English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill

Ian Sollom Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 2nd September 2025 Commons Chamber

[Ian Sollom (St Neots and Mid Cambridgeshire) (LD)]

When the Government get something right, it is important to acknowledge that. The community right-to-buy provisions in the Bill represent the genuine empowerment that constituents need. I therefore acknowledge that.

In my constituency, I have a village community that is desperate to buy the local pub—an asset of community value that has been up for sale for some time. They have raised the funds for the asking price and they have community support, but the owner simply refuses to sell to them. Under the current system, they have no right of purchase and no right of refusal, and although they have raised the money, more time to organise the complex legal and financial arrangement required for community ownership would have been appreciated. The new community right-to-buy provisions in the Bill are therefore welcome.

Just as the Bill gets community empowerment right in one policy area, it misses the opportunity to do so in many others. I draw a contrast with one in particular: the skills architecture. The Bill creates new skills responsibilities for strategic authorities without clarifying how they will co-ordinate with the national role of Skills England—another new body—or the existing employer-led local skills improvement plans, or LSIPs. We have a system in which Skills England sets national priorities, LSIPs identify local employer needs and strategic authorities deliver adult education funding, but the Bill has no clear mechanisms for ensuring that those layers align or avoid costly duplication.

This fragmentation is compounded by the separation of adult skills from the broader skills and education ecosystem. The Bill devolves responsibility for adult education to strategic authorities but leaves 16-to-19 education with central Government and provides no clear role at all for universities in local economic development. This is despite the Education Secretary herself calling for universities to make a stronger contribution to economic growth through closer alignment to skills needs and economic growth plans. How can we develop coherent local skills strategies when we artificially separate the pipeline that feeds skilled employment?

The funding arrangements are also concerning. Strategic authorities will hold the adult skills budgets but have only joint ownership of the LSIPs that should guide their spending priorities. It is difficult to see how democratically accountable bodies can be responsible for outcomes when they lack control over the full planning process. Furthermore, current LSIP boundaries do not align with the proposed strategic authority boundaries, and the Government’s solution appears to be to hope that it all works out in the end. The Bill provides no mechanism for resolving conflicts and no timeline for achieving the geographical coherence that effective planning requires.

Possibly most troubling is the absence of any performance framework linking those different institutional layers. Strategic authorities must produce local growth plans, but there is no requirement for them to align with LSIPs or with Skills England workforce forecasting. We risk having three different bodies in each area producing conflicting skills priorities with no clear co-ordination mechanism. That is a recipe for confusion, waste and ultimately a failure to address the skills shortages that our economy desperately needs to resolve.

I wanted to draw a contrast, so here it is. On community assets, the Bill trusts local people and provides clear, enforceable rights. However, on skills—one of the most critical challenges facing our economy—it creates institutional complexity and lacks accountability and clear lines of responsibility. I hope the Government will go away and think again, and come back with a more coherent approach that actually delivers the local responsiveness on skills that communities and our economy so desperately need.

Oral Answers to Questions

Ian Sollom Excerpts

Wednesday 18th June 2025 Commons Chamber

[Seema Malhotra]

The shadow Minister may not have listened closely to the statement on Monday, because that was confirmed by the Home Secretary. He may want to know that earlier this year, the Financial Times told us the reality of what went on inside the previous Government after Alexis Jay’s report. The FT said that No. 10 urged Home Office Ministers to

“do more to ‘engage with Alexis’ and draw up a…plan for her recommendations.”

One veteran admitted that

“The report came out at an unfortunate time and was maybe to some extent forgotten or deprioritised.”

“Forgotten or deprioritised”—yet now the Conservatives have the cheek to lecture this Government about the action we are taking to support and protect victims.

[Ian Sollom (St Neots and Mid Cambridgeshire) (LD)]

T1. If she will make a statement on her departmental responsibilities.

[The Minister for Women and Equalities (Bridget Phillipson)]

I am proud to be driving our opportunity mission, as part of this Government’s plan for change, to break the link between background and success. In our spending review, we announced that we are extending free school meals to all children with a parent on universal credit, lifting 100,000 children out of poverty by the end of the Parliament. That is the difference a Labour Government make.

[Ian Sollom]

My constituent Theo, who is blind and a Braillist, has not received a single useable Braille past paper, despite being nearly a year into his A-levels, and reports that his GCSE papers last year contained so many errors that they were nearly impossible to use. Will the Minister take immediate action to ensure that exam boards fulfil their legal duty under the Equality Act 2010 to provide accessible examination materials, and urgently review Ofqual’s monitoring?

[Bridget Phillipson]

I am concerned to hear of the experience of the hon. Gentleman’s constituent. If he provides me with some information, I can make sure that this is properly investigated.