Rough Sleeping: Families with Children

Iqbal Mohamed Excerpts

Wednesday 11th March 2026 Westminster Hall

[Iqbal Mohamed (Dewsbury and Batley) (Ind)]

It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Dr Murrison. I thank the hon. Member for Liverpool Wavertree (Paula Barker) for securing this important debate. I will repeat and add to a couple of points that we have already heard.

It is not an unfortunate inevitability but a national disgrace that, in one of the wealthiest countries on Earth, families with children are still being pushed into homelessness and, in some cases, on to the streets. We are a country with immense resources and capacity to solve problems—one that spends tens of billions of pounds on weapons every year, and that has just opened Crossrail, the Elizabeth line, after one of Europe’s largest construction projects—yet we cannot guarantee that every child in this country has a safe and secure roof over their head when they go to sleep at night. That is a fundamentally moral contradiction, and it should weigh heavily on all of us, as parliamentarians with the collective power to change that status quo.

The statistics alone paint a bleak picture. In autumn 2025, an estimated 4,793 people were sleeping rough on a single night in England: a record high, and a 171% increase since 2010. We must remember that the figure, which is a snapshot of just one night, is widely acknowledged to have been undercounted. Even more shockingly, recent reports suggest that families with young children have been forced to sleep rough after being refused emergency local authority accommodation, in direct contravention of the law.

As we know, children in temporary accommodation are still classed as homeless, and the numbers show that over 175,000 children are currently homeless in temporary accommodation. Based on the most recent council-level data, as of June 2025 more than 600 children were living in temporary accommodation in Kirklees, where my Dewsbury and Batley constituency sits. These children are part of the around 375 family households in Kirklees in temporary accommodation as of March 2025. That temporary accommodation is costing Kirklees between £7 million and £8 million, which is money that could be better spent providing other public services.

Recent reports have shockingly suggested that families with young children are being forced to sleep rough after being refused emergency local authority accommodation, despite that being in direct contravention of the law. If families are reaching the point where they are unable to prevent their children from sleeping on the streets, in cars or anywhere else not designed for human habitation, then something in the system is clearly broken and the state is failing in its most basic obligations to its citizens.

One constituent, who has been contacting me regularly over the past several weeks, is a single mother with three children, one of whom has autism and asthma. The council has been unable to provide suitable accommodation for her and her children, and she has been sleeping in her car for the past several weeks. Her car is now uninhabitable, as it has been written off. She has been forced to accept temporary bed and breakfast accommodation. It is not suitable for her children, but she has nowhere else to go. I am sure that Kirklees is doing everything it can to help the family, but given the lack of resources and the lack of adequate family social housing, such examples are not as rare as they should be.

[Jess Brown-Fuller (Chichester) (LD)]

The hon. Member is right to highlight the resource challenges that local authorities have. From an outward perspective, my Chichester constituency is a very affluent area, with lower levels of homelessness, but in 1989 a gentleman died on our streets, and so a charity called Stonepillow was formed. It has gone on to support thousands of people experiencing homelessness across the Chichester and Bognor area. Does the hon. Member agree that although the charitable and voluntary sector has admirably stepped in where local authorities are too poorly funded to support people, it should not have to do so?

[Iqbal Mohamed]

The hon. Member is absolutely right. We all pay tribute to all the charities across the country, including the one in her constituency, that are stepping in to help people in times of desperate need, when Government and councils have not been able to provide the necessary support. I pay tribute to all those charities, but they should not have to step in to provide the basic necessities for children and families in our country.

Part of the failure undoubtedly lies with the immense financial pressures facing local authorities. Councils across the country are struggling to meet their duties to house those at risk of homelessness, including children, because of skyrocketing costs, limited housing supply and shockingly overstretched budgets. The cost of temporary accommodation alone has placed extraordinary financial strain on local government, with councils now covering more than half of those costs themselves, according to a recent analysis by the Institute for Government.

I see the consequences of this crisis at first hand in my constituency, where housing and homelessness are among the issues most frequently raised by my constituents. My office regularly hears from families who are on the brink of losing their homes and from people facing unfair evictions, struggling with rising rents or desperately seeking emergency accommodation at a time of unimaginable crisis. Increasingly, we see that these are not isolated individuals, but families with children who are living with the constant fear of having nowhere to go. Local authorities want to help, but they are operating with limited resources in the face of overwhelming demand.

Another shocking incident, reported by local media at the start of this year, is that a single mum of three, including a 12-year-old daughter with cancer, has been housed by my local authority in a one-bedroom flat with damp and mould for the past two years, after a no-fault eviction by a private landlord who wanted to sell their property. Such stories mean that we must be honest about the scale of the challenge facing us and the requisite ambition to adequately address it.

I have a number of questions for the Minister. First, what steps are the Government taking to ensure that no local authority unlawfully refuses emergency accommodation to families with children, and how will compliance with the statutory duties be monitored? Secondly, what additional financial support will be provided to councils that are struggling with the costs of temporary accommodation? Finally, what specific measures within the Government’s homelessness strategy are targeted at preventing families with children from ever reaching the point of rough sleeping in the first place?

Ultimately, this debate is about the kind of country we want to be. A society that allows children to sleep on the streets is a society that has lost sight of its most basic humanity. Ending rough sleeping among families is not simply a policy challenge, it is a moral imperative, and one that this Parliament must treat with the urgency it deserves.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Forster]

I completely agree with my hon. Friend; he makes a really valid point. The debate has rightly focused on housing, but there are wider impacts, and the Department for Work and Pensions needs to change our benefits system to ensure that families are properly supported so that we do not have children sleeping rough. I have highlighted the particular case of Surrey county council evicting families with children in my constituency, and I really worry that some of them may sleep rough. Across England, almost 5,000 people slept rough on one single night last autumn—a 20% increase on the previous year. We know the causes: chronic housing shortages, poverty, relationship breakdowns, gaps in welfare support and, above all, a lack of social housing.

[Iqbal Mohamed]

In the late ’70s and the ’80s, more than 80% of Government support for social housing—housing benefit—went to councils. That money was reinvested in housing and repairs, and the surplus was used in other services. In real terms, it was then worth about £28 billion; today it is about £30 billion, so it has not changed, but 20% now goes to councils and 80% goes to private landlords. Whatever 80% of £30 billion is— £24 billion—is now going out of the system, and that is money that was going to councils. Does the hon. Member agree that the right to buy, and councils’ inability to replenish stock, has adversely impacted not just housing but wider public services, and that we must allow councils to buy back homes or build new ones, so that housing benefit goes to councils?

[Mr Forster]

I completely agree. We have privatised our housing welfare system, which has resulted in worse conditions and a higher cost to taxpayers. The Liberal Democrats have been campaigning on housing since before we were the Liberal Democrats. The great architect of the welfare state, the Liberal William Beveridge, characterised the squalor of poor housing and homelessness in the early 20th century as a giant that needed to be defeated, yet we still have not slain that giant.

It is heartbreaking to hear these stories. Will the Minister ensure that sufficient financial resources are available to local authorities so that they can deliver the measures in the Homelessness Reduction Act 2017 and provide accommodation for survivors of domestic abuse? Will the Government ringfence emergency funding for local councils to ensure that they can deliver permanent accommodation for rough sleepers? Will they exempt groups of homeless people, and those at risk of homelessness, from the shared accommodation rule?

The Government have reduced the move-on period for refugees in accommodation from 56 to 28 days. When it was 56 days, rough sleeping notably reduced. It gave refugees a chance to set in motion plans for leaving state support, but 28 days isn’t working. The Government have made an exemption only for those who are pregnant, are over 65 or have a disability. Those are the only exemptions. I do not agree with changing the rule, but I will not ask the Minister to defend that. I ask her to raise it with the Home Office, to ensure that families with children are also exempt.

The Government must address this awful system, which is failing vulnerable children and their families. We cannot have children sleeping rough. The work of organisations such as the York Road Project in my constituency of Woking shows what people can achieve when compassion and community are involved. It is now the Government’s responsibility to match that endeavour and ensure that children and families do not sleep rough.

[Paul Holmes (Hamble Valley) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dr Murrison.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Liverpool Wavertree (Paula Barker) on securing this debate. She is not just an hon. Lady; to me she is an hon. Friend, and I am delighted to respond to her today on the Opposition’s behalf. I even managed to get out of bed just to do it because she was leading this debate this morning.

The hon. Lady was absolutely right to say in her opening remarks that we should not be here this morning having to debate an issue such as one. However, while we do have to debate these issues, I am pleased that she is on the case and I look forward to working with her, being a successor to her as the shadow Minister with responsibility for homelessness. I know that the welfare of young people across this country, particularly those who have found themselves homeless, is at the heart of what she does, and I congratulate her again on securing this debate.

Rough sleeping among families with children represents one of the most visible and distressing signs of the housing crisis in our country. Behind every statistic is a child growing up without the security of a stable home, a family living with uncertainty, and communities struggling to cope with rising costs of living and other socioeconomic pressures. We can all agree across the House that this is not a matter to procrastinate or prevaricate about.

In its 2024 manifesto, the Labour party promised to,

“develop a new cross-Government strategy…to put Britain back on track to ending homelessness.”

That strategy was not published until 11 December 2025, which was much later than expected; indeed, it was at the tail end of this Session of Parliament. However, I remind the Minister, who I am pleased to see here in Westminster Hall this morning, that in a meeting she kindly offered on a cross-party basis, I assured her that the official Opposition and I, as the shadow Minister with responsibility for homelessness, are committed to working on a cross-party basis to make sure that this strategy works. My comments this morning do not signal that I demur from that approach. However, I will make some comments on some parts of the strategy and I will challenge the strategy regarding where we think it could go further.

My main concern about the homelessness strategy is this. The current time seemed to offer an opportunity, but although the Minister has grabbed that opportunity, it is an opportunity whereby the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government seems to be leading the search for a solution to homelessness, so the chance for a fundamental rewiring of how Government works to tackle homelessness has been missed. As I said, I make these comments in a constructive way. Nevertheless, I believe that the strategy lacks genuine cross-party ministerial oversight.

The strategy also lacks the cross-departmental approach that we need, particularly when we consider that homelessness is not just an issue that MHCLG must find a solution to. Homelessness also involves the Department for Education, the Department for Health and Social Care, and the Home Office, in the way that the hon. Member for Liverpool Wavertree described. For example, regarding the involvement of the Department for Health and Social Care, we need to get better at analysing the data around drug and alcohol discharges from hospital.

I am not convinced that the strategy, despite its good intentions overall, really takes the cross-ministerial approach where it needs to go. I look to the Minister to confirm to the Chamber this morning, when she responds to the debate, that she is chairing a cross-ministerial committee on this issue, and that she will continue to do so going forward. I also look to her to say how often that committee will meet.

The hon. Member for Liverpool Wavertree mentioned the problem with data concerning immigration. She is absolutely right that the Home Office has been slightly let off the hook on this strategy; I look to the Minister to provide some reassurances on this data issue when she stands up shortly to respond to the debate.

I think that the strategy goes in the right direction, but there are some concerns about the lack of funding to tackle some of the issues and to enact some of the good intentions that the Minister has outlined over the past few months. For example, the strategy does not give funding to Housing First so that it can be rolled out nationally. Also, the Local Government Association says that a cross-departmental approach is needed, and needs to be embedded at the heart of all Government Departments, within their constitutions. We ask for that approach to be considered.

Lastly on the housing strategy itself, prevention models are still patchy across the whole of the UK and there needs to be an emphasis on national outcomes, to stop people falling into homelessness. Throughout the UK, charities such as The Bread and Butter Thing are really helping on an emergency scale to relieve the homelessness crisis; we congratulate them on what they are doing.

[Iqbal Mohamed]

The right-to-buy scheme, the pros and cons of which I will not go into, led to councils losing big chunks of their housing stock to people who bought their houses at a discount. I know that the scheme has been changed and that the discount has been reduced, but I am not aware where the money that is generated goes, even today. Does the shadow Minister agree that the decision of the then Government and subsequent Governments to take the proceeds of sales, instead of leaving them with councils to replenish the stock, was a mistake, and should the Government now be looking at doing the latter for any further sales?

[Paul Holmes]

The hon. Gentleman asks a perfectly reasonable question. That was a policy decision of Governments before I took this role. I believe in the right-to-buy policy. It was a massive tool to allow people to achieve ownership in a radical way that we need to see again in this country. But in hindsight I accept, given some of the way the system worked, that we needed to see greater investment back into councils so that they could reinvest in stock. I think that is a perfectly reasonable thing to assume, but I will say that under this Government, the social housing fund that has been allocated just is not great enough to ensure that we have the houses that we need to deliver.

The number of people sleeping rough in England is now at its highest level since records began in 2010. Figures from autumn 2025 estimate that 4,793 people were sleeping on the streets on a single night, which was an increase on the previous year. Particularly concerning is the rise in vulnerable groups on the streets. The number of female rough sleepers increased by 8% to 733, alongside 3,938 men and 122 cases in which gender was not recorded. London continues to face the greatest challenge, with 1,277 people sleeping rough—the highest figure in the country—but the sharpest increase was in the north-east of England, where rough sleeping rose by 31% in just one year.

For many families, the pathway to rough sleeping begins long before anyone ends up on the streets. It often starts in temporary accommodation. Between July and September 2025, 134,760 households were living in hotels, B&Bs or temporary flats, which was an increase of nearly 7% compared with the previous year. Of those households, 85,730 include children. These are the highest figures since records began in 2010.

In London, the situation is particularly stark. According to London Councils, one in 50 Londoners is now homeless and record numbers of children are growing up in temporary accommodation. In some boroughs, the pressures are especially severe. Newham has 6,667 households in temporary accommodation, followed by Lambeth with 4,657 and Southwark with 3,828. Statutory homelessness data shows that, across England, 169,050 children are currently homeless in temporary accommodation. That represents a 12% increase in just one year and the ninth consecutive record since December 2022.

Ultimately, the only sustainable solution to homelessness is to increase the supply of homes and, in particular, social and affordable housing. The Government have pledged to build 1.5 million homes during this Parliament. However—I say this again—experts have expressed serious doubts about whether that target can be achieved. Professor Paul Cheshire, a leading planning expert who advised previous Governments, stated that there is “absolutely no way” the current reforms will deliver that number of homes. Let me be clear to Members across the House: that does and should include social homes.

Recent housing statistics raise similar concerns. According to official figures, 208,600 net new dwellings were added in Labour’s first year in office, which is a 6% drop on the previous year, and just 190,600 new homes were built, which is 8,000 fewer than in the final year of the previous Government. If this rate continues, fewer than 1 million homes will be delivered by 2029—well short of the Government’s stated target.

That is a serious issue because housing supply directly affects homelessness. Without sufficient homes, more families are pushed into temporary accommodation and the risk of rough sleeping continues. The scale of the challenge facing families with children demands urgency, co-ordination and long-term solutions. That means tackling child poverty, expanding affordable housing, supporting local authorities and ensuring that strategies are delivered on time and backed by meaningful action. All of us in this House, on both sides, agree that no child should grow up without the stability of a safe home, no family should face the prospect of homelessness and no society should accept rising rough sleeping as inevitable.

I say once again to the Minister that we come here in the spirit of co-operation. I genuinely believe that this Minister wants to achieve her aim of reducing homelessness. She has been going in the right direction to make sure that the Department constitutes what is necessary to deliver that, but we will look to see how this will be carried on across all Departments to achieve what we all want to achieve.

Social Cohesion Action Plan

Iqbal Mohamed Excerpts

Monday 9th March 2026 Commons Chamber

[Steve Reed]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. The Charity Commission will be getting new powers so that it can close down those organisations that purport to have charitable objectives but are really cover for promoting hatred and division. With the changes we are announcing today, that will no longer be allowed to continue.

[Iqbal Mohamed (Dewsbury and Batley) (Ind)]

We all agree that there is no place in our society for hatred or discrimination against anybody, anywhere. Islamophobic incidents in the UK are at record levels; there are thousands of incidents each year, with many more likely to be unreported. Abuse is increasingly normalised and politicised through media, TV and online, at institutional as well as street level. Police data shows serious undercounting, making specialist monitoring essential. Islamophobia in the UK is not limited to fringe behaviour, and data shows a pattern of escalating hostility and normalisation in public discourse, including in this place and the other place. How will this definition be integrated into the Nolan principles, and what sanctions will apply to Members of this House and Members of the other place?

[Steve Reed]

It is for the House authorities to determine what happens with Members of this House, but the hon. Member is right to point to the huge concern that we should all share about the unacceptable level of hostility and abuse directed at Muslims. It is under-reported, in all likelihood, because we know that not all instances of such crime are reported.

Oral Answers to Questions

Iqbal Mohamed Excerpts

Monday 12th January 2026 Commons Chamber

[Miatta Fahnbulleh]

We are clear that we want to boost the power of communities to revive their places. This is why we are rolling out high street rental auctions, stronger and more streamlined compulsory purchase powers, the community right to buy, and Pride in Place, and we will work with any council that wants to take back control of its place and revive its communities.

[Iqbal Mohamed (Dewsbury and Batley) (Ind)]

The main cemetery in Dewsbury is approaching capacity following the increase in burials since the covid pandemic. The local authority has been aware of this issue for several years. However, there remains significant uncertainty and concerns are becoming increasingly urgent. The issue is of particular cultural and religious significance, with only two burial plots remaining for Muslim burials. What steps will the Secretary of State take to support local authorities in addressing burial capacity shortages in Kirklees?

[Miatta Fahnbulleh]

We are conscious of the pressure in parts of the country around cemeteries and burials, and we understand the urgency. I ask the hon. Member to write to me with the specifics of the issue in his patch, and we will respond in due course.

Provision of Council Housing

Iqbal Mohamed Excerpts

Monday 15th September 2025 Commons Chamber

[Chris Hinchliff]

I thank the hon. Member for that intervention. As usual, he makes a good point, and I wholly agree.

As our whole nation loses out on the stifled energy, talent and creativity of so many people held back by not having a secure home where they can put down roots and flourish, it is ever clearer that the magic of the invisible hand of the free market is little more than a fairy tale told by economists to justify a refusal to meet our obligations to the least well-off members of society. However, if we look to our past for inspiration, we see many parallels between the challenges confronting us now and those facing the great post-war Labour Government who took office 80 years ago. Then, Labour came into office determined to change the “devil take the hindmost” approach to housing policy in which, as Aneurin Bevan described:

“The higher income groups had their houses; the lower income groups had not. Speculative builders, supported enthusiastically, and even voraciously, by money-lending organisations, solved the problem of the higher income groups in the matter of housing”—[Official Report, 17 October 1945; Vol. 414, c. 1222.]

while the rest were left behind. Bevan’s solution was to start at the other end and focus on meeting the needs of the working class.

Our current state of affairs is much the same. We need the same priorities to get to the root of the contemporary housing crisis, because while house prices in many parts of the country are eye-wateringly high for all, the reality is that higher-income earners—frustrated though some of their ambitions may be—can find a home, while too often those at the other end of the spectrum cannot. Simply flooding the market with speculative developments will not address the problem. The only way to get high-quality homes that those on waiting lists can actually afford is to directly plan and deliver housing for people on low incomes. That is why we must have council housing —not housing built to maximise profits for developers’ shareholders—offering rents linked to local incomes, and hundreds of thousands of them. I will be quoting Bevan extensively, given his achievements in delivering high-quality council housing in this country.

[Iqbal Mohamed (Dewsbury and Batley) (Ind)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this important debate. Since the Labour Government established the social housing policy and built the houses that were needed, the number of council houses has reduced as the Thatcher Government decided to sell those houses off. I will not object to people buying their own homes, but the Government of that time did not allow the money generated to be reinvested in social housing, so the social housing stock reduced over time and has not been replaced. Does he agree that the only way to address the issue is to replace the housing that was lost?

[Chris Hinchliff]

I agree with my hon. Friend and will come to right to buy later in my speech.

As Bevan described,

“the speculative builder, by his very nature, is not a plannable instrument.”—[Official Report, 6 March 1946; Vol. 420, c. 451.]

They build what makes them most money, while we need our councils empowered to assess the needs of their communities and directly deliver for them, because that is in the public interest.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Hinchliff]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention, and I fully agree.

Before I get to costs, I would like us for a moment to lift our eyes to the potential prizes to be won by a new generation of council housing across the country, because council housing is not just the most effective tool we have to cut waiting lists, it is not just the best policy for transforming the futures of the tens of thousands of children going to sleep every night in temporary accommodation, and it is not just the surest way to save billions of pounds from the housing benefits bill. As if each of those were not justification enough in their own right, council housing is also the best hope we have to create the new communities that foster the sort of life and society that the labour movement has always dreamed of and strived for.

This does not seem to be debated too often in this place, but the built environment we go about our daily lives in matters profoundly. The provision of council housing is not just about progress towards social justice and the eradication of inequality; it is also about building a world around ourselves that contributes every day to the experience of self-worth, happiness, peace, connection and leisure in all our lives. If we are to be judged by future generations, not just on how many houses we build but on what we build, a policy dominated by council housing, with local authorities in the driving seat able to plan and design developments matching the hopes and identity of each community, is essential to avoiding the condemnation of history.

Far too many of the estates thrown up in recent years by the private sector have been notable mainly for their identikit and bland miserablism. Even leaving aside the appalling quality of new build housing on many speculative developments, the status quo approach that housing policy has sunk into has in effect created a new phenomenon of spiritual slums, where a near total lack of facilities or features capable of instilling any sense of interest or civic pride condemns the young to a sentence of boredom. When we are building estates with more land given to car parking than space for children to play, rising disaffection and antisocial behaviour should not be a surprise to anyone. The choice facing the Labour Government in the provision of council housing is therefore between socialism and delinquency.

Similarly, the record of private housing development when it comes to integrating nature into our lives, a basic need that we know more and more clearly is essential to our mental health, is shocking. Research has found that environmental features promised in planning conditions are not being delivered almost half of the time. Simple measures to help declining insect populations, birds, bats and other iconic species have all been regularly shirked by developers, and nearly half of the native hedges that were supposed to be laid do not exist. Once again, public goods, even when legally committed to, routinely fail to materialise when we rely on private interests to meet our nation’s housing needs.

Public-led housing—council housing—offers the opportunity for different priorities that at last deliver something better. Just as 100 years ago the Independent Labour party trailblazer Ada Salter set about housing the working class of Bermondsey while also improving their lives by planting thousands of trees and filling open spaces with flowers, so now we can have council housing that goes hand in hand with nature.

What is more, while so-called affordable housing set at 80% of market rates is often used to justify speculative developments, in reality it continues to price key workers out of many parts of the country. The promise of a new era of council housing, in which rents were linked to local incomes, would create a more democratic and less stratified society in which people of all incomes lived side by side. I would welcome the Minister’s reassurance that at least 60% of the affordable homes programme will be homes for social rent or council housing.

Prioritising council-led delivery should also mean greater public accountability for maintenance and tenant support. That, sadly, is often lacking where housing associations have moved too far from their original purpose. If we want genuinely affordable homes for those currently priced out of the housing market, better place making, greener and more integrated communities, and all the things that our constituents are demanding, so that we can go from wishing for a better society to that being the lived reality across our nation, we must have housing funded by patient capital that can focus on wider benefits, rather than mere monetary calculations.

Across the country, the evidence could not be clearer: only public funding is capable of mobilising the necessary resources at the scale required through long-term investments to deliver the public goods so conspicuously absent in recent years. Over six years, at a time of shortages, debt, constraints, and competing demands on public expenditure that were even greater than ours, the post-war Labour Government oversaw the construction of more than 800,000 council houses—some of the best ever built in this country.

[Iqbal Mohamed]

Will the hon. Member give way?

[Chris Hinchliff]

I had better make some progress.

That is the yardstick the Government should measure themselves against. I now come at last to how we might go about achieving this. The place to start, as we have already heard, is with plugging the gap. We must stop draining our stock of council houses, year on year. It is a fact of mesmerising absurdity that in the last year of the previous Conservative Government, there was a net loss of social housing in this country, as over 20,000 homes for social rent were lost to right to buy. I welcome the determination of Labour Ministers to reform the right to buy, and to ensure that more homes are built than lost, and I especially welcome the planned 35-year exemption for newly built properties. I urge the Government to bring forward the necessary legislation for those changes as swiftly as possible.

Next, we need further planning reform to empower our local authorities to drive forward a council housing renaissance up and down the land. We need new social housing targets, to make the delivery of council housing the urgent priority of every local planning authority. Ministers must bring together local authorities and charities like Crisis to create fairer rules for eligibility for social housing, so that homeless people are no longer unfairly excluded. We need to build on the welcome measures that Ministers have already brought forward on hope value, by allowing local authorities to disregard it entirely for the purposes of purchasing land to meet housing targets. That would not only make the provision of council housing on a vastly increased scale viable by ending the payment of inflated sums of public money to wealthy landowners, slashing an estimated 38% off the total development costs of a mass-scale building programme; it would also allow local authorities to capture the full uplift in land values associated with the delivery of their local plans, and to fund projects that combine high-quality council housing with improved space for nature and expanded public infrastructure.

We must also face up to the reality of serious constraints on construction capacity due to a workforce that is too small and an inadequate supply of key materials. If we are to have the hundreds of thousands of council houses that we need in order to swiftly tackle the housing crisis, the Government should ensure that the new strategic planning authorities created through devolution have tools at their disposal to direct available resources where they are needed most, even if that means putting limits on construction for private profit.

Of course, many of our local authorities will need substantial support to rebuild the capacity necessary for a major council house building programme. As Shelter has said, in trying to balance budgets after years of funding cuts, local authorities have been forced to shut down their building operations, transfer their council stock to housing associations or focus on building private homes for sale. We will only see the council housing that our country desperately needs if we reverse that trend.

Alongside making more low-interest loans available to councils through the Public Works Loan Board, the Government should raise the money needed to invest in a new generation of local authority planners, ecologists, designers and architects through a windfall tax on the largest property developers, which have dominated the market and enjoyed super-normal profits for too long.

On funding, the Government have already committed to a transformative £39 billion over 10 years for the new affordable homes programme. I will not try the Minister’s patience by calling for additional money today, but front-loading this investment and driving it primarily towards council housing could see us well on our way.

I recognise that, even with all that, matching the scale of council housing delivery overseen by Attlee’s Government is a daunting task, but in the context of the upcoming Budget and increasingly vociferous debates on the merits of a wealth tax, I will take this opportunity to briefly fly the flag for the comparatively straightforward proposal of a levy on multiple home ownership. With so many in our society unable to access suitable housing at all, requiring those who own multiple homes to contribute to the public coffers a small percentage of the value of their additional properties would be both fair and proportionate.

That leaves a final, concluding point. The case for more council housing and what it could deliver for our society is overwhelming in its own right, but even if we were to reduce ourselves to desiccated calculating machines, concerned only with economic statistics, the irrefutable fact is that we cannot afford not to invest in hundreds of thousands of new council houses over the coming years. A major council house building programme would deliver a huge counter-cyclical boost to economic activity in every region of the country. Alongside the vast savings to be made on the cost of temporary accommodation provided by councils, there would be knock-on benefits from secure decent homes: they would reduce costs right across the public sector, from the NHS to our schools. In short, it would be fiscally reckless not to invest in a new generation of council housing.

We all deserve a warm, safe and affordable home, where we can put down roots and have the safety and security to flourish and grow. It is our duty to make that a reality. Hundreds of thousands of families cannot afford for us to delay or go slow. Now is the time for the Government to live up to their heritage and provide a new era of council housing that transforms lives up and down the country.

English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill

Iqbal Mohamed Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 2nd September 2025 Commons Chamber

[Angela Rayner]

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. This is about unlocking growth in all parts of the country. I hope that most hon. Members can see that people with skin in the game are working across the board to make sure that that potential is reached. I am talking not just about London—although London is incredibly important to that—but about all regions across our country.

[Iqbal Mohamed (Dewsbury and Batley) (Ind)]

First, I thank Mayor Tracy Brabin for her investment in mass transit across West Yorkshire, including a new bus station in my town of Dewsbury. I am grateful for those investments, but how will this Bill stop a council from making the decision to distribute funding unequally across its borough? How would it stop a council from, for instance, making a decision to shut down a sports centre that is used by people of all ages on the pretence of there being reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete and then not taking steps to investigate or having a plan to reopen?

[Angela Rayner]

I welcome the hon. Member’s comments on the mass transit network for West Yorkshire, which I am sure will bring added benefits to his constituents. To his other point, obviously elected officials in local councils make decisions, and I would gently say to him that councils have faced significant pressures since the austerity measures of 2010, which I am sure he is aware of. I was in local government at the time, and I remember being a union rep and seeing the devastation.

We are trying to restore and empower local government, instead of this situation where they have to make incredibly difficult decisions that are harmful to their constituents. It is about being able to grow our economy and have a bigger slice of the cake. We are already investing more into local government so that we can deliver the services that people want. Within this Bill is the community assets element, which may be able to help communities in relation to high streets and to sports facilities, which can be utilised as an asset that they value in their local area.

We are also improving local transport for people in the west of England with Mayor Godwin. Our brilliant, ambitious mayors are making a difference every day for their regions. Working with them, we have already achieved so much after just a year in office. We are on track to achieve devolution across almost 80% of the country, covering 44 million people. We have created integrated funding settlements for Greater Manchester and the west midlands, giving their mayors the tools and freedoms to make decisions to get growth going, with Liverpool city region, London, the north-east, South Yorkshire and West Yorkshire set to benefit from the same freedoms next year.

--- Later in debate ---

[Abtisam Mohamed (Sheffield Central) (Lab)]

I congratulate the Deputy Prime Minister on bringing forward this Bill, which embeds our ambition and champions the promise of devolution. It will mark the biggest transfer of power from Whitehall to our regions in a generation. It means that the protection of our public spaces will result in the improvement of our infrastructure and the strengthening of our local economy. Devolution should promote local accountability and bring decision makers closer to the people who feel the impact, and I wholeheartedly welcome the parts of the Bill that will ensure that. The creation of a community right to buy, offering more oversight on local policing and placing a duty on authorities to improve health and reduce health inequalities are also welcome steps in the right direction. The spirit of the Bill is one we should all support.

I bring clause 57 to the Government’s attention. It effectively abolishes the committee structure and introduces a measure that will impact on Sheffield, one of 38 councils running under the committee governance system. More than 80,000 people in a democratic referendum in Sheffield voted decisively in favour of a modern committee structure over the leader and cabinet model that clause 57 imposes. Through the referendum, Sheffield citizens chose collaboration through their committees, instead of decision-making powers being concentrated in fewer hands. Six years on from that referendum, the committee system works for Sheffield. It has delivered meaningful scrutiny where it was lacking before, and it has proven its worth in those moments where public trust has been under threat.

However, we are not here to discuss the merits and disadvantages of these two models of local governance. What matters is that residents have made a democratic decision at a local level, and it is important for that mandate to be respected and upheld. If the Bill passes in its current form, Sheffield is one of several councils that will be forced to undo those years of democratic engagement. I have received countless emails from constituents and campaigners, such as It’s Our City!, who have stressed just how important this democratic engagement has been for Sheffield, and they are right. One size does not fit all, and the LGA echoes that view.

[Iqbal Mohamed]

The hon. Member is making an extremely informed and important point in her speech. Does she agree that for Sheffield and her council the committee system has been better, more inclusive and more democratic for her residents than the original cabinet system? Does she endorse the view that any council that wants to go down a committee route, or any community that has already decided to do so should retain that right?

[Abtisam Mohamed]

The point that I am going to make is about existing committee structures retaining their models, rather than about new committees.

The Local Government Association has also called for councils to be able to retain their structures until local communities choose otherwise, and for my constituents, similarly, this is a matter of principle. Until the people of Sheffield choose another structure in another referendum, as promised, their decision should be allowed to stand, with the same flexibility that is being offered to those who chose to directly elect council mayors. There is still time to reflect that flexibility in the Bill, so I ask the Deputy Prime Minister to meet my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield Hallam (Olivia Blake) and me, as well as our local council leaders, to discuss the impact that these proposals will have on our communities and their trust in local governance and, more importantly, to ensure that devolution works for Sheffield.

--- Later in debate ---

[Iqbal Mohamed (Dewsbury and Batley) (Ind)]

I have cut my six-minute speech down to three. I am a supporter of devolution and devolved power, community empowerment and local decision making. In my seat, we have a combined authority and, as I mentioned earlier, the benefits brought by the West Yorkshire Mayor in transport, with a new bus station, and in crime and policing. However, my community, even after being part of the combined authority for so long, is still not clear on where exactly the responsibilities of the council stop and those of the mayor start, or how they work together. I therefore stand here with some deep concerns.

Instead of empowering communities, the Bill risks recentralising power and bypassing local ward councillors and local actors who truly represent our diverse communities. In Kirklees, we have a cabinet system: eight councillors, none of whom is from Dewsbury and Batley, make major decisions that have an impact on every single resident and constituent in my constituency. Moving to a mandated cabinet system across the country is short-sighted, undemocratic, biased and discriminatory.

The Bill’s design places sweeping strategic powers in the hands of elected mayors and their appointed commissioners, who are often unelected. That is not genuine devolution; it is deception dressed up as localism.

The second issue is a lack of funding and financial transparency. A core failing of the Bill lies in its fiscal ambiguity. There is little detail on sustainable funding. Strategic authorities may depend heavily on mayoral precepts, levies or council contributions, risking instability and underfunded local services. On transparency, while the creation of a local audit office is welcome, this reactive measure attempts to patch a broken audit system where hundreds of authorities still face unaudited accounts, without addressing underlying systemic weaknesses such as wasteful procurement practices, a lack of transparency and unequal distribution of spend across wards.

Community voices are too often marginalised. The Bill does not prevent councils from letting vital community buildings be deliberately left in disrepair, then deciding to close the buildings because they do not have the funds to repair or run them.

In conclusion, this Bill is not devolution; it is a shift of power from local councils to centrally influenced mayors, with an opaque financial model and tokenistic community tools. The Bill must be updated to restore genuine local leadership; to guarantee long-term, transparent funding; to ensure that procurement and audit practices remain accountable and community-informed; and to embed real neighbourhood-level governance with proper funding and citizen engagement, planning and influence.

Birmingham Bin Strikes

Iqbal Mohamed Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd July 2025 Commons Chamber

[Iqbal Mohamed (Dewsbury and Batley) (Ind)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham Perry Barr (Ayoub Khan) on tabling this urgent question and thank the Minister for his response. The Birmingham bin strikes are not just about waste. They are about what happens when the state retreats from local services without proper reform. The UK must confront the legacy of austerity, rethink how local government is funded and run and treat frontline workers with the respect and fairness they deserve. Failure to do so risks further breakdowns in public services and public trust not just in Birmingham but all over our country. Will the Minister explain what steps the Government are taking to analyse how we got into this mess in the first place and to ensure that no other council faces the same situation anywhere in our country?

[Jim McMahon]

We have to accept that there are some issues here that are unique to Birmingham. For instance, many councils across England dealt with equal pay over a decade ago, and Birmingham did not, which is why the liabilities have escalated in the way they have.

On the hon. Member’s fundamental point about fair funding and ensuring that local public services can be rebuilt, we can agree. We believe that most people’s local neighbourhood services have been impacted so heavily by not only austerity but the growth in demand in adult’s, children’s and temporary accommodation that we have to completely rethink both how we fund local government and how we reinvest back into prevention and early intervention to prevent that crisis management model.

Post-industrial Towns

Iqbal Mohamed Excerpts

Wednesday 18th June 2025 Commons Chamber

[Jo White]

The development and growth of our infrastructure must include superfast broadband, so that we can all benefit from it. Too many areas are missing out, particularly remote, rural areas.

We need a strong economy that includes superfast broadband, AI and energy provision to ensure that we are supercharged for the future. The announcement made by the Government yesterday that British railways will use British steel is a welcome example. That commitment must be replicated in every infrastructure project across the country, in our nuclear ambitions, roadbuilding, munitions, prisons and hospital-building projects. What steps is the Minister taking to ensure that the industrial strategy gives priority to British companies while addressing our ambitious infrastructure commitments?

[Iqbal Mohamed (Dewsbury and Batley) (Ind)]

The towns of my constituency, Dewsbury and Batley, lie at the heart of West Yorkshire’s heavy woollen district. We have a proud history of textiles, and we were the centre for recycled wool textiles called shoddy and mungo. Today, we are actually the UK’s capital, if not the European capital, of putting people to sleep—that is, making beds. However, there has been very little investment from Government to help the furniture industry in my constituency. Does the hon. Member agree that, as well as technological investments, the Government should look to revitalise the workforces and niche industries in all parts of our country and help them to expand, grow and overcome the Brexit barriers?

[Jo White]

Again, I thank the hon. Member for his contribution. We all have our localised industries that we are proud of, but we need a Government who recognise that and enable local businesses to thrive and survive. This is about how we invest and encourage new businesses to invest in our local economies, which is an essential element of the industrial strategy.

Oral Answers to Questions

Iqbal Mohamed Excerpts

Monday 7th April 2025 Commons Chamber

[Iqbal Mohamed (Dewsbury and Batley) (Ind)]

Over the weekend, I dealt with a case in which a homeless pregnant woman, who was a victim of domestic abuse, was kicked out of her temporary accommodation by Kirklees council for no real reason and left on the street. Will the Minister explain or share with this House what steps will be taken to prevent councils from turfing out pregnant women who are victims of domestic abuse on to the street?

[Rushanara Ali]

I would be grateful if the hon. Member could write to me about that specific case. I will follow up with him.

Political Finance Rules

Iqbal Mohamed Excerpts

Thursday 6th March 2025 Commons Chamber

[Iqbal Mohamed (Dewsbury and Batley) (Ind)]

I thank the hon. Member for South Dorset (Lloyd Hatton) for securing this important debate. The lack of transparency in the funding of our political parties is well documented, although I suspect not so well known among members of the public, who tend to associate the corrupting influence of money in politics with other countries, usually very far away. The reality is that it is taking place on our doorstep.

According to research done by Transparency International, almost �1 in every �10 reported by political parties and their members since 2001 has come from unknown or questionable sources. Some �42 million comes from donors alleged or proved to have been involved in other corruption, fraud or money laundering, and �38.6 million comes from unincorporated associations that have not reported the source of their income, despite Parliament introducing new transparency rules in 2010. The rest of its findings highlight millions from donors alleged or proved to be intermediaries for foreign funds and/or a hidden source, and millions from companies that have not made sufficient profits to support the political contributions they have made.

Other research has confirmed that successive Governments have invested trillions in the defence industry. Our new Government are also proposing to increase defence spending to 2.5% and then to 3%. The defence industry is reportedly responsible for approximately 40% of all corruption worldwide, and much of the money that we and other countries spend in defence is funnelled back through opaque channels into political parties and members. The industrial military complex needs to be investigated and dismantled.

The fact is that our political finance rules are too weak on hidden money, making the system vulnerable to subordination from rich individuals and secretive vested interests. My constituents and people from our country are concerned by the malign influence on Government policy of parties, Governments and Opposition Members and other Members accepting millions from state and industry lobbies, corporations and mega-rich donors.

[Tom Hayes (Bournemouth East) (Lab)]

The hon. Member is making a case. Does he agree that foreign money has no role in our democracy, and that one of the strongest ways in which we can clean up our politics and indeed strengthen our democracy is to make sure that the Electoral Commission has real teeth and has higher fining powers? Does he also agree that where we have concerns about foreign money coming into our country, we should have particular concerns about money coming from people such as Elon Musk?

[Iqbal Mohamed]

I completely agree with the hon. Member. The action that the Electoral Commission should be permitted to take should not just be limited to bigger, greater fines for donors. There should be consequences for those accepting donations and potentially being influenced.

My constituents and the people of this country see and feel in their daily lives the deep impacts of pro-rich, pro-war, anti-poor and anti-consumer decisions and policies. The solution lies in reforms: to tighten spending rules; to shine a light on the source of financial contributions; to lower spending limits to reduce campaign costs and reliance on large donations; to introduce donation caps of �10,000 a year for individuals and organisations, as recommended by the Committee on Standards in Public Life; to remove the corrupting influence of big money in politics; and to close loopholes to ensure that overseas trips for parliamentarians are funded only by trusted sources.

The UK used to lead the way on funding transparency. The UK was a founding member of the Open Government Partnership, and placed third in the 2014 OECD open data index, but in recent years the UK has slipped. The most recent OECD rankings saw the UK fall to 24th place, with stories about dodgy dealings, personal protective equipment procurement and Ministers� disappearing WhatsApp messages all contributing to the decline in the trust that the public place in their politicians.

As has been mentioned, it should be a cause for grave concern that of the �85 million of private donations in 2023 alone, two thirds came from 19 donors giving more than �1 million each, the highest ever share of mega donations. If we do not want our politics to go the way of American politics, with British equivalents to the likes of Elon Musk and his fellow tech billionaires blatantly using money to buy influence and remake politics in their own interests, we need tighter regulation of political finance than we currently have, and full transparency for the public.

Oral Answers to Questions

Iqbal Mohamed Excerpts

Monday 3rd March 2025 Commons Chamber

[Matthew Pennycook]

The publication of the “Commonhold White Paper” today marks the beginning of the end of the feudal leasehold system. We will succeed where the previous Government failed and bring that system to an end, but we are determined to provide immediate relief for leaseholders suffering from unreasonable and unfair charges at present.

[Iqbal Mohamed (Dewsbury and Batley) (Ind)]

I rise to gently follow up on a critical request for urgent help that I made in November. In September 2023, Kirklees council temporarily closed Dewsbury sports centre for safety reasons due to reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete. The centre remained closed until 5 November 2024 when the council unilaterally decided to permanently close the centre without investigation. I raised the issue with the Secretary of State for DCMS and have written to the Prime Minister and the Chancellor for assistance. Will the Deputy Prime Minister facilitate an update for me on the issue?

[Angela Rayner]

The hon. Member makes an important point around safety and RAAC in our public buildings. We are absolutely committed to do all we can, despite the legacy given to us by the previous Government. I will ensure that he gets a meeting with the Under-Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham North and Kimberley (Alex Norris).