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.

Representation of the People Bill

Gideon Amos Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 2nd March 2026 Commons Chamber

[Zöe Franklin (Guildford) (LD)]

I am grateful for the chance to speak in this debate on such an important Bill that represents a long-overdue modernisation of our democratic framework, but the Government should be in no doubt that we Liberal Democrats will push them to go further, faster. For decades, my party has campaigned for young people’s voices to be properly recognised, so I am delighted to see the voting age finally lowered to 16. This change will enfranchise around 1.7 million 16 and 17-year-olds, giving them a say in decisions that shape their future.

Since becoming MP for Guildford, I have visited many schools across my constituency and spoken with young people whose thoughtful, informed questions make it abundantly clear that they are more than ready to participate in our democracy. While some may argue that 16 and 17-year-olds lack world awareness, I fundamentally disagree. With pre-registration from age 14, and with the right safeguards, we can build lifelong democratic habits and help close the participation gap.

We Liberal Democrats also welcome measures in the Bill that protect our democracy from the corrupting influence of dark money. The new “know your donor” requirements and tighter rules on corporate and unincorporated association donations are essential to prevent foreign interference and restore trust in how politics is funded. We will call for further important changes to strengthen the Bill in this area.

However, the Bill misses a vital opportunity to fix our broken electoral system. First past the post is unfair, outdated and increasingly indefensible.

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

My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech. Does she agree that we need a radical reset of democracy in our country to reinvigorate trust, which has recently been lost? We need to cap big donations, bring in fair votes, and abolish the ludicrous voter ID scheme from the last Government.

[Zöe Franklin]

I wholeheartedly agree. I urge the Government to listen to the 60% of the public who want a fairer voting system, including members of their own party, and take very seriously the case for proportional representation.

I declare my interest as a member of the Speaker’s Conference on the security of MPs, candidates and elections, and I welcome the inclusion of our recommendations in the Bill. We live in a time when abuse and threats deter talented people, particularly those from under-represented backgrounds, from standing for public office. I am pleased that the Bill will better protect candidates and their families, but we must go further. We need to update section 106 of the Representation of the People Act 1983 to explicitly criminalise the use of AI and deepfakes to smear candidates. Technology is moving rapidly, and those intent on undermining our democracy are moving with it, so we must future-proof this legislation.

Looking across this House, I can see that we have made real progress in reflecting the diversity of the communities that we serve, but there is still far to go. The Bill is an opportunity to enact section 106 of the Equality Act 2010, which requires political parties to publish diversity data. It has long been a Liberal Democrat commitment, and I pay tribute to organisations such as Centenary Action that have campaigned tirelessly for such transparency.

I urge the Government to reinstate the access to elected office fund in England, which was scrapped in 2020. The Bill claims to support disabled candidates, yet it offers no financial mechanism to make that a reality. Wales and Scotland already provide such support, so why not England?

Grenfell Tower Annual Report

Gideon Amos Excerpts

Wednesday 25th February 2026 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.

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

The Liberal Democrats’ thoughts, like those of everyone in the House, are primarily on the 72 tragic losses of life that occurred in the Grenfell disaster. I welcome the spirit of cross-party discussion that the Secretary of State and the Opposition spokesperson, the hon. Member for Hamble Valley (Paul Holmes), have set out. I endorse the points made by the hon. Member for Kensington and Bayswater (Joe Powell).

I welcome many of the recommendations and the actions being taken by the Government. In passing, I note that they apply to chartered architects. I have begun the training now required of all architects as a result of the Grenfell report—I declare an interest as a member of the Royal Institute of British Architects—which brings home, in a salutary way, the failure of the professions, successive Governments, industry and regulation on a tragic and horrendous scale.

One of the key recommendations in Sir Martin Moore-Bick’s report, set out in the typically neutral language of a High Court judge, is a request for the Government to reconsider

“whether it is in the public interest for building control functions to be performed by those who have a commercial interest”.

Sir Martin Moore-Bick raised similar questions on the construction product testing system. The White Paper says:

“Unethical manufacturers were able to exploit systemic weaknesses with appalling consequences”.

The follow-up Morrell-Day report on construction product testing highlighted that there were conflicts of interest. The White Paper also mentions “virtually absent” enforcement. Those are all shocking parts of this tragedy.

My first question is therefore whether that decision has been taken. We would go further and say that commercial interests have no place in building control inspection and product testing. My second question—

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

Order. I know that this is a very sensitive issue, but the hon. Member has two minutes and he is now over by 35 seconds. Timing is everything, so will he please ask his next question quickly?

[Gideon Amos]

I will, Madam Deputy Speaker. My second question is about those excluded from the building safety fund. Tens of thousands of families are in buildings under 11 metres or living with products that might last an hour in a fire under PAS 9980—that is the wrong standard. We need all highly flammable materials and all buildings that have fire safety risks to be remediated. I ask the Secretary of State to address that question.

[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.

Local Government Reorganisation

Gideon Amos Excerpts

Monday 23rd February 2026 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)]

I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.

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

Liberal Democrats believe that all authorities in England should be enabled to have the devolution deal and local government arrangement that is right for them.

The shadow Secretary of State asked whether this was an isolated incident; in the context of top-down reorganisation, this definitely is not an isolated incident. Under the last Conservative Government, top-down reorganisation was forced on to areas such as Cumbria and Somerset; it was bitterly opposed by local areas, yet it was forced on to those local communities against local opposition. Cumbria county council took the Conservative Government to court, and Somerset councils opposed the forced reorganisation. When opinion polls were taken across Somerset and the wide conclusion was that two authorities would be better than one, the Government forced those decisions on to Somerset. My first question is therefore this: if polls are taken in areas subject to top-down reorganisation, will the results from the public be supported by the Government?

Secondly, the Liberal Democrats opposed the postponement of these elections. We put down a fatal motion in the House of Lords that could have stopped the postponement in the first place, which the Conservatives failed to support. Given that nine authorities had their elections postponed in 2025, does the advice and rationale that apply in 2026 apply to the postponement that happened in 2025? If not, why not?

[Steve Reed]

The hon. Gentleman will be aware that I am unable to discuss the detail of the legal advice, although he will know the decision that we took after considering that legal advice. His earlier point is absolutely right; we should all be motivated by the interests of local people. It is in the interests of local people that we should get rid of the confusion of having two councils in the same area, so that people know which council to contact, and that we should eliminate the wasteful duplication of jobs such as chief executives, finance directors and so on, so that we can spend the savings on improving the local services that make a difference to local people and the communities that they care about so much.

Oral Answers to Questions

Gideon Amos Excerpts

Monday 23rd February 2026 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.

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

Many of the 5 million leaseholders were looking forward to being freed from the feudal leasehold system until they read the draft Bill, which left many disappointed. There is no restriction on the development value that leaseholders are going to be charged and no broadening of the mixed-use blocks that will be eligible for enfranchisement, while leaseholders will continue to pay the legal fees of landlords, and service charges are still not being capped. Given the commitments in the Labour manifesto and the King’s Speech to enact these recommendations from the Law Commission, should the Government not be more courageous, take on the landlords and give leaseholders proper rights to enfranchise, as they promised?

[Steve Reed]

I agree with the sentiment of the hon. Gentleman’s question, but unfortunately he has a number of his facts wrong; if he would like to put those details in a letter, I would be happy to respond and bring him up to speed. We are, for instance, seeking to end the practice of leaseholders being required to pay their landlords’ legal fees. This is the biggest reform of leasehold in a thousand years. I hope that the hon. Gentleman writes to me and, after I respond, that he will be able to give the reforms his full support.

[Gideon Amos]

The Law Commission reforms are being enacted and there is no date yet for a Bill to be brought forward. I hope that the Secretary of State will provide one.

Moving on to leaseholders who are still living with unsafe cladding and building defects, hundreds of thousands of people in buildings under 11 metres tall are living with cladding that is recognised as highly flammable, but are not eligible for the building safety fund. Is it not time that they were given the peace of mind and the safety they thought their home was providing them?

[Steve Reed]

We are supporting these situations on a case-by-case basis, but I would be more than happy to arrange a meeting for the hon. Gentleman with the Minister for Building Safety, if that would be helpful to him.