Draft Town and Country Planning (Discharge of Local Planning Authority Functions) (England) Regulations 2026

Gideon Amos Excerpts

Tuesday 30th June 2026 General Committees

[Gideon Amos (Taunton and Wellington) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Sir Desmond. The only certainty that consigning applications to officers will bring is a greater certainty of refusal. Officers refuse a greater proportion of planning applications than planning committees, which is not an argument in favour of the draft regulations.

[Chris Curtis]

To prove that point, the hon. Gentleman would need to prove that the types of applications currently going to either officers or planning committees are effectively random, but they are not. We know that different types of applications go to each one, so we cannot make that comparison between the two numbers.

[Gideon Amos]

I will give two examples that have a bearing on the hon. Gentleman’s point momentarily.

The Liberal Democrats have supported elements of the Government’s reforms. We supported the housing measures in the Renters’ Rights Act 2025, and we support the principle of strategic planning. We also have no objection to a standard scheme of delegation or an upper limit on the size of planning committees. However, we do not accept that decisions must—the word “must” is used several times in the draft regulations—be taken away from elected councillors such that councils will approve decisions in cases where every single councillor disagrees, and the council’s name will still be on that decision. How can that be just? How can that be right?

The delivery of new homes is important. In particular, our target for social homes is higher than the Government’s, as we would aspire to deliver 150,000 per year, and we would allocate funding in that direction. Many of the measures that the Government are bringing forward seem to be directed at increasing planning permissions, largely for private sector housing, which many people in my constituency cannot and will not be able to afford. There is also little evidence that increasing planning permissions will reduce house prices—in fact, that has never happened, and it never will. Of course, house builders work on a commercial model in which they need to sustain their price to make their profit, which is an entirely reasonably approach.

Recent other changes also seem to be bearing in this direction. Councillors have already been removed from making a free decision on developments for over 150 homes; they cannot refuse them unless they first go cap in hand to the Minister and ask whether that is okay. Under that recently introduced direction, they lost their ability to decide on applications over 150 homes, and under the draft regulations, they will also lose their ability to decide on smaller applications. Guidance on the draft regulations would be a good thing, but this is not about guidance—the key word is “must”. The Minister referred to democratic oversight, but that will be removed unless the draft regulations are defeated. There is absolutely no question of any democratic oversight in any of these decisions.

Two examples came to my mind. One does not have to spend a lot of time as a member of a planning committee to come across applications where officers recommend a cautious refusal, but members of the committee then overturn that decision. I dealt with one in Wiltshire many years ago where an owner wanted to divide a large house into two by blocking up two doorways. The planning officer and the senior planning officer were adamant that this would create a new dwelling in the open countryside and so must be refused, and they would listen to no other representations. With the support of local councillors, it was taken to the planning committee and the planning committee unanimously approved the application to create an additional dwelling and increase the housing supply.

When I spoke to the chair of my local planning committee in Somerset recently, I heard about a similar example just outside my constituency where officers were recommending a refusal, but members overturned that decision and the housing was granted. That will not be possible under the draft regulations, and applicants will have nowhere to go. Whether they are local residents or local builders, they will not be able to do anything. They will be allowed to contact their councillors, but their councillors will turn around and say, “Even though I’ve been elected as a councillor, I cannot have any say or effect over this council decision. It has been taken away from me by the regulations.”

[Josh Newbury (Cannock Chase) (Lab)]

Like the hon. Gentleman, I have previously been a local councillor, so I understand the importance of planning committees and of local democracy around planning decisions, but I find the idea that local councillors will have no ability to have any say or influence over officers’ delegated decisions a bit ludicrous. If a councillor is doing their job properly, they are constantly going to the planning department to speak to officers about various issues that are raised with them. It will be more than possible for councillors to speak to planning officers, knowing that they are to make a decision on something like this, to give them whatever local context they feel they would need to come to an informed decision. Does the hon. Gentleman not agree with that?

[Gideon Amos]

The hon. Gentleman makes a good point about the importance of close working between councillors and officers, and I do not deny it, but the planning committees and the national scheme of delegation consultation outcome document is crystal clear, and I am grateful to him for allowing me the opportunity to quote it. It says in paragraph 17:

“Nominated officers and nominated members should make every effort to reach agreement on which cases should be referred to committee.”

Of course, that is only in schedule 2 applications; in schedule 1 applications, there is no opportunity for councillors to have a word with the officers and have the application referred to committee, but in schedule 2 applications there would be. The consultation outcome document goes on to state:

“However, where agreement is not possible, the case must be delegated to officers under regulation 5(3).”

The questions raised by the Opposition spokesperson, the hon. Member for Orpington, about whether officers will be required to prepare the same registers of interest and to be subject to the same degree of openness and accountability that councillors have to have are well put.

In our view, the draft regulations dangerously undermine democratic accountability—in fact, they remove it altogether—and leave the way open for those who will say, “It doesn’t matter how you vote or what you think—it has no effect.” The regulations will extend that principle to councillors and their powers: it does not matter what they think or what they say; they will not be allowed to affect decisions that are taken in their name and the name of their council. We will be pressing the regulations to a Division if the Opposition do not. Every councillor will regret these changes.

--- Later in debate ---

[Matthew Pennycook]

I knew that this instrument would provoke strong feelings, and it has done so, but I very much welcome the scrutiny provided by hon. Members and the considered contributions they have made.

The first thing to say is that a principled case has been advanced—as it was during the Planning and Infrastructure Bill—from members of the Committee who do not believe that a national scheme of delegation is warranted in any way. We have heard some of those arguments today, but, quite frankly, the time for those arguments has passed; the Act containing the enabling powers for these regulations passed both Houses after extensive scrutiny. We are talking about the form that the regulations take in implementing the national scheme of delegation, and we have undertaken extensive consultation and engagement to try to get the balance right in terms of the two-tier system we are introducing.

The shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Orpington, put a number of questions to me. The first touched on the rationale for the regulations in a fundamental way. As I said, we recognise the important role that planning committees play in ensuring local democratic oversight, and they will continue, once the regulations have passed—if they pass—to play a crucial role in planning decision making in the future. Across the country, we have a plethora of local schemes of delegation with huge variation, and that postcode lottery of schemes of delegation creates uncertainty. It slows down the planning system in important respects, which is why these regulations are required. We have made a raft of changes through our reforms to the planning system and are introducing a new system to bring forward local plans quicker.

The hon. Member for Broxbourne mentioned the importance of local plans, and I absolutely agree with him. It is a travesty that we inherited a system with such low local plan coverage that was up to date. We have made concerted efforts, as he knows, to try and drive up coverage of local plans across the country, to introduce a more rules-based national planning policy framework and to resource planning authorities to ensure that they can do the job they need to. Planning committees will continue to play a vital role in exercising democratic oversight, but we have to ensure that they are operating as effectively as possible and are focused on larger, more complex applications where member input is required.

The Government trust expert planning officers. The question for us is finding the right level of trust and empowerment to allow them to resolve the applications that we propose to put in schedule 1 of the regulations more quickly in the service of residents and businesses. Only 5% of minor residential development applications are determined by committee, but that 5% adds a lot of time to what are, when it comes to residential development for example, quite minor applications. Local input in planning decisions will continue to be incredibly important, including from elected representatives. We believe that the best way for councillors and communities to engage in development is through the local plan process; that is the point at which local councillors can ensure that the local policies that planning officers would have to follow in respect of schedule 1 applications are in place. The changes we are making through the national scheme of delegation will support that plan-led system. They will ensure that planning committees operate as effectively as possible by focusing, as I have said, on those major decisions.

We recognise that some planning applications are potentially complex or controversial. That is why we have created a framework where schedule 2 applications can go to committee for consultation when additional scrutiny is necessary. For example, schedule 2 includes listed building consent applications. In the vast majority of cases, we would expect those to be delegated to officers without any consequence, but there will always be a few cases that raise more significant issues and where members will want to take a view. Where a controversial development is proposed that has not been planned for, councillors can still play a key role in representing the voices of their constituents.

I absolutely refute the Liberal Democrat spokesman’s argument that the regulations completely remove the role of councillors or cause the death of local democracy, as he sought to portray it. Local people will still be able to make representations on individual developments through the application process. Local councillors will be able to submit their views or objections, and, as the hon. Member knows because of his experience in the planning service, those concerns must be taken into account when, in the case of schedule 1 applications, the officer is reaching a decision. We are not changing anything in that respect.

[Gideon Amos]

The Minister is being generous in giving way. As he knows, we fundamentally disagree with these proposals. He has just illustrated the point that councillors will be reduced to the same role as members of the public: they may make representations, but that is it.

[Matthew Pennycook]

And we think that is right on schedule 1 applications. They are a very different proposition from schedule 2 applications, which we think members should be able to take a view on through the gateway test.

High Street Regeneration and Unlawful Storefronts

Gideon Amos Excerpts

Tuesday 30th June 2026 Westminster Hall

[Gideon Amos (Taunton and Wellington) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Ms Vaz. I congratulate the hon. Member for Bromsgrove (Bradley Thomas) on introducing this important debate, on the constructive spirit in which he introduced the subject and on his generosity in taking interventions. My hon. Friend the Member for Mid Dunbartonshire (Susan Murray) rightly highlighted the issue of business rates; they need to be abolished and replaced with an entirely different system, which I will come back to.

High streets are at the heart of our communities. In Taunton and Wellington we have a great range of independent traders, shopkeepers and hospitality businesses. Footfall in Taunton is up by 4.6%, which is way above the national average, in large part due to their efforts and work to promote the independent quarter and other parts of our town. However, they are struggling against the backdrop of energy costs, the difficult financial environment and those dishonest traders who do not play by the same rules as the rest of us.

We cannot allow our high streets to become sites of decline. In Taunton, thanks to the team of councillors, trading standards officers and local police, a number of shops have rightly been shut down—a crackdown that I called for and supported when it happened. Although I am encouraged by the Government’s measures on closures, they must go further on this issue. I reiterate the call I made on behalf of the Liberal Democrats in this Chamber a few weeks ago: there need to be greater powers for police officers to issue closure orders more swiftly and permanently close down repeat offenders and, as other hon. Members raised, measures need to be taken against dodgy landlords who knowingly and repeatedly let their premises to illegal traders.

All those changes must come alongside investment in proper community policing to curb not only that kind of activity, but antisocial behaviour and shoplifting, which drive customers away. The Liberal Democrats would call on the National Crime Agency to establish a dedicated unit to tackle organised shoplifting gangs and give small businesses the tools they need to protect themselves.

Several hon. Members rightly raised planning controls. Someone walking down many of our high streets will find units that are technically occupied and trading but with shop windows deliberately blacked out with various coverings. It is a simple point, but a shop usually has a shop window and a display, not an opaque screen hiding the internal activities from view. The window on to the street provides natural surveillance into and out from the premises. It is an invitation to the customer, and what makes the high street feel alive—it is part of its aesthetic appeal. Although it is difficult to quantify, that is incredibly valuable to the vitality that makes our town centres places where people want to go. Planning enforcement could be used to enforce that principle.

If a business converts its shopfront into a blank wall or an entirely blacked-out façade, it is no longer operating as a retail unit in the traditional sense of the word. Planning use classes A and E define what a shop is, and both those classes include several mentions of a display. With an amendment to the guidance to clarify that one feature of a shop is a display of some sort or a shop window, enforcement action could be taken, and a stop notice could be issued under the Planning Act 2008, requiring unauthorised use to end. I urge the Government to include that measure in their review of powers, as well as addressing the issue of illuminated signs, which was raised by several hon. Members.

We should all recognise that antisocial behaviour can be deeply traumatising; as well as bringing back proper community policing, the Liberal Democrats want more use of directly employed community safety wardens, and mobile CCTV to enforce localised issues such as fly-tipping and harassment. However, enforcement alone will not regenerate a high street. In Taunton and Wellington, I often speak to local traders who offer brilliant products and services, but they are under massive pressure to make ends meet, given the cost pressures and tax increases that have been levied. The Government increases in employers national insurance are a jobs tax, and they hit businesses hardest. That is why the Liberal Democrats oppose them at every opportunity. I call on the Minister to lobby the Treasury to reverse those increases and take more costs off our small businesses, which are the backbone of the UK economy and its single biggest sector.

In some cases, business rates now exceed rents and squeeze out the independent businesses that give high streets their character. Our long-standing position is clear: replace business rates with a system of commercial landowner levy, based on land value rather than capital value, thereby shifting the burden from tenants to landowners and prioritising high streets in the process, stimulating the investment that we need. It is no matter how nice our high streets are if people cannot visit them, so we have called for bus fares to be cut to £1 for all. A family of four making a trip into Taunton from a nearby village have spent a significant sum at £3 each before they have spent a penny in a local shop. Homes above shops also have a transformative role, putting more people on to our high streets day and evening, weekday and weekend. The current policy framework allows for that, but shop owners often have neither the time, expertise or resources to navigate the system. We need more support for them to covert those spaces into residential use.

In conclusion, the Liberal Democrat asks are clear: swifter, stronger closure orders; penalties for landlords who turn a blind eye; planning enforcement against opaque store fronts; the reversal of employer national insurance rises; bus fares cut to £1; and more help to unlock homes above shops. Our great traders and small businesses deserve that support, and they will repay it in bucket loads if we give it to them.

Draft Private Landlord Redress Schemes (Approval and Designation) Regulations 2026

Gideon Amos Excerpts

Monday 22nd June 2026 General Committees

[Gideon Amos (Taunton and Wellington) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Mrs Barker. On the parent Act to this instrument, the Liberal Democrats campaigned in favour of ending no-fault evictions, and we were pleased to support the Bill to bring that about and bring those to an end. We support the principle of the landlord redress scheme, although we did push for the Government to go further on protecting renters and on the private rental database, including more records of landlords, on rent smoothing and so on. We believe that the redress system should extend to providing redress against excessive rent increases above and beyond the pertaining Bank of England rate of interest. That is in our rent-smoothing proposals. None the less, we support the draft enabling regulations for the redress scheme.

Will the Minister say a little more about the kinds of landlords that the draft regulations will apply to, which he said will come out in due course? Is the metric to do with the scale of the landlord or a type of landlord? It would be helpful to know a little more on that front. Otherwise, we are willing to support the statutory instrument.

Draft Planning and Infrastructure Act 2025 (Consequential Amendments) Regulations 2026

Gideon Amos Excerpts

Wednesday 17th June 2026 General Committees

[Gideon Amos (Taunton and Wellington) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Ms Jardine. It is not the first time I have done so as part of a Committee to discuss planning regulations—I am sure, Ms Jardine, that you look forward to debating these as much as I do.

The Liberal Democrats are sympathetic to the need for strategic planning and welcome its being rolled out for strategic authorities; we made that point during the passage of the Bill. However, we also made the point that we should not load this requirement on to hard-pressed unitary authorities. For example, my local authority in Somerset is struggling to begin an enormous and expensive local plan exercise, under which it would be required to find a 46% increase in the number of housing plots in Somerset, which is 75,000 plots all together. It is not reasonable to, at the same time, expect county councils or unitary authorities, acting on their own, to begin work on a spatial development strategy.

I understand that in the regulations there is a provision for authorities to combine to achieve that—indeed, Somerset council is trying to combine. It is part of the Wessex partnership, but the partnership’s bid for mayoral status was pushed back by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, so it is unable to form a mayoral strategic authority. Therefore, Somerset council, like many other county councils and unitary authorities around the country, will be expected to undertake the work. Although we support the spirit of there being spatial development strategies for strategic authorities, we are unable to support the regulations, given the huge extra burden on county councils and unitary authorities, as we raised during the passage of the Bill.

In addition, we do not feel that the regulations have a sufficiently “brownfield first” approach. During the passage of the Bill, we also highlighted the lack of any statutory right to be heard in the plan-making process. The SDS gives us further cause for concern about the implementation of that aspect of the Planning and Infrastructure Act.

English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill

Gideon Amos Excerpts

Consideration of Lords message
Tuesday 28th April 2026 Commons Chamber

[Gideon Amos (Taunton and Wellington) (LD)]

I will be brief, as most of the arguments have already been well stated.

We acknowledge the Minister’s argument yesterday that this Bill represents a step forward, not the final destination, and that consistency is needed to make the system function, but it is important that, in seeking that consistency, we do not lose the very flexibility that makes devolution truly meaningful. We remain supportive of our Liberal Democrat colleagues in the Lords and their efforts to strengthen the Bill. I place on record our continued backing for a number of those amendments.

Lords amendment 36 addresses our central point. It is not devolution to mandate a single model of governance from the centre. Local areas must retain the ability to choose what works for them. I thank the Minister for concessions that she has made in relation to Liberal Democrat amendments; we are grateful that the Government have taken note of the importance of communities having the right to choose their own governance, and ensured that choice is better protected.

We have already seen why flexibility for local authorities matters. In Sheffield, the council moved away from the leader and cabinet model to a committee system following real concerns about transparency, accountability and council overreach. That change was driven locally by councillors responding to their communities. As my noble Friend Lord Mohammed of Tinsley set out in the other place, the consequences of concentration of power in a small executive can be profound. In Sheffield, decisions to fell thousands of healthy street trees were driven through by a small group without the scrutiny of a wider number. In Sheffield, there is now a plaque that says:

“In recognition of the courageous campaigners who saved thousands of street trees from wrongful felling by Sheffield City Council, and as a reminder to all that such failures of leadership must never happen again.”

That is a stark warning of what can go wrong when power and authority are too concentrated in the hands of too few.

The Liberal Democrats will continue to challenge the Government on this matter, because we are a party that believes in real community representation and local governance decided by local people. We will always fight to ensure that communities have a genuine say in how their areas are run, and that decisions are not handed down from Whitehall. If consistency comes at the cost of local voices, we are not strengthening devolution; we are narrowing it.

Let me turn to Lords amendment 98. The Liberal Democrats believe that placing limits on powers over structural changes is vital if local democracy is to have genuine autonomy. I thank the Minister for what she said about that. Likewise, we have sought to remove powers that would allow Ministers to direct the creation or expansion of combined authorities, including the imposition of mayors, without meaningful local consent. Members on both sides of the House agree that meaningful devolution cannot mean structures delivered and sent from Whitehall with limited local input. If local government is to have real autonomy, consent must be meaningful and Parliament must retain its proper role. We will continue to work constructively with the Government on that.

On Lords amendments 89B and 89C, we strongly support the prioritisation of brownfield development. The Liberal Democrats are grateful to the Government for listening to calls for better protection of greenfield land, and for taking steps through the Bill to encourage the prioritisation of brownfield. That will help to ensure that development is happening in the right places, on land that needs to be developed on, and in consultation with the communities that surround it. This is not about opposing growth; it is about delivering that growth sustainably and making the best use of land that has been developed before.

Although I accept the Minister’s argument that some flexibility is needed to meet housing demand, if it results in greenfield and green spaces becoming the default, we will have failed and got the balance fundamentally wrong. Green spaces are essential to community wellbeing. They support mental and physical health, provide space for recreation and contribute to the identity of local places. Once lost, they cannot be replaced. If brownfield land is not properly prioritised, development pressure will fall on those spaces. We therefore welcome this step in the right direction by the Minister, but we will continue to ask the Government to go further on prioritising brownfield.

When taken together, the three amendments do not frustrate the Bill, but improve it. They move it closer to what devolution should be—rooted in local consent and accountable to local communities. We are glad that the Government have taken heed of the priorities that the Liberal Democrats have put forward, and we will continue to work constructively to ensure decisions are made with local people and not done to them.

[Miatta Fahnbulleh]

I thank hon. Members for their continued engagement and their insightful debate on these issues. In the remaining time, I will respond to some of the particular points that have been made.

I want to put on record my thanks to Opposition Members for the constructive way in which they have approached the debate, so that we can progress the Bill. The hon. Member for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner (David Simmonds) and I will continue to disagree on whether this is a centralising Bill or a radical shift in power. I still fundamentally believe that the Bill marks a huge step in transferring power outside Whitehall, but, candidly, we will demonstrate that through our actions and through the impact of Bill. What drives us is the impact that this will have in our communities, and we have strong measures that will help us to ensure that we are putting communities in the driving seat so that they can shape their place.

I hear the points made by the hon. Member for Taunton and Wellington (Gideon Amos) on local government governance. The example of Sheffield is one that many of my hon. Friends have advocated for on behalf of their communities, which is why we made the original concession. We think that we have found the right balance. We are clear that if we are to empower local authorities in the way that we want to, they need strong governance in order to make decisions for their communities that will impact on those communities. The reason we are trying to support the shift in governance arrangements is to ensure that we have enduring local authorities that can fundamentally deliver. We think that we have achieved that in the concessions that we have made.

Throughout the passage of the Bill, I have found it hugely heartening that there is a clear point of consensus across the House that if we are to deliver change in our communities, we must push power out into our communities, into the hands of local leaders, into our neighbourhoods and to people who know their patch best. I hope this Bill represents the start of a journey that will fundamentally change the way that Government works and how we, in this place, serve the communities that we are here to represent; where the principle of devolution by default, underpinned by a clear framework, is locked in; where local leaders are empowered to drive economic change and improvements in living standard across their patch; and where communities are put in the driving seat and given powers to shape the places in which they live and work.

I have been clear throughout the passage of the Bill that this legislation represents the floor, not the summit, of our ambition for devolution. I look forward to working with my hon. Friends on the Government Benches and with hon. Members from across the House as we build on the provisions in the Bill.

Finally, I would like to thank my brilliant team of officials who have worked on the Bill—Hannah, Carrie, Guy, Jenna, Marie, Alice, John, Rachel and Wendy—as well as my private office team—Molly, Simon and Lucy—who have all done an absolutely heroic job in taking a mammoth Bill through the House. With that, I commend the Government motions to the House.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 59

Local authority governance and executives

Resolved,

That this House insists on its disagreement with the Lords in their Amendments 36, 90 and 155, insists on its amendments 155A to 155F and 155H to the words so restored to the Bill by that disagreement with Amendment 155, and proposes amendment (a) to the words so restored to the Bill by that disagreement.—(Miatta Fahnbulleh.)

Clause 92

Commencement

Resolved,

That this House insists on its disagreement with the Lords in their Amendments 85 and 86, 97 to 116, 120, 121 and 123, insists on its amendments 123C to 123H and 123J to 123K in lieu, and proposes further amendments (a) to (e) in lieu.—(Miatta Fahnbulleh.)

Housing Needs: Young People

Gideon Amos Excerpts

Thursday 16th April 2026 Westminster Hall

[Gideon Amos (Taunton and Wellington) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve under you in the Chair, Ms Butler. My hon. Friend the Member for Mid Dunbartonshire (Susan Murray) was the driving force behind securing this debate, the application for which I supported, and I congratulate her on doing so. I should declare an interest as a social landlord. I thank all other Members who have taken part in this important debate, including my hon. Friend the Member for St Ives (Andrew George), who restated the excellent case for planning controls on second homes.

I support that proposal because at its heart, housing is the single biggest issue affecting young people’s lives. Whether owning or renting, housing dominates their futures. A decent and affordable home is fundamental and the starting point for all other freedoms. That is why it was a Liberal Government who invented council housing and rolled it out. Liberals such as William Beveridge identified poor housing as the chief cause of squalor—one of the giants that any progressive Government would want to overcome.

The Liberal Democrats welcome the Government’s commitment to the £3.9 billion per year for social and affordable housing, but we urge them to go further and faster; I will return to how my party would do that. We also campaigned for an end to no-fault evictions and therefore supported the Renters’ Rights Act. Ending no-fault evictions was long overdue; the Conservatives failed to deliver on that.

While pragmatic improvements to the planning system are always welcome, the Government’s planning changes, which are focused on printing permissions for private sector housebuilders at the expense of locally elected councillors and communities having their say, will not bring the lower house prices that young people desperately need. That never has, and it never will. We need an approach that will not only deliver lower rents but help a new generation get the chance to buy a home of their own. That was an aspiration that felt achievable for my generation, but for too many younger people, seems like a fantasy. It is an injustice that we need to address.

Average deposits have more than doubled as a share of income in almost every region of the country compared with 30 years ago, and that is even higher in London. Saving for a deposit in the first place has never been harder, because rents are higher than ever both in real terms and as a percentage of income, as we have heard from other hon. Members. Nearly half of 24-year-olds are now living at home with their parents, up from just over a third a decade ago. As one of my constituents put it, he has paid more in rent over the last 20 years than the value of a house, yet he does not own one breeze block and has little hope of his three children getting a home of their own.

For the most vulnerable young people, the consequences go further than deferred aspiration. Last year, an estimated 124,000 young people approached their local authority because they were homeless or at risk of homelessness—a 6% rise on the previous year. One young person is facing homelessness every four minutes. That pushes people out of education and work, and into a cycle that is hard to escape. Crisis found that 58% of employers are less likely to hire someone experiencing homelessness, and the welfare system is not helping. Under-35s are only eligible for the shared accommodation rate—a lower housing benefit entitlement to cover shared accommodation, at a time when the number of houses in multiple occupation has fallen by 10% since 2019. The shared accommodation rate is a false economy. Our manifesto committed to abolishing it in its application to homeless people. They should not be penalised for being homeless.

Many leaseholders who have bought are facing potential negative equity as the cost of remediation or unfair and mounting service charges and ground rents accumulate. It is time to abolish residential leasehold and cap unfair and unreasonable service and management charges. I hope that the forthcoming Commonhold and Leasehold Reform Bill will do so. The previous Conservative Government had its chance. Their answer was right to buy, which stripped over 1.5 million council houses from the stock since 1980. We would give councils the power to end right to buy in their areas.

The Conservatives’ other approach was Help to Buy, through which they spent £25 billion on an equity loan scheme. What did we get in return? The Institute for Fiscal Studies published research this week showing that Help to Buy made a very limited difference to affordability for first-time buyers, and the mortgage guarantee scheme only really made a difference to the maximum house price for the highest incomes. It also likely drove prices higher by fuelling a sellers’ market with extra cash. Imagine if that money had been invested in social housing instead. The Liberal Democrats do not just imagine that; our manifesto set out a commitment to 150,000 social homes per year, with an extra £6 billion per year in funding to roll them out, or £30 billion over the Parliament.

This is what we need to bring about: housing that young people can genuinely afford. In addition to social and council rental homes, we would develop a new generation of rent to own. Instead of removing the rights of local communities and councillors, we would take a different approach to secure affordable homes to buy. Our approach would prioritise essential infrastructure first, such as GPs, so that it came before new homes—no doctors, no development.

We need a different approach, and I encourage the Government to make further use of the powers that the Conservatives, to give them credit, put on the statute book, which the current Government have extended to town and parish councils, to acquire land at existing use value, and to ensure that it is raising sufficient funding from levies on development to increase the delivery of homes that young people can afford. After all, it is for our environment and communities that we want new homes to be built, and the voices of people and nature should therefore not be excluded from the process.

Young people need an affordable route out of private renting. That means a serious, funded social house building programme, including tenures specifically designed for young people, and capping rent rises in the way that we proposed during the passage of the Renters’ Rights Act 2025, so that young people can actually save—for example, for a deposit on a new home of their own.

Finally, there is another quick win sitting right in front of the Government. Lib Dem councils such as Somerset want to build more, but their borrowing is maxed out. If the Government will not increase the £3.9 billion a year for council and social housing to the £6 billion a year that we would like to see, will they look at writing off part of the decades-old housing revenue account debt? If they did so, my Liberal Democrat Somerset councillor colleagues could build at least another 630 new council houses. I would welcome further discussion with the Minister on that matter in any meeting that is granted.

Young people are not asking for much; they simply want the same chances that previous generations took for granted. They deserve a new generation of council and social rent homes—150,000 a year—and low-cost rent to own, which is an affordable route to home ownership, and that is what the Liberal Democrats in government would deliver.

Draft Building Safety (Responsible Actors Scheme and Prohibitions) (Amendment) Regulations 2026

Gideon Amos Excerpts

Monday 13th April 2026 General Committees

[Gideon Amos (Taunton and Wellington) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve on the Committee with you in the Chair, Sir Edward. I am forced to agree with the hon. Member for Orpington—it does not come easily—about the Reform party spokesperson. He was not just a junior member of the Reform party but its official housing spokesperson, and his commentary on the Grenfell disaster and on the measures—for which there is cross-party support across the House—that must necessarily be taken to improve building regulation—

[The Chair]

Order. I am not sure how relevant that is.

[Gideon Amos]

It is relevant because the regulations address the Grenfell tragedy. It is worth placing on record that the Reform spokesperson’s comment that,

“everyone dies in the end”,

is a totally unacceptable and monstrous response to the building safety tragedy and emergency that we face.

The statutory instrument makes necessary technical corrections to the building safety regime. The Liberal Democrats support those changes, which will ensure that the system functions as intended. We must never let a tragedy like Grenfell happen again; all parties should agree on that. However, the SI sits within a wider framework that is still somewhat lacking. There remains a concerning mismatch between the Building Safety Act and the PAS 9980 fire safety standard. That mismatch risks leaving serious defects unaddressed and standards must be aligned to ensure that all building safety risks are properly identified and remediated.

We are also concerned that the building safety levy will not provide sufficient funding for remediation and to support the sector as a whole, particularly the social housing sector. Too many leaseholders therefore remain exposed to costs that they should not have to bear. The Government must ensure that all leaseholders are protected from remediation costs, not just leaseholders in buildings over 11 metres in height. Although we support the statutory instrument, much more needs to be done to ensure that the building safety system works effectively and delivers safe homes for all.

Women’s Safety in Rural Areas

Gideon Amos Excerpts

Tuesday 24th March 2026 Westminster Hall

[Gideon Amos (Taunton and Wellington) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Mr Dowd. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Frome and East Somerset (Anna Sabine) on securing this debate and making a powerful, well evidenced and entirely reasonable case for women and girls’ interests to be taken better into account in planning.

The violence against women and girls strategy, published in December 2025, describes planning and design as “critical tools” in women’s safety. Part 2 of the Angiolini inquiry, commissioned after the murder of Sarah Everard, called for women’s safety to be embedded into the planning of public spaces, yet the updated national planning policy framework, published by the same Government in the same month, does not mention women or girls once—not in chapter 8 on safe communities, nor anywhere else.

My hon. Friend the Member for Frome and East Somerset and I wrote to the Minister for Housing and Planning and the Safeguarding Minister about that omission. When the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government was asked, a spokesperson told The Guardian it was “unclear” why the two issues should be combined in any way. If the Government do not understand how women’s safety ties in with planning new spaces, we have a very serious problem.

The previous Conservative Government at least acknowledged that link when they consulted in 2022 on whether the NPPF should do more to keep women and girls safe. They did nothing about it, but they asked the question, which got it on the agenda. The Government appear to have one Department denying that a connection exists, while another Department explicitly acknowledges planning as a critical tool. That is unfortunately a case in point in the Government’s wider approach to communities and consultation. Rather than trusting local people to shape the places they live in, the direction of travel, whether by accident or by design—I look forward to the Minister telling me that this is not the direction of travel—seems to be towards centralisation and away from community voices.

There are several examples of that. The Planning and Infrastructure Bill will see the Secretary of State removing decisions from local councillors on planning applications, in a move that I believe infantilises local councillors. A new direction, confirmed by the Ministry’s document published only yesterday, will prevent councillors from deciding on significant applications unless they first ask for the Minister’s permission. The Government have withdrawn funding for neighbourhood planning support services, the very mechanism through which communities can influence the design of their built environment.

The Government have also stripped much of the community and consultation policy out of the new draft national planning policy framework. The word “community” has been deleted no fewer than 35 times and the word “consultation” has been deleted 10 times. Without funding, most town and parish councils simply cannot review or update their plans. If gendered safety is not in the NPPF, overstretched local authorities cannot address it, because they are too underfunded to do anything that is not mandatory. These omissions from the NPPF do not only fail women at the national level; they give others licence to ignore the issue entirely.

In my constituency of Taunton and Wellington, parishioners in Kingston St Mary have raised with me the lack of pedestrian routes into Taunton. Walking along a narrow country road with no pavements is the only option, and women in the village find it unsafe. Cyclists too are affected. The parish council passed on one comment to me from a resident who said that cycling into Taunton should be easy, not life-threatening, on the Kingston Road. It is too dangerous to commute on a bike. The parish council also asked me particularly, unprompted by me, to raise the removal of funding for neighbourhood plans by this Government.

Walking along roads without footpaths is unsafe for everyone, but for women, especially after dark, it is not merely inconvenient; it restricts their freedom. Women in our communities deserve to enjoy the same confidence moving around our cities, towns and villages as anyone else. The local planning policy could and should be the mechanism to deliver that, consulting local communities to understand the priorities that need to be addressed. But communities need the policy backing and the tools and resources to make it happen, and the Government seem to be taking those away.

There are of course trade-offs that arise from design choices. Street lighting improves safety but contributes to light pollution. Green corridors are ecologically valuable but can create spaces that feel unsafe. Dense planting improves biodiversity but can reduce sight lines. Those are all trade-offs, but central Government overreach is not the answer. Local decision making informed by community nous is the answer. That would give women and others a say in the outcomes that matter in their local environments. Those are precisely what community-led planning is for.

Liberal Democrats call on the Government to amend the NPPF to explicitly require consideration for women’s and girls’ safety, particularly in chapter 8; to update the national design guide and national model design code to include clear guidance on designing for women’s safety; and to restore funding for neighbourhood plans so that communities have the means to implement the solutions that work best for them.

Community involvement matters, and planning has everything to do with women’s safety, whatever the quotes in The Guardian said. I hope the Minister will explain how community voices, particularly those of women, will be heard in planning.

Grenfell Tower Memorial (Expenditure) Bill

Gideon Amos Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 16th March 2026 Commons Chamber

[Gideon Amos (Taunton and Wellington) (LD)]

I join the Secretary of State in paying tribute to the 72 people who tragically lost their lives in the disaster nearly nine years ago. The Liberal Democrats welcome the Bill, and we support it. Nearly nine years since the fire, families and communities have waited long enough for a proper legal and financial footing to be provided for a permanent memorial to the 72 people who lost their lives.

As a chartered architect and a member of the Royal Institute of British Architects, I began the new professional training and development that the Grenfell report now rightly requires of all architects. Tragically, previous fires had exposed the problems of highly flammable cladding, which shows that the risks were known. There were opportunities to act and attempts were made to act, yet 72 people lost their lives. The social homes at Grenfell were provided to serve the interests of diverse and often low-income residents, but they were refurbished —in part, to improve outward appearances—in ways that militated dangerously against those people’s interests. That context is worth stating, because it speaks to a pattern of big institutions and corporations not seeing or valuing the people they are supposed to serve.

On the question of justice, we need to be direct in pointing out that the Metropolitan police have said this week that prosecutions are not expected before 2027—10 years after the fire. All of us in this House must ensure that justice is done. That is one reason why the Liberal Democrats have called from these Benches for a new office of the whistleblower to create legal protections and promote greater public awareness of people’s rights. It is also why we have consistently supported the Government’s Public Office (Accountability) Bill, which will place a statutory duty of candour on public authorities and ensure equal legal representation for bereaved families. We are glad that the Government have committed to that legislation, and we will work on it—and on this Bill—with parties across the House so that its protections are delivered.

On cladding and fire safety, there has been genuine progress since 2017, and the Government deserve credit for accepting all 58 recommendations of the inquiry, but thousands of people are still living in buildings with unsafe cladding. Remediation is taking far too long, and that needs to change.

I would like to raise three key points before I conclude. First, will the Minister say something about the Grenfell projects fund, which has provided substantial support to the community since the fire? If it is being wound up, the Government should set out clearly what is going to replace it.

Secondly, now that the tower has begun to come down—and I completely understand why people have different views about and reactions to that—I welcome the Government’s announcement last week about saving elements of the structure, and support them in leaving any decision about how they may be retained for consultation with the Grenfell community.

Finally, we must all be vigilant in ensuring that all the recommendations are followed through, that the community is fully consulted on the memorial, and that the voices of those who raised concerns before the fire are—tragically, unlike those of the victims—at last properly heard and their concerns acted on. We owe it to the community to ensure that the commitments made to it since 2017 are kept, that buildings across the country are made safe and that the systems that failed are genuinely reformed. The voices that were not heard need to be heard and remembered into the future. Across this House, we should do what one reflection on the Grenfell memorial wall urges us all to do, which is to ensure that they not only rest in peace, but “rest in power”.

Power to Cancel Local Elections

Gideon Amos Excerpts

Monday 2nd March 2026 Westminster Hall

[Gideon Amos (Taunton and Wellington) (LD)]

I congratulate you on securing quality, if not quantity, of speakers in this debate, Mr Mundell; it is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (Jamie Stone) for introducing the debate, and the 262 of my constituents who signed this petition. They are right: the Secretary of State’s power to cancel elections, certainly without recourse to Parliament, should be removed. The Liberal Democrats opposed cancelling the elections and are opposing top-down reorganisations of councils in various places. We opposed the cancelling of the elections at the time, including in Parliament. That is why we tabled a prayer motion in the House of Commons and a fatal motion in the House of Lords, which would have stopped the Government’s secondary legislation that cancelled the elections. Unfortunately, the Conservatives did not support the motion in the House of Lords, and therefore the cancellation went ahead.

The delaying of elections in certain local authorities meant that incumbent councillors were permitted to remain in post for longer than their elected period, which, as other hon. Members have said, directly contravened the democratic mandates given to them by voters. Simply moving the goalposts and silencing millions of voters is totally unacceptable and a subversion of the democratic process. The public deserve to know how such an obviously undemocratic plan was allowed to get so far. Even though the Government have said they will not provide it, the Liberal Democrats will repeat our call to see the full legal and other advice that the Government relied on, so that the public can see exactly how the plan came to fruition.

It is not just this Government. In May 2021, 5,000 councillor elections went ahead, but not the hundreds of elections that the Conservative Government cancelled in Cumbria, Carlisle, South Lakeland and Somerset because of unpopular, top-down reorganisations. What the Conservatives began this Government have continued, with an unwanted, top-down reorganisation of many council areas.

It was in not just Cumbria and Carlisle, but my own county of Somerset, where the Conservatives took it to extremes. The 2021 election delay to facilitate the unwanted Somerset-wide unitarisation was being discussed by Ministers with the then Conservative leader while the Conservatives’ previous merger of two Somerset district councils was barely a year old. The merged district council, which went on to become part of the new Somerset unitary council, has gone down as the shortest-lived local authority in history. Millions of pounds were wasted and the public will was ignored, just as it is far too often ignored now. In both Somerset mergers, calls for the previous Government to respect a referendum or poll of local people were ignored. Elections were delayed and the new super-large council emerged, covering 60 miles. About 20 towns and 400 villages were lashed together for Conservative convenience, even though the public voted clearly for two smaller unitary councils.

Now, just like then, local authorities have been grappling with the severe and additional pressures that the Government’s reorganisation is placing on their budgets. As a result, and because of Government flip-flopping and the lack of clear and prompt communication about whether local elections will go ahead, many are now scrambling to prepare for elections in just a few weeks’ time. They are staffed by electoral services officers, many of whose district council employers have been lined up for abolition. Does that not raise serious questions as to whether they will be able to deliver essential free and fair elections?

Given the Government have now reversed their decision to postpone the 2026 local elections, can the Minister confirm whether the same legal considerations applied to the nine local elections postponed in 2025? Does she believe that the postponement of the elections by the Conservative Government in 2021 was lawful or not? As the right hon. Member for Rayleigh and Wickford (Mr Francois) said, the characteristic here is cancelling elections for unpopular, top-down reorganisations. Somerset will be lashed together with Dorset, Wiltshire and some other authorities to become Wessex. When I have visited flooded villages on the Somerset levels, nobody has come up to me and said, “What I really want is a metro mayor.” Unless we can bring back King Alfred, I suspect they are not going to back the idea at all. Will the Minister make clear what amount of taxpayer money is being spent on legal costs arising from proceedings related to the proposed postponement of local elections?

These are real questions that the Government need to answer. The Liberal Democrats, who oppose the cancelling of elections, will keep asking those questions. We have consistently stood against cancellations by the Conservatives and by this Government. We are clear that the decision to cancel should never have been taken, and democracy delayed is democracy denied.