipate that I will also be in touch with Members over the rest of the year, and very much in the new year as well.

My hon. Friend asked, “Why now?” We have had representations from a number of councils undergoing reorganisation—albeit by no means the majority, as most councils that are reorganising are not due to have elections in any case—and we think it is important that we take stock of their views on capacity constraints. My hon. Friend also asked about timings; we have asked the councils to come back to us quickly, and we will take decisions swiftly.

Local Government Finance

Florence Eshalomi Excerpts

Wednesday 17th December 2025 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)]

I call the Chair of the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee.

[Florence Eshalomi (Vauxhall and Camberwell Green) (Lab/Co-op)]

I thank the Minister for her statement. I know she has been working really hard on this issue since she took on the role a few months ago. She is aware of the many pressing issues facing councils up and down the country—from SEND to temporary accommodation, housing and adult social care—and 14 years of under-investment will not be reversed by one funding settlement. It is therefore important that we continue to work with councils.

This is the first multi-year settlement in a decade, which will help our local leaders in planning for the future and, most importantly, planning for their local residents. I welcome the inclusion of local housing costs in the new funding formula, but ultimately it does not take in local housing allowance, which the Minister knows has been frozen for many years and is still causing a lot of pressure for councils.

The Minister mentioned that the Government will be looking at the council tax freeze in some areas, and at lifting referendum principles. She knows there is growing consensus on wholescale council tax reform instead of us tweaking it. It is the most regressive form of taxation and there is inequality across the country. Will the Minister look at what the Committee’s report says about a wholescale review of council tax banding, so that local leaders can have funding to spend on their local areas, and make sure that other areas see that funding come through?

[Alison McGovern]

I thank the Chair of the Select Committee for that comprehensive run through all the issues. She is right that we need not just funding but policy change to get councils to financial sustainability. I look forward to discussing that with my hon. Friend and her Committee. She also asked about council tax reform, which was not the subject of my statement, but I have no doubt that she will be asking me about it again in the near future.