Local Government Reorganisation

Paul Holmes Excerpts

Thursday 18th December 2025 Commons Chamber

[Paul Holmes (Hamble Valley) (Con)]

I thank the Minister for advance sight of her statement. The question many will be asking out there today is: what does this Labour Government have against democracy? Only two days ago, when asked, the Secretary of State said that all local elections were going ahead. He either hid his decision until today or has changed his mind in the past 48 hours. Which was it?

Voters will now potentially be denied the right to elect their own representatives, and not for the first time under this Labour Government. This is the second year in a row that Ministers have scrambled to postpone elections. Now, while many people gather around their screens to watch movies like “How the Grinch Stole Christmas”, we are sitting here discussing how Labour is trying to steal the elections.

There is no mandate for the Government’s botched reorganisation plan, and they have behaved as the sole actor, forcing local council leaders to reorganise, with little regard for local people and their democratic rights. Has the Electoral Commission been consulted on these latest changes, or has it been ignored once again? Just as the Speaker’s Committee on the Electoral Commission noted when mayoral elections were previously cancelled, the commission exists to protect the integrity of our electoral system, but time and again the Government seem content to brush aside its advice when it becomes inconvenient.

Do the Government still believe in the Gould principle—the long-standing agreement that election rules and practices should not be changed within the six-month period of a scheduled election—or is that expendable whenever Labour finds itself politically vulnerable? The Opposition accept that there is a precedent for a single-year delay, but that is not what we face. Do the Government accept the clear advice of the Electoral Commission that further delays are unacceptable? It said that scheduled polls should be postponed only in exceptional circumstances —what are the exceptional circumstances in this case? We know the answer: Labour’s rushed, chaotic and flawed local government reorganisation plan. It is the Government’s fault, not local leaders’ fault.

Have the Government undertaken or commissioned any up-to-date research into the costs of restructuring? Again, we know the answer, and it is a resounding no. What assessment has been made of the paralysis that the restructuring risks causing in local plan preparations? At a time when the Government claim they want to speed up planning, how does freezing governance structures help? Will this disruption not make the Government’s beleaguered 1.5 million homes target even harder to achieve? What about social care? What assessment has been made of the impacts of breaking up counties on adult and children’s social care provision? The broader narrative is clear. Yes, some councils have expressed an interest in restructuring, but Labour’s process has been rushed and deeply flawed, local residents have not been properly consulted and this Labour Government have put a gun to the heads of local council leaders.

The Opposition support council leaders who have engaged with the process, such as Kevin Bentley, the leader of Essex county council, who has stated clearly in the public domain that he will not ask for elections to be delayed in Greater Essex. I am pleased to say that my authority, Hampshire county council, does not support the move, either.

In December 2024, the Conservatives set out several clear tests; Labour has failed every single one of them. Is this a genuine choice for councils and communities, or are councils being compelled and punished if they do not comply? Will they be more accountable as a result? Will this reorganisation keep council tax down and improve services or simply add new layers of cost? Will it avoid disruption to social care at a time of immense strain? On all counts, the answer is no.

Earlier this month, Labour cancelled mayoral elections because it was worried it would not win them. Now it is doing the same with local elections, pausing the democratic process to serve its own political interests, creating for itself a true nightmare before Christmas. The process has been a mess from start to finish. It is not wanted, not in Labour’s manifesto and centrally dictated. It should be scrapped today.

[Alison McGovern]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his response. I will do my best to respond to a couple of his substantive points. He said that the Opposition are supporting local leaders who are engaging in the process in good faith, and I thank him for that, despite his other comments where he indicated that perhaps his party is not supporting the move to towards unitary councils, which we know are more efficient and effective, as I said.

On the hon. Gentleman’s important point about the Electoral Commission, the Secretary of State will take that under advisement, and will take any issues raised seriously. As I mentioned, we want to take an approach that puts local insights first. He mentioned councils that do not support a delay. As I said, that is fine; there is no problem with that at all. We want to support local leaders through what we are doing.

The hon. Gentleman mentioned planning, which is extremely important, given the desperate need to build more homes; in fact, part of the motivation for moving to unitary authorities is to get that work done effectively and efficiently. He also asked about social care, which is an extremely important area. A lot of change is going on in social care, not least through the work in the Department for Health and Social Care on changing how NHS England works. I am working closely with colleagues in that Department on that, and I am happy to engage further with him on it.

The position on elections is as it has always been. The starting point remains that elections go ahead unless there is a strong justification for them not going ahead. Today, we are writing to local leaders who have raised concerns and made justifications to us, to ask them to set those out, so that an informed decision can be taken.

Housing Development: Cumulative Impacts

Paul Holmes Excerpts

Wednesday 17th December 2025 Westminster Hall

[Paul Holmes (Hamble Valley) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Twigg. I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds) on raising this important issue for debate today. He and I—as well as our hon. Friend the Member for Farnham and Bordon (Gregory Stafford) —represent stunning Hampshire constituencies, with renowned countryside walking routes and picturesque towns and villages. I still reckon I have the better deal, as my constituents have the “Costa del Hamble”, but I know that my right hon. Friend would definitely say the same about his patch.

May I briefly respond to something that the Liberal Democrat spokesman, the hon. Member for Taunton and Wellington (Gideon Amos), said? I do not know whether he planned it as an early Christmas present for me, but the hon. Member for Surrey Heath (Dr Pinkerton) walked in while he was speaking. That was a good thing to see.

My right hon. Friend the Member for East Hampshire has instilled in me a sense of déjà vu, which demonstrates the length of time that he has been campaigning on these issues for his constituency. We had a Westminster Hall debate before, and he is right that he cross-examined the Minister, who gave a very pithy response yesterday in the NPPF statement. I know that my right hon. Friend works very hard for his constituents, to make sure that he can get them the acquiescence that they seek from the Government.

I congratulate East Hampshire council on developing a local plan and, now, taking the responsible step of renewing it. That shows the kind of leadership that is needed. However, my right hon. Friend raised a number of important points, and I hope that the Minister will answer them. First, he asked about affordability, and about the rise in speculative development because of the lack of five-year housing supply, but the new targets have completely ripped up and undermined the plan-led approach to spatial planning, which the Government are rightly seeking and which I would argue forms the backbone of the planning system.

My hon. Friend the Member for Farnham and Bordon said that planning is a huge issue in his postbag. I, too, have that issue, and I suspect that Members from across the House who made brilliant speeches this afternoon also have that issue in their constituencies. It is love of our communities and respect for their unique characters that brought us all here to the Chamber today.

My right hon. Friend the Member for East Hampshire and I know that our constituents are not against building more homes in principle—there is a clear need to build many more houses up and down the country; that is a simple fact—but people are asking for the right houses to be built in the right places, and for community resources and infrastructure to be invested in to sustain a growing population, a point that my hon. Friend the Member for Farnham and Bordon made in his contribution. That is why it is so important that we properly assess the impacts of housing development. When multiple housing developments are lumped together, they overwhelm communities, stretch scarce resources and dilute the character of our towns. Over time, people begin to lose their vital sense of belonging and communities lose their identity.

The house building sector makes a substantial contribution to the economy. In 2023, new house building generated £53.3 billion in economic output across Great Britain, supporting hundreds of thousands of jobs in house building firms and their contractors, as well as the wider supply chain. But economic benefit depends on stability, confidence and deliverability, and an approach that relies on unrealistic targets, rising costs and declining affordability risks undermining the very industry the Government claim to champion.

The impacts of housing developments manifest in numerous key areas. One huge concern, which I receive countless emails about from my constituents—no doubt all Members present can say the same—is the environmental impact of housing developments. The Government had the chance to address such concerns through Lords amendments 38 and 40 to the Planning and Infrastructure Bill, which my Conservative colleagues in the other Chamber supported. However, the Government chose to ignore them, leaving unanswered questions about the environmental harm of their planning process.

We know and agree that ripping up the green belt is not the answer. Once the green belt is lost, it is lost forever, and that is why my Conservative colleagues and I have called for the swift redevelopment of brownfield sites, something that—to give the Minister credit—he did address yesterday in the NPPF update. The Campaign to Protect Rural England’s “State of Brownfield” report showed that we have more brownfield land now than in previous years. It highlighted that in a substantial number of local authorities, there is enough brownfield land with planning permission to meet the housing targets set by the Government’s standard method for calculating housing need for at least the next five years.

The Government’s plan for new homes disproportionately places the responsibility on rural communities to reach their target, as my right hon. Friend the Member for East Hampshire outlined. The 2024 reforms to the national planning policy framework, introducing mandatory housing targets and a new standard method for calculating local housing need, redistributed top-down housing targets to rural areas from urban areas by Government diktat. As my right hon. Friend outlined, East Hampshire council’s targets doubled, while London’s housing allocations were cut by 11%, Birmingham’s by 38% and Coventry’s by 55%. In Eastleigh in my constituency, which has already built more than is required, the allocation is up by 42%, and in Fareham in the other half of my constituency, it is up by 62%.

That is particularly concerning given that, as my right hon. Friend outlined, many younger people whom we want to achieve and get on the housing ladder want to live in metropolitan urban centres. I am pleased that the Government listened to the calls of the Conservative Opposition on the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill Committee. We called for an incentive for densification in urban centres; it was rejected by the Under-Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, the hon. Member for Peckham (Miatta Fahnbulleh), but now the Government have come forward with one, which we welcome.

The point that my right hon. Friend made is that Government regulations and Government legislation are competing against each other. I hope that the Minister will answer my right hon. Friend’s challenge. The new NPPF will designate and allow urban densification, but housing targets in rural areas have massively increased, acting as a competing objective. Which is more important—the NPPF or the housing targets? If housing in towns, in which it is much easier to regenerate and to increase housing numbers, is to be increased, housing targets cannot be uplifted greatly in rural areas but reduced in urban centres.

[Dr Al Pinkerton (Surrey Heath) (LD)]

In my constituency we have had a 113% increase in our housing targets. A seven-year land supply has now dropped to little over three and a half years, making us susceptible to the very speculative developments that the hon. Gentleman mentioned. Does he share my concern that in the circumstances in which speculative developments come forward, we lose the opportunity to plan strategically the infrastructure upgrades that a community needs, and each development brings only a small, incremental increase?

[Paul Holmes]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely correct. My right hon. Friend the Member for East Hampshire and my hon. Friend the Member for Farnham and Bordon made that point, I was about to make it, and the hon. Gentleman’s Liberal Democrat colleagues also made it, so there is universal acclaim for his claim, but it is also absolutely correct. I hope the Minister addresses that.

As the amount of housing increases, community infrastructure and resources must be expanded accordingly. That means more schools, GP surgeries, train and bus stations, hospitals, paved roads, bin collections and street lighting, to name just a few of the essentials. The list goes on and on; those are just some of the things we need to consider when looking at where to build. We must get better at prioritising those vital services, while recognising that not every development is right for the area it is proposed for.

We all know that under section 106 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990, as amended, local authorities can secure investment to fund new services and infrastructure in the local area, but the system is struggling to keep up with demand. Over a third of all section 106 agreements took longer than 12 months to finalise. Some 76% of local authorities reported an average timeline exceeding a year, and in over a third of councils it was over 500 days. In 2024-25, 45% of local planning authorities had agreements finalised that had taken over 1,000 days to complete. Dose the Minister agree that in order to unlock some of the housing that is needed, we need a simplified and standardised method for section 106 notices across the country? [Interruption.] He says yes from a sedentary position. I look forward to his affirming that in his comments shortly, but we would support that.

[John Milne]

I very much agree with what the hon. Gentleman is saying about the lack of infrastructure provision and with his previous comments on the failure to prioritise brownfield, but does he recognise that all those errors were inherent in the previous system under the Conservative Government? The problem is that they have not been corrected. They were always there, and that is why MPs across the country have been complaining.

[Paul Holmes]

I disagree with the hon. Gentleman slightly. I remember that in the last Parliament, under the Conservative Government, there absolutely was a commitment from Planning Ministers and Secretaries of State to prioritise brownfield development. That was announced during our time in government by the former Prime Minister but three, and by a number of Ministers in the MHCLG.

[Cameron Thomas]

How many was that?

[Paul Holmes]

Well, I believe the hon. Gentleman will have watched the news. I would be the first to acknowledge that we had quite a few in the last Parliament, but there absolutely was prioritisation of brownfield sites first. We prioritised building houses where they were needed, not where they were not.

What steps do the Government plan to take to protect rural communities feeling the adverse effects of increased housing development? If the Government are serious about building homes and maintaining public confidence in the planning system, they must take cumulative impacts seriously, plan infrastructure properly and ensure that developments work with communities, not against them—something that the Liberal Democrats and my party have been very clear will be removed by the Planning and Infrastructure Bill and the English devolution Bill.

I have been very clear about my concerns regarding the Government’s housing targets and the credibility of the 1.5 million homes ambition, which is now being questioned by a number of experts. If the Government are serious about supporting the house building sector and securing its economic benefits, they must ensure that housing delivery is realistic, properly planned and supported by the necessary infrastructure. Crucially, this requires a far greater focus on the cumulative impact of development so that growth is sustainable, communities are supported, and the long-term economic and social benefits of house building are not undermined.

Finally, Mr Twigg, I wish you, the Clerks and staff, the Minister, and even the Liberal Democrats a very merry Christmas and a happy new year.

Electoral Resilience

Paul Holmes Excerpts

Tuesday 16th December 2025 Commons Chamber

[Paul Holmes (Hamble Valley) (Con)]

I thank the Secretary of State for giving me advance sight of his statement. Let me begin by saying that protecting the integrity of our democratic system from foreign interference is not a partisan issue. It goes to the heart of public trust in our elections. Interference in our elections by foreign actors is something that we must all be vigilant against. I concur fully with what he said about Nathan Gill, and join the Secretary of State in giving sincere thanks to the CPS and the police. Any such crime deserves full condemnation from all Members of this House.

The Government announced their election strategy back in July, a strategy that affects all of us in this House. However, there was no consultation of political parties before the strategy was released. There has also been no formal consultation since it was announced. December marks the first time that the Government have engaged with the parliamentary parties panel. We do, however, welcome the announced independent review led by Philip Rycroft, and we wish him well in his work. Will the Minister commit to all parties being consulted during the new independent review’s work? Does he also accept the long-standing convention that Governments should not unilaterally impose changes to the law affecting political parties without proper consultation and cross-party engagement?

On electoral resilience, last week the Speaker’s Committee on the Electoral Commission noted that the commission was not consulted at all on the cancellation of the 2026 mayoral elections. Will the Secretary of State update us on whether council elections are going ahead, or will he cancel more elections at the last minute? Will he give electoral officials plenty of notice, whatever he chooses to do?

Delving into the Government’s statement, I note that the Government have signalled their intention to introduce “know your customer”-style checks on political donations, but political parties are not banks or the taxman. During the passage of the National Security Bill, the last Government committed to looking at greater powers for information sharing between relevant agencies and with political parties, precisely to identify irregular funding sources. Does the Secretary of State agree that such information sharing would help political parties to meet these new duties? I welcome the Secretary of State’s announcement on cryptocurrencies, and the clarity that they will be in scope of the independent review.

The Secretary of State is absolutely right to mention Russia. The last Government legislated for a foreign influence registration scheme to stop covert foreign influence. Can the Minister explain why the Government have repeatedly refused to extend the scheme to China? What reasons are there for leaving such a gap in our national security framework, and will China be included in the scope of the independent review? Unfortunately, that decision sits uneasily alongside the Government ramming through the planning application for the Chinese embassy. How is that meant to convince Members of this House that the Government take seriously foreign interference from all malign powers across the globe?

There are clear loopholes that the Government need to address. Loopholes created by the Scottish and Welsh Governments allow Chinese residents in Scotland and Wales to make donations to UK political parties and politicians. What steps are the Government taking to close those loopholes, and to ensure that safeguarding is consistent throughout the whole United Kingdom?

Finally, protecting our democracy requires transparent cross-party discussion. Centralised power that bends the knee to the Chinese does not have the United Kingdom’s national interests as a priority. The Secretary of State now has an opportunity to set the record straight, and reassure the House of this Government’s commitment to taking seriously foreign interference by any malign influence. I hope that the concerns I have outlined are directly addressed today.

[Steve Reed]

I warmly welcome the hon. Member’s support for the review. I agree with him that this is way above party politics; this matters to all of us. It is about the integrity and safety of our democracy, and about ensuring that the safeguards in place to protect those precious things are sufficiently robust.

On the election strategy and the Bill that will be brought forward in the new year, we will of course engage with parties on aspects of that Bill before it is brought to the House. The hon. Member asked about the elections that are scheduled to go ahead; they will go ahead. He asked about cryptocurrency. That will be in the scope of the review, and I expect the independent reviewer to take a view on the subject. It has been raised by Members in all parts of the House, but I am sure that the hon. Member and other Members of his party will want to make their views clear to the reviewer before he comes to his conclusions. Again, the review is fully independent, but I would expect China to be fully in scope because of the questions that have been raised about the threats that China poses to national security, which are well documented.

We will engage with the devolved Administrations on applying the independent review’s findings on matters relating to elections that are within their competency.

Quarries: Planning Policy

Paul Holmes Excerpts

Tuesday 16th December 2025 Westminster Hall

[Paul Holmes (Hamble Valley) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dr Murrison. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for South Leicestershire (Alberto Costa) on securing the debate, which is vital to me and my constituents.

Over the past six years, since being elected in 2019, I have been fighting against a proposal for an aggregate quarry down Hamble Lane in my constituency, which was recently given permission by the planning inspectorate on appeal. In the four minutes that I have to speak, I want to get across to the Minister that the planning system is fractured, disjointed and weighted against local communities. It does not take into account the true nature of quarries or the stuff that they produce; it does not take into account air quality or water run-off that will go into the River Hamble. The Planning Inspectorate is also culpable in not looking at regulations set down by locally elected planning authorities. In my case, it has been acknowledged in local planning authority notices that the Hamble Lane highway—which has one lane going in and out that 200 lorries a day will have to use—is already oversaturated and at capacity, and yet the minerals and waste authority has granted that permission.

We have a slightly strange process in Hamble that I want to outline briefly. As I said, we will have 200 lorries a day, but there has been a lack of consultation by Cemex, the company proposing the quarry. I will go as far as to say that Cemex are cowboys and bullies of local communities. There was not one physical consultation with people during covid, the company treats the community with utter disdain, and it treats the planning process as one of its personal toys that it can afford to challenge and manufacture. The Minister needs to be aware of that.

The quarry in Hamble is being proposed 50 metres from a primary school and 100 metres from a secondary school. That was not taken into account at all by the planning system. Physical highways data has not been taken account of since covid, but since then hundreds of houses have been built on Hamble Lane. That was not taken into account. Even more concerning is what happened after the regulatory committee of the minerals and waste authority refused the quarry: when 300 of my constituents turned up to attend the final meeting, the minerals and highways authority chose not to defend the reasons for refusal of democratically elected councillors without telling me or a single person in the community. That meant it went to an appeal.

My local residents group, the Hamble peninsula residents group, has done a fantastic job in raising funds to defend the appeal, but it was based on flawed data. At no time in my six years as an MP have I been consulted and no one on my local council—I have been working very closely with the Liberal Democrat administration on Eastleigh borough council—has been consulted. That is not good enough.

[Martin Wrigley (Newton Abbot) (LD)]

The hon. Member’s situation sounds very familiar to me. In my constituency, in the middle of Kingsteignton, we have a large clay quarry called Zitherixon, whose operators are trying to extend their permission for mining, even though it has been established for some 300 years and planning permissions are somewhat ancient. Does the hon. Member agree that, however the mining is permitted, whether by appeal or by planning some time ago, those doing it must be held to the most modern and best possible environmental and residential standards for local people?

[Paul Holmes]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely correct. His situation sounds very similar to mine. I do not blame the Minister, as she has inherited a system that has been in place for decades, but what confidence can local people have in maintaining high standards when they are not in the guidance? What confidence can local people have in challenging the impact of quarries if the democratic body that refused permission in the first place is overturned by an unelected inspector, with the rug pulled out from under the local authority?

Will the Minister commit to meet me to discuss the circumstances of this case? There is a clear democratic deficit in the way in which this has been granted. It was handled by officers who superseded locally elected councillors. We are going to seek a statutory review, but that is now at the cost of the local community. That is not good for local people. People feel absolutely let down in Hamble, as they do across the country. I would be grateful if the Minister would commit to meet me in the coming months to discuss this case specifically.

--- Later in debate ---

[Cat Smith (Lancaster and Wyre) (Lab)]

Thank you for squeezing me in, Dr Murrison. In the limited time that I have, I want to put on record that the experiences of my constituents in Preesall are echoed by communities right across the country, as we have heard in the debate. Preesall saw a proposal for a quarry to extract sand and gravel. Thankfully, we are in a similar situation to that of the hon. Member for Keighley and Ilkley (Robbie Moore), as the quarry application has been turned down, but we are now waiting to see whether the developer will appeal.

The community feels that it has all the necessary arguments on HGV movements on narrow country lanes and health data from the Over Wyre Medical Centre on the proportion of residents with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and asthma, who could be adversely affected. The proposed quarry site is within a kilometre of a primary school, and there is another school just 2 km away. We know that when children’s lungs are developing, they are more vulnerable to the kind of things that will be floating around in the atmosphere, with the potential health implications. The health issues combine with having HGVs on narrow country roads and the implications of unstable ground and an area historically associated with localised flooding.

[Paul Holmes]

It is actually worse than that, is it not? In my case, the quarry is 50 metres from a local school. Parents are already talking about taking their children out of two very successful schools, which adds to the pressure on communities and the associated infrastructure.

[Cat Smith]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for making that point—it does have an economic impact on the area. Preesall is located in a beautiful corner of Lancashire, with the Wyre estuary on one side and Morecambe bay on the other. Who will want to visit this beauty corner of Lancashire if the landscape is littered with quarries? It will have an impact on our tourism offer.

All in all, this issue is concerning to my local residents, and I want to put those concerns on record today. I thank the hon. Member for South Leicestershire (Alberto Costa); I know he has been pursuing this debate for a long time. When I supported his application to the Backbench Business Committee, I was unsure where my local application would end up. While I hope this is the end of it for my constituents, the reality is that we do not know. Current planning applications for quarries are not fit for purpose.

--- Later in debate ---

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

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dr Murrison. I thank the hon. Member for South Leicestershire (Alberto Costa) for securing the debate, his constituents for attending, and all hon. Members who have spoken. A number of hon. Members have raised concerns about the development of quarries and referred to specific planning applications in their constituencies. They will understand that I am unable to comment on specific cases, but I hope that the position I am about to set out will provide some reassurance.

I recognise that proposals for new or extended quarries are often controversial and unpopular locally. Once permitted, minerals extraction at individual sites can often take place over very many years, so if it is not planned for and managed in an appropriate manner, communities living nearby can be faced with the impacts associated with the development for a long time.

However, I want to reassure hon. Members that the planning system provides a robust framework to make sure that the impacts of minerals development are appropriately considered and addressed through both the plan-making and decision-making processes. Chapter 17 of the current NPPF sets out policies on facilitating the sustainable use of minerals to support that. In relation to plan making, the framework is clear that planning policy should

“set out criteria or requirements to ensure that permitted and proposed operations do not have unacceptable adverse impacts on the natural and historic environment or human health, taking into account the cumulative effects of multiple impacts from individual sites and/or a number of sites in a locality.”

[Paul Holmes]

Will the Minister give way on that point?

[Samantha Dixon]

If the hon. Gentleman does not mind, I will carry on.

In relation to decision making, the framework requires mineral planning authorities to

“ensure that there are no unacceptable adverse impacts on the natural and historic environment, human health or aviation safety”.

The cumulative effect of multiple impacts from individual sites or a number of sites in a locality should also be taken into account. Mineral planning authorities should also make sure that

“any unavoidable noise, dust and particle emissions and any blasting vibrations are controlled, mitigated or removed at source, and establish appropriate noise limits for extraction in proximity to noise sensitive properties”.

As well as policies specifically on minerals, the NPPF includes policies in relation to air quality, which was raised by the hon. Member for South Leicestershire, and pollution. They make it clear that both planning policies and decisions should contribute to and enhance the natural and local environment by preventing new and existing development from contributing to, being put at unacceptable risk from, or being adversely affected by, unacceptable levels of air pollution.

[Samantha Dixon]

If the hon. Gentleman does not mind, I will carry on with my speech.

The NPPF further states:

“Development should, wherever possible, help to improve local environmental conditions such as air and water quality…Planning policies and decisions should also ensure that new development is appropriate for its location taking into account the likely effects…of pollution on health, living conditions”—

[Paul Holmes]

Will the Minister give way on that point?

[Samantha Dixon]

I am not going to take any interventions.

The NPPF continues:

“and the natural environment, as well as the potential sensitivity of the site or the wider area to impacts that could arise from the development.”

That issue was raised by the hon. Member for Hamble Valley (Paul Holmes).

[Paul Holmes]

On a point of order, Dr Murrison. I am desperately sorry, and I am not usually this kind of politician, but a number of Members have raised specific issues and contributed lived experiences, which relate directly to what the Minister is saying, yet she is not giving way. I seek your advice on how we can interact with the Minister and get some answers from her.

[Dr Andrew Murrison (in the Chair)]

Whether the Minister gives way is not a matter for the Chair; it is a matter for the Minister.

--- Later in debate ---

[Samantha Dixon]

I refer to my earlier comments about the consultation due to be launched on the national planning policy framework, which I hope the CPRE and all local communities will participate in.

Restoration also offers the opportunity to enhance the environment. Possible uses of land, once minerals extraction is complete, include the creation of new habitats and biodiversity, and use for agriculture, forestry and recreational activities, such as surfing centres.

I conclude by once again thanking the hon. Member for South Leicestershire and other hon. Members for participating in this debate. I want to reassure them that the Government take planning policy for quarries and the concerns that they and others have raised very seriously. The hon. Member for South Leicestershire has set out a number of issues and put a number of questions to me—

[Paul Holmes]

Will the Minister give way briefly before she concludes?

[Samantha Dixon]

I will just finish my sentence. I would be most grateful if the hon. Member for South Leicestershire set out his specific concerns to me in writing, so that I can make sure that a response to every point he has raised is forthcoming. Similarly, I would encourage other Members to write to set out their concerns.

[Paul Holmes]

I thank the Minister for giving way. She will recall that in my speech I did not attack the Government at all, so I am not sure why her tone this morning is quite dismissive of other Members of Parliament. I think she should reflect on that. I asked specifically whether a Minister in the Department would meet with me about my case and she has not answered that. I wonder if she could, please.

[Samantha Dixon]

Dr Murrison, it is not my intention to offend anybody. I have previously referred to the concerns raised by the hon. Member for Hamble Valley. If he writes to me, I am sure his concerns can be addressed in the appropriate way.

The Government do take these issues seriously, as is reflected in our robust planning framework, which protects communities and the environment while enabling industry to get on with the job of providing the minerals that we need to build 1.5 million new homes and new infrastructure, and to support our growing economy.

Oxford to Cambridge Growth Corridor

Paul Holmes Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd December 2025 Westminster Hall

[Paul Holmes (Hamble Valley) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Jeremy. I congratulate the hon. Member for Cambridge (Daniel Zeichner) on securing this important debate on the Oxford-Cambridge growth corridor, an area of enormous potential, world-class institutions and a genuine capacity to drive innovation and national prosperity. He is a dedicated campaigner and champion for his constituency—he has been for a number of years—and that emanated from his speech this afternoon.

I would like to mention a few speeches from Members on both sides of the House who have spoken passionately on behalf of their constituencies. The first is my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Bedfordshire (Blake Stephenson), who gave us a wonderful tour of his constituency. I know that the Minister will take away, through officials, his plea for junction 13 of the M1 to be upgraded. We know that north Bedfordshire, like many areas in the community in which he serves, has had a huge expansion.

Whatever the hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire (Pippa Heylings) had for breakfast, I would like some too, because we had a very rapid constituency tour, quite rightly explaining to us why her constituency is special. She was right about the infrastructure needs, and particularly the nature and environmental concerns. Her party and mine have been very concerned about some of the retrograde steps that the Government have taken in terms of planning and infrastructure regarding nature and the environment.

The hon. Member for Oxford West and Abingdon (Layla Moran) quite rightly gave her view, as she is perfectly entitled to do, on local government reform. In this Chamber we actually heard a disagreement between two Members; I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Bedfordshire has strong concerns about LGR when it comes to a Milton Keynes–Bedfordshire–Luton mayor. That is something that we, again, are concerned about, where local authorities are being forced to reorganise come what may. Projects such as the one we are talking about today suffer as a result and come secondary to a needless reorganisation.

The Liberal Democrat spokesman, the hon. Member for Ely and East Cambridgeshire (Charlotte Cane), managed to bring up Brexit in this debate, which I was slightly surprised by. I am never astounded by the tenacity of the Liberal Democrats, even if it does make me wonder why “Democrats” is in their party’s name.

The Oxford-Cambridge growth corridor, sometimes called the Oxford-Cambridge arc, is not a new idea, as the hon. Member for Cambridge said. Its origins go back to the early 2000s when three regional development agencies came together with an ambition

“to create one of the most successful knowledge-based economies in Europe.”

That ambition was renewed in 2016 when the National Infrastructure Commission was tasked to consider how best to maximise the potential of what is indisputably one of the most exciting, knowledge-intensive economic clusters anywhere in the world. The facts speak for themselves. Within the arc, there are at least 10 major higher education institutions, including Cranfield University, with its world-leading strengths in aerospace and automotive engineering; the Open University; and of course the globally renowned universities of Oxford and Cambridge. Those are institutions that any country would be proud to host, yet this Government’s economic policies are stifling their progress, and the progress of the corridor project.

That is the crux of the problem: the Chancellor wrote, in her foreword to the Government’s policy paper on the Oxford-Cambridge growth corridor, that

“Economic growth is the number one mission of this government and remains at the heart of all we do.”

If this is what it looks like when growth is at the heart of what the Government do, I dread to imagine what they would do if they decided it was not a priority. That statement is not the experience of the institutions, businesses and local communities that work tirelessly to ensure that the corridor remains a leading hub of innovation, productivity and opportunity.

We know that the Chancellor believes that the corridor could add up to £78 billion to the UK economy and we agree, but that number becomes a reality only if the Government provide the environment, the confidence and the long-term stability that private investors need. Instead, they have hiked taxes, raised business rates and plunged the markets into uncertainty. The Government’s own announcements, dropped somewhat sporadically and often without clarity, speak to their confusion. In October, Ministers published a press release promising jobs, homes and better transport links across the corridor. We heard about water infrastructure investment, a proposed new town at Tempsford, £400 million of initial funding to kick-start development in Cambridge and £15 million for the University of Cambridge innovation hub.

All of those things sound encouraging, but this Government have become experts in making announcements while failing to deliver the underlying conditions that make delivery possible. They talk of homes but their housing targets will not be achieved. They talk of infrastructure but cannot secure long-term investment. They talk of growth but have presided over an economy with its growth revised downwards again and again, meaning that long-term problems will be incurred in the progress of this much-needed project. Before the 2024 election, the Chancellor told British people that she would raise taxes by £7 billion. Instead, at last year’s autumn Budget she raised them by £40 billion and at this year’s autumn Budget by another £26.6 billion.

Economic forecasters have not been fooled. Since the Chancellor took office, the Office for Budget Responsibility, the Bank of England, the International Monetary Fund and the CBI have all downgraded the UK’s growth prospects. The OBR’s growth forecast for 2026 fell from 1.9% to 1.4%; inflation, which stood at just 2.2% on election day, has risen to 3.8%; the unemployment rate has hit 5%; and the deficit is set to double by ’28-29. The UK now has the fastest rising tax burden in the G7. That does not encourage growth, business investment or the stability that businesses and organisations need to get this project off the ground.

In her 2025 Budget, the Chancellor invoked the Oxford-Cambridge growth corridor as an example of a long-term national priority, but what message does it send to the businesses, universities and investors of the corridor when the Government cannot even be transparent about their own growth projections? In this debate, speaker after speaker has rightly emphasised the immense economic, scientific and social value of this region, but potential alone is not enough. Potential needs partnership, consistent leadership and a Government who understand the scale of the opportunity, but everything emanating from the Government has made the aspirations for the corridor more difficult. That is why this debate matters.

This corridor is not just about the south-east or the east of England; it is important to the whole country. It is a showcase for the very best of British innovation, where research excellence meets commercial opportunity, where new technologies are born and where global investment sees a home. The Oxford-Cambridge growth corridor is a once-in-a-generation opportunity. With the right leadership it could drive economic growth, technological advancement and prosperity for decades to come.

Can the Minister tell us how the Government intend to give the corridor the long-term stability, investment confidence and strategic backing it urgently needs to realise its economic potential? Will he commit to setting out a clear, accountable plan for how the Government will support the institutions, businesses and communities of the growth corridor, so that they can contribute fully to the UK’s future growth, rather than being held back by uncertainty and delay?

Oral Answers to Questions

Paul Holmes Excerpts

Monday 24th November 2025 Commons Chamber

[Paul Holmes (Hamble Valley) (Con)]

The Secretary of State really needs to do better than that. With local government reform not being in the Labour party manifesto and with the Prime Minister last week refusing to rule out further cancellations of local elections, will the Secretary of State now rule out—not “intention” but rule out—cancelling the next local elections, yes or no?

[Steve Reed]

I am sure the hon. Member will be aware that consultations and engagement are going on with local authorities, but the Government’s intention is that all the elections scheduled for next May will go ahead next May.

[Paul Holmes]

Here we go again: it is the Secretary of State’s “intention”. I remind him that he actually leads his Department and can set the legislation going forward. He needs to accept that the uncertainty created by this Government in relation to local government reorganisation, on sizes and funding, has meant that leaders have scrambled to meet the ever-changing expectations, with no leadership from this Government. Will the Secretary of State put his money where his mouth is and support the Opposition’s amendment to the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill tomorrow that would ensure that local elections go ahead and that local leaders have the certainty they need?

[Steve Reed]

Perhaps to the Conservatives the word “consultation” means “diktat issued from the centre”, but to me it means listening carefully to the views of those who will be affected. My intention, and my preference, remains for the elections to go ahead on schedule.

English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill

Paul Holmes Excerpts

Report stage
Monday 24th November 2025 Commons Chamber

[Miatta Fahnbulleh]

We are very clear that the process of local government reorganisation should be driven by local areas. That is why we are going through a process in which local areas are coming up with proposals, and consulting constituent authorities and their communities. We will then make a decision based on those proposals.

It is very clear that this Bill is about devolution. Yes, there is a backstop power, but it is not one that we intend to use; it will be used only in extreme cases. The process of local government reorganisation is proceeding at the moment, and all areas in that process are engaging. Proposals are coming forward, and we will make decisions based on those proposals.

At the heart of the reorganisation is an objective: to have local authorities that are more sustainable and that can deliver for their local people. That is the central purpose of reorganisation, and it is something that we are absolutely committed to delivering.

[Paul Holmes (Hamble Valley) (Con)]

I echo the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Harwich and North Essex (Sir Bernard Jenkin). In Committee, the Minister outlined that she wants this process to be a happy one, but may I ask her to confirm one point on the Floor of the House? If local authorities do not wish to go through local government reorganisation, this Government will force them to do so, won’t they?

[Miatta Fahnbulleh]

The Opposition have some cheek to raise that point, because on their watch, local government was put under a huge amount of pressure. Reorganisation should have happened on their watch, but they ducked it; we are now gripping this issue and driving the change. We are not doing this for the fun of it, but because we are very clear that we need to deliver for local people. We need services that make sense and geographies that make sense—that can deliver the outcomes we want in places. We are going through a process, and all areas are engaging with that process in good faith. We will see their proposals, and my colleague in the Department will make a decision based on the criteria we have explicitly and transparently set out.

--- Later in debate ---

[Paul Holmes]

May I begin by welcoming the Minister to her place? We spent a long time together on the Bill Committee, working cross-party, along with many other Members on both sides of the House. They included the Statler and Waldorf of the Committee, the hon. Member for Camborne and Redruth (Perran Moon) and the hon. Member for Banbury (Sean Woodcock), whose heckling of me throughout the sittings was very welcome. [Hon. Members: “More!”] A number of Members are saying “More!” from a sedentary position.

The Minister was bombarded with what I would argue are excellent amendments tabled by Members from all parts of the House, but I think she has been taking a leaf from the book of her colleague the Minister for Housing and Planning. Much of her response to amendments tabled by me—and by the Greens, the Liberal Democrats and, indeed, some of her own colleagues who wanted to see movement from the Government—was that she would “reflect”. She would reflect in order to make the Bill better, and she would reflect on whether she could make it better by accepting amendments tabled by Members on both sides of the House. Instead, she has reflected on nothing. Instead, she has brought us a Bill to which she has tabled a small number of amendments that the Government want, but any other amendments tabled by other parties have been completely ignored.

Just to show how unprepared the Government were today, let me point out that most of the Committee stage was taken up with discussion of Government amendments, because this Bill from a Government who wanted to govern in the interests of the people was so riddled with holes that they spent most of the time discussing their own proposals, rather than those of the Opposition.

[Sir Bernard Jenkin]

Today the Government put forward 23 of their own amendments, which meant that the Minister allowed less than a minute for each one in her speech. That includes two new schedules. Moreover, we have still not seen a great deal of the regulation that will flow from the Bill, even in draft form. Is this Bill ready, in any way?

[Paul Holmes]

The answer is clearly no, because otherwise it would not have had as many holes as it had in Committee, and it would not have as many holes as it has today. If it were a Bill from a Government who genuinely sought cross-party co-operation on what could be a very exciting programme of devolution for local authorities and people throughout the country, the Minister and the Government would have looked more seriously at some of the excellent amendments and new clauses tabled by Members from all parts of the House, although not by the Minister’s own Back Benchers.

I am a big fan of the Minister, but when I intervened on her earlier, she showed some anger, which is not typical of her. She tried to object when I said that as a result of her local government reorganisation programme, councils across the country will be forced to reorganise, even if they do not want to. There is a backstop that the Minister said she did not want to use, but when she winds up the debate, I ask her to confirm what she refused to confirm in Committee—that if local authorities do not want to reorganise, she will force them to do so. It is about time the Government came clean about that, so that local authority leaders throughout the country know what they will have to deal with, and know that they will have a gun against their head and will be forced to reorganise, rather than getting on with delivering efficient services, as they try to daily.

[Dame Karen Bradley (Staffordshire Moorlands) (Con)]

May I add my support for my hon. Friend’s opposition to compulsory reorganisation, which local authorities simply do not want? The people of Staffordshire Moorlands do not want to be in a greater Stoke-on-Trent; they want to have their own say.

[Paul Holmes]

My right hon. Friend absolutely knows her constituency. We have tried to ensure, both today and in Committee, that local authority leaders can choose who they work with. They should not be forced to do things by a Minister behind a desk in Whitehall, but that is what this Minister and this Department are doing. It is shameful. It is not what Members on both sides of the House want, and it is not what local authority leaders want—and they know best. I ask the Minister to look at that compulsion again.

[Sir Bernard Jenkin]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Paul Holmes]

Very briefly.

[Sir Bernard Jenkin]

I am most grateful; my hon. Friend is being exceptionally generous.

I commend the Minister for being on top of her brief, but I did not have a chance to raise this question, which is directly relevant to the point that my hon. Friend is making. The regulations have not been written to show how the neighbourhood panels, or whatever they are called, will be created, but the Bill contains sweeping powers to direct how those neighbourhoods should be constructed. Does my hon. Friend agree that if we believe in devolution, this should be left to the local authorities to determine, rather than its being determined by Ministers?

[Paul Holmes]

My hon. Friend is entirely correct, and, indeed, in the Bill, there are plenty of other examples—which we discussed in Committee—of the Government not genuinely devolving to mayors, local authorities and combined authorities powers that they would actually quite like, but giving them the powers that they want them to have, while taking other powers away. That is not true devolution, and the Government should look again at delivering true devolution throughout the United Kingdom.

[Wendy Morton]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Paul Holmes]

Very briefly, but I must then make some progress.

[Wendy Morton]

Does my hon. Friend agree that this is more of an English centralisation and community disempowerment Bill?

[Paul Holmes]

My right hon. Friend tempts me; I agree with her wholeheartedly. It is crazy that the Government are embarked on one of the largest sets of planning reforms in the country at this time. Fair funding formulas are being announced, and many planning reforms have been announced over the past few months, but the authorities concerned are being abolished and, essentially, reorganised. The way that the Government have approached their reforming agenda is topsy-turvy, and they need to go back to the drawing board.

Far from creating clarity, the Bill piles new combined authorities, new mayoralties and new boards on top of already overlapping local councils. The Government are introducing complexity at a moment when the public want simplicity—clear lines of responsibility, not an ever-changing maze of institutions—and they are doing all this while fundamentally changing planning laws. Residents should be able to know, without needing a flowchart, who is responsible for transport, planning, regeneration or housing, but the Bill fails that basic test of good governance. As I have said, there is a plethora of reforms at different stages and in different bits of legislation.

Many—I would argue—very good amendments and new clauses have been tabled by my right hon. and hon. Friends, including new clause 39, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Gosport (Dame Caroline Dinenage), and new clause 48, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight East (Joe Robertson), which I moved in Committee, and which would allow a mayor to benefit from the true devolution that the Government have spoken about by being allowed regulatory responsibility for ferries. Both my hon. Friend and the hon. Member for Isle of Wight West (Mr Quigley) have signed that new clause. I brought the matter up in Committee, and, to her credit, the Minister committed to ensuring that the Department for Transport would have another look at establishing the body that my hon. Friend was promised; that, I believe, has not happened yet. New clause 48 would allow mayors to ensure that they were acting, in respect of transport connectivity, on behalf of the people who elected them. I do not see why the Government are resisting the new clause, because they have allowed mayors regulatory responsibility for many areas across the United Kingdom, and not only geographically.

The Isle of Wight, which is just to the side of my Hamble Valley constituency, is a special case because of the desperate access needs of those living there. They have relied on a service that is basically being run into the ground. It charges extortionately high fares, it often has cancellations, its equipment has not been updated for a very long time, and the company has just been sold. I ask the Minister to look at giving true powers of devolution to mayors once again. My hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight East will speak to his excellent new clause; I hope that the Minister will look at giving mayors true powers, on my hon. Friend’s behalf and on behalf of her hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight West. I hope that the Minister will also consider new clause 39, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Gosport, which would allow water taxi services to be regulated by a mayor.

The official Opposition tabled amendments 8, 16 and related amendments. They speak to a principle that should be absolutely fundamental to our system: changes to local governance should not be imposed from Whitehall without the consent of the councils and communities they affect. The amendments would remove the ability of the Secretary of State to create a combined authority or alter its composition without the agreement of the local authorities involved.

[Graham Stringer (Blackley and Middleton South) (Lab)]

Can the hon. Gentleman give an example of when a Conservative Government gave a veto to a local authority?

--- Later in debate ---

[Paul Holmes]

The last Conservative Government worked with local authorities to devolve responsibilities to them, but I can give the hon. Gentleman an example of when a Labour Government gave local people a veto on devolution: the former Deputy Prime Minister, Lord Prescott, asked people whether they wanted devolution. When they said no in the north of England, the Government dropped their plans. This Government are going forward with forcing devolution on local people, and are not even bothering to ask them. That is the difference between this Labour Government and the great Labour Governments of the past, which is why the hon. Gentleman should speak to his Minister. The last Labour Government was a very principled Government, led by principled politicians. Where are they? This Government certainly do not bother to ask local people about the devolution that they seek to impose on them.

Combined authorities are voluntary partnerships; they function effectively only when the constituent councils trust one another and have confidence in the structures in which they operate. If we grant the Secretary of State the unilateral power to reshape those structures, redraw governance arrangements or impose new members or functions without consent, we risk undermining that trust at its very foundation. Devolution cannot be delivered by coercion, and genuine partnership cannot be created by ministerial order.

It is worth remembering that combined authorities, unlike ordinary local authorities, do not arise organically; they exist because councils choose to work together, on terms they negotiate and agree among themselves. They are built on consent. If that consent is overridden or taken for granted, we risk destabilising the very institutions that we are trying to strengthen. That is not acceptable. This Bill, despite its lofty title, does remarkably little to empower the truly local level—the parishes, town councils, neighbourhood groups and civic institutions that understand their communities best. Instead, the Bill concentrates mayoral authority in the hands of regional leaders, who may be many miles away, both geographically and democratically, from the people affected by their decisions.

[Sir Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

My hon. Friend will be aware that the District Councils’ Network has been briefing Members on both sides of the House that if the Government go ahead and force these changes through, the very least they can do is to have district councils represented on the strategic authorities until all the changes have come to completion. Does he think that he might be able to persuade the Government to have that more limited aim?

[Paul Holmes]

My right hon. Friend and county neighbour is probably putting a bit too much faith in me. I have never been able to convince a Minister to change their mind and improve legislation, but he is absolutely right. [Interruption.] That time may come, says the hon. Member for Northampton South (Mike Reader). My right hon. Friend raises a very important issue: while district councils are in action and represent their local communities, they should have a place, because they know their areas best.

--- Later in debate ---

[Florence Eshalomi]

I thank the shadow Minister for discussing the issue of council tax, which I am sure he will agree is one of the most regressive forms of taxation. If he is honest, he will recognise that successive Governments have dodged this issue by placing it in the “too difficult” box, including during the last 14 years. Does he agree that maybe this is something that the previous Government should have looked at?

[Paul Holmes]

If I am proposing a new clause to limit the increases that mayors can bring forward, then yes, I am happy to look at that. That is why I have tabled new clause 2, and why I argue that the Government should look at it. I agree with the hon. Lady that council tax has for a very long time been used as a natural model to try to raise more money. I have been honest with her before in saying that Governments of different stripes have not put in a long-term, sustainable funding model that does not just rely on council tax increases, but I say to her gently—she does an excellent job as Chair of the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee—that the Government are making it worse. Allowing central mayors to have no limit on the amount by which they can increase council tax will just encourage them to put more of their responsibilities on to the balance sheet by increasing people’s taxes, and that is not a good thing. That is why we argue that this new clause is proportionate and principled, and offers the certainty that residents deserve.

New clause 4 seeks to ensure that ordinary householders who wish to extend their own homes for their own use are not unfairly burdened with the community infrastructure levy. The purpose of this new clause is clear and sensible. It would insert into the Planning Act 2008 a straightforward principle that CIL is not charged on householder extensions where the property remains the family’s own residence and the development is for personal use, not commercial gain. The Minister knows that we have brought this up before, and my right hon. Friend the Member for Godalming and Ash (Sir Jeremy Hunt) has long been campaigning for it. Too many local authorities across the UK are taking people for granted in charging CIL if people are just creating extensions. The Government, to their credit, and the Minister, to her credit, have said that they would do something about this, but there is no reason why she cannot back this new clause to enable what she has said she wishes to come true. If she cannot back it, I look to her to say in her winding-up speech, for certainty for the people affected by this, when the Government will bring forward measures to tackle what this new clause would do.

I will be very brief, Madam Deputy Speaker, on the last two amendments. Amendment 25 seeks to place clear, sensible and strategic priorities at the heart of the framework for mayoral development orders. It would ensure a rational, evidence-based approach, and does so by ensuring that development under MDOs is focused where it delivers the greatest public benefit—in areas of higher density, stronger transport accessibility and previously developed land.

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

I am grateful to the shadow Minister for giving way, especially as I missed the first few words of his speech—he can only imagine my disappointment. While promoting higher-density development near transport nodes makes a lot of sense, can he explain why subsection (3) of the proposed new section would require mayors to issue blanket planning permission for the development of all previously developed land, which includes all residential areas and, in some places, residential gardens? He has spent a lot of time talking about the rights of local councils, but this would take away their planning permission powers and mean issuing blanket planning permission by the mayor on all previously developed land.

[Paul Holmes]

Dare I say it, but I think the hon. Gentleman is probably being slightly naughty. We are trying to put into the legislation that we want to counter what this Government have been doing, which is to make it easier to build on rural areas where infrastructure is not deliverable, when we should be building first in town centres and high-density areas where most people in this country want to live, and that is why we will be supporting amendment 25.

Amendment 26 would place a simple, but vital restriction on mayoral development corporations: when they are designating land for development, they must not designate greenfield land unless there is no suitable previously developed land available. This principle has long commanded support across this House. Members on all sides, except for the Government, recognise that we must make the best possible use of brownfield land before contemplating the loss of undeveloped countryside.

Madam Deputy Speaker—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

Order. Mr Holmes, before you flick through any more pages, it is obviously very interesting to hear you speak, but over 25 Members are hoping to contribute.

[Paul Holmes]

The official Opposition have tabled other amendments, and I could speak about them all evening, Madam Deputy Speaker, but to reassure you, the officials in the Box and Members across this House, I will draw my remarks to a close.

We should not confuse amendments with progress, and we should not confuse this Bill with something that delivers true devolution. True devolution requires clarity, accountability and sustainability in funding, and this Bill offers none of those things. It is a patchwork of half-formed ideas, untested assumptions and powers handed out without the democratic scaffolding needed to hold them up. I believe in devolution done properly, but this does not do that. England deserves a coherent settlement, not a constitutional patchwork. Communities deserve real empowerment, not distant regional authorities replacing national ones. Taxpayers deserve accountability, not new structures that spend their money with little scrutiny. We urge the Government to look at this again and to accept the amendments I have outlined.

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

I call the Chair of the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Peter Bedford (Mid Leicestershire) (Con)]

Let me begin with the title of the Bill; it claims, perhaps optimistically, to empower communities. By the end of this debate, we will see whether the Government truly intend to empower them. Community empowerment matters. I believe that my constituents and the councillors who represent them are far better placed to make informed decisions about their area than bureaucrats sitting in Whitehall. Every amendment I have tabled seeks to do one thing: empower communities. If Labour Members truly believe the Government’s rhetoric and intentions, I hope that they will support those amendments today.

I will focus primarily on my amendment to introduce a statutory requirement for referendums ahead of local government reorganisation, but before I do, let me briefly highlight my proposal on cross-boundary planning. New clause 33 seeks to fix a flaw in the planning system. My constituency straddles three local planning authorities. Too often, councils place the housing that they are required to allocate right on their boundary, knowing full well that the impact on services and infrastructure will fall primarily on a neighbouring authority that has little power to do anything about it.

Now, I am not a nimby. I recognise the need for better, affordable homes, but the system encourages siloed thinking. It enables councils to tick off the list their obligation to deliver housing stock, while residents living on the boundaries bear the brunt. Introducing joint planning committees for developments within specific distances of neighbouring authorities would at least bring about a dialogue that is currently absent. I ask the Minister to look at this anomaly in the planning system, so that local communities are better empowered over decisions in their area.

Amendments 104 to 106 offer the greatest opportunity to empower communities. We know that the Government will press ahead with local government reorganisation, and I understand the motives behind that; there is too much waste, and often there is duplication, and this would be one way of reducing it. But if the Government want to take people with them, including my constituents, residents must have the final say on their preferred reorganised boundaries through local referendums.

This is of real importance to the villages that I represent in Mid Leicestershire, where there is immense concern about being absorbed into the greater Leicester city council area. Residents in Birstall and Anstey have told me of their concerns that if reorganisation takes place and they are placed within Leicester city, they will face higher council tax. I thought that we in this place believed in the principle of no taxation without representation. Meanwhile, residents in Braunstone Town and Leicester Forest East are visibly and immensely concerned about the sad decline of Leicester city over the last few decades. After years of mismanagement, they have no desire whatsoever to see the Leicester city mayor have influence in their communities.

My constituents in Glenfield and Kirby Muxloe know exactly why the mayor wishes to extend his boundaries. After declaring a housing crisis, it is obvious that he would look at sites such as the old Weston Park golf course in Glenfield to meet the city’s housing stock requirements. The city mayor knows full well that this would place the burden squarely on the villages, not the city.

In conclusion, I commend the Government’s stated intention of empowering communities and reducing waste in local government. However, they should accept the amendments that I have tabled.

[Paul Holmes]

My hon. Friend is giving a characteristically excellent speech. Does he find strange, as I do, the disjointed attitude that the Government have on referendums? The Government are happy to keep referendums for local authorities that want to change their internal structures, but when it comes to their forced local government reorganisation, they will not allow local authorities to have referendums—despite previous Labour Governments committing to them. What does my hon. Friend think about that?

[Mr Bedford]

My constituents are very concerned about that. It is a strange anomaly. In addition, under the current legislation, councils are required to hold referendums when they wish to increase council tax beyond a certain level, so it seems very strange that the Government will not empower local communities to hold a referendum when local boundaries are to be redrawn. In conclusion, let us empower our communities to decide their own destinies.

[Mike Reader (Northampton South) (Lab)]

I have to say, I had a great time on the Public Bill Committee. The Bill’s 400 pages were expertly navigated by the Minister, and our Whip, my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing Southall (Deirdre Costigan), did an absolutely brilliant job. She unfortunately is not here today, but I should put on record how well she kept us in check as the Conservatives goaded us.

I must be cross-party in my thanks and say that I was very impressed with the hon. Members for Hamble Valley (Paul Holmes) and for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner (David Simmonds). Their ability to string out the 10 seconds of what they needed say into about 10 minutes to keep the Bill going was exemplary, and we saw some of that today; the hon. Member for Hamble Valley was cut short by Madam Deputy Speaker.

[Paul Holmes]

May I politely say to the hon. Gentleman that if he carries on congratulating Whips like that, he will go far?

[Mike Reader]

Fantastic advice from a very experienced politician.

To continue with my cross-party support, I very much thank the hon. Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Vikki Slade), with whom I served on the armed forces parliamentary scheme. It was fascinating: no matter what the issue was, she always brought it back to local authorities. She wants to give a lot of power to these poor parish councils, and she spoke up so much for district and parish councils that we were told to stop intervening on her. I have 14 parish councils in my constituency, and I did ask them what they thought of the many Lib Dem proposals inviting them to engage in every single thing that a mayor may do, and overwhelmingly their view was, “Please leave us alone, and let us get on with doing what we are doing.” But I like the intention none the less.

I also want to mention the hon. Member for Brighton Pavilion (Siân Berry). Before the Bill Committee, I did not know that she was a London Assembly member, but boy, do I know now. The experience she brought from being on the London Assembly went a long way. It was a really good Committee, so I do not accept what the hon. Member for Hamble Valley said about there being no constructive engagement. The hon. Member for Brighton Pavilion tabled amendments that sought to change how the mayoralties that have been brought forward by the Government think about the environment. I see the intention behind new clause 29, and with a bit more refinement of the Bill in the Lords, we may get to something really strong that ensures there is an environmental responsibility on our new mayors.

I thank the Minister for acknowledging the work that I and others have done on lane rental schemes, covered by new clause 43. They are a great way to control roadworks and make sure that they are delivered efficiently. The schemes are not a penalty; they are an incentive to make sure that utilities companies work in a way that minimises disruption. Where the companies do not perform, the money goes towards fixing more potholes and sorting out more roads. I particularly thank two of the big industry bodies, Clive Bairsto from Street Works UK and David Capon from the Highway Authorities and Utilities Committee UK. They supported me in my work on this.

I also pay tribute to our brilliant Transport Committee. The Chair, my hon. Friend the Member for Brentford and Isleworth (Ruth Cadbury), is no longer in her place, but she did fantastic work on the Bill. It really goes to show that when we work collaboratively across the House, through Committees and through Government, we can make changes to legislation that make people’s lives better. If we can say nothing else about this Bill than that we have made sure that there are less roadworks and more potholes filled, I am sure all of our constituents will be quite happy.

The Minister and I have engaged quite heavily on upward-only rent reviews. I thank her for being constructive in her consideration of my challenge on how the Government have approached this. I repeat what I said on Second Reading and in Committee: the intention of the Bill is to protect the high streets. Even after amendment, the way the Bill is written means that it potentially impacts the whole of the commercial sector.

The UK is really fortunate to have a buoyant commercial property market, with double the investment seen in France and 50% more than in Germany. However, there is a real risk that the uncertainty caused by not putting a ringfence around how the upward-only rent review ban is to be brought forward will stifle investment. It could stop investment in data centres—a big data centre was announced for my constituency by the Government just last week—warehousing, which is critical to my constituents, as about one in five of them work in warehousing and logistics, new hospitals, healthcare and commercial offices—you name it. As we heard in evidence to the Bill Committee, we need to see more from the Government. Will the Minister confirm that before any ban is brought in, we will see a full consultation on the proposals? Off the back of that consultation, will restrictions be put in place, so that we do not see unintended consequences that stop the growth that our country desperately needs?

I said that I would talk to new clause 29. I thank the hon. Member for Brighton Pavilion for her tenacity. We met, and she explained that the Greens have to be selective about which Committees they join, owing to their small level of representation. She argued well for mayors to have more responsibility for air quality, environment and the like. It is really positive that the Government have already brought forward changes to that effect, and I am sure that the Minister will confirm that she will work with Members in the other place to bring forward further amendments to the Bill in due course, so that that is really well cemented and mayors do have the responsibility to protect our environment.

On some days, Northampton has worse air quality than London, Birmingham and many other towns and cities across the UK. Where I live in Northampton town centre, the effect of poor air quality is equivalent to that of smoking 80 cigarettes a year, so anything we can do to improve air quality in my town and across the country is critical.

--- Later in debate ---

[Manuela Perteghella (Stratford-on-Avon) (LD)]

I will speak to the amendments tabled by me and Liberal Democrat colleagues, particularly new clause 5 and amendment 27. If the Bill is to deliver meaningful and real devolution, it must involve the people who live with the decisions made by mayors and combined authorities. However, too much of the Bill as drafted keeps power in the hands of the Secretary of State or a small group around the mayor, with little scrutiny. Amendments tabled by the Liberal Democrats, such as amendment 85, seek to put that right.

New clause 5, which I tabled, would place a clear duty on mayors to meet regularly with local councils, public service partners and, importantly, town and parish councils. In my rural constituency of Stratford-on-Avon, those councils are the closest form of local government. Rooted in their communities, they play a vital role in delivering services and supporting communities, and they have a depth of local knowledge that no regional authority could replicate. Requiring structured engagement would ensure that decisions are shaped by those who understand their communities best. What is currently a discretionary power to convene would become a mandatory obligation, ensuring that parish and town councils were explicitly recognised as part of the framework. Those councils, which will inherit assets from district councils when they are abolished, are indispensable partners for combined authorities and mayors, offering direct insight into local issues. New clause 5 would establish a structured forum for dialogue between mayors, councils and public service providers, ensuring co-ordination on shared priorities and improving co-operation across the region.

[Paul Holmes]

The hon. Lady made a number of excellent contributions in Committee. She will know that my party supported some of her amendments, and she has our support for what she has been doing. Is she concerned, as I am, that as the Government are pushing forward with local government reorganisation, while many more town and parish councils will be taking on assets from district councils and having a greater role in communities, they are being completely sidelined by the Government’s actions? Will she elaborate on what she thinks that might mean?

[Manuela Perteghella]

I thank the hon. Member for his support in Committee. We know that two-tier governments —district councils in the shires in particular—will be abolished, and town and parish councils will have to take on more assets and deliver even more services. However, as I said in Committee, the voice of town and parish councils is completely absent from the Bill. At present, decision making at regional level often feels remote from the communities it serves. Given the significant powers that mayors hold over transport, housing, skills and regeneration, it is imperative that local councils and community representatives are consistently engaged rather than consulted only at a mayor’s discretion.

Fundamentally, this measure reflects the very purpose of devolution: to bring power and decision making closer to the people whose lives are directly affected. It is a simple, practical step that would not require additional funding or alter existing powers but would deliver better communication, co-ordination and community engagement.

This also links to wider concerns about governance and geography. In Warwickshire, there is a strong case for two new unitaries for the north and south of the county, rather than one large super-unitary. Analysis has shown that the two-unitary model performs better in Warwickshire than a single county-wide authority, and public support is clear, with 73% of residents of south Warwickshire favouring two councils. Several Liberal Democrat amendments on today’s paper, including those I have tabled, would work to safeguard proper local engagement in any future devolution arrangements.

The Bill empowers local and strategic authorities to encourage visitors, yet it contains no statutory requirement to involve town and parish councils in this process. My amendment 27 goes to the heart of the need for our strategic authorities to work with places they represent. Tourism is not a side issue for Stratford-on-Avon; it is central to our local economy, our cultural life and our international reputation. Stratford town council plays a leading role in major events such as the Shakespeare birthday celebrations, which bring visitors from across the world, demonstrating the vital contribution of town councils to cultural exchange and soft power, yet the Bill includes no duty for any new strategic authority to engage town and parish councils when shaping tourism plans. That is a real risk for a place such as Stratford, which has so much to offer but depends on constructive partnership to keep thriving.

Amendment 27 would put that duty in law and require a published record of engagement, so that towns in my constituency are not overlooked in regional strategies. Taken together, these measures give local communities a genuine voice in tourism planning. Town and parish councils know their areas best: the attractions, the infrastructure needs and the opportunities for growth. This amendment also promotes inclusive planning. Too often, small towns, villages and rural areas are overlooked in broader strategies despite their vital contribution to the economy. By embedding their perspectives, we will support equitable growth across both urban and rural areas. In short, these amendments are practical, transparent and community focused. They would strengthen devolution by ensuring that local voices were heard, respected and reflected in tourism policy, thereby delivering strategies that are both effective and rooted in the communities they serve.

Briefly, new clause 74, submitted by my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Vikki Slade), would be an important addition to the Bill to give local areas the ability to limit and regulate junk food advertising in their communities. The new clause would make a positive impact on health, especially that of our young people. If the Government truly want devolution to succeed, they should accept these proposals, along with the wider set of amendments tabled by my Liberal Democrat colleagues.

--- Later in debate ---

We can bring council housing back to parts of North Staffordshire where it has been absent for many years. It is about community right to buy, and it is about seizing growth and economic potential, and working with partners in a more collaborative and meaningful way across a bigger canvas, delivering the opportunities that our young people want and need. It is about seizing a once-in-a-generation opportunity to reform key public services and ensure that they remain, or become, fit for the 21st century. To all in North Staffordshire and Staffordshire county, no more with this, “No to Stoke”—it is demeaning and unfair.

[Paul Holmes]

I am slightly disappointed with the tone the hon. Lady is taking. If we are talking about devolution in a devolution debate, she should respect the right of an hon. Member elected by their constituents, and of councillors elected by local people, to say they do not want local government reorganisation. Why is she supporting a gun-to-the-head mentality when local authority leaders do not want to go through with it?

[Dr Gardner]

I reject the emotive use of terms like “gun to the head”. The Stoke-on-Trent city council and Staffordshire Moorlands district council proposals on LGR have been approved, and they are the democratically elected councils for those areas. The wider Staffordshire county council, which is now under Reform, had one proposal out of the blue, and now does not want reorganisation either; it is chaotic.

We cannot keep having this. This is something that will happen, and I say to my constituents, “This is going to happen, so we need to make it work for us.” I need people to start saying yes to the opportunity, yes to growth and yes to the future.

[Lewis Cocking (Broxbourne) (Con)]

I support several new clauses and amendments to the Bill, but, frankly, I am fundamentally opposed to the changes it would impose on our constituents. That is why amendments 104 to 106 are so important, as well as new clause 1, which is due to be discussed tomorrow.

Before strategic authorities or any other new bodies are created, the amendments would ensure that local people have the power to decide the future in their area. In Committee, the Minister for Devolution used some very creative language to ensure that councils were not being forced into reorganisation. The Minister spoke of “inviting councils” and “having a conversation” with residents, but that is doublespeak. If the Government really wanted to give councils and local people a proper say, they would pass these amendments, but I fear they will not. That refusal strikes at the heart of the contradiction of devolution.

There have been lots of warm words from the Government about giving people a stake in the place where they live and in their life and transferring power out of Westminster. But this Bill, and what we are already seeing in the priority areas, keeps real decisions with Ministers and civil servants in Whitehall. In Surrey, which has already been mentioned by the hon. Member for Guildford (Zöe Franklin), we have seen the Secretary of State decree at the stroke of a pen that there will be two new unitary authorities, probably with a strategic authority on top of that, rather than three unitaries, which most councils have supported.

For all the talk from this Labour Government about a bottom-up process, it is clear that no matter what existing councils decide following extensive public consultations such as we have had in Hertfordshire, new local government structures will be whatever best suits the Minister and civil servants in Whitehall.

[Paul Holmes]

My hon. Friend made a number of excellent contributions in Bill Committee. Is he concerned, as I am, that the Minister consistently said that there would be consultation and that this would be up to local people and councillors, but at every stage the backstop was mentioned and the Minister said that this would go ahead anyway? There is no choice in this reorganisation. Does he agree that the Government need to look again and listen to local people who disagree with what is happening to their councils, and who know their areas best?

[Lewis Cocking]

I thank my hon. Friend for all the work he has done on the Floor of the House putting forward our case on where the Government have got it wrong on devolution. He raised an important point about the Government having instructed local councils to come up with proposals for devolution and unitarisation. There has been no choice in that, as I know from speaking to my fantastic councillors at Broxbourne council, which is Conservative led under Councillor Corina Gander. She does not want to reorganise, does not want devolution and does not want it forced on the areas that she and I represent. When I go out on the doorstep, no one has ever said to me, “You know what, Lewis? This is what we need to do in our area—we need to reorganise. We need to have an elected mayor, a strategic authority and a new massive unitary council representing up to half a million people.” No one has ever raised that with me on the doorstep, and it just goes to show that this Government are not listening to the priorities of the British people.

[Paul Holmes]

I thank my hon. Friend for giving way once more; I hope he forgives me. Has the council leader he mentioned given that feedback to Government on the fact that they do not want reorganisation, and what answers were given to them?

[Lewis Cocking]

The council leader has fed that back to Government and the answer has been, “Tough—get on with it. This is what we are doing, and this is what we propose to happen. You have to come up with a proposal that you think works in your area, regardless of whether you want to do it.” I have spoken to many councils and council leaders across the country, and that is the message they have given us loud and clear, and that is the message I have received locally from my local council leader.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lewis Cocking]

My hon. Friend is a passionate advocate for his constituents. We had a long discussion about that issue in Committee. I completely agree that “Isle of Wight” should be in the name of that combined mayoral authority. The Isle of Wight has a good local identity. It is important, when we create these new strategic authorities, that we take local people with us. We will not take the people of the Isle of Wight with us if we do not include such a significant community in the name of that combined authority.

[Paul Holmes]

rose—

[Lewis Cocking]

As he is a Hampshire MP, I will give way to the shadow Minister.

[Paul Holmes]

I thank my hon. Friend for giving way once again. My hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight East (Joe Robertson) will be pleased to note that we raised that matter in Committee, but our arguments were resisted by the Government.

In relation to the assertion of the hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Danny Beales) that we are not concerned about the functions of devolution, does my hon. Friend the Member for Broxbourne (Lewis Cocking) recall that we pressed a number of amendments, including on the devolution of transport regulations—powers that the Bill does not hand down to mayors—but they were resisted by the Government? That assertion is just not correct, is it?

[Lewis Cocking]

I agree. We tabled a number of constructive amendments in Committee, and we worked across parties, with Members of all stripes, to improve the Bill and get these powers out into the community, where they can best be used. As my hon. Friend quite rightly points out, the Government would not even listen to logical arguments about how the Bill could empower local communities. As I have said, “community empowerment” might be in the Bill’s name, but it is not what is in the Bill.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lewis Cocking]

I was talking about the physical aspects of the transport currently in place, and the transport in Hertfordshire makes it very difficult for such interlinking services. The hon. Lady makes an interesting point around shared services of councils. The Government have said on a number of occasions that they have brought forward this community empowerment Bill and devolution in order to make councils more efficient and save loads of money. I do not believe it will save lots of money, for the reasons the hon. Lady has rightly pointed out: many councils already have those shared services. There are lots of councils with shared planning departments or shared audit, and indeed combined authorities also have shared back-office functions.

[Paul Holmes]

One of the other issues we were concerned about on the Bill Committee was the fact that the Government have not given any indication of what will be happening with debt in the context of local government reform. Does my hon. Friend agree that that adds to uncertainty in the progress of this Bill and does not give any certainty to local government leaders?

[Lewis Cocking]

I completely agree with my hon. Friend. The Government must come forward on that, as we are yet to hear solutions for councils with large amounts of debt. Councils are being forced into reorganisation and to have conversations about who they want to be joined with, but some of them have no choice, because it is a matter of geography, and sometimes they might not be able to join with the partners with which they have strategic and shared services.

In summary—

--- Later in debate ---

[Perran Moon]

What we are looking for is not necessarily the creation of a Cornish assembly, but to ensure—I will come on to this a little later in my speech—that the established, mature unitary authority has the powers of a mayoral combined authority. If we look at what we have done at Cornwall council over the past few years, we have managed tens of millions of pounds of economic development funding incredibly effectively, first through objective 1 funding and then through shared prosperity funding. We have created our own housing development company that manages and creates housing across Cornwall. We have been successful in recent years in creating housing across Cornwall. The council manages the cultural identity and the promotion of the Cornish language across Cornwall. I am not necessarily looking for an assembly—frankly, I do not care what the body is called—but for the powers to come back to our primary body, which is Cornwall council.

Cornwall is a large and stable unitary authority. It is the largest in geography, as I mentioned to my hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Danny Beales), and the third largest by population. Cornwall must be treated as a single strategic authority with the powers of a mayoral combined authority. In 2022, the advisory committee of the Council of Europe called on the Government to

“devolve the appropriate powers to Cornwall Council to ensure effective implementation of the Framework Convention at local level”.

It also called on the Government of the time

“to work with Cornwall Council to address the housing crisis affecting persons belonging to the Cornish national minority, and to collaborate with devolved administrations to tackle this problem in areas of concern.”

Our Government’s support for Cornish national minority status was made clear by the Prime Minister at the Dispatch Box on 5 March, when he said:

“We do recognise Cornish national minority status—not just the proud language, history and culture of Cornwall, but its bright future.”—[Official Report, 5 March 2025; Vol. 763, c. 278.]

Similarly, on 19 November he said:

“We will ensure that Cornwall’s national minority status is safeguarded in any future devolution arrangements.”—[Official Report, 19 November 2025; Vol. 775, c. 776.]

However, the Bill does the opposite.

[Paul Holmes]

The hon. Gentleman is making an excellent speech on behalf of his constituents. He will remember that, in Committee, members of my party tabled amendments to try to protect the integrity of Cornwall. He said then that a Minister had given him assurances on the place of Cornwall, but his tone has changed distinctly. Can he tell us whether he was satisfied with those assurances, or, indeed, whether he received them at all?

[Perran Moon]

I was given assurances that conversations with Ministers would continue, and they have continued. I will say more about that a little later. Now, though, I have to say that I find it disappointing that a party I love could produce a Bill that ignores the wishes of Cornwall and what national minority status actually means. To those who mock, disparage and denigrate Cornwall’s constitutional position on this island, I say, “If you try to ensnare us in an unholy alliance with a part of England, that will rebound negatively.” The impact and consequences of an unamended Bill would be felt across Cornwall for decades—perhaps for 50 years, as my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent South (Dr Gardner) suggested earlier. The relationship with Westminster would decline, and the current simmering resentment and disillusion would be baked in. Regrettably, it will not surprise me if the calls for full fifth-nation status for Cornwall simply grow if the Bill is passed unamended.

--- Later in debate ---

There is an opportunity for Government here. I understand why Governments of any political colour would not want to step in and create regulation if they could avoid it, largely because they would then have to administer it; they would have an obligation through the Department for Transport, for example, to manage the regulation they created. There is a golden opportunity here to create the regulation and hand it over to devolved mayoral authorities to manage in the interests of the communities they represent; in my example, the Government have the opportunity to create regulation for the ferry operators, and to devolve that regulation and that power downwards to local authorities. Ferry operators that operate across the Solent would have to account for themselves to the Mayor for Hampshire and the Solent, while ferry operators that operated elsewhere in the United Kingdom would have to account to their locally and democratically elected mayors.

[Paul Holmes]

My hon. Friend is giving a characteristically modest speech, given how much he has campaigned on this matter for his constituents, and is being very moderate about the aims and ambitions of the Government. It is a clear stated aim of this Government that local people should be able to demand local regulation and services, and powers for use by mayors. My hon. Friend will know that the local Conservative mayoral candidate, Donna Jones, has actually asked for these powers; if she is elected mayor, she would like to use them. Does that not provide a greater incentive for us to work together to ensure that the Government can give those powers to the new mayoralty?

[Joe Robertson]

It absolutely does provide that incentive. I thank the shadow Minister for remarking on my tone; I have always tried to work with the Government on this matter. I acknowledge again that this is more than a campaign—it is a core issue for my constituents, and for constituents on the other side of the island that I share with the hon. Member for Isle of Wight West. Indeed, we are working jointly on it.

The measure would achieve unity around the idea of a mayor having responsibility for integrated transport locally. After all, local transport powers are a key plank of the Government’s plans for devolution. However, when the Government consulted my constituents—among the wider residents of Hampshire and the Isle of Wight—on transport, the consultation document that they put out to spark debate and consultation returns devoted 1,000 words to transport for Hampshire and the Isle of Wight on trains, buses, taxis, pavements, cycling and walking, but it did not include ferries or any mention of crossing the Solent, which every single one of my constituents needs to do at some point to access health services and educational opportunities that are not provided on the island, and to access employment and see friends and family, as everyone on the UK mainland would expect to do. I remind the House that in order to do those routine daily things, my constituents are reliant on the private equity groups that own and control ferry companies, and that have no obligation whatsoever to the residents of the Isle of Wight. They have no democratic accountability at all, and no responsibility to Government.

--- Later in debate ---

[Miatta Fahnbulleh]

With the leave of the House, I will respond to the debate. I thank Members from across the House for their thoughtful, robust and, at times, rather lengthy contributions to the debate.

The hon. Member for Hamble Valley (Paul Holmes) asked if the Bill is ready—absolutely, the Bill is ready. What we are doing is exactly what he accuses us of not doing: we are listening, responding to the scrutiny we received in Committee in interventions on the Minister for Housing and Planning, my hon. Friend the Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Matthew Pennycook), and making amendments where we think they make sense. That is the way in which we think that we should drive through legislation, but we are clear about the core premise of the Bill.

The hon. Members for Hamble Valley, for Broxbourne (Lewis Cocking) and for Guildford (Zöe Franklin) all played around the theme that this is a centralising Bill that is looking to impose on places. I categorically reject that. The Bill will implement the biggest transfer of power that we have seen for a generation, which is something that the Conservatives did not do in 14 years. Let us take the example of local government reorganisation, which was raised by Members from across the House. This is a bottom-up, local-led process, where places have come up with proposals—[Interruption.] The proposals have come from places where there has been consultation with constituent authorities and local people. We are then judging the proposals that have been submitted against clear, transparent criteria that we have published.

Candidly, Conservative Members have some cheek asking us to retain the status quo—[Interruption.] The hon. Member for Hamble Valley says that he has two cheeks, but this is a serious matter. Frankly, we are not doing this reorganisation for fun, but because the Conservatives failed to grip the situation for 14 years. They under-invested in local government and stripped out capacity, so we now need to do the job of reforming local government so that it is fit for purpose and can deliver the local services that people across our country want to see.

[Paul Holmes]

Will the Minister give way?

[Miatta Fahnbulleh]

No, I will make a little more progress.

We are clear that this work has to be done with consultation and engagement, and that is what we are doing. To the point raised by the hon. Member for Mid Leicestershire (Mr Bedford) on a proposed referendum, let me say that we think that is disproportionate. The approach we are taking to consultation and engagement is the right one.

On the point about a referendum, let me turn to new clause 2, on a referendum on mayoral precepts at the same time. We are really clear that the democratic lock sits at the heart of this matter. Mayors who are democratically elected by their people are no more immune to the impacts of raising taxes than we are as national politicians, so the democratic process will ensure that mayors are balancing the need to raise a precept and invest in their community against the need to protect their people from tax rises.

I completely agree with the hon. Member for Hamble Valley that devolution works best when it is predicated on strong local partnerships. The strongest mayoral combined authorities are the ones in which the constituent authorities work in lockstep with the mayor; that is the model we have seen in Greater Manchester. We are very clear that partnership must sit at the heart of this matter, and that is the approach we are looking to support and enable through this Bill.

[Paul Holmes]

This honestly feels like groundhog day. Once again, the Minister has come here and said that this Bill is doing local government reform and devolution from the ground up. Will she therefore answer my question once again? She has heard many Members tonight say that local authorities do not want to reorganise. If they do not want to go ahead with it, will this Government force them to do it? The answer is yes, isn’t it?

[Miatta Fahnbulleh]

The clear thing for authorities across the country is that they recognise the status quo is not working. Conservative Members are criticising, yet they have no alternative. The status quo is not sustainable, because we had 14 years in which the Conservatives stripped local authorities of investment and denuded their capacity, so local authorities across the piece recognise that reform is necessary. I come back to the fact that we are reforming for a purpose; we are reforming to deliver stronger services at the appropriate level so that local authorities can deliver the outcomes that their people want.

Let me take the point around devolution and resources, which the hon. Members for Glastonbury and Somerton (Sarah Dyke) and for Guildford raised. We recognise that if devolution is going to be successful, our mayors and strategic authorities absolutely need the resources to do it well. That is why a new burdens assessment will always come in place where new responsibilities are placed on devolved authorities.

Critically, where we are devolving power—for example, to our priority areas—we are providing capacity funding. The principle that we will always ensure that places have the resources they need to do the job is absolutely right, because we care as much as our mayors and the Opposition parties care that we get devolution right and that it is delivering for people across the piece.

Supporting High Streets

Paul Holmes Excerpts

Tuesday 4th November 2025 Commons Chamber

[Amanda Martin (Portsmouth North) (Lab)]

It takes some audacity, or maybe amnesia, for the Conservatives to table a motion about our high streets, given the absolute mess that they left them in after 14 long, depressing years in government. They say, “Let’s look forward, not back,” but those years cannot be wiped away by the people of my city—the cuts were too deep, and the damage was too much. Portsmouth is a proud city, but in Portsmouth North, we have seen what neglect looks like up close. Once-vibrant shopping parades and community spaces were left to decline on the Conservatives’ watch. Allaway Avenue, London Road north end, Cosham high street and the Hilsea shopping areas—to name a few once-bustling local centres—have been blighted by empty shops or inappropriate ones selling counterfeit or stolen goods, as well as by vandalism and illegal employment.

Local businesses tell me the same story again and again: despite being in charge, the Conservatives did nothing. Businesses closed, trade dropped, rents and rates remained high, footfall fell, and basic safety and cleanliness were ignored. One shopkeeper in Cosham told me last summer that

“We’ve had three break-ins this year alone. We reported it, but no one came.”

Data from Portsmouth neighbourhood police backs that up. Recorded incidents of shoplifting and intimidation of local shop owners increased by 30% between 2019 and 2023. Police officers were doing their very best, but under the Tories, law and order was neglected, under-resourced and overstretched for far too long, but there is hope. Under this Labour Government, the situation is changing.

Through the safer streets campaign, and now that we have neighbourhood officers, we have seen targeted action in Portsmouth North that has delivered a dramatic downfall in crime in key areas. Links between police and retailers have improved, and modern technology is being used. UK Partners Against Crime is working in partnership with our high street retailers. Neighbourhood officers such as PC Ben Treed and PC Hannah Kelleher need and deserve real credit for tackling antisocial behaviour and protecting our shopkeepers and residents. It is a privilege to go with them on their rounds.

[Paul Holmes (Hamble Valley) (Con)]

The hon. Lady is right to recognise the advances made as a result of our having named neighbourhood officers. Will she therefore congratulate the Conservative police and crime commissioner, Donna Jones, who brought in that policy before the hon. Lady’s Government did?

[Amanda Martin]

I welcome the work of my PCC, particularly on retail crime and in rolling out UKPAC.

The police officers I have mentioned deserve real credit, and with proper investment and community backing, they can finally do the job that the experts want them to do. That is why the initiatives I have described, alongside the pride in place programme, are so vital for my city. Portsmouth North has been awarded £20 million to breathe life back into local high streets and communities in Paulsgrove. That funding will go directly towards regenerating community spaces, improving safety and supporting the local economy. Importantly, how that money is spent will be decided by the community—the people who know the area best.

We already see progress being made by a Labour Government acting on behalf of our communities—in education, in our NHS and in our armed forces. Local residents have told me that they finally feel hopeful that their neighbourhood will receive the investment and respect that it needs and deserves.

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Great Grimsby and Cleethorpes (Melanie Onn), whose outstanding campaign for high-street renewal has inspired so many of us. It was her work that encouraged me to launch my own local initiative, the “Back Our High Streets—Stop Dodgy Shops” campaign. The campaign tackles an issue that has plagued communities like mine for too long: the rise of so-called dodgy shops—unregulated outlets selling counterfeit goods and illegal vapes, massage parlours and barbers, often operating outside proper licensing and safety standards and shirking their tax responsibilities, leaving an unfair playing field for those who do follow the rules.

English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill (Eleventh sitting)

Paul Holmes Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 28th October 2025 Public Bill Committees

[Miatta Fahnbulleh]

The local audit system is broken. There is consensus about that across the House and within this Committee. It is fragmented and has significant capacity and capability challenges. The problems in local government reporting and the backlog of unaudited accounts have led to the disclaimed opinion on the whole of Government accounts for the past two years. This provides no assurance to Parliament, and puts public accountability and trust in the system at risk.

The Government are leading the most transformative programme of audit reform in over a decade. Clause 61 will enable the Local Audit Office, a new statutory and independent body, to be established by autumn 2026. The LAO will have an oversight, regulatory and appointing role in the local audit sector. It will cover a wide range of public sector bodies responsible for delivering essential services and managing public funds, as well as oversight of aspects of the NHS audit system.

The LAO will be instrumental in overhauling the local audit system and will play a crucial role in ensuring that reforms are effectively implemented to provide better value for taxpayers and support economic growth. The LAO will be vital to rebuilding transparency, accountability and public trust in local government, and will restore a crucial part of the early warning system for local authorities.

Schedule 28 sets out the core elements of the LAO’s constitution and governance to enable this new organisation to be established. Part 1 establishes the requirements for the board, as proper constitution of the LAO is critical to establishing its authority, ensuring operational readiness and enabling it to deliver its objectives. Part 1 also covers other provisions that are integral to the successful set-up and operating function of the LAO.

Part 2 of the schedule allows the Secretary of State to put schemes in place to legally and properly transfer employees who are currently performing functions that the LAO will be responsible for after it is established.

[Paul Holmes (Hamble Valley) (Con)]

Good morning, Sir John. I am asking for a genuine point of clarification from the Minister. The Library briefing says:

“If an MP were appointed”

to one of these boards,

“they would be disqualified from membership of the House of Commons”.

Why have the Government chosen to do that? There is no motivation behind my question; this is just for clarification.

[Miatta Fahnbulleh]

That is a very niche question. I will have to write back to the hon. Member to clarify.

[Paul Holmes]

I do not expect the Minister to know the answer this morning, but if she could write to me before the end of our sittings this week, I would be grateful. The reason I ask the question is that these are local audit offices for local authorities. The Secretary of State is appointing these boards, and there is obviously political oversight of those appointments, but it would seem sensible to have the expertise of someone representing the area. If this is a devolution Bill, appointing MPs would seem to be perfectly fine, so I am not sure why the Government are disqualifying them. If she could come back to me on that point, I would be most grateful.

[Miatta Fahnbulleh]

I am happy to write to clarify that key point.

Everything that we are doing through these new clauses and this reform package is in order to ensure that we have a system that is fit for purpose, fair and operates so that we can build trust and accountability within public bodies at the local level. Committee members will appreciate the importance of providing certainty to the people who have worked to maintain the local audit over the years, which is why we are putting in place these two provisions.

New clause 9 will provide the Secretary of State with a new power to require the LAO to conduct a review of local bodies’ financial reporting and audit arrangements. The LAO will have the power, through contract management and quality oversight, to monitor timeliness in the sector, and will have levers to hold firm account where audits are late. Those statutory reviews will address the accountability gap by providing a way to understand whether individual local bodies have adequately supported the audit process. We believe that those reviews are vital to restoring public accountability, providing assurance at each stage of the audit process and rebuilding our early warning system. They are an integral part of a much bigger reform that we think is both necessary and long overdue. I commend the new clause to the Committee.

English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill (Twelfth sitting)

Paul Holmes Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 28th October 2025 Public Bill Committees

[Siân Berry (Brighton Pavilion) (Green)]

It is a pleasure to have you back in the Chair, Dame Siobhain. I will speak to my new clause 15, which proposes an independent review of the adequacy of scrutiny and accountability arrangements within six months of commencement. We have had plenty of debate in Committee about scrutiny and accountability of new strategic authorities and the larger new unitary authorities, but new clause 15 is solely about the mayoral combined authorities.

Given the scale of the powers on offer, the Bill is relatively light on scrutiny and consultation requirements. There are duties carried over from existing legislation relating to strategic authorities taking on the functions of, for example, fire and rescue authorities, and to the appointment of commissioners to whom strategic mayors would delegate functions, but quite honestly, only one new measure in the Bill adds to scrutiny over the carried over measures. That is clause 9 and schedule 3, about the termination of the commissioner role and a role for the overview and scrutiny committee to recommend dismissal. In the rest of the Bill, the underpinning of the scrutiny arrangements for these powerful new combined authorities will be derived from local councils, as established by the Local Government Act 2000, but I am yet to be convinced that such an underpinning will provide enough scrutiny and challenge of these powerful new bodies.

[Paul Holmes]

I want to drill down into the perceived lack of scrutiny of the new combined authorities. The hon. Lady just said that they would essentially follow the current arrangements in local authorities. Is she saying that she is unhappy with the existing level of scrutiny in local authorities, or does she just want the added safety her new clause offers?

[Siân Berry]

I will cover some of those issues, but yes, I am not completely happy with how many local councils work. Some carry out the bare minimum. I think we need more minimum guarantees built into this new process, and the Bill is the right place to introduce them.

As I said, the current model is basically an expanded local authority model, based on the idea, I think, that a combined authority is a collection of local authorities so the underlying scrutiny arrangements are sufficient. However, that has already been stretched by the more powerful mayors, and it will be stretched further when the new authorities are set up.

The new powers in particular need more scrutiny. For example, public bodies in every area will need to have regard to the growth plan. Growth plan objectives will be decided by the central authority, but how will they be developed and scrutinised? A strategic authority will be the local transport authority for its region, so it will gain a key route network of roads and can instruct the traffic authorities in its area on the management of the network. These are additional powers, so there is a role for additional scrutiny. Local plans and planning decisions will need to conform to the strategic authority’s plan—that is set out in the Planning and Infrastructure Bill—but how the powers are used deserves scrutiny, challenge, questions and accountability. These authorities are also taking on land assembly and housing powers. They can make mayoral development orders, and set up many huge budgets within mayoral development corporations. I do not think the local authority scrutiny model can cover the questions that might need to be asked in those circumstances.

There is a process for giving the new strategic authorities even greater powers in the future, but there is no associated process in the Bill for reviewing the scrutiny arrangements as those powers increase. New clause 15 would require a review of the scrutiny arrangements to match the new powers given to strategic authorities, which they may request as the Government devolve further. A safety net for scrutiny is needed somewhere in the Bill. I am aiming to fix a genuine problem.

Many existing strategic authorities have struggled to establish a truly collaborative approach between the local authorities and the members of the committees that exist to scrutinise those authorities. Quite often, the members feel that they should represent their own local authority and do not necessarily take a collective approach to scrutiny in the committee. I believe that problem will increase, particularly where we establish authorities that may lack a strong collective identity like that Greater London or Greater Manchester, where people automatically feel that they will be standing up for that area. In these new invented areas, we need legislation to ensure that scrutiny will reflect a common identity and collective approach.

This issue is a reflection of quite a lot of existing problems with scrutiny in councils. I will cite some of the conclusions in the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee’s 2017 report. It looked at the effectiveness of local authority scrutiny committees and concluded that scrutiny was marginalised in too many authorities, which could contribute to service failures. The Committee also found evidence that scrutiny committee chairs often did not challenge their leaders, picking instead safe, less controversial topics, and that the fact that the committee chairs are appointed meant that they were more likely to keep quiet and use their role as a way to prepare for a future cabinet position. In the local authority model, the leaders can choose their cabinet, and we have already discussed many times in this Committee how the new mayors will be able to choose their commissioners. I am sure that Members can see how the same dynamic might occur.

--- Later in debate ---

[Vikki Slade]

New clause 5 is designed to ensure that local authorities are provided with the resources and support they need to deliver the content of the legislation, with specific regard to preventing any further delays in future local elections. New clause 43 is about the duty to provide professional planning support for neighbourhood plans in areas that do not yet have them or where they are due for re-establishment.

We are desperately concerned about local elections being delayed. In fact, one of my colleagues asked about that in Prime Minister’s questions last week and did not get a direct answer. There remains a real concern that the whole process has the potential to create more delays. As we say, an election delayed is democracy denied, so it is hugely important.

[Paul Holmes]

I hope that the hon. Lady will take a reasonable and responsible tone on this new clause. Will she tell her colleagues around the country, including those from Hampshire, to stop standing outside Parliament for mock photographs saying that the Conservatives want local elections delayed? Will she take my word and the shadow Minister’s word that, as I said last week and he will no doubt say this afternoon, the Conservatives are not calling for the delay of local elections? Will she stop putting out misleading leaflets across the country saying that we are?

[Vikki Slade]

I would like to thank the hon. Member for his intervention, but I am not sure I should—I did not expect that coming from the Opposition Benches. I am glad that the Conservatives do not want to see elections delayed either. I hope that the Government will not delay any further elections, particularly in places that experienced a delay this year. The purpose of this new clause is to guarantee that elections are not delayed because councils are overstretched and under-resourced while trying to do neighbourhood plans at the same time. We do not believe that elections should be postponed because the Government have not given councils the means to do their job.

On new clause 43, I am sure that every member of this Committee has heard from their town and parish councils—because they have not yet been mentioned this afternoon—and from communities that do not have town or parish councils yet but may wish to, that the ability to fund a neighbourhood plan relies heavily on grant money. One of the first neighbourhood plans was set up in my constituency—in fact, in my ward of Broadstone—where we set up a neighbourhood forum that allowed us to create a neighbourhood plan. I believe there was £10,000. We would not have been able to secure a neighbourhood plan in any other way because we did not have a town council at the time, although we will have one by next year.

Without a town council, where does the money come from to do that? Even with a town or parish council, £10,000 would be a significant proportion of a precept, particularly for some of the small councils. It does not seem like a very fair thing to do to local authorities.

--- Later in debate ---

[Paul Holmes]

Will the hon. Lady give way briefly?

[Vikki Slade]

Gladly.

[Paul Holmes]

I thank the hon. Lady; we can now resume our laughs together. We entirely agree with her on this issue. Will she comment on our debates during the Planning and Infrastructure Bill where it was clear that the Government were resisting allocating funding for drawing up neighbourhood plans? Does she agree that the protections of many of our rural village communities that are adequately and perfectly served by their parish councils will be reduced just because they want to put forward a sustainable plan about how they build in their area, meaning that fewer houses will be delivered in the long run if this funding is not reinstated?

[Vikki Slade]

There is a village in my constituency called Shapwick, which, for some reason I cannot quite understand, did not take the opportunity to do a neighbourhood plan a couple of years ago, and now has lost that opportunity. It is surrounded by green fields. There are four or five sites within this small National Trust village where there are gaps, cottages either having fallen down or burnt down over the years. We could recreate a beautiful chocolate box village that would really boost our local tourism and enable local services such as the nursery and the pub to maintain themselves in the long term by having a slightly increased population.

As Shapwick does not have a neighbourhood plan, however, it is reliant on Dorset council, which, through the Government’s desire to build 1.5 million new homes, is now expected to find 55,000 homes in the county of Dorset—not the Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole element, just the Dorset council element. That will ruin small villages with 50 or 60 homes, as they now run the risk of having 300 or 400 homes that will change their nature forever. A neighbourhood plan would allow those villages to go, “Do you know what? We could probably get to 75 or 80 houses and still maintain everything that we love about our village.” That cannot happen now, because there is no capacity with such a small village to raise the funding required to produce a meaningful neighbourhood plan.

New clause 43 simply says that if neighbourhood plan funding is not directly restored, local authorities should be able to provide professional planning support to councils for the purposes of developing their neighbourhood plans. My preference is for the Minister to commit to restoring the independent funding, so that our town and parish councils and communities do not have to go to the local authority, but failing that, our only option is to push this approach and say, “If we can’t have our money back directly, let’s do it through this method.”

--- Later in debate ---

[Miatta Fahnbulleh]

Both the last Government and this Government have invested huge amounts in building the infrastructure. In the end, Governments have to make a judgment about where we put our funding and finances. We know that is difficult for particular communities, but we think there is sufficient infrastructure and sufficient people with expertise in neighbourhood planning. We will continue to work with them on how they innovate to provide a service for particular parishes.

The hon. Member for Hamble Valley is forcing me to labour the point that, because of the absolute mess that the Conservatives left us with after years of austerity, we are having to make tough judgments about what we can fund and invest in. It is not where we want to be, but that is the reality we have to confront. We had to make choices in the spending review; we are investing more in affordable housing, and in supporting our communities with homelessness. We think that those choices were right, and ultimately we had to make a judgment about prioritisation. We are committed to working with the sector to ensure that it can innovate and continue supporting neighbourhoods.

[Paul Holmes]

Will the Minister give way on that point, as she referred to me?

[Miatta Fahnbulleh]

I have finished, and I have sat down.

--- Later in debate ---

[Vikki Slade]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for another fabulous contribution. I thought he was going to criticise my love of town and parish councils for a moment, but he did not. I have made it clear that I would rather see the Government bring this funding back, but the new clause would introduce a duty to provide professional planning support, because we recognise the chances of it not coming back.

[Paul Holmes]

Before the Minister uncharacteristically turned her guns on me, after remaining largely silent on the Committee this afternoon, I was about to say this. I believe that the hon. Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole has tabled new clause 43 not because of the funding that has been cut—even though I remember being a lead member during the previous Labour Government, when we experienced cuts—but because there are more town and parish councils being created through this reorganisation. Those new parish and town councils, which will have councillors who are unpaid volunteers, will have no infrastructure at all. The Government seek to expand and create town councils, but have taken away training and the ability to conduct their functions. What the Minister has outlined is not accurate, is it?

[Vikki Slade]

I completely agree with my hon. Friend—we have worked so hard together on this. I understand the situation with the finances, which is why new clause 43 is designed to impose a duty on local authorities to provide support to smaller organisations, some of which are brand new and will not exist until everyone is on this rush to provide them. I would like to press new clause 43 to a vote later, but on new clause 5, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.

Clause, by leave, withdrawn.

New Clause 6

Councillors: proportional representation vote system

“(1) The Secretary of State may by regulations introduce a proportional representation vote system in elections of local authority councillors.

(2) The regulations in subsection (1) are subject to the affirmative procedure.”—(Manuela Perteghella.)

This new clause would allow the Secretary of State to introduce a proportional representation voting system for local authority councillors.

Brought up, and read the First time.

--- Later in debate ---

This new clause would simply give Ministers the ability to listen to the benefits in Scotland and Northern Ireland, and to what people really want, and to act decisively, with a mandate through this Bill and with approval from Parliament later, to improve local democracy alongside devolution. That would be a real achievement.

[Paul Holmes]

It is a pleasure to see you in the chair, Dame Siobhain. I was going to resist the temptation to have another say on voting systems in local government, but I saw this new clause and could not resist it. Smoke would otherwise come out of my ears at how ridiculous a suggestion this is. I will outline briefly why, and I will declare an interest—I am against it, and I have made that clear throughout the Bill Committee.

The hon. Member for Stratford-on-Avon, speaking for her party as she has done throughout this Committee, very ably suggested, promoted and proposed this new clause. I agree with the hon. Lady that many people in my constituency, the half of my constituency in Eastleigh, do not think they are properly represented in local government. However that is not because of proportional representation. It is because of the dire decisions of the Liberal Democrat administration of Eastleigh borough council. I agree with her about my constituents in the Eastleigh side of the constituency, who just do not feel properly represented.

[Vikki Slade]

Would the hon. Member like to consider why it is that the Eastleigh side of his constituency keeps on voting Liberal Democrats in year after year, to make it almost a one-party state?

[Paul Holmes]

In part, because the Liberal Democrats put out six leaflets a year that do not tell the truth about what is actually going on, and make a mockery between the relationship between truth and non-truth. The residents of Eastleigh get those six times a year. Unfortunately the hon. Lady will know that because the Liberal Democrats are so electorally successful in Eastleigh, the association of my local party, though we do our best, are like ducks with little feet under the water trying to compete. However I guarantee to her that when local government reorganisation comes, the reign of Keith House, who is one of the longest serving local government leaders in the country—he has been in power longer than Kim Jong-Un, although I do not argue he goes to the same extremes—will come to an end, and I say thank God for that.

On proportional representation—

[The Chair]

Does he speak well of you? [Laughter.]

[Paul Holmes]

Dame Siobhan, the answer to that is no and if you Google it you will see the relationship. I have a lot of respect for Councillor House. We just have very big political disagreements on the way in which he runs the council.

When I saw this proposal, I was not surprised when I saw those who had proposed and seconded the new clause. It would be a disastrous action for local government. We can use the arguments about why we should not have proportional representation at a national, general election level in the same way for local government, and particularly for councils. Councils are essentially mini Houses of Commons and mini democratic forums. It is vital that there is a link between a councillor, their ward and their voter. In local government, that is even more important because of the smaller geographical—

[Vikki Slade]

Can the hon. Member—not my hon. Friend anymore—explain to me why there is not a link? Proportional representation does not remove the link. It just allows people to have a proportional way of voting for somebody. We are not removing the link to a ward, division or constituency.

--- Later in debate ---

[Paul Holmes]

The Liberal Democrats and Greens want to bring in a vast array of different voting systems, in different stages of elections, but residents locally expect to have one vote, one system, to elect three, two or one councillors in a ward—one member, two member, three member ward—in a constituency in a small geographical region, so that they know the people they are electing. Those councillors across the whole of the country, Liberal, Green, Labour, Conservative, are local champions. They have a very small and bespoke role among their electorate.

The hon. Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole asked why people keep electing Liberals in Eastleigh, and I will be honest with her. In the 2021 local elections, the Liberal Democrats secured 42% of the vote in my Eastleigh borough, and the Conservatives polled 36%. We won one ward in my council, and the Liberal Democrats won 36. The hon. Lady might think I am a bit nuts, but I think that system is right. Everyone knows who they are voting for in their ward, and there are two or three candidates per party. They are electing a councillor who will then make an administration with a leader and a cabinet. My party went without, and I think it is unfair most of the time, but that is the system I back because it is the easiest, clearest and most accountable to the people who we serve.

I will make one last point and then I will let the hon. Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole intervene, if she wishes. I promise I am not being facetious, but I am having genuine difficulty understanding the speech made by the hon. Member for Brighton Pavilion. It may be my naivety; if she wants to explain it, I am perfectly accepting of that. In previous debates in this Committee, the hon. Lady said that the larger councils proposed by the Government would often mean that the link between a ward councillor and their constituents or ward would be diminished, because of the larger geographical area. If I am not wrong, in her speech on this new clause, she essentially said that would not be the case, as there would now be a diminishing of the link between that geography and the councillor under this voting system. I am not sure whether the two are mutually exclusive.

[Siân Berry]

There is confusion because I have argued that larger councils could lead to greater remoteness, certainly because the town hall may be many miles away. However, people will still be electing ward councillors, and my argument is simply that, should a person’s local ward councillors be part of the administration, they may see them very rarely. In those circumstances, it might be beneficial to have a range of local councillors from different parties, potentially with an increased number per ward, so that they represent more different points of view and can listen to constituents in different ways.

[Paul Holmes]

The hon. Lady explains perfectly; I disagree with her. We absolutely agree on the geographical link for super-councils—I have already said that I do not believe that the Government have a democratic mandate for those. However, the answer to larger councils is not changing to a voting system where we create more councillors, or saying, “Because we want to move to a different system, we will go from a three-member ward to a six-member ward with multiple parties.” I think that actually complicates the situation for many constituents and residents.

[Siân Berry]

May I add that this is a really interesting debate and one that we should continue to have under my new clause? To answer the hon. Gentleman’s question, Conservative Members have argued repeatedly that there will be a loss of representation from the abolition of the lower-tier councils. Does he not agree that this a way to mitigate that?

[Paul Holmes]

No, I do not; we should keep the current system in place. I believe that, even though we are essentially going from three to two tiers, we are not actually going to one tier in this country, because mayors are being created as well. There is a direct link between the mayor and the local people, and there is a direct link between these new councils and local people. Again, I do not think the answer to simplifying the electoral system and making representation easier is to create more councillors from different parties in a ward. That is expensive and lacks democratic legitimacy, and I think the current system is perfectly acceptable. We are always going to be on the losing side on this one. Smaller parties often want to change the system to ensure that their parties have more victories and more legitimacy in democratic chambers. The Conservative party has a long and proud history of opposing proportional representation.

I remind the Liberal Democrats that they have tried and tested a change in the electoral system, and when they went to the country seeking it, they lost. Therefore, people have been asked whether they want to change the voting system in a national election. I think that the hon. Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole would find that if there were referendums—we know that the Government are against referendums in the Bill—many people across this country would choose not to change the voting system in local government too. The current local government electoral system works, and it suits its purpose. People know who their councillors are; they are linked to them and know that they often represent an area that they deeply care for and are passionate about—even Liberal Democrat ones in Eastleigh. We oppose the new clause, and will vote against it if it is pressed to a vote.

[Miatta Fahnbulleh]

I thank hon. Members for the lengthy and robust debate on this issue. We all recognise that there is a need to continue evolving, improving and strengthening our democracy, but we do not believe that the new clause and the electoral reform proposal are the right answer. The Government have no plans to change the electoral system for local councils in England. We believe that first past the post is a clear way of electing representatives. It is well understood by voters, and, as pointed out by the hon. Member for Hamble Valley, provides a direct link and relationship between the member of the legislature or council and the local constituency. That model works well where we have collective decision making and collective systems of governance—that is quite distinct.

We had a debate on the changes that we are proposing for mayors and police and crime commissioners—the supplementary vote system—where there is a single executive position. We think that strengthening the democratic link in that way is appropriate and right in that context. We think that through the Bill we will have the right mechanism for the right type of representation, as presented through the mayor and the police and crime commissioner on the one hand, and councillors and MPs, which operate within a collective governance model through Parliament or councils. I ask the hon. Member for Stratford-on-Avon to withdraw the new clause—I am not sure that she will, but I will put the request.

--- Later in debate ---

[David Simmonds]

I think the Minister will probably be aware that the net additional new homes target that we set ourselves in the last Parliament was 1 million new homes. While we were, frustratingly, slightly below that target, we none the less delivered, in round terms, 1 million net additional new homes in this country. The collapse, as the Minister well knows, has taken place since the change of Government. That is an unfortunate reality. We know that the Budget in prospect later in the year is a significant issue of a conspicuous lack of confidence and a desperate need to get construction activity going again.

[Paul Holmes]

It is even worse than that: in the previous debate, the Minister said that she did not want the Government to be able to impose their ideals on mayors, but now they have reduced the affordable housing target for the mayor, to try to fiddle the figures and make it look as though more houses are built. That is poorer people suffering in our capital city.

[David Simmonds]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right: it is desperation in action, and we can see that happening, as can the whole world. We would like to see the Government succeed—we would like to see the country succeed in developing the new homes that it needs. However, it has been a continuous theme in our contributions to debates on the Planning and Infrastructure Bill that we must ensure that the 1.5 million homes that already have planning permission in England get built, rather than focusing on tearing up the green belt and on more permissions that also do not get built.

We know that in our capital city there are more than 300,000 new homes that already have planning permission, but on which work has not started. The purpose of the new clause is to ensure, just as we have sought to in the past in respect of private sector developers where there is a failure, that where a local authority or a mayor is in charge of a development, they are required to build it out in good time. That is so that we do not see a repeat of the situation where well-intentioned changes to the planning system simply result in more unbuilt permissions, while people who need homes do not have access to them, because that is not what is being delivered.

The focus of the new clause is to ensure that the system does what it is intended to and actually builds the homes, as opposed to churning out more planning permissions. Given the Government’s desperate need to move somewhere in the direction of achieving their 1.5 million target, I am sure the Minister will welcome the new clause and ensure that the Government support it.

--- Later in debate ---

[Siân Berry]

I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

I will, as briefly as I can, because this is an interesting concept, outline the proposals in new clause 30 for the establishment of a public engagement commission. I have been part of some rocky debates in Committee, and I commend the new clause as a less fraught way to consider deep public participation, to come to terms with the benefits of participatory processes in appropriate situations and to look at democratic innovation in other ways.

The key issue here is that, as additional powers are gained, the choices and challenges facing public authorities in general—particularly these new ones—are becoming harder, along with the issues they are considering and the world situation. The need for citizen participation grows with that if we are to maintain trust and confidence in our public institutions. We need these new institutions to build trust and public confidence from the start.

The new clause closely relates to our legal obligations under the Aarhus convention, of which I am quite a big fan, as conventions go. It was adopted in 1998, when the Rio process really started to bed in, in the period when I started to become very involved in politics. I am certain that some of the processes taking place within central and local government as a result of our signing up to the convention encouraged my interest in politics, and led to some of the people who I work with now becoming my colleagues, so I am a big fan. The Aarhus convention links environmental rights and human rights. It establishes that

“sustainable development can be achieved only through the involvement of all stakeholders”

and it focuses on interactions between the public and public authorities in a democratic context. It is absolutely wonderful, but we are miles behind other countries in how we do that.

There are some really good examples of engagement in Britain. However, I see Ministers in the current Government not acting in the spirit of the convention, who are not keen to hear from the public, or who are certainly not keen to engage with them in new ways. I hear a lot about how engagement with the public slows down building—they put it less politely than that. We need to think more about how we undertake this kind of democratic innovation, not just in planning applications but in the wide range of powers and services that we are devolving. It should be part of the Bill’s DNA, and the new clause would do just that.

The new clause would set up a national body to guide and spread best practice, and it would take on the task of engaging and involving the public in innovative ways on very big and difficult questions—it would be a really positive addition to the Bill. The proposed public engagement commission is modelled on the French National Commission for Public Debate, which is celebrating its 30th anniversary—we can feel the vintage this comes from. The French commission started out by looking at big schemes such as TGV lines, and it has organised consultations on 130 schemes and projects. Some of the projects have been modified, some have been significantly redesigned, and some have actually been abandoned as a result of the public engagement. It is a success story in France, and we could make use of it here.

We had the National Infrastructure Commission, which governed planning applications, and that has recently been widened to the National Infrastructure and Service Transformation Authority, so it is intended to look at services as well. I think that a similar commission looking at strategic and national-level engagement would be a positive addition in helping us to fulfil some of our rights. Obviously, the commission would not intervene on every scheme, but it might intervene on schemes at a range of levels to establish best practice. It would be an ideal place to look at some of the knottier issues that we have come across.

I will finish with a few examples. I can see that Members do not want to debate this and they are feeling a little confused about what it might actually do. We have talked about proportional representation and voting systems today. For subjects that can be difficult to discuss, such as planning issues, which can descend into name calling, we could try different methods of engagement. We could listen to how to modify projects—that is an obvious one. We could also look at local growth plans and think about how they could be scrutinised to involve the public more. There is also the neighbourhoods work that the Government are still proposing. All would benefit from the involvement of this commission.

The commission could also try out and report back on new digital approaches. It could make sure that consultations work for younger people, while also ensuring that the digitally excluded can also join engagement exercises. Getting that kind of balance right is very hard, and establishing a commission to make sure that it works well would be a good thing. On things such as community infrastructure and mayoral levies, which are raised and spent in the local area, the commission should look at participatory budgeting and establish best practice. We know that mayoral development corporations are not really designed to be directly accountable or involve the public, but the commission could look at how those bodies could engage more effectively in local areas.

It is interesting that in engagement connected with new towns, it is people in the local area who are consulted when new towns are intended mainly to attract new people to an area. How should people who might come to live in an area be consulted? Those are interesting challenges and I think that the commission would be a positive addition.

More seriously, I hope that the Minister will recognise that there is a participation gap in relation to the Aarhus convention in this Bill. I hope that she will go away and look again at how that affects environmental rights and compliance and about how that might work at a national level. She should also think about how this challenge today might affect a wide range of different participation processes at the Government level.

Apologies for again making a very long case for a new clause. I do not table them idly.

[Paul Holmes]

I hope that the hon. Member for Brighton Pavilion does not develop a complex because I speak on all of her new clauses. She is a doughty parliamentarian who has deeply held views, and I do not want her to think that I oppose them because of any personal vendetta. However, as I am sure many expected, I rise to speak against the new clause because it lets politicians off the hook. It also does what I suggested many of the hon. Lady’s previous new clauses do.

The politicians, mayors and combined authorities we are talking about must have democratic legitimacy. They are accountable to their electorate in the traditional ways, which is an election at the current engagement levels that many mayors have. It is inherent within our system that if a mayor wants to be re-elected and build up incumbency so that people in the region say they are doing a good job, they will go out and show that they are working hard for those people.

The hon. Lady mentioned that we should follow France on this. These are not usually words that come out of my mouth, but I remind her that we are nearly at the end of the collapse of the Fifth Republic. I am not sure how much the commission helped, given how they have conducted their affairs over the last few months.

Much of the new clause adds a burden to an already overstretched and inadequately funded model. This is not to knock the Government, but establishing these authorities will be an incredibly long and complicated process, and there is going to be some disruption. The new clause would add a burden to many authorities for something that I do not think will deliver the outcomes that the hon. Lady expects.

I am a fan of Parliament and of the British Government, and I want them to do well—not that the Committee could see that from today—but I also believe in the position of the Secretary of State, and I think that asking the Secretary of State from “time to time” to lay a report before Parliament on the work of the public engagement commission during the period, and progress towards improving public engagement, is both setting up the Secretary of State for a fall—I am not sure how to measure public engagement—and letting the Secretary of State off the hook. The last Conservative Government and the Labour Government before them were in office for between 12 and 14 years. I could do it twice if I managed to survive as Secretary of State for 12 years—it may happen one day.

--- Later in debate ---

Brought up, and read the First time.

[Paul Holmes]

I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

I am sorry to tempt the Committee with the prospect of a nice pint in the Strangers Bar, but I will not speak to this new clause for very long. It was tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight East (Joe Robertson). We have spent the afternoon talking about unique circumstances elsewhere in the country, but there are unique circumstances on the Isle of Wight, because of the nature of its geography.

Before I say any more on that, Dame Siobhain, may I, as one of the shadow Ministers, thank you and the other Chairs for your chairing, because this is probably the last time that I will speak in this Bill Committee? I also thank the Minister and the Government Whip, who has been so courteous during our negotiations through the usual channels; hopefully, she will do us some more favours going forward.

Even though we are not in government, I also thank the officials, because I have seen the churn of officials coming in and going out of the Committee Room in the last couple of weeks. Without them, politics would not be able to function, so I thank them for their work on the Bill. We mostly disagree with the Bill, but they are doing a great job for all of us.

The Isle of Wight is geographically unique, because it is only really accessible by boat, including ferries. Over the last 20 years or so, the two main ferry companies for the Isle of Wight, Red Funnel and Wightlink, have been passed between and traded by private equity groups. Just last week, Red Funnel changed hands in what was believed to be a distressed sale, with banks being owed tens of millions of pounds.

The people of the Isle of Wight absolutely rely on access to the mainland, and the island relies on mainland access to it, in order to supply it and to ensure that the people of that great place are well and are looked after. Under the pricing model of the last 20 years, however, peak car return fares have skyrocketed to as much as £400 a car, just for crossing a five-mile stretch of water. Timetables have diminished, so what was once a 30-minute service is now hourly or worse, and under-investment by Red Funnel’s owners means that its car ferry fleet is so old that it entered service before the maritime Minister, the Under-Secretary of State for Transport, the hon. Member for Selby (Keir Mather), was born. Breakdowns are increasingly frequent, with some parts now so obsolete that boats are having to be withdrawn from service.

The Isle of Wight ferry service is a lifeline. There is no other way for the island’s 140,000 residents to cross the five-mile stretch of water to get on and off the island, including for key activities such as work, health appointments, education, visiting sick relatives, or being visited by relatives on whom they rely.

In the last debate on new clause 44, the Minister said that she believed that transport management structures should be run on a county basis. We agree with her; the efficiencies of scale mean that the mayor of Hampshire and the Solent should be able to run transport locally. The Government have a record of policies whereby we are seeing greater Government and regional involvement in the commissioning and running of our transport services, particularly through the bus Bill. My hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight East and I would argue that ferries should not be treated differently, especially when they are the sole mode of transport that people must rely on.

When my hon. Friend met the previous maritime Minister, the hon. Member for Wythenshawe and Sale East (Mike Kane), however, the Government showed a distinct lack of action in this regard. My hon. Friend was promised that there would be a number of meetings—there have been meetings with the previous Minister—and that a body would be convened to discuss the matter, but that simply has not happened.

My hon. Friend therefore tabled new clause 49, which would give mayors the authority to regulate ferry services. It would apply not only to the Isle of Wight but to any regional structure that has ferries acting within its geographical boundaries. The functions exercisable by the mayor would include

“making regulations concerning the provision, operation, safety, accessibility, affordability, and reliability of ferry services”.

Labour Members should look at me with encouragement—perhaps I have had a conversion to the centre-left of British politics—because the new clause would also provide for the regulation of fares and a fare cap. I think that is acceptable in a situation where a single provider is flagrantly breaching the good faith of the people of the Isle of Wight.

I know that the Minister will resist this new clause—that does not surprise me; she has a job to do, as do I—but there is clearly a problem. I live just up the road from the Isle of Wight and the prices are crazy. The people living on the island rely on those ferries—they are used to supply medical services, to supply businesses and shops, and for family situations on the Isle of Wight—so the Government must step up.

The new clause makes a reasonable suggestion to the Government to give a mayor the power to control transport services within their region. I am delighted that the Conservative candidate for mayor of Hampshire and the Solent, Donna Jones, has said that she is actively pushing the Government for those regulatory powers. We support her in that so that she can come down very hard on the ferry services that are taking advantage of people who live on the Isle of Wight.

If the Government genuinely believe in devolution and in the control of transport—we have seen over the last 14 months that they believe in mayors being able to commission and manage transport services—that should include all transport services. I commend the new clause to the Committee, and hope that the Minister will give some encouraging words to my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight East and to me. I have not spoken to my hon. Friend about this, and I am sure he will want to move the new clause on Report, but I wish to press it to a Division in Committee.

[Miatta Fahnbulleh]

Let me start by saying that we absolutely recognise the issue that the hon. Member for Hamble Valley and hon. Members representing the Isle of Wight have raised. That is why the Department for Transport has engaged with MPs and stakeholders on the Isle of Wight to identify their local solutions to the concerns that we understand and appreciate need to be addressed.

That engagement has included a ministerial roundtable on this issue and a commitment to create a cross-Solent group. An independent chair has been appointed to take that group forward. We will continue to engage with partners locally to address the genuine issues that have been raised about the ferry service in the area. The power of a democratically elected mayor is that they can make this a core issue and use the levers that they have and the seat that they will have at the table with Government to keep making the case and delivering for their community.

[Paul Holmes]

I thank the Minister for those encouraging words. She is absolutely correct, and I hope she does not see this intervention as unfair, but can she use her good offices to speed that group along? When the then maritime Minister visited the Isle of Wight in April, he said that a DFT working group would be created, but that has not happened—there has been no meeting. My hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight East and the hon. Member for Isle of Wight West (Mr Quigley) have been involved in that working group on a cross-party basis but it has not met yet. Could the Minister use her good offices to push for that meeting?

[Miatta Fahnbulleh]

I will write to my counterparts in the DFT. The commitment to create the group came in recognition of a problem. We are committed to working with local stakeholders and Members representing the area to respond to that, so I am happy to write to my DFT colleagues to chivvy that along.

[Paul Holmes]

The Minister has gone further than I was expecting her to. I think it is now up to my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight East to table the new clause again on Report, alongside, if necessary, the hon. Member for Isle of Wight West. Pending conversations with my hon. Friend, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.

Clause, by leave, withdrawn.

New Clause 51

Community ownership fund

“(1) The Secretary of State must make regulations which establish a community ownership fund within six months of the passage of this Act.

(2) Regulations under subsection (1) are subject to the negative procedure.

(3) Regulations under subsection (1) must make provision for any strategic authority to apply for funding of up to £2 million to support any—

(a) voluntary and community organisation, or

(b) parish or town council,

to purchase of an assets of community value they determine is at risk in their area.”—(Vikki Slade.)

This new clause would require the Secretary of State to establish a Community Ownership Fund to which strategic authorities may apply for funding.

Brought up, and read the First time.

Question put, That the clause be read a Second time.