Grenfell Tower Memorial (Expenditure) Bill

Nusrat Ghani Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 16th March 2026 Commons Chamber

[Amanda Martin (Portsmouth North) (Lab)]

The fire at Grenfell Tower on 14 June 2017 was a catastrophe that exposed systematic failures in regulation, in oversight and in the value placed on the lives of people in social housing. Seventy-two people died and hundreds more lost their homes, community and sense of safety. Families are still living with that loss every single day. Tragically, nothing we can do in this place can bring back those 54 adults and 18 children. As the Secretary of State noted in his speech, there is still so much to do to find truth and justice, and to ensure that it never happens again. We owe it to the families, the bereaved, the survivors and those who fought so hard for justice to ensure that what happened on that dreadful night is never, ever forgotten, and that those responsible are held to account.

This Bill is about the memorial and the foundation that will properly fund the community-led work on this memorial. Its narrowness ensures that it is the community who will choose the best way to do this. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Kensington and Bayswater (Joe Powell) for his words, his work and his leadership for truth and justice. I associate myself with his statement that we cannot stop until we have accountability, justice and action for change.

I represent Portsmouth North, a constituency in a working-class city that knows about close-knit communities, resilience in the face of loss and the importance of remembrance. When I was a teacher, before I came to this House, I spent years helping young people to understand not just what happened in the past, but why it matters that we remember. The archive, exhibition and memorial site will serve that purpose for generations to come. We must be able to look at what happened at Grenfell and understand why the safety of every person in every home in every tower block matters. That is a responsibility that falls on all of us.

I pay tribute to the survivors, the bereaved families and the community groups who have campaigned with such dignity, determination and immense courage. They asked only to be safe in their homes, and they were let down horrifically by a chain of failures across government, regulators and industry.

We should be clear about one of the lessons—and, indeed, the title—that comes out of the work of journalist Peter Apps. In his brilliant book, Apps noted how, for years before the fire, experts, campaigners and residents raised warnings about dangerous materials and weak fire safety rules in high-rise buildings. Yet in the atmosphere of deregulation, with the political drive to cut red tape, these warnings, and indeed these people, were repeatedly delayed, dismissed and ignored. Apps shockingly recounts how, when pressure was put on officials to strengthen fire safety guidance, one response was chilling in its bluntness: “Show me the bodies”. The unimaginable tragedy of Grenfell is that the bodies did come.

Seventy-two lives were lost in a disaster that was not inevitable, but the result of choices made over many years to weaken oversight and treat safety regulations as a burden rather than a protection. Cutting red tape may have an attractive ring as a political soundbite, but red tape can also be the crucial regulation that keeps us safe in our homes, our cars, our workplaces and our public realm. With that tragic lesson at the front of our minds, it is right that our attention turns to a memorial. The least we can do is to stand with the Grenfell survivors and campaigners, support their vision and together pass this legislation without delay, so that we remember them not only today and in debates in this place, but into the future.

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

I call the shadow Minister.

Grenfell Tower Memorial (Expenditure) Bill

Nusrat Ghani Excerpts

3rd reading
Monday 16th March 2026 Commons Chamber

[Ms Nusrat Ghani in the Chair]

[The Chairman of Ways and Means (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

I remind hon. Members that in Committee they should not address the Chair as Madam Deputy Speaker—please use our names. Madam Chair or Madam Chairman are also acceptable.

Clause 1

Expenditure relating to commemorating the victims of the fire at Grenfell Tower

Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.

[The Chairman]

With this it will be convenient to consider clause 2 stand part.

Representation of the People Bill

Nusrat Ghani Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 2nd March 2026 Commons Chamber

[Mike Martin (Tunbridge Wells) (LD)]

It is great to speak in a debate that has been so well-tempered, and mostly very thoughtful.

I start by welcoming the extension of the franchise to 16 and 17-year-olds. The Lib Dems have campaigned on that for many decades, so we are delighted that the Government have reached into our policy locker. I also welcome a lot of the work that will be done under this Bill around donor transparency—the idea of knowing our donor. If we are all being honest, many of us, looking at the rules around the donations that we all seek and accept, think that someone could, if they chose, drive a coach and horses through them. When we buy a house or a car, or some other expensive goods, we often have to prove where the money has come from, so it is about time that we had the same rules when it comes to political donations.

In the limited time available to me, I would like to highlight a couple of areas where we need to go further. I am a member of the Joint Committee on the National Security Strategy, the Chair of which, the hon. Member for Warwick and Leamington (Matt Western), spoke earlier. The Committee has recently covered a couple of points that I implore the Minister to look into in greater depth. Our long-running inquiry on defending democracy looks at exactly the issues addressed in the Bill, and I would like to talk about two of them.

First, representatives from the National Crime Agency came before the Committee and told us that the law as set out—both the current law and that mooted by the Government in their strategy—does not give the agency sufficient legal grounds to investigate suspicious donations. The Minister can look at the evidence given to the Committee, but there are lots of behaviours that appear to be undemocratic, but after discussions with the Crown Prosecution Service and the National Crime Agency, they are judged not to meet the threshold for breaking the law, either currently or if the Bill as drafted is enacted, so no further investigations are undertaken. There have been many instances when the National Crime Agency has been looking at something that is illegal and, in the scope of its activities, it has uncovered other activities that look “dodgy”, but it is unable to investigate further. That evidence was set out to the Committee, so the Minister can look at that.

Secondly, there are the issues around cryptocurrency, as other hon. Members have already raised. This is a frontier that is moving incredibly fast. On one hand, cryptocurrency has blockchain, so it is possible to look at the ledger to see where donations have come from. On the other hand, with multiple different cryptocurrencies, the ability to move funds in and out of cryptocurrencies in different jurisdictions on crypto exchanges that are held in jurisdictions with which we do not have good relationships, and the ability to use AI to split large donations into tiny donations, spread them out across hundreds of different crypto exchanges and cryptocurrencies, and then reform them into microdonations, this frontier is moving incredibly fast and we do not understand it. For that reason, the Chair of the Committee wrote to the Secretary of State last week asking for a moratorium on cryptocurrencies, and I urge the Government to look into the issue—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

Order. I call Justin Madders.

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[Dr Chowns]

I will not, because of the time. The British Social Attitudes survey shows that a majority of all political supporters are in favour of proportional representation, and of course, it is pragmatic and will improve our politics—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

Order. I call Florence Eshalomi.

--- Later in debate ---

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

Order. To help more colleagues contribute to the debate, the speaking limit has dropped to three minutes.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Curtis (Milton Keynes North) (Lab)]

I do not think I will get the time to say this at the end, so I want to put on the record that the Government should set up a national commission to look at our voting system. Whatever our views on it, we no longer live in a two-party electoral system, and if our electoral system does not acknowledge that fact, we will have even more chaotic and unpredictable election results, as Professor Rob Ford says.

I welcome many of the changes introduced by the Bill. Members from across the Chamber have talked about the principles behind democracy. My view is pretty simple: we should make it as easy as possible for as many people as possible in our democracy to vote. Unfortunately, some political actors have moved us away from that basic principle in recent years with some of the measures that they have introduced. There are always trade-offs in supporting the security and integrity of our electoral system, but the introduction of photo ID in our elections was done in a way that placed an unfair burden on people going to vote, while not doing anything to support the integrity of our electoral system.

In the 2023 election—the first time voter ID was introduced—a nurse in my constituency was not able to vote because she did not have a valid form of ID. I am sure it is possible for people in this Chamber to argue that at some point between her 12-hour shifts, saving the lives of my constituents, she should have found the time to fill in the proper paperwork. That right to vote was taken away from her to stop a problem that the Electoral Commission consistently said basically did not really exist. There is almost no evidence to show that it ever existed, if only because it would be incredibly inefficient to provide that on a large scale. I acknowledge that there are problems with electoral fraud in our democracy, but there is almost no in-person fraud at the ballot box. The introduction of that law therefore had almost no benefit, and it is right that the Government are increasing the range of supported IDs.

In the same vein of making it as easy as possible for people to vote, I would like to support the changes to automatic voter registration, but I acknowledge some of the problems raised by Opposition Members. While I accept that it will not be possible to say that there will be full-coverage automatic voter registration by the time of the next election—that does not, in and of itself, create a problem—it would be good to have reassurance from the Government on two points. First, where there are constituencies that cross multiple local authorities, we must not have a problem whereby half the constituency has automatic voter registration and the other half does not. Secondly, by the time we come to the next boundary review, when it comes to automatic voter registration, there must not be incomplete coverage. Can we please have a commitment to a way of addressing that problem—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

Order.

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[James Naish (Rushcliffe) (Lab)]

There is a lot to welcome in this legislation that we are debating this evening. In my view, extending the vote to 16 and 17-year-olds is a statement of confidence in the next generation and a practical step towards a more inclusive democracy. As I have told my constituents, my support for 16 and 17-year-olds getting the vote stems less from their being determined in adult, which has been contested this evening, and more from the need to balance our political debate. With a shrinking birth rate and an ageing population, the electorate are set to become more imbalanced over the coming years, so there is a practical reason for making this change.

I also welcome the Bill’s provisions to improve voter registration and to protect candidates and electoral staff from intimidation and abuse. On voter registration, I particularly encourage Ministers to take seriously the work of the Migrant Democracy Project. I believe we should use this opportunity to extend the franchise to more adult residents, not just younger ones, given that there are 4 million people in this country who cannot vote in a general election at the moment. I also note the Bill’s intention to strengthen transparency and security around political donations. As has been discussed extensively, those are vital changes.

As many colleagues have said, there is something important missing if we genuinely want this Bill to create a fair, secure and inclusive democracy. That is, of course, the decision to not look again at the central mechanism that decides who sits in this House. Under first past the post, millions of people can do everything that is asked of them—they register, turn out and vote in good faith—but still end up without meaningful representation and a sense that their voice truly matters. It is arguably getting worse. In only the past week, many of us have been out on the doorstep at the by-election, and I spoke to many people who were actively debating how to stop a particular party and were using their vote to achieve that particular end, rather than voting for something positive and something that reflected their views and their policy aspirations. Surely we can do better than fighting elections on the basis of the best worst option, which is how so many people see it.

I want to put on the record my support for the work of the APPG for fair elections and to urge Ministers to genuinely look at the call for some form of a national commission on electoral reform, so that modern Britain genuinely considers how we can ensure that every vote counts.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

I call the final Back-Bench contributor, Bell Ribeiro-Addy.

[Bell Ribeiro-Addy (Clapham and Brixton Hill) (Lab)]

We know that to sustain a healthy democracy, we have to always look at ways to strengthen it. This Bill seeks to do just that, so I am pleased that the Government have brought it forward. By lowering the voting age to 16, we are expanding democratic participation and taking a vital step to strengthen and renew our democracy.

I have often been sceptical of those who say that young people are not interested in politics or do not understand it enough to vote. To Members of this House who suggest that, I simply ask them how often they visit schools in their constituencies. I have encountered students far younger than 16 who have shown more than a basic understanding of our political system. I regularly visit schools in my constituency and experience at first hand the political intelligence and impressive cross-examination of young people there. Last summer, I was pleased to host my first activism academy, inviting 16 to 18-year-olds to a three-day learning programme to understand what MPs do, how Parliament works, and the ways in which they can get involved. Our young people are politically engaged and understand the weight of the right they are being granted.

While I welcome the change, I am disappointed that it has not been coupled with a robust programme of civic education. While many 16 to 18-year-olds have a firm understanding of politics, without comprehensive political education, those who want more information are forced to seek it elsewhere and will likely resort to social media, which is riddled with fake news. I ask the Minister when they respond to outline what the Government have planned.

I very much welcome the provisions in the Bill that will introduce automatic voter registration, which is an important step to improve voter turnout. I would also like to see the Bill go the way of Australia, where everybody who is eligible to vote has a legal obligation to do so.

Finally, I would like to see the Bill offer more power to the electorate to recall their Members of Parliament—yes, you heard that right. I suspect this is not a suggestion that will make me popular with my colleagues, but I think we should all be more concerned about what our constituents think. At the moment, for an MP to be recalled, they must be convicted of a criminal offence that makes them eligible and they must have exhausted the appeals process. That can take years, and during that time their constituents are not getting the representation they deserve. Unlike recall procedures in other countries, the Recall of MPs Act 2015 does not allow constituents to initiate proceedings, instead relying on criminal criteria being met. Even then, a high threshold of petitioners is needed for a by-election to be triggered.

Over a number of years, MPs have been investigated for criminal offences or gross misconduct, and Members have failed to behave in a standard that is befitting of an MP. They have disgraced themselves, our profession and this House and, most importantly, they have failed their constituents. With trust in politicians at an all-time low, we need to show that we are willing to put it right. This is the Representation of the People Bill; it should seek to strengthen and improve the representation of British people by giving the electorate greater power to hold their MPs to account. The Bill is a great starting point for strengthening our democracy, and I hope the Government will not shy away from going further.

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

I call the shadow Minister.

Grenfell Tower Annual Report

Nusrat Ghani Excerpts

Wednesday 25th February 2026 Commons Chamber

[The Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government (Steve Reed)]

I start by acknowledging the presence in the Gallery of survivors and relatives of those who died at Grenfell Tower. They have the deepest sympathies of the whole House, and our most profound respect. The fire at Grenfell Tower, which claimed 72 innocent lives, was a terrible moment in British history. We will not forget what happened that night. We must make sure that nothing like it can ever happen again.

The Government accepted all the Grenfell Tower inquiry’s findings, and committed to implementing all 58 recommendations. Everyone deserves a safe, decent home. This requires a new culture of transparency and accountability. Today I can report that we are on target to complete 70% of the inquiry’s recommendations by the end of the year. Since the inquiry published its final report, we have completed 10 recommendations from phase 2, and two outstanding phase 1 recommendations. Today, I will set out the progress that we have made on reforming the construction industry, strengthening fire and rescue services, and improving support for vulnerable people. We will complete all the remaining recommendations during this Parliament. We are also publishing the construction products reform White Paper, building on the proposals we set out in December for a new single construction regulator. Our work goes beyond the inquiry recommendations, because we are determined to secure lasting change across the whole system.

Last summer, we ensured that the Building Safety Regulator had the leadership it needs to do its job well. Lord Roe reformed the London Fire Brigade and is bringing the same determination to making the BSR work. Over time, the BSR will evolve into the regulator the inquiry recommended. We are consulting on that today. We will replace fragmented regulation with clear accountability. Everyone will understand their role and the standards that are expected of them. We have already made changes to get our own house in order. Fire policy now sits within my Department, ensuring that oversight of housing, building safety and fire is properly joined up in Government.

The construction products reform White Paper sets out ambitious plans for modernising the rules. We will make sure that products are safe, and will ensure that everyone meets their responsibilities. These reforms will mean sensible regulation, fit for the future, and confidence in the safety of our homes. We will make sure that people working in construction have the skills that they need. We support the building professions, and there will be rigorous expectations relating to competence and ethics. We have also published a formal statement setting out the path to proper professional regulation of fire engineering.

One of the clearest lessons from the inquiry was the need for better fire and rescue services. I am grateful to the National Fire Chiefs Council and the London Fire Brigade for their work on improving fire and rescue standards. A new national college of fire and rescue will ensure that these improvements continue.

Protecting people means making sure that those most at risk are never left behind. New regulations requiring emergency evacuation plans for high-rise buildings will come into force on 6 April. These will mean that vulnerable people have a plan for safe evacuation in the event of a fire.

Making sure that everyone has a safe home also means tackling wider problems in social housing. Grenfell shone a light on so many wrongs that we are now putting right. Under Awaab’s law, landlords must make urgent repairs where there are serious threats to health. People have more power to hold landlords to account, and we are giving them better access to information, so they can have more involvement in how their home is managed.

Speeding up remediation is one of my highest priorities. Work to remove and replace unsafe aluminium composite material cladding—the same type as on Grenfell Tower—has finished on 91% of high-rise residential and public buildings, with work on most of the rest well under way. We are working with developers, freeholders and local authorities to remove other types of unsafe cladding as quickly as possible, and are monitoring thousands of high-rise residential buildings to make sure that they are making progress.

We have also strengthened local resilience and emergency preparations. All five local resilience forum trailblazers have been funded, and the four chief resilience officers have been appointed. We are also setting up a national system for local areas to learn from each other, so that the lessons of Grenfell lead to lasting improvements in crisis response.

It is only right that we are transparent about how we address the Grenfell Tower inquiry’s carefully considered recommendations. We will continue to inform Parliament each quarter about progress on those recommendations. Alongside this statement, I am publishing our annual report on gov.uk. We will continue with these reports until every recommendation is complete. The Government’s new public dashboards for inquiry recommendations will continue to be updated quarterly.

Throughout this work, the Government have acted on the inquiry’s findings to address the culture that allowed failure to happen, yet we recognise that for many, something is still missing. For the bereaved, survivors and the wider Grenfell community, the need for justice is deeply felt, including decisions on criminal charges. The Metropolitan police investigation, which is independent of Government, is one of the largest and most complex in the force’s history, but I know that the slow progress is painful for those who have already waited too long for the justice that they deserve.

Nothing can erase the grief suffered by the Grenfell community. Their loss, strength and determination to change things for the better guide all that we do. Failures of government under successive Administrations made this tragedy possible. That brings an enduring duty to honour the memory of the 72 men, women and children who lost their lives. As part of that duty, I can inform the House that we are introducing legislation to provide the spending authority required to support the memorial commission and the community in building and maintaining a lasting and dignified memorial.

I know that there is still much that we need to do, but there has been real progress. The foundations for lasting change are in place: a reformed regulatory system, empowered residents, accountable landlords, stronger professions and greater transparency. Our objective is clear, and we remain true to it: never again. Never again should people go to bed unsure that their home is safe. Never again should public institutions fail in their duty to protect. Never again should the voices of residents be ignored.

The actions that we are taking honour those who died at Grenfell, support those who survived and serve our shared obligation to make every home a place of safety, dignity and trust. In that spirit, I commend this statement to the House.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

I call the shadow Minister.

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[Steve Reed]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his comments and welcome the tone that he has adopted. It is quite right that we should all work cross-party on this matter to speed up the outcomes that we are all looking for and that we work together in a way that shows respect to the families and those who lost their lives in this tragedy.

The hon. Gentleman asked about the single construction regulator. The BSR became a stand-alone body, separate from the Health and Safety Executive, on 26 January. Work is progressing on bringing into the BSR all the other aspects that will allow it to function in due course as the single construction regulator, which the inquiry identified as such an important part of fixing the building safety system. Lord Roe is overseeing rapid improvement in the performance of the BSR even as I speak.

The hon. Gentleman asked about remediation. It is welcome that 91% of high-rise residential or public buildings with unsafe ACM cladding have been remediated, but we recognise that there is further to go. Further acceleration plans are available, and I am happy to write to him if he would like access to that information.

Similarly, the hon. Gentleman asked about key dates in implementing further recommendations. We will continue to publish quarterly reports so that the whole House can scrutinise the progress that the Government are making with these recommendations. The Under-Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, my hon. Friend the Member for Chester North and Neston (Samantha Dixon), and I are meeting regularly with the families and affected groups to ensure that we hear their concerns directly and can feed them straight into the system.

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

I call the hon. Member for Kensington and Bayswater (Joe Powell)—take your time.

[Joe Powell (Kensington and Bayswater) (Lab)]

As we approach the ninth anniversary of the Grenfell tragedy, bereaved survivors in the community are still rightly advocating for truth, justice and change on behalf of the 72 people who lost their lives in an entirely preventable fire. I pay tribute to all those who have joined us again in the Gallery today and those who are watching this statement. I know that the whole House will agree with the Secretary of State that criminal accountability cannot come soon enough. In the meantime, I welcome this annual report and the progress being made in many areas, from building safety to social housing management.

We know that, too often, lessons have not been learned from public inquiries and the implementation of recommendations has not been transparent and accountable. I would welcome an update from the Secretary of State on the proposal for an oversight mechanism to ensure that recommendations are actually implemented.

When it comes to the performance of Kensington and Chelsea council, many residents are highly sceptical about progress given that, according to the independent regulator, it has a seriously failing housing department and, according to the local government ombudsman, the third worst record on complaints. On the Lancaster West estate itself, there is uncertainty over the budget for completing the promised works. Will the Secretary of State assure me that the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea will remain under close central Government scrutiny and that he will do all he can to broker a solution so that residents of Lancaster West—the people who least deserve to suffer—do not wait years more for their own safe and healthy homes?

[Steve Reed]

I thank my hon. Friend for his question and congratulate him on being such a powerful voice for his constituents and all those who have suffered and died as a result of the tragedy of Grenfell Tower. He has rightly earned respect from Members across the House for the dignified way in which he has carried out his role as a representative for the community.

The Government are very keen to make sure that we learn the lessons and implement the report. We will continue to publish quarterly reports to update the whole House, and indeed members of the public, on the progress that we are making. Work is continuing across Government, including in my Department, on setting up a national oversight mechanism to make sure that the recommendations of this and other inquiries do not just sit on shelves, but get implemented and inform improvement in the way that we deliver public services, including, in this important case, fire safety.

I had the opportunity to visit the Lancaster West estate with my hon. Friend. The Government have made £25 million available to allow work to continue on upgrading and improving the estate. He will be aware that we have concerns about the council’s delivery capacity and cost control. I am in contact with the leader of the council about those concerns in the hope and expectation that we can address them together, but the interests of the residents of the estate must come first for all of us.

[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.

Local Government Finance

Nusrat Ghani Excerpts

Wednesday 11th February 2026 Commons Chamber

[The Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government (Steve Reed)]

I beg to move,

That the Local Government Finance Report (England) 2026-27 (HC 1604), which was laid before this House on 9 February, be approved.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:

That the Referendums Relating to Council Tax Increases (Principles) (England) Report 2026-27 (HC 1605), which was laid before this House on 9 February, be approved.

[Steve Reed]

Before I begin, I notify the House that the local government finance report has been updated with small corrections on pages 7 and 13. These corrections have been passed on to the House in the proper way ahead of today’s debate. Like you, Madam Deputy Speaker, I am grateful to the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments for its careful consideration of these reports.

I believe in local government, because I have lived it. As a councillor and as a council leader, I saw the difference that councils make to people’s lives. Local government is the part of our democracy that is closest to people and the things that they care about the most—their family, their community and their home town.

Labour took office after 14 years of ideological cuts imposed on local government. The Tories devolved the blame for their failure in national government by imposing £16 billion of cuts on councils and local communities. Even worse, they targeted the worst of those cuts deliberately on our poorest communities. The former Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for Richmond and Northallerton (Rishi Sunak), was filmed standing in a leafy garden in Tunbridge Wells boasting about how the Conservatives had stripped away funding from struggling towns so that they could play politics with public money.

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[David Baines (St Helens North) (Lab)]

I was council leader at St Helens for five years before coming here in July 2024. I just want to say thank you to the Secretary of State and the Minister for Local Government, and the Ministers in post before them, for the engagement, because the relationship now is different from what it was before. The conversation we have had since the provisional settlement has been constructive—it has been good; it has been done in good spirit—and I am very grateful for the result that we have for St Helens. In 2010, St Helens got £127 million a year from the last Labour Government, but when the Conservative party opposite left office it was £13 million a year. Does the Secretary of State share my absolute shock at the brass neck of Conservative Members?

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

Brief interventions can be just as productive as lengthy ones.

[Steve Reed]

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. What he is seeing is the realignment of funding with deprivation, and that is as it should be.

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[Steve Reed]

I thank my hon. Friend for recognising that funding is now following deprivation. He will find the answer to his question in the homelessness strategy, which I will come to. [Interruption.] Madam Deputy Speaker, you are indicating with your wrist that I need to speed up, so I will make some progress.

On children’s social care, the system was again left on its knees. That is why this Government are driving forward the biggest transformation of children’s social care in a generation by rolling out the Families First Partnership programme. We have backed the programme with nearly £3 billion over four years, including an investment of over £2.4 billion in this multi-year settlement. It gives local authorities, police and health partners the tools to provide families with the right support at the right time, shifting the system from expensive statutory provision towards early intervention and preventive support. It will help families stay together, divert thousands of children from care and transform the outcomes and wellbeing of children across the country.

The investment in the Families First Partnership programme marks a milestone in transforming the children’s social care system, but we recognise that the children’s social care residential market is fundamentally broken. Local authorities are being pushed to the brink, while some private providers are making excessive profits. This cannot—and it will not—continue. Instead, we are working to reduce reliance on residential care and move towards a system rooted in family environments through fostering. Last week, the Government set out a plan to expand fostering for 10,000 more children by the end of this Parliament. The evidence is clear that taking this approach will be better for children and better for the local authorities that provide the services. Using the new powers in the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill, we will explore the implementation of a profit cap in the children’s social care placement market to ensure that public money delivers value and care, not profiteering.

It is obvious that the current special educational needs and disabilities system is not working for children and families. We know that it is not working for councils either, as they are seeing funding for neighbourhood services diverted into a broken system. The Government are bringing forward ambitious reforms that will create a better and financially sustainable SEND system, built on early, high-quality support for kids with SEND to improve their time at school and maximise their potential throughout life. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education will set out the details of those reforms in the upcoming schools White Paper.

Crucially, we are taking action now to support local authorities as we move towards that reformed system. We will deliver this in phases, the first of which will address historic deficits accrued up to the end of 2025-26. All local authorities with SEND deficits will receive a grant covering 90% of their high-need deficit up to the end of 2025-26. This is subject to local authorities securing the Department for Education’s approval of a local SEND reform plan.

On homelessness, as my hon. Friend the Member for Leyton and Wanstead (Mr Bailey) has said, we know that temporary accommodation is a growing financial pressure on councils, with near record levels of rough sleeping and declining social housing stock. The final settlement also provides a £272 million uplift to the homelessness, rough sleeping and domestic abuse grant, taking total investment delivered through the settlement to £2.7 billion. On the ground, that will mean families off the streets; kids out of temporary accommodation and instead living in safe, secure homes; and people’s lives put back on course. We are matching that landmark investment with our national plan to end homelessness, led by the Minister for Local Government and Homelessness, to put the full might of the state behind preventing homelessness before it happens.

Today’s settlement is about keeping a promise—a promise to repair the broken foundations of local government, and a promise to put the heart back into our communities. When the last Conservative Government slashed councils to the bone, the consequences were severe: the services people use every day were undermined, streets became filthy and people’s lives got tougher. The hard work of councillors, mayors and frontline staff kept vital services running during those hard Tory years, and we thank them for the work they did in those circumstances. Our aim is a future where councillors, working with their communities, have the freedom to innovate—rebuilding public services and investing in high streets, youth clubs and libraries. We are fixing the foundations so that councils and their communities can build the public services, renew the high streets and shape the future they want to see.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

Before I call the shadow Minister, I will announce the result of today’s deferred Division on the draft Greenhouse Gas Emissions Trading Scheme (Amendment) (Extension to Maritime Activities) Order 2026. The Ayes were 362 and the Noes were 107, so the Ayes have it.

[The Division list is published at the end of today’s debates.]

Holocaust Memorial Day

Nusrat Ghani Excerpts

Thursday 29th January 2026 Commons Chamber

[Joani Reid (East Kilbride and Strathaven) (Lab)]

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Bury St Edmunds and Stowmarket (Peter Prinsley) for not just his opening remarks but his commitment to this cause, both in this House and outside it. The Holocaust was a unique event in human history in which the state waged external war with expressly genocidal aims, combined with the industrialisation of killing as a transcontinental enterprise.

The Holocaust matters to us today because we owe it to the dead, and to the living who went through that horror, to commemorate their suffering; because we should pay tribute to those still with us, as well as those who have gone before us and who brought an end to the Hitler regime, whose raison d’être was the mass murder of Jews and others whom they saw as less human; and, perhaps most importantly, because we owe it to ourselves to remind each other of where the poison of racist hatred takes humanity.

Holocaust Memorial Day matters more this year, because there has undoubtedly been an appalling rise in antisemitic violence and in the public and private abuse of Jews. If the Holocaust teaches us anything, it is to stand up and call out hatred and racism. There is now a barely hidden campaign to drive Jews out of public and civic life in Britain—a campaign, I am sad to say, in which Members of this House are active participants or complicit. The eruption of antisemitism in Britain since 7 October 2023 has underlined how supposed progressives and anti-racists are fine to speak out, unless it is about hatred of Jews. Campaigners have marched alongside open supporters of fascistic Hamas and shouted slogans advocating a global war against Jews. They have done all this because they believe that their new-found allies are merely “anti-Zionist” and not actually antisemites at all.

The arguments that dominate today’s antisemitic discourse are superficially more sophisticated, and are increasingly shaped by the melting pot of extreme ideas that is provided by social media, but the reality is that the far right, the far left and the Islamists still rely on the old tropes of hidden Jewish power and manipulation, Jewish blood lust, and Jews as the killer of Christ. They now hide this behind the words “Zionism” or “Israel” and hope that people will not spot the difference. Through social media, many of these ideas have seeped into the discourse of what is supposedly mainstream.

In 2019, the right hon. and learned Member for Fareham and Waterlooville (Suella Braverman) told the Bruges Group of the supposed threat of “cultural Marxism”, an idea that has direct Nazi roots. It is a phrase that the former MP Andrew Percy warned others against using. In 2024, Liz Truss was forced to remove a bogus and antisemitic quote attributed to Mayer Rothschild from her memoirs. Then there is the case of Reform’s recently announced candidate for Gorton and Denton, who, like the right hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn), appears not to believe that ethnic minority children born here can ever be British or understand British humour. This is the antisemites’ baseline argument about the otherness of Jews, retooled for the use of today’s insurgent far right and far left.

It behoves all of us to call out the issues in our midst, and there has been too much silence in this regard. Members of this House have been involved in stoking the fires of Islamist hatred, antisemitism and Holocaust inversion. Perhaps some will make very fine speeches about Holocaust memorial, as they did last year, but we should not allow ourselves to be fooled. One Member of this House, writing about the middle east on social media, invoked images of the gas chambers, a barbaric creation used for the industrialised and systematic murder of Jews—Jewish men, women and children. That trivialises the Holocaust.

However, there is not only Holocaust inversion; there are outright antisemitic tropes. Members of this House have shared posts on social media of images of political leaders being “dog-walked” or controlled by Israeli politicians or the Zionist lobby. This draws on stereotypes of Jewish power and control, and alludes to some kind of malign Jewish influence. These classic antisemitic tropes have existed for thousands of years, but are continually being repackaged and updated to fit the contemporary political context.

In the Budget debate, the hon. Member for Coventry South (Zarah Sultana) talked about her constituents “bleeding…dry”, because of our Government’s support of Israel, and we also heard a Member of this House talk about Israel’s—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

Order. I want to make sure that protocol has been followed. First, we obviously do not mention Members by their names, not that the hon. Member has done that. She has, however, referred to a few Members by their constituencies, so can I have her assurance that she let them know that she would be referencing them in the Chamber during this debate?

[Joani Reid]

Madam Deputy Speaker, I can confirm that I have written to all the Members I have included in my speech.

Another Member talked about Israel’s “blood-soaked tentacles”. There is no safe limit of antisemitism that we should tolerate, and no requirement for us to apply weaker moral tests of what is an acceptable opinion because of the religious heritage of our interlocutor. Human rights apply universally, and so do human responsibilities. We need to enforce those responsibilities before it is too late. The warning lights are already flashing. We do not have to look back to the 1930s to see how democracies can crash under the burden of political extremism and contempt for the rule of law, because we see that in the news every day.

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.

[Dr Danny Chambers (Winchester) (LD)]

It is an honour to speak in this debate and to follow such passionate speeches, including that of the hon. Member for East Kilbride and Strathaven (Joani Reid). I congratulate the hon. Member for Bury St Edmunds and Stowmarket (Peter Prinsley) not only on such an eloquent introduction to this debate, but on such an interesting history of the persecution of Jews in Britain for the best part of 1,000 years. That was very informative and provided a much-needed context for our discussion.

Many Members spoke about the individuals, charities and organisations working tirelessly to ensure that the nation and schoolchildren in particular are educated about the Holocaust and will not forget it. As the average age of Holocaust survivors is 87, it is very prescient that the Holocaust Memorial Day theme is “Bridging Generations”. The Holocaust Memorial Day Trust plays a vital role in ensuring that remembrance is not limited to those whose families were murdered in the Holocaust, but includes those who, having been mercilessly killed by the Nazis, were left with no one to speak their names. The legacy of victims with no surviving family or relatives must be safeguarded through education, remembrance and memorial.

If the words “never again” are to mean anything, they must represent a shared commitment to challenge hatred wherever it appears. Sadly, this year’s Holocaust Memorial Day comes against a backdrop of rising antisemitism. Jewish people in the UK are facing unacceptable and rising levels of hatred and violence—and I know from speaking to my constituents in Winchester just how isolating and frightening that can be. No one should feel anxious or scared when going to their place of worship and no one should be denied the freedom to express their religious beliefs. It ought to be a national shame that we need security measures outside places of worship, but with the murder of two members of the Jewish community just last year outside their synagogue, those measures are, unfortunately, necessary.

For so many British Jews, Holocaust Memorial Day is deeply personal. It is a day of grief, of remembrance and of resilience. Primo Levi wrote:

“The story of the death camps should be understood by everyone as a sinister alarm-signal.”

While hatred and division persist, that alarm signal must be in our minds today, and must remain in our minds for generations to come. On my way to the Chamber today, I walked past the very moving exhibition in Parliament of the replicas of the shoes of people who were killed in those death camps. Some of those shoes are of little children. That is a stark and haunting reminder of what the Holocaust required. The Holocaust depended on the systematic dehumanisation of its victims, casting human beings as non-human to justify the unjustifiable. To murder millions, the Nazi state had to treat even little children not as children with names, families and futures, but as something less than human.

In this Chamber and in our communities, schools and neighbourhoods, let us all stand with Jewish communities, because antisemitism has no place in our country or abroad. We must do all we can to ensure that Jewish people can practise their faith freely, live openly and participate fully in our society without fear. We remain today, and will always remain, committed to creating a society that never stops learning from the lessons of history.

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

I call the shadow Minister.

--- Later in debate ---

[Peter Prinsley]

It has been an immense privilege and honour to listen to the many brilliant speeches in the House this afternoon. I thank anybody who said anything kind about me.

I have made some notes about what people said—there is no time to go through all of them, but I must mention one or two. My hon. Friend the Member for Warrington North (Charlotte Nichols) spoke with such gravitas; I think she has a future as a distinguished rabbi, should she ever wish to go out of politics, which she perhaps will not. The hon. Member for Cheadle (Mr Morrison) spoke about Peter Kurer BEM, who is my sister-in-law’s father. He will be so chuffed to learn that he was mentioned here in Parliament, and I thank the hon. Member for that.

My hon. Friend the Member for Rochdale (Paul Waugh) spoke about the Windermere children. We all know that story, but Samantha, who was a University of East Anglia student, became a close friend. She is one of the granddaughters of a Windermere boy, so it was great to hear about that. We will never forget the Heaton heroes.

If there is time, let me quickly explain Bevis Marks, which was mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Rachel Blake). Bevis Marks in the City of London should actually be “Bury Marks”, but I have to stop.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

No, you don’t!

[Peter Prinsley]

Oh, there is time! In that case, I will tell hon. Members the story. The great Abbey of Bury St Edmunds had large landholdings all over the country, including land in the City of London. Wooden stakes were put out each year to define the land, which were called the Bury marks. “Bevis Marks” is simply a spelling mistake.

Local Government Reorganisation

Nusrat Ghani Excerpts

Thursday 22nd January 2026 Commons Chamber

[Steve Reed]

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

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.

[Alison Bennett (Mid Sussex) (LD)]

I thank the Secretary of State for advance sight of the statement. I refer the House to my declaration in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. Today’s announcement raises three questions about waste, incompetence and trust in democracy.

First, on waste, councils across the country have already committed significant public money in good faith to preparing for these elections, which the Government repeatedly assured them would go ahead. Cancelling them at this late stage is not cost-free. Will the Secretary of State commit today to reimbursing councils in full for every pound spent as a result of these cancellations, or are local taxpayers now expected to pick up the bill for ministerial indecision?

Secondly, on incompetence, will the Minister—who repeatedly told hon. Members, including at the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee on 11 November and during oral questions in the Chamber on 24 November, that elections scheduled for May 2026 would go ahead—explain why a U-turn happened a few weeks later, in December? What new information came to light between November and December that prompted that change of heart?

Finally, on trust in democracy, councillors in West Sussex will serve for six instead of four years. That is not the “short period” stated by the Secretary of State. In 2021, the world was a very different place. We were at the peak of the Boris bounce. The electoral map and the world have changed dramatically since then. When public trust in politicians is low, it can never be right for those who are up for re-election to decide whether they want to face their electorate. Today’s decision undermines trust in elections and in democracy. Surely the Secretary of State can see that this plays into the hands of those who want to undermine our democratic institutions.

New Towns

Nusrat Ghani Excerpts

Thursday 15th January 2026 Commons Chamber

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

Order. I will not introduce a formal time limit, but if Members keep their speeches to under eight minutes, that will help everybody else.

--- Later in debate ---

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

With a speaking limit of seven minutes, I call Chris Curtis.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Vince]

I think my hon. Friend knows fairly well! But Harlow is nearly the oldest new town.

Harlow might not be the best new town—well, I think it is, although probably not if you are a fan of being able to park your car anywhere near your house—but it absolutely is the new town with the biggest heart. I hope when the Government consider the creation of a new generation of new towns, they will look at the things that did work in Harlow. Creating a new town is not just about bricks and mortar, about trees and gardens; it is about people and communities too. I am proud to represent Harlow and its history, but I am determined for it to have a strong future.

The Government’s commitment last year to ensuring that Harlow is the permanent home of the UK Health Security Agency is huge. As I mentioned earlier, the decline of the manufacturing industry has had an impact on Harlow. We still have some fantastic industry, including Raytheon and other important businesses, but the decline has affected us. I absolutely agree with my hon. Friends about the need for continual investment in our new towns, so that they survive and thrive, and for their long-term stewardship.

Let me give the House one interesting fact about Harlow before I wind up my remarks. Harlow has a fantastic cycle network—of course, it needs more investment, and I will always push Essex county council to continue investing in it—and thanks to that network, as well as to our green wedges and green fingers areas, which are hugely important to the sense of community, it is possible to get from one side of Harlow to the other without ever going on a main road.

Everybody deserves a place in the history of Harlow—even those who, like me, came to Harlow from afar. Together, we are the perfect blend.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

That sounded more like a maiden speech.

--- Later in debate ---

[Richard Baker]

I could not agree more. In Scotland’s new towns, railway stations are either not there at all or are a great distance away from the town centre. We have to learn those lessons for the future.

On issues in town centres, the Kingdom shopping centre in Glenrothes is the centre and the high street of the town, but it is ageing. It needs investment in its infrastructure, and it requires a collective approach to offering new retail and entertainment opportunities. We need more community facilities in our housing estates, and we have an ageing housing stock, with homes that are not energy-efficient and are expensive to heat, in a town where 20% of children are living in relative poverty. That is one of many strains on low-income households in the town struggling with the increasing costs of living. That is why it is so important that this Government took action on energy bills. The fact that housing stock in new towns is too often aged and needs to be improved is a key issue in that policy area.

The sad reality is that years of under-investment in local authorities under a Scottish National party Government have resulted in a housing crisis across Scotland. Glenrothes, which was established in the first place to address these challenges, is no exception. Fife council has a housing stock of around 30,000 properties but a waiting list of around 13,000 people, which is badly affecting so many of my constituents in Glenrothes, yet the Scottish Government’s budget, announced on Tuesday, gave a rise of just 2% to local authorities. That is despite record-breaking block grants for the Scottish Government, with Labour delivering an additional £10.3 billion for public services in Scotland since the last election. A 2% increase for councils will not address the challenges faced by new towns in Scotland.

After all, as my hon. Friend the Member for Cumbernauld and Kirkintilloch said, these towns are not new any more—they are not preserved in aspic. They need investment. The establishment of new towns shows that change is inevitable but that the principles and values which inspired their creation remain constant. We need to hold on to the ideals that created Glenrothes and other new towns in the first place: we need to continue to strive for progress, growth and modernity in our built infrastructure, as well as in our transport connectivity and our public services—in education and health in our new towns. For that, we need leadership from Government at all levels. In Scotland, that means a Scottish Government with a vision to actively support local authorities that have responsibility for new towns, like Fife council, to achieve the positive change that our new towns are badly in need of. That means investment. That is why we need a Scottish Government capable of making new towns like Glenrothes feel new again.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

The hon. Member for Stevenage (Kevin Bonavia) mentioned that it is his mother’s birthday. I have been given an update: she is called Yvonne Bonavia. Happy birthday, Yvonne.

--- Later in debate ---

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

I call Sam Rushworth.

[Sam Rushworth (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker; I am often last with my contributions, but hopefully not least. I also thank my hon. Friend the Member for Cumbernauld and Kirkintilloch (Katrina Murray) for an excellent opening speech, as well as other colleagues—in particular those from new towns—who have spoken. I represent a town that was founded in the seventh century, and I am really proud of our history and heritage, but something that has really struck me as many of my colleagues have spoken is the importance of neighbourhood and community in what makes a great town.

This Government’s plan to build 12 new towns is a positive change from the short-termism, lack of ambition and decline that we have experienced over the past decade and a half. For too long, Britain’s lack of affordable housing has been put in the “too difficult” box, where challenges are tinkered with but the big, difficult decisions are perpetually delayed and politicians do what is easy for now, rather than what is right for the future. I welcome this Government’s decision to restore the dream of home ownership for the rising generation. We will have new towns, new transport infrastructure in the north, which was announced yesterday, and new, home-grown clean energy that will, over time, mean that energy bills make up a smaller share of household incomes—a new Britain.

Although we will get new homes, there will not be a new town in County Durham, as other areas need them more. However, the whole country will benefit from not just the economic growth, but their potential to modernise our country. As others have said, when these towns are built, I hope that they are truly 21st-century towns for a new era—beautiful, green and harnessing the best of British ingenuity. I was moved by my hon. Friend the Member for Vauxhall and Camberwell Green (Florence Eshalomi), who spoke eloquently about what those towns should look like.

I have come here today with one simple ask: that every new town be sustainably built, with a modern district heating network. That is not radical or a new or untested approach to providing cheaper and lower-carbon power. The Government announced last year six areas that will be put on to heating networks, but I have not heard them mentioned in conjunction with the new towns.

In Denmark, 70% of houses are already connected to district heating networks. Some 75% of those are already using fully renewable green energy sources, and they have a goal of increasing that to 100% by 2030. The average Danish home on a district heating network has an average energy bill of £835 a year, which is around £1,000 less than the energy bill of the average home in the UK. In Germany, about 15% of homes are on district heating networks, but in cities such as Munich, Hamburg and Berlin the figure is closer to a third, with an ambitious goal to bring it up to a half. The very fact is that being part of a heating network is more energy-efficient, but energy efficiency grows when the most sustainable energy sources are used for the network.

I encourage the Government to look seriously at the opportunities presented by geothermal energy so that we do not risk being left behind. Germany has a goal to increase its geothermal energy tenfold by 2030. That can mean deep geothermal, where deep wells bring water to the surface at a very high temperature, such as at the Eden Project or United Downs in Cornwall. That is also used in Stoke-on-Trent’s heating system and in Southampton, where a city heating network draws from deep geothermal wells—I believe that project was set up by the Minister for Energy Security when he led Southampton city council. We can also use shallow geothermal, where water is passed through a heat exchanger. That includes places using mine water, such as in Gateshead or Lanchester Wines in Durham.

Geothermal can be done anywhere, but three of the new towns—Victoria North in Manchester, Leeds South Bank and Adlington—lend themselves particularly well to it because of their geology. Having listened to the contribution of my hon. Friend the Member for Macclesfield (Tim Roca), though, I can suggest other alternatives where the geography is even more advantageous.

The use of geothermal and heating networks would be beneficial to the UK’s just transition from oil and gas, since we have skilled workers in drilling and pipelines. The National Geothermal Centre and the Durham Energy Institute are world-leading in this area and on hand to work with the Government to develop the right solutions. Imagine moving into a new home in a new town, knowing that it has 100 years of free heating flowing through the pipes from under the ground.

I gently ask that the Government seriously consider looking at how these new towns and their infrastructure draw their energy. Doing so will benefit the efforts that we are making in other parts of the country, including in Durham, to be part of this national story of renewal.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.

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

I express my gratitude to the hon. Member for Cumbernauld and Kirkintilloch (Katrina Murray) for a really engaging speech about how it is the people who invest their lives in the community who make it what it is—a sentiment that I am sure we all share. I have learnt a great deal more about new towns from hon. Members across the House, and it has been a privilege to listen to the debate.

In our manifesto, the Liberal Democrats committed to 10 new garden cities, so we welcome this debate and the Government’s ambitions for new towns—depending on how they are implemented, of course. It is vital to have a new generation of major communities, given the terrible state of affordability that the housing sector got into under the Conservative Government. That is why we have a big ambition of 150,000 social homes per year, which is above the Government’s current target. However, new towns must not come at the expense of existing communities and towns. My hon. Friends on the Liberal Democrat Benches are engaging in a positive and constructive spirit with a range of new towns on their boundaries, alongside the Government and local communities.

New towns must deliver in social terms—the homes provided—but also environmentally and economically, as the mark 1, 2 and 3 new towns did so successfully. In our view, three critical principles need to be met: new towns must be environmentally ambitious, they must be successful in social terms—that means infrastructure— and there must be long-term financial investment. That investment must be sufficient to ensure that housing is genuinely affordable and will offer a decent home in a good environment, in all senses of that word, as hon. Members have expressed it in many different ways throughout the debate.

On environmental ambition, I regret to say that garden cities seem to have been airbrushed out of this programme —unintentionally, I hope—in ways that are out of keeping with the post-war new towns programme. What was originally called the town garden in Stevenage was a great reflection of how the garden city principle informed and provided the basis for the new towns. The Garden City Association campaigned for a new towns programme before the war. Now it is the Town and Country Planning Association—I should probably declare an interest as an honorary, voluntary vice-president of that organisation.

Garden cities are not just words; as we have heard, they were the basis of the new towns of Letchworth and Welwyn, and of many others. “Let the countryside invade the town” was one of Ebenezer Howard’s cries. I often wonder whether he wrote those words at the very desk that is in front of me, because his day job was as a parliamentary Clerk. In his spare time, he wrote a radical piece called “To-morrow: A Peaceful Path to Real Reform”. It did not sell very well, so a year later he renamed it “Garden Cities of To-morrow”, and that book laid the foundation for the garden cities and new towns that were to be built throughout the country. He was surely right to espouse a vision of how people and nature, town and country, and society and the environment can thrive together. He was right then, and surely that vision is right now.

These new towns must set the highest standards for nature protection. They need well-insulated homes that are cheap to run, with solar panels on the roof, as promoted by the sunshine Bill tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Cheltenham (Max Wilkinson). They need district heating and cheap heat, as the hon. Member for Bishop Auckland (Sam Rushworth) pointed out—that is good for the planet, as is good public transport that does not pollute and jam up the roads.

Those ideas were pioneered by many of the garden cities. As the hon. Member for North East Hertfordshire (Chris Hinchliff) explained well, the Letchworth Garden City Heritage Foundation endowed the environment with assets and resources so that it would continue to be protected into the future. For over 100 years, as he said, that trust has been able to fund and care for the environment and put money back into Letchworth as a community. That provided a great model. In another reflection of how garden cities provided the basis for new towns, Milton Keynes’ Parks Trust does exactly the same thing. Where such estates have not been sold off, as has been described in relation to other new towns, that is an incredibly successful model. As Members have said, it is vital to endow the public realm and the environment with the resources and investment needed to sustain them for 100 years.

Turning to social impacts and infrastructure, we Liberal Democrats would like to ask the Minister how councils and communities are going to make decisions about the impacts of the new towns. Any spatial development strategy is going to come after the event, as the new towns have already been designated. Parish councils such as Somerton in Oxfordshire, which my hon. Friend the Member for Bicester and Woodstock (Calum Miller) is working hard to advocate for, have pointed out a range of simultaneous proposals in Oxfordshire, including the Oxfordshire strategic rail freight interchange, 280,000 square metres of warehousing at Baynards Green—which, coincidentally, is being considered today by Cherwell district council—the Puy du Fou leisure park, and many other developments that will collectively generate 47 million additional trips per year. The Government are engaged in the ongoing strategic environmental assessment, which I welcome, and it may assess some of the impacts, but there is no plan that involves local authorities in resolving these decisions, in taking decisions about how the new towns, such as Heyford Park in Oxfordshire, will land in their midst, and in considering how such developments will affect the existing network and hierarchy of towns and communities. There is a missing link with strategic planning, and it needs to be put back. That would allow the community-led approach to these developments that we want to see and allow affected local authorities to have their say. After all, the location for Milton Keynes was negotiated between central and local government.

As the hon. Member for Cumbernauld and Kirkintilloch said, it is vital to respect the identities of the places in which these new towns are located. Will the Minister commission a rapid sub-regional plan process for the councils in each of these locations so that they can resolve the issues? He has already indicated that he may, but will he visit in due course all these locations, so that he can engage with the local communities concerned? As other Members have asked, will he confirm—I think he said he said that he was thinking about it—that the planned housing numbers will indeed count towards local plan targets imposed by the Government’s standard method? It will be impossible for local leaders and local councils to develop these new towns at the same time as trying to deliver the impossible housing targets that many of them are facing. There is a 41% increase in local plan numbers in my Somerset council area alone, for example.

On social impacts within towns, the pre-war garden cities and post-war new towns were 90% social housing. In the Select Committee, the Minister indicated that the Government may be walking back from the 40% affordable housing target. What is the minimum that they will accept?

Infrastructure is needed by new and existing towns, particularly those affected by these plans. For example, Ardley station is needed to serve the Heyford Park new town and the existing community. Other forms of infrastructure also too often go missing, and that is true not just of new towns. For urban extensions, promised and needed GP surgeries have never come forward, including in Orchard Grove in my Taunton and Wellington constituency and in Bicester in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Bicester and Woodstock. Will the Government ensure that existing communities will not lose out on GP surgeries as a result of new towns being given those facilities? These vital relationships with existing communities need to be resolved. Infrastructure for transport, water, energy, health and active travel must come first, and before the housing.

Let me turn to the financial support that these developments will need if they are to be successful. All these things cost money—we recognise that. We are therefore disappointed that the Minister, I think, said to the Select Committee that there is no pot for new town funding, and that poses a real risk that the £3.9 billion a year funding for the affordable housing programme will be used to fund the new towns programme, inevitably taking money away from other areas. Although the land value capture model that the Government are promoting is welcome and we support it, it will not be enough.

As many Government Members will know, the original post-war new towns had significant, 60-year Treasury loans. They were worth about £4.7 billion; that is about £140 billion today. Those loans were repaid—not just in full, but with a surplus coming back to the Treasury. The bulk of it was repaid in 1999. Since then, almost another £1 billion has been repaid from further land sales and receipts from that investment. It is a sound investment. No doubt the Treasury will say, “Don’t worry, the market can deal with this. We don’t need any public money.” But markets do not look 50, 60 or 100 years ahead. Markets do not know how to build communities with facilities for real people—the kind of people that the hon. Member for Cumbernauld and Kirkintilloch spoke about. We need long-term financial investment from the Government so that these schemes will be successful. Without it, we risk repeating some of the failures of the past.

We stand ready to work with this Government in a constructive way on their new towns programme, but only if it provides the financial investment that is needed so that it is a success and, crucially, so that existing towns do not lose out. It must commit to long-term investment over and above land value capture, so that local councillors and mayors are not left out in the cold, trying to promote these projects with one arm tied behind their back. Finally, the programme must recognise that, in a society under threat from climate change, environmental ambition needs to be at the forefront, learning from the very best of the garden city ideals.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

I call the shadow Minister.

Indices of Deprivation: England

Nusrat Ghani Excerpts

Thursday 18th December 2025 Commons Chamber

[Chris Webb]

I thank my hon. Friend for his kind words; I think we all know it across the parties in this House. We see it in our mailbags every week, in our casework and from the thousands and thousands of individuals who reach out to us for help when they have nowhere else to turn.

Aspiration is not the problem. In February, I hosted Blackpool’s biggest ever jobs fair, welcoming 4,000 jobseekers and over 100 employers, with more than 1,500 roles on offer. Five hundred positions were filled on the day and another 500 positions were filled later on. The indices highlight a lack of good jobs, not a lack of work ethic.

Meanwhile, the IoD’s education domain captures how disadvantage reproduces itself in Blackpool. Residents are concerned about access to quality education, SEND support, post-16 pathways, adult literacy, mental health in schools and workplaces, and the impact of deprivation on learning. These are the mechanisms by which neighbourhoods remain at the bottom of indices for generations.

This February, I will host my jobs fair again, with a sharper focus on career pathways and quality employment, showing what local employers, community partners and political will can achieve. But even with the greatest opportunities on our doorstep, residents are on the back foot from childhood, with disadvantaged school pupils falling furthest behind. Just over half of Blackpool pupils achieve expected standards at key stage 2. At GCSE, Blackpool’s average Attainment 8 score is among the lowest in the country.

Fewer than half our young people achieve a strong pass in English and maths, compared with nearly two thirds nationally.

The indices’ health deprivation and disability domain measures premature deaths, hospital admissions, disability and mental ill health. Some 58.5% of neighbourhoods in Blackpool fall within the 10% most deprived nationally on this measure. Men in Blackpool have the lowest life expectancy in England, with our current toddlers, my son included, not expected to reach the age of 74—a decade less than their peers in Hampshire. I am not going to let that stand.

Severe mental illness rates are shockingly high: in 2018-19, more than 500 people were admitted to hospital for intentional self-harm, and suicide rates among men were the second highest in the country. By 2022-23, Blackpool had the highest prevalence of GP-diagnosed depression in England, and 6,300 people are now claiming personal independence payment for psychiatric disorders—the highest level in Lancashire and in the top 10 nationally.

Health services are at breaking point, and there is a clear human impact—like there was for Jamie Pearson, who tragically took his own life in Blackpool hospital, after waiting nearly 24 hours in A&E during a mental health crisis. Every day I deal with constituents battling to access not only mental health support but a dentist, a GP or hospital care.

People turn to me when there is nowhere left to turn to—people like Steven, himself a mental health nurse, who contacted me after developing serious neurological symptoms. Despite repeated warnings, his first neurology appointment is scheduled for October 2026. This case of a frontline worker who wants to work and support our NHS, but is being failed by it, demonstrates how poor health, economic inactivity and deprivation reinforce one another.

The indices of deprivation crime domain shows that crime and antisocial behaviour are concentrated in areas of multiple deprivation. Similarly, a recent report by the Independent Commission on Neighbourhoods notes that crime persists in areas facing persistent poverty, under-investment and neglect. In such places, residents report concerns about antisocial behaviour, illegal drugs and safety, and feel less connected and optimistic—people like Chantelle, who endured two years of threats and antisocial behaviour in Bloomfield, a neighbourhood ranked 12th out of 33,755 neighbourhoods of the indices of deprivation. Despite repeated police involvement, she and her neighbours felt unsafe, but could not move because of financial barriers.

We also know what works. In Brunswick ward, which is within the ninth most deprived neighbourhood nationally, Blackpool’s multi-agency youth antisocial behaviour working group reduced youth-related incidents by 45% through targeted interventions, alongside the work of the brilliant PACT—police and communities together—meetings led by Brian Robinson. Scaling up that approach, with co-ordinated, cross-Government strategies and devolved funding, can make deprived neighbourhoods safer, stronger and more connected.

Perhaps the biggest problem that this Government could tackle to improve life for my constituents is housing, which directly impacts poverty, health, education, employment and so much more. The IOD’s barriers to housing and services domain captures affordability and access, while the living environment domain measures housing quality, air quality and road safety. More than one in four cases that my office handles relates to housing or the living environment, because poor housing and unhealthy environments reinforce disadvantage at every turn.

Blackpool council has done some good work building new council houses in areas such as Grange Park, where my grandparents, Dougie and Maggie, were some of the first to collect their keys when the post-war estate was built. Now, new generations of families have the same opportunity to have quality, secure homes, but we still have a huge shortage: a stock of only 5,000 social homes and 12,000 people on the waiting list. More than 20,000 households privately rent, many in properties well below standard, and thousands live in damp and unsafe conditions.

Chelsea was seven months pregnant when she was served with a section 21 notice. She could not raise a deposit for other private rentals, and her bid for social housing was unsuccessful. Saleem lost a leg and was forced into a care home, separated from his family for almost a year because there were no adapted homes available. Meanwhile, Tia and her two young children were placed in a B&B with no cooking facilities, where her baby’s health deteriorated. I see these situations every day.

Investment in homes and streets is not a luxury; it is the foundation for better lives, safer communities and opportunities. Recent Pride in Place funding offers hope but, as I told the Secretary of State just the other week, one scheme is not enough. Blackpool is suited to multiple, targeted, place-based interventions to address housing, the environment and opportunities. It is also exactly the kind of place that should have benefited from the Government’s new fair funding formula. Instead, the local government finance settlement will potentially harm some of the most deprived communities further.

My council also informs me that the new formula disproportionately penalises deprived northern and coastal towns. We need a fair, progressive new system if we are to radically change lives. I will work with the Department further in the run-up to February to see what more can be done.

Overall, 82% of neighbourhoods in the most deprived decile in 2025 were also there in 2019. Only a handful of constituencies have shifted position at either end of the scale. It is clear from these statistics that we must do something different to tackle entrenched deprivation. We must put our money where our mouth is with targeted, long-term, place-based investment, guided by the indices. Moving beyond short-term pots to multi-year investment, tied to measurable outcomes like better jobs, improved health, higher educational attainment and a narrowing of the life expectancy gap, is essential, and that must be done on a scale that meets the extent of the problem.

Blackpool has enormous pride and potential. Despite the challenges captured in the statistics, people in our town will not be defined by them. Our communities are strong, our young people are ambitious, and our organisations drive change every day. This spirit of resilience and determination is the foundation on which renewal can be built. With the right support, investment and political will, that local energy can be harnessed to transform opportunity, improve lives and rewrite the story of our town. The people of Blackpool are doing their bit and, by showing us where the need is greatest, the indices have done theirs; now the Government must do their bit, too. With enough political will, Blackpool does not have to be a poster child for deprivation; it can be the poster child for renewal. If the Government can turn around Blackpool, they can turn around the country, and if Blackpool succeeds, Britain succeeds.

I take this opportunity to thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, as well as Mr Speaker and the other Deputy Speakers, alongside all the staff in this place, but especially the staff in my office—Wendy, Holly, Antonia, Kate, Luke, Grace and Amber—for all their work. I wish all staff and all Members across this House a very merry Christmas and a happy new year.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

I second that. I call the Minister, whom it is good to see here, and not writing her new Christmas cards.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government (Miatta Fahnbulleh)]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool South (Chris Webb) for securing this important debate, for the eloquent and passionate way that he talks about the issues in Blackpool, and for the powerful way that he champions voices from his community. I concur completely that his community will never be forgotten by this Labour Government.

Coastal communities such as Blackpool are a vital part of our national identity, serving as a reminder of our national pride and shared maritime history. However, we know that behind these places lies another story, as my hon. Friend has rightly pointed out. The new indices of multiple deprivation show the challenges faced by all areas across the country, but particularly by coastal communities, which feature as a distinct category of concentrated deprivation in England. Blackpool features prominently in the new indices of deprivation, as my hon. Friend has demonstrated; seven of its areas are among the 10 most deprived neighbourhoods nationally. That is a sobering statistic that shines a spotlight on the issues that my hon. Friend has highlighted.

My Government are acutely aware of the multidimensional challenges that these communities face, and we are committed to doing our part to reverse them. The Government’s mission is to tackle inequality and unlock the full potential of all our communities, including those like Blackpool, to ensure that they play a vital role in our economy and our future, and so that they are not held back.

Through long-overdue reforms to the local government finance system, we will redirect around £2 billion of funding to places and communities that need it most, enabling councils to reliably deliver for their residents. Blackpool, for example, will see an 11% increase in its core spending power between 2025-26 and ’28-29, but we recognise that more needs to be done to reverse a decade and a half of under-investment in my hon. Friend’s community. We also recognise that delivery costs vary across the country, with deprivation, remoteness, variance in the ability to raise tax locally and the impact of commuters and tourists all affecting how hard it can be to deliver services in seaside towns like Blackpool. That is why we are committed to ensuring that these factors are accounted for in future funding allocations.

We are also delivering a wide range of programmes to address economic, social and health disparities across the country. Our £5 billion Pride in Place programme, which my hon. Friend spoke about, will deliver up to £20 million of funding and support over the next decade to 244 deprived communities. Little Layton and Little Carleton in Blackpool South will receive up to £20 million in funding over 10 years. Fleetwood town in Blackpool North and Fleetwood will also receive up to £20 million over the next 10 years. That funding will be used by each local community, based on its set priorities, to lift up the community, invest in regeneration plans and build community wealth.

Across the country, the Pride in Place programme will help communities improve cultural venues, health and wellbeing services, and local infrastructure. It will champion local leadership, foster community engagement and strengthen social cohesion. It will also give people agency, voice and power to drive the change they want to see in their places. We are also providing funding to Blackpool through our Pride in Place impact fund, which will provide £1.5 million of investment over the next two years to restore pride in place, support communities and stimulate local economic activity through visible, short-term, community-led improvements.

My hon. Friend raised the critical challenge of housing. He is right that good, decent housing is foundational; it is the rock on which people can build a life and get ahead. The Government understand the need to build more homes, and more social housing in particular. That is why we have outlined a plan to support the largest increase in social and affordable housing in a generation and transform the safety and quality of existing social homes. A new 10-year, £39-billion social and affordable homes programme has also been confirmed —the largest long-term investment in social housing in recent memory. That is an important first step, but we know that more needs to be done.

Tackling deprivation is the work of the whole Government. My Department will play its part, but it is an endeavour across every single Department, with a range of targeted measures across health, poverty, employment and antisocial behaviour. Over 1 million children will be lifted out of poverty as a result of the Government’s historic child poverty strategy, which tackles the root causes of poverty by cutting the cost of essentials, boosting family incomes and improving local services so that every child has the best start in life.

Funding has also been made available by the Department for Work and Pensions to support Blackpool residents who are struggling with rising living costs via the household support fund. That will support those vulnerable households in most need of help with the cost of living.

The Government are acutely aware of the crime and antisocial behaviour located in areas of multiple deprivation. On crime, we have committed to five core missions that seek to address some of the fundamental challenges that society will face over the next 10 years. The safer streets mission will tackle serious crime. It will halve violence against women and girls, halve knife crime, and restore confidence in policing and the criminal justice system. It is focused on addressing both harm and confidence in parallel by taking a whole-system approach. Tackling antisocial behaviour is at the heart of the mission. We are determined to rebuild confidence through investment in neighbourhood policing. We will also be at the forefront of the fight against antisocial behaviour.

On employment deprivation, which my hon. Friend talked about so eloquently, our “Get Britain Working” White Paper focuses on building a thriving labour market, reducing economic inactivity and increasing the number of people in work, which is central to growing the economy. Backed by £240 million of funding announced in the 2024 Budget, the White Paper sets out the biggest reforms to employment support for a generation.

The Government are absolutely committed to tackling entrenched health inequalities through targeted support for coastal communities. We understand and appreciate the specific challenges in our coastal communities, which is why the Coastal Navigators Network was launched by the NHS in 2024, in response to a report by the chief medical officer, to help tackle the acute health challenges facing coastal towns. It reflects the need to tailor our approach to the specific challenges of coastal communities, which can include poor transport and housing, economic decline and a high prevalence of residents with complex conditions.

We understand the acute challenges that our most deprived communities face—our coastal communities doubly so. We are taking significant steps to tackle deprivation in communities such as Blackpool, but we are open to hearing more ways in which we can play our part in supporting communities to grow, improve and thrive. I thank my hon. Friend once again for securing this debate; I look forward to hearing more from him and to working with him to ensure that we tackle the challenge of Blackpool. He is right: when Blackpool does well, the rest of the country is doing well. I look forward to hearing more when I visit in the new year.

Madam Deputy Speaker, I wish you and the rest of the House a very merry Christmas.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

For the final time this year, at the end of the final Adjournment debate of 2025, I shall put the Question that this House do now adjourn. Happy Christmas, everybody.

Question put and agreed to.

English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill

Nusrat Ghani Excerpts

Report stage
Tuesday 25th November 2025 Commons Chamber

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

Order. The time limit for speeches is now three minutes.

[Rachel Gilmour (Tiverton and Minehead) (LD)]

I will speak in favour of new clause 38, which I tabled. It seeks to introduce measures to prevent developers from using their own surveyors who have a vested interest in downgrading agricultural land in order to secure planning permission—particularly for solar farms—to build all over our countryside, taking farmers’ land and livelihoods.

The new clause was born out of a specific issue that was raised with me in my constituency. In Washford, a farmer called Mr Dibble—no kidding—has a farm in his family’s name. They have been there for generations. Some time ago, developers came to see him with a plan for development on the farm, and he refused. His lease is guaranteed for another generation, but the solar farm developers did not seem to care. He reached out to me because of the unfairness of the situation. I was shocked to find out that the developers had organised a surveyor to visit his property, who had deemed it sub-par agricultural land. Anyone with eyes can see that that is not the case. Farmer Dibble would not have been able to grow the crops that he has on that land had it been of the quality that the developers claimed it was. His land is grade 1 or 2 at the very least, yet surveyors are coming in, paid for by the developers, to say that—surprise, surprise—it is grade 3 at best.

At present, local authorities’ hands are tied. They have no powers to order independent assessments of land quality, nor the ability to pass judgment on the assessments made by others. My new clause seeks to give them that power. It also seeks to enshrine the employment of a land use framework for planning and development decisions. Along with many others in this place, I am sure, I am still waiting to hear the results of the land use framework consultation from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, but I hope that it follows the principles set out by my hon. Friend the Member for Taunton and Wellington (Gideon Amos). If a development is proposed for agricultural land that falls outside the land use framework and there are competing assessments of the agricultural grade of that land, then new clause 38 would give local authorities the power to demand that a new, independent assessment of land quality be undertaken. That would stop the railroading of farmers and help to preserve good agricultural land, rather than seeing it built over.

Our farmers are our future. I call on hon. Members to back new clause 38 and new clause 17, which has been tabled in the name of my party.

--- Later in debate ---

[Neil Duncan-Jordan]

I welcome the opportunity this debate offers to lift our eyes to the bigger picture of what a better, fairer country might look like. New clause 13 on the charter for community rights, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for North East Hertfordshire (Chris Hinchliff), does exactly that, and it represents the sort of change my constituents in Poole are crying out for. It rests on two simple, but transformative principles: first, that communities in England deserve a real say in the places where they live, with a legally enshrined right to challenge local decisions that shape their lives; and, secondly, that people should enjoy basic rights, including the right to a clean, healthy environment and the right to a decent home.

A legal right to a quality home in a healthy environment may not sound like a lot to ask in the sixth richest country in the world, but it is a million miles from the lived reality of so many of our constituents. Poor housing, alongside access to decent healthcare, stable incomes and healthy food, is one of the core social determinants of ill health. Enshrining the rights to a healthy environment and a quality home in law would support the kind of cross-government approach we urgently need to reduce health inequalities. Those rights can be seen in the same vein as the long-awaited socioeconomic duty, which requires public authorities to consider how their policies and decisions can reduce inequalities. Properly implemented, it could help address structured, avoidable disparities in housing and health. I urge the Government to introduce that duty as a matter of urgency.

A Labour Government must raise the bar: not simply building more housing, but building better homes in decent communities at a price that people can afford. That should be our legacy to future generations and it can start now.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

Colleagues who have contributed to the debate should be here for the wind-ups. That is a notice. I call the shadow Minister.

[David Simmonds]

I open by drawing the attention of the House to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. I hold some voluntary roles in local government. I place on record my particular thanks to my hon. Friends the Members for Hamble Valley (Paul Holmes) and for Broxbourne (Lewis Cocking), who served with such distinction on the Bill Committee.

Local government is the most efficient part of the public sector. It is uniquely democratically accountable among our public services. It is also uniquely financial constrained by the requirement for council budgets to balance in-year. We know that the average local authority delivers over 800 different services, which range from public health and child protection to housing the most vulnerable, trading standards, markets, parking and road maintenance. Councils empty the bins, recycle the waste, lend books and care for the elderly, but Governments rarely rise or fall based on what happens in the local government sector. It is not the most dramatic or glamorous part of our state, but day to day, as contributions from right hon. and hon. Members across the Chamber have reflected, it probably has the most important impact in our constituents’ lives.

As we heard in Committee, and as we have heard in the amendments and in this debate, our local government is under unprecedented pressure due to this Government’s poor decisions. On the track record of my party in office, we saw local authorities using their discretion but for the most part seeking to keep council tax low, with the additional revenue from projects such as the new homes bonus, council tax freeze grant and the approach to business rate grant being implemented to support local businesses and local communities.

Today, with few exceptions across the sector, we see local authorities facing the maximum possible council tax rises, the maximum possible business rate increases and the maximum possible increases in fees and charges, against a backdrop where housing delivery, supposedly the Government’s top priority, has collapsed, despite a legacy of 1.5 million new homes—their target for the whole of the Parliament—with planning permission already granted. All this green belt-grey belt nonsense, which has caused such concern and anxiety to Members and our constituents, is entirely irrelevant. They already have an entire Parliament’s supply of homes with planning consent ready to build. The jobs tax has left our local authorities worse off by £1.5 billion net. It has driven up the cost of almost every local government service, from the care of the elderly and vulnerable children to the day-to-day maintenance of our roads and our environment.

Tonight, what we have before us is this Government’s botched and incoherent restructuring, with no clear vision of what local government in England is even for. When we consider the matters that we will press to a Division, new clause 69 on election cancellations and new clause 80 on statutory notices are among a very extensive list of options. We have heard from one or two Members that the retention of the committee system was democratically approved locally. Although measures adopting the Opposition’s proposals on councillors’ addresses make some minor improvements to the Bill, the cancellation of local elections is a clear example of a mess of the Government’s making.We support our local colleagues in making the best of the very difficult set of decisions that they have to take. However, having been told by Ministers—as the Opposition did when in office—that elections to local authorities that were due to be abolished would be cancelled, that was not what the Government then did. They simply deferred those elections for 12 months, making the waste of taxpayers’ money and the concern of local residents even greater, while raising the prospect of a lack of accountability as this important process goes through.

--- Later in debate ---

[Miatta Fahnbulleh]

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read the Third time.

I am privileged to be able to open this Third Reading debate following constructive debates on Report. Let me first reiterate my thanks to Members on both sides of the House for their thoughtful contributions during the Bill’s passage.

The Bill cements the Government’s commitment to powering up our regions, rebuilding local government and empowering our communities, which is fundamental to achieving the changes that our constituents expect and deserve: better living standards, improved public services and politics being done with communities, not to them. This Government’s ambition is to bring power and decision making closer to the people who know their areas best. The Bill will truly empower residents to shape the places where they live and work, and from fixing our broken local audit system to empowering mayors to unlock the economic potential of their places, it will set local government on a firmer footing and enable local leaders to deliver a decade of national renewal. These changes are long overdue, and we are now taking ambitious action where previous Governments have failed.

I extend my thanks to everyone who has played a role in getting the Bill to this stage. I am particularly grateful to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government for his dedication and commitment to this agenda. I am also grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham West, Chadderton and Royton (Jim McMahon) for his leadership, and for the huge amount of work that he put into developing this impressive piece of legislation. I thank the Members on both sides of the House who scrutinised the Bill in such detail in Committee, and I thank the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner (David Simmonds), for his constructive and, for the most part, collaborative approach.

Let me also put on record my thanks to representatives of the wider local government sector, especially those who gave evidence earlier this year. They are critical actors in providing the frontline services that residents need and deserve, and, whether they are councillors, mayors, police and crime commissioners or third sector representatives, the House thanks them for their service. I hope that colleagues in the other place continue to take the same collaborative approach that has been taken in this House, and I wish Baroness Taylor of Stevenage the best with moving the Bill forward. I commend it to the House.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

I call the shadow Minister.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Ellie Chowns (North Herefordshire) (Green)]

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. The Prime Minister said something that was inaccurate during his statement on the G20 summit and Ukraine, when he wrongly said:

“The Green party…says that we should pull out of NATO”.

That is not correct. Our party policy explicitly says that we recognise that NATO, while imperfect and in need of reform, has an important role in ensuring the ability of member states to respond to threats to their security. We support the principle of international solidarity, whereby nations support one another through mutual defence alliances and multilateral security frameworks. Madam Deputy Speaker, what advice can you provide on the Prime Minister correcting the record?

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

I am grateful to the hon. Member for giving notice of her point of order. It is not a point of order for the Chair, but she has most definitely put her point on the record.