Representation of the People Bill

Rachel Blake Excerpts

Report stage & 3rd reading
Wednesday 2nd September 2026 Commons Chamber

Without this power, those seeking to circumvent the new rules could simply redirect activity through areas where comparable safeguards do not apply. That would risk creating a loophole in the electoral regime, undermining the effectiveness and protections that the Bill is intended to provide. The amendments have a time-limited mechanism, ensuring that they are introduced, and where possible consistently, across categories of political activity and to recipients of political funding.

[Rachel Blake (Cities of London and Westminster) (Lab/Co-op)]

I thank my hon. Friend for her comments about restricting donations. She has talked about loopholes and the new powers that the commission will have. One loophole I am concerned about is that around donations to candidates, the definition of “candidate”, and how that interacts with other parts of the legal framework. Will she share her thoughts on any progress that the Government are making on that loophole, and say whether there is a chance for it to be considered further?

Oral Answers to Questions

Rachel Blake Excerpts

Monday 13th April 2026 Commons Chamber

[Matthew Pennycook]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his well-judged question. Let me reassure him that the Government understand the distinct operational and financial models that underpin specialist retirement housing, and that we recognise the important role that integrated retirement community operators play in providing high-quality housing for older people. As he is hopefully aware, the way in which the retirement housing sector functions in a world in which commonhold is the default tenure, and whether some kind of exemption is required, are among the many questions we are seeking feedback on in our consultation on moving to commonhold and banning leasehold for new flats. I encourage him and any operators in his constituency to engage with that consultation.

[Rachel Blake (Cities of London and Westminster) (Lab/Co-op)]

I thank the Minister for his work on this issue. I am working to make sure that the managing agent Freshwater will meet me to talk about its service charges. Does he agree that it is important that managing agents meet representatives in order to tackle these high levels, and to ensure that they are prepared for this Government’s reforms? I also have a real concern about the impact of high service charges on the long-term sustainability of the leasehold model for people who are choosing to retire into leasehold properties.

[Matthew Pennycook]

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. High and rising service charges are putting unprecedented financial pressure on leaseholders. They are also causing more and more issues with mortgages and remortgaging processes. On her point about managing agents: yes, managing agents absolutely should meet with residents who have concerns, either collectively or individually.

Proposed Visitor Levy

Rachel Blake Excerpts

Wednesday 25th March 2026 Westminster Hall

[Rachel Blake (Cities of London and Westminster) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Efford. I am incredibly proud to represent the centre of the capital; Ronnie Scott’s, Abbey Road, Tate Britain and all the best museums are right here in the centre of London. Every year, 25 million tourists visit Westminster, spending £1.7 billion to support businesses and residents across London.

This debate has not focused enough on the essential principles of devolution and the role that different organisations play in supporting the tourism industry. We need to hear, again, that nine out of 10 of the most visited tourist destinations in Europe implement a tourist tax. I have listened to the right hon. Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds) and the hon. Member for Keighley and Ilkley (Robbie Moore)—although I have to disagree with the hon. Member, because I do think that Brontë country is an international destination, as I am sure many of his constituents will agree—but Hampshire, Hartlepool, Hillingdon and Haworth will not have the same needs as Hyde Park. That is the fundamental principle that we need to focus on today.

I firmly support introducing an overnight visitor levy. It is the right thing to do to enable localities to accurately reflect the particular needs of their neighbourhoods. Taking a local and regional approach means that we have to look carefully at what London might need specifically. Unlike in combined authorities outside London, London borough leaders do not have a formal say in decision making about budgets at the Greater London Authority, so it would be the only major city in the country where local authorities would not have joint decision making over the levy mechanisms. I therefore support the mandation of a 50:50 split, allowing local authorities to keep part of the receipts and enabling boroughs such as Westminster to invest in the vital services that keep the heart of London a world-leading tourist destination. That could include investment in the public realm as well as investment in growth measures—

[Clive Efford (in the Chair)]

Order. There is a Division. I am told to expect six votes, so I must suspend the sitting for about an hour and 15 minutes. If there are fewer, we can come back more quickly. Please come back as soon as the votes are finished.

--- Later in debate ---

On resuming—

[Rachel Blake]

As I was saying, what is right for Hampshire, Hartlepool, Hillingdon and Howarth is not necessarily right for Hyde Park. That is why devolving the power to implement this overnight visitor levy is the right way to go.

I ask the Minister to consider the arguments in favour of mandating a 50:50 split in London; unlike combined authorities outside London, we are the only major city in the country where local authorities do not have a joint decision-making mechanism. In 2023-24, Westminster city council spent £31 million on street cleaning—more than four times the amount per head of the average London borough—demonstrating the significance that inner-London boroughs place on keeping our streets clean and ready for tourists. Other visitor and commuter services total £18.3 million a year, so allowing local authorities to keep half of these receipts would be right for all the London boroughs that provide tourist attractions for our world-leading tourism destination. It is already standard practice for revenues to be ringfenced locally, including in Paris, New York and Amsterdam.

I also ask the Minister to think through the implications for the registration system introduced for short-term lets. In some parts of Westminster, up to 30% of homes are now used as short-term lets. Doubling the density of short-term lets is associated with an 8% growth in per-bedroom rental prices—or £4,500 per year. Short-term lets should be paying this levy, and the levy should be implemented in a way that makes sure we can gather data on who is letting out their home on a short-term basis. That should be factored into the design of any scheme. I am grateful for the chance to discuss these topics in this setting.

Foreign Financial Influence and Interference: UK Politics

Rachel Blake Excerpts

Wednesday 25th March 2026 Commons Chamber

[Steve Reed]

No; to reassure the hon. Gentleman, the provisions I have announced today apply to the entire United Kingdom, with immediate effect.

[Rachel Blake (Cities of London and Westminster) (Lab/Co-op)]

I strongly welcome the review and I thank the Secretary of State for commissioning it. I have heard what he has said about considering the recommendations in detail. I draw his attention to paragraph 75, which states:

“there are no reporting requirements for campaign spending outside regulated periods for either non-party campaigners or candidates. This means that there is no transparency around what is spent, or around the donations being used to fund this spending, outside of regulated periods.”

We go out of the regulated period again in six weeks’ time. Will the Secretary of State consider the urgency of that particular recommendation for dealing with the regulated period? More broadly, does he agree that it is our democratic duty to take the report seriously, and that political parties that do not take the report, and transparency and democracy, seriously have no role in this Parliament and no decency in representing their constituents?

[Steve Reed]

There are clear recommendations about non-party campaigns and candidates, and we will be making our response to those recommendations in due course. The only recommendations I am bringing into force immediately are those that I referred to in my statement.

Holocaust Memorial Day

Rachel Blake Excerpts

Thursday 29th January 2026 Commons Chamber

[Rachel Blake (Cities of London and Westminster) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a privilege to speak in this important debate, and I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Bury St Edmunds and Stowmarket (Peter Prinsley) for opening it in such a powerful way. I was struck by his earlier reflection on whether it is sometimes easier not to commemorate and remember. That testimony is combined with the moving speech made by my hon. Friend the Member for Warrington North (Charlotte Nichols) about the words for history and the words for remembrance. I want to make the case that it is important to remember, and that how we remember, and the actions that remembrance brings to us, are hopefully what will matter most today.

As has been mentioned, the theme of this year’s Holocaust Memorial Day is “Bridging Generations”. Every day, the recollection of survivors passes from memory into history. Like most hon. Members here today, I have had the privilege of hearing my constituents’ recollections and memories, and those of Holocaust survivors, of what this means to them. Passing down their experience is increasingly vital to preserving our understanding as a society of the atrocious crimes committed in the Holocaust. We must never allow ourselves to forget or minimise these horrors, and bridging the generational gap is more important than ever.

[Sir Alec Shelbrooke]

In talking about the events that happened, we have spoken about the dehumanisation. The Holocaust Educational Trust runs visits to Birkenau-Auschwitz, as part of which, at the end, family photographs and things like that are displayed to rehumanise people. I do not know whether the hon. Lady has been able to attend, but I think it is one of the most exceptionally moving things anyone could witness.

[Rachel Blake]

I thank the right hon. Member for recalling that exhibition for us. What we have seen in Parliament over the last few weeks has been incredibly powerful.

A key part of bridging the generational gap are the very youngest generation of survivors, many of whom first arrived in the UK on the Kindertransport. A memorial to that stands in my constituency at Liverpool Street station, where many of the children met their foster families. Most of them remained in the UK, and they and their descendants are our neighbours, our families and our friends.

This week, I joined City residents and workers in the congregation at Bevis Marks, the oldest synagogue in continuous use in Europe, for the Holocaust Memorial Day service. Bevis Marks is a testament to London’s history of tolerance, openness and pluralism. I pay tribute to the work of the local community in creating the Jewish Square Mile project, which is bringing together the community and recording this long and deep history.

The City of London’s Jewish population dates back to the time of William the Conqueror, and it has long held a stake in the City’s civic life. This early history was a painful one. London’s Jewish population was falsely accused of practices such as coin clipping, and it was barred from the coronation of Richard I and subjected to multiple massacres across the middle ages. However, moving into the 18th and 19th centuries, as pogroms swept across the continent, it was to London that hundreds of thousands of European Jews fled. Many of their descendants later hosted the refugees from the Kindertransport.

The Kindertransport is a reminder not just of what Britain and its people can achieve when we work together, driven by compassion, but that we cannot be complacent that good intentions are enough on their own. That complacency has too often been the case when we, as politicians, have failed adequately to address the rise in antisemitism in recent years. We have condemned and lamented hate crimes, but have we done enough to prevent them from recurring? We have spoken with Jewish leaders, but have we truly heard their concerns? I know that many of my Jewish constituents do not believe we have made the progress that is needed.

I am not the first today to mention last October’s horrific attack in Manchester. In the months leading up to it, we will all have spoken to or heard directly from community leaders who warned that something exactly like that might happen. I have spoken to young constituents who are fearful of walking to shul. Jewish people across the country are experiencing prejudicial antisemitic hate. It needs to end, and we need to end it. Every Member of this House has a role to play in bridging generations and communities. We are leaders in our neighbourhoods, villages, towns and cities. At a time when relations between and within communities remain so broken, our time to act is now. I ask each and every one of us: what is next? What are we doing to convene leaders of all faiths and none? What are we doing to ensure that our children are being taught about the reality of the Holocaust in school and online? What are we doing to address the hatred and violence of the past few years head-on? Will we remain determined to tackle online hatred and antisemitism?

The road to ending hatred sadly takes years to travel, and the results will take longer to show than many of us would like, but we have gone down the road of detoxification before, so a way exists. I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Cheadle (Mr Morrison) for his suggestion on how to proceed. It centres on the human contact, recognition of shared values, empathy and respect that was shown to the 10,000 Jewish children whose lives the British public were able to save.

We must remember the Holocaust alone in deep reflection, but we must also come together to remember the extremes of good and evil that regular people are capable of. If we leaders recognise that we can shape things through our empathy, compassion and respect, we will stop it happening again.

--- Later in debate ---

[Peter Prinsley]

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

[Rachel Blake]

My hon. Friend may know that Bevis Marks synagogue is very close to Bury Street. I wonder if that is part of his story.

[Peter Prinsley]

I thank my hon. Friend for that information, which I was aware of.

If I have a little time, let me thank the leader of Plaid Cymru, the right hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd (Liz Saville Roberts)—I simply cannot pronounce the name of her constituency. She was correct that we must remember the other genocides, some of which really are a memory for me, not history; many of us can remember several of them.

I was particularly taken by my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford South (Jas Athwal), who spoke about the expression “never again”. As he correctly said, “never again” is a test for all of us. What will we do to ensure that it will never happen again?

Finally, I would like to say something about my hon. Friend the Member for East Kilbride and Strathaven (Joani Reid), who is the most powerful advocate for the Campaign Against Antisemitism. If it were up to me, I should appoint her as a righteous gentile.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered Holocaust Memorial Day.

Homelessness: Funding

Rachel Blake Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd December 2025 Westminster Hall

[Rachel Blake (Cities of London and Westminster) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Vickers. I thank the hon. Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman) for securing this debate, and for his continued advocacy on this topic. He has been a reliable voice in this space for quite some time.

I am grateful for the opportunity to highlight the latest statistics, but today I will also make the case that tackling homelessness is the right thing to do not only for individuals and communities but for public spending and our economy. We have done so much already, but there is a lot more to do, so I will share with colleagues some details about the cost of temporary accommodation, particularly in London, and then propose some possible solutions and make some requests of the Minister.

Currently, 56% of homeless households living in temporary accommodation are in London. In fact, one in 50 Londoners live in temporary accommodation, which is nearly 200,000 people, including 97,000 children. London boroughs collectively spend £5 million a day on temporary accommodation, with the rate of temporary accommodation in Westminster reaching 3%. In 2023-24, Westminster city council spent £95 million on temporary accommodation, and in the same year spending on temporary accommodation in the City of London increased by 52%.

It is positive that there are plans to spend capital money on temporary accommodation, which is part of the solution, but we are now in a situation where the average household in London spends £202 every year, or 11% of their council tax bill, on temporary accommodation. The net current expenditure on homelessness in London has risen by 42% since last year, compared with a 16% increase across the rest of England. And of the 4,254 households in temporary accommodation in Westminster, 768 are in bed and breakfasts, which are an appalling place to grow up, and only 244 are in local authority or housing association stock.

The most expensive type of temporary accommodation is in the private rented sector and paid for nightly. It is the most common type in many London boroughs, including Westminster, where it is used for 1,684 of the 4,254 households in temporary accommodation. Local housing allowance has been frozen, and analysis by the Local Government Association shows that local authorities are due to spend an additional £400 million a year from their own funds on temporary accommodation. At present, 30 in every 1,000 households in the City of Westminster and seven in every 1,000 households in the City of London live in temporary accommodation.

This Government have done a lot. We have committed £39 billion to increase the supply of genuinely affordable housing, and my own local authorities have received significantly more money to tackle some of the worst forms of rough sleeping. I am grateful for all the work the Minister is doing, and for how open-minded and open-spirited she is about tackling this problem. All of us in this Chamber have come forward to solve some of these problems.

Will the Minister bring local government and housing associations together for an emergency meeting, to have a frank conversation about the ludicrous situation of local authorities driving up the cost of temporary accommodation because they are competing with each other to procure it? Will she update the House on the Office for Value for Money report on the cost of temporary accommodation? And will she consider using funding models that have been used in the past that help people to transition from leased temporary accommodation into permanent social housing?

These families live and have children growing up in London communities, and we simply cannot continue putting them out to other local authorities that I know have struggles with identifying temporary accommodation. I also know how seriously this Government take this issue, and I firmly believe that we will be able to end the scourge of rough sleeping and tackle the temporary accommodation crisis if we have the will and the spirit to get it done.

English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill

Rachel Blake Excerpts

Report stage
Monday 24th November 2025 Commons Chamber

[Danny Beales]

I thank the hon. Gentleman, another colleague from the Health and Social Care Committee, for his offer to come to the Isle of Wight; I would be very happy to do so. I could experience the ferry issue, which I am sure he will talk about. I agree with his comments.

Revenue derived from tourism often goes directly to the Treasury, rather than funding the local services needed to create and respond to the tourism economy. The tourism levy proposed in new clause 31 would be a relatively small charge on visitors to our cities, and would create a new source of revenue for local growth initiatives.

A tourist levy would not be unique to London; British tourists regularly pay a tourism levy when we visit other high-profile cities across the world, including Paris, Rome and Berlin, to name just a few. Many will not even have noticed the charge of a couple of euros a night on their bill, but this funding source makes a positive difference to those cities, so why not have one in our cities in the UK? The creation of a tourism levy in those places has had no significant impact on visitor numbers, and none of us would be put off from our trip to Paris, Barcelona or Rome because of it.

A tourist levy would also be fairer to the residents of London. We all know that mass tourism brings disadvantage and pressures, as well as many benefits and advantages. A tourism levy would ensure that visitors paid their fair share for the upkeep of our city, just as British tourists do when travelling abroad. With 38 million visits to the UK every year, half of which are to London, there is a clear opportunity to raise a substantial pot of revenue to improve the experience of residents and visitors alike in London. It could fund and support cultural activities, such as the Christmas and other light displays that we want to see around our city, but that have become more difficult to afford. It could pay for additional security for our town centres and high streets, whether it is Oxford Street or major town centres in our boroughs. It could pay for the much better public realm investment that we often clearly need, but that has not been delivered for many years.

Through this measure, which has been long discussed but which we have failed to deliver or grasp time and again, we could let areas decide whether to levy such a charge and enjoy the proceeds of that revenue.

[Rachel Blake (Cities of London and Westminster) (Lab/Co-op)]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)]

Order. The hon. Member cannot speak from where she is seated.

House Building: London

Rachel Blake Excerpts

Wednesday 5th November 2025 Westminster Hall

[Mr French]

I am going to make a bit of progress, because I have been up and down quite a lot, and I am not fit enough to keep doing it.

Under this Labour Government, more and more first-time buyers are unable to afford a home, and they are the primary market for new builds in London. Over 3,700 new homes are sitting unsold. This is not a market where developers will build more. The Labour Government were wrong to slash first-time buyers’ stamp duty relief, costing first-time buyers up to £11,250 more in taxes. That is why the Conservatives’ plan to abolish stamp duty is the right one, and the Labour Government must rule out further market-suppressing tax rises.

Developers also face excessive policy costs—section 106 payments, community infrastructure levy payments, mayoral community infrastructure levy payments, carbon offset levies, biodiversity net gain requirements and the new building safety levy. The collective cost of those demands makes it too expensive to build. To make matters worse, on top of the burdensome London plan, the well-intentioned post-Grenfell Building Safety Regulator is now delaying building in the capital. It has rejected 70% of building safety designs, and some completed projects have had to wait 18 months for approval before people can move in.

[Rachel Blake (Cities of London and Westminster) (Lab/Co-op)]

I am grateful to the hon. Member for giving way. I have listened carefully to his analysis of the problem—I have waited to hear the full analysis—and I would be grateful for some reflection on why the deregulatory proposals he is making were not brought forward under the previous Government when there was clearly an opportunity to do so.

[Mr French]

I appreciate the argument the hon. Lady is trying to make, and I am about to come on to some suggestions to hopefully help the Government.

The mayor has had strategic planning powers in the capital for nine years, and he was awarded £9 billion of affordable homes money by the previous Government. We have to be clear about where blame in the capital lies.

[Rachel Blake]

I am listening to the hon. Gentleman’s argument about strategic planning, but I believe every Member present, including myself, has substantial experience in bringing forward new genuinely affordable homes. We all know that it requires finance and real delivery focus, particularly in local authorities. Can the hon. Gentleman reflect on his time in local government and how many genuinely affordable council homes were brought forward in that period? Obviously, the ability to deliver from a council setting is a key part of solving this important challenge for London.

[Mr French]

Again, I appreciate the point that the hon. Lady is trying to make. I have already outlined the Bexley position in response to the hon. Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Neil Coyle), so I do not need to go back into that—Bexley has been delivering affordable homes.

What can be done now? I am afraid that the recent measures announced by the Government and the Mayor of London—without consulting London’s 32 boroughs—to unlock house building are too little, and potentially too late. They will give developers only temporary, targeted relief from the community infrastructure levy on brownfield sites, but not from the more expensive mayoral levy. The changes to the affordable homes targets do not go far enough; at 35%, demand is still placed on industrial and public land, acting as a blocker on these sites that could host thousands of homes. While a temporary fast-track route for homes that provide 20% affordable housing is welcome, it is a minor amendment to a system that has ultimately failed.

More concerning are the proposals to give the Mayor of London the power to call-in applications for 50 homes or more and for developments on green belt and metropolitan open land. It is undemocratic to withdraw planning powers from local communities. It will backfire, eroding the little remaining public trust in the Greater London Authority, and it will confirm to outer Londoners that Labour’s plan is not to unlock building on well-connected brownfield sites, but to concrete over our precious remaining countryside.

--- Later in debate ---

[Rachel Blake (Cities of London and Westminster) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Mundell. I commend the hon. Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (Mr French). Although we probably disagree on both the analysis and the solutions, I recognise his passion for his constituency and his concern about the issue in London.

In Cities of London and Westminster, which I am proud to represent, we recognise the appalling cost of temporary accommodation. As the hon. Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman) said, it costs £5 million every day. The eye-watering average price of a home in my area is nearly £1 million. Given the average prices that the hon. Member for Bromley and Biggin Hill (Peter Fortune) spoke about, we are looking at average private monthly rents of £3,221, so the housing crisis is felt acutely right here in the very centre of London.

We have heard powerful contributions about why this issue matters so much, but I want to reflect on the drivers of this debate: the green belt, greenfield land, the brown belt, the grey belt and brownfield land. Only 6.7% of the green belt is in an area that can be developed for housing. In fact, since 2013, just 0.2% of green-belt land has been brought forward. In London, 99.6% of development takes place on brownfield land. That reflects the London that we all know and love, and is one of the real positives of strategic planning in our great city.

However, we face challenging circumstances in converting planning applications into permissions, and permissions into starts on site. We have heard some really compelling contributions about that. We need to focus on stability in the sector, which is critical for ensuring development and delivery. We must recognise the important role of the £39 billion that the Government put into genuinely affordable homes. We need a stable rent-setting system that will enable councils and housing associations to plan, and a stable economy with interest rates going down so that people can have confidence that they will be able to get on to the housing ladder.

I will now focus my remarks on buy-backs. I welcome the contribution from my very respected hon. Friend the Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Dame Meg Hillier) on how effective buy-backs can be in solving inner London’s very particular housing crisis. I commend Westminster city council for investing £20 million in buying back 45 former council flats earlier this year. This is something that we can do immediately. We have a short, medium and long-term challenge in recognising London’s and the UK’s housing crisis. Ifirmly believe that this Government, together with the Greater London Authority’s right to buy-back programme, can enable 1,200 homes to be brought into council ownership, and that will make a tangible difference to lives this week, this month and in the years going into the future.

The new programme brought forward by the Greater London Authority, the council homes acquisition programme, is aimed at helping local authorities to buy back 10,000 homes within just the next few years, and that can be supplemented with local authority housing funds. It is a really effective and immediate means of providing people with the home that they deserve and bringing down our temporary accommodation costs. I would be grateful if the Minister updated us on the conversations he is having on that very topic, the immediate temporary accommodation crisis that we face in London, and how together we might move forward by investing in current council homes to tackle that issue.

Ending Homelessness

Rachel Blake Excerpts

Tuesday 21st October 2025 Westminster Hall

[Rachel Blake (Cities of London and Westminster) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Efford. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool Wavertree (Paula Barker) for her tireless work on the APPG, and the hon. Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman) for his work on this topic. It was hard to disagree with much of what he said in his speech, which is testament to the cross-party commitment on this issue and the growing political consensus that ending homelessness really is possible.

It is a source of great shame that the centre of our capital is also the centre of homelessness. Last year, there were 2,612 people living on the streets in the City of Westminster, and 878 in the City of London. Last year, Westminster city council spent £95 million on temporary accommodation costs, and the City of Westminster’s costs have gone up by 50%.

I believe that we can tackle the causes of homelessness and that this Government are tackling the causes of homelessness. We are ending no-fault eviction and supporting vulnerable people, and I welcome the additional £2.35 million the Government have invested in homelessness services in Westminster, such as The Passage, St Mungo’s, King George’s Hostel, the Single Homeless Project and St Martin-in-the-Fields. We are bringing forward solutions, and we can prevent homelessness, but I ask the Minister to consider the impact of the local connection test and the cost for local authorities and homeless families.

Ending homelessness is the right thing to do. We cannot accept children living in hotels, we cannot accept vulnerable people living on the streets and we cannot accept the damage that homelessness does to families, communities and our economy. We can end homelessness, and we look forward to the cross-departmental homelessness strategy and its proposals.

Indefinite Leave to Remain

Rachel Blake Excerpts

Monday 8th September 2025 Westminster Hall

[Rachel Blake (Cities of London and Westminster) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir Jeremy. I thank the Petitions Committee for scheduling this important debate, and I welcome the spirit in which it has been conducted so far: the original purpose of debating indefinite leave to remain has been respected and we have risen above the appalling and divisive rhetoric that we have heard recently in relation to the role of migration and the lives of asylum seekers.

My constituency has a long track record of welcoming migrants and refugees. The historic neighbourhoods of the City of London, Soho, Fitzrovia and Pimlico are just some of the villages in the very centre of London that have a long track record of welcoming people. They continue to be proud of their diverse heritage. Indeed, our country prides itself on fairness and stability in our approach to the law and to migration and asylum policy. We are a place where people come to build and rebuild their lives, and to invest in their futures. I think we are all richer for that.

[Jamie Stone (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD)]

On behalf of the Petitions Committee, I thank the hon. Member for her thanks. Far away from London in the highlands of Scotland, the same is true: we have refugees who have fitted in and been greatly welcomed. May I make the point to the Minister that involving the devolved institutions, such as the Scottish Government, the Welsh Assembly and the Northern Ireland Assembly, will be hugely important if we are going to make all this work?

[Rachel Blake]

I thank the hon. Member for that contribution.

I want to focus my remarks on those who have BNO visas and particularly on the importance of stability in that system. I first became particularly interested in the lives of people living in Hong Kong because of my constituent, Jimmy Lai, who is currently interred in Hong Kong because he stood up for freedom and democracy. That brought me to be profoundly concerned about the importance of BNO visas.

While it is absolutely right that we should be discussing how we appropriately balance the many benefits of migration with the concerns that some people have about the current system, I do think it important that we have stability in the system and recognise that the bar to securing indefinite leave to remain is already high. I will be focusing very closely on the Home Office proposals to ensure that we are standing by those principles and the values of fairness and stability.

[Gareth Thomas (Harrow West) (Lab/Co-op)]

My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech. I wonder whether she will allow me to register a concern on behalf of those from Hong Kong who live in Harrow, many of whom are making a very significant contribution to our community and are genuinely worried about these proposals.

[Rachel Blake]

I thank my hon. Friend for those remarks about the concerns of his constituents in Harrow.

In any forthcoming consultation, I will focus on ensuring that we stick to those values of fairness and stability. There is already a high bar for those seeking indefinite leave to remain, who came to this country expecting to comply with particular rules and will be going forward with their applications in the very near future.