Houses in Multiple Occupation: Planning Consent

Sam Carling Excerpts

Tuesday 4th November 2025 Westminster Hall

[Sam Carling (North West Cambridgeshire) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair today, Mr Dowd. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Mansfield (Steve Yemm) for securing this debate.

HMOs can work for some people, such as students. With the average house price now more than 7.5 times the average salary, compared with the ’80s when it was three times, HMOs are increasingly becoming the default living arrangement for young professionals. After university or college, the last thing young people want is another year—or many years—sharing a space with others they do not know very well. It also does not mean that these people have significantly lower housing costs because, while cheaper than a full home, many of these places are still exorbitant. While HMOs have their place, their proliferation points to a bad housing market, one in which people are forced to share with strangers because other options are too expensive.

As we know, by default, a family home can be converted to a small HMO without needing an application for planning permission, meaning that an awful lot of HMOs, which put an awful lot of pressure on local services, are being created without planning oversight. Peterborough city council’s article 4 directions mandate developers to apply for full permission in parts of Fletton, Woodston and Hampton in my constituency, which is welcome, but that varies by council and area, meaning that HMOs can still build up in one place. That inevitably strains public services; it means difficulties for waste collection, oversubscription to local GPs and—this is one of the most visible issues—not having anywhere to park.

I join others today in calling for a simpler, stronger process for councils to issue article 4 directions. We need stronger regulation alongside a drive to build more appropriate housing, to increase supply and counter demand. We also need to have a real conversation about the housing mix that we are building. There are more and more single-person households now, who have nowhere to go other than the most expensive types of housing. Let us provide for them and slash the need for HMOs.

Property Service Charges

Sam Carling Excerpts

Thursday 30th October 2025 Commons Chamber

[Rebecca Paul]

I completely agree.

To add insult to injury, Alfie told me that FirstPort charges an £80 administration fee if payment is not made within 30 days of demand. In 2023 he received his fee on Christmas day while in discussions about a payment plan to settle outstanding fees. FirstPort refused to remove the charge despite his financial struggles. Alfie has now left the UK and is renting his flat out at a loss, because that is the only option available to him.

[Sam Carling (North West Cambridgeshire) (Lab)]

The hon. Lady highlights the problem of residents being charged late payment fees. I have a number of constituents who never received an original letter demanding payment, but who are then charged late payment fees despite not knowing a payment was due. Does she agree with me that the lack of communication is another critical issue that we must address?

--- Later in debate ---

[Sam Carling (North West Cambridgeshire) (Lab)]

I am so pleased that we are taking the time today to debate property service charges in depth. Across my constituency, residents are drowning in soaring bills, deferred maintenance, opaque accounts and a carousel of management companies passing the buck. These charges do not exist in a vacuum; they sit alongside dodgy contracts, conflicts of interest and unadopted roads—a structural failure that leaves residents feeling trapped and powerless.

Since being elected, I have had so many constituents come to me with leasehold horror stories. Of course, it is the service charge hikes are that are brought up most. In one case, a £4,600 charge in 2017 was due to increase to over £9,000 this year, in a property where many residents are retired and on a fixed income. That is not to mention the lack of transparency over what the charges were for. In this instance, residents pointed out that a £6,000 charge for staffing was levied during a time when there were no permanent on-site managers. I want to give credit where it is due. When I met the team at that management company for an explanation, they held their hands up and acknowledged that things needed to improve, and they have since followed up with residents.

Other companies, however, are not quite as reflective. Having thought about this, I will not name the companies in my speech, because I do not want to blight the developments in question, but I must warn these companies that that is an option in the future if we do not see improvements. The managing agent of one development in my constituency did not respond positively to my letter setting out residents’ concerns. Indeed, it is displaying what I have come to call the four horsemen of the managing agent: hikes in service charges, inadequate maintenance, poor communication with residents and a lack of financial transparency.

In a previous contribution in the House, I said that residents had informed me of a 150% increase in the service charge in two years. In its very blunt reply, the managing agent said that that was wrong and that the real increase was only a doubling in four years, which it considers reasonable. I do not, and nor do my affected constituents, who have pointed out that if we factor in various additional costs that used to be in the service charge but were then separated out, it is closer to the increase they cited.

Maintenance work does not get done. When residents took me around their development this year, I saw for myself the shoddily constructed steps that create hazards, plus defective drainage, malfunctioning lighting and so much more. The responsibility for some of these issues is not clear, as the developer should be taking on some issues that arose shortly after development. The lack of clarity means that residents are dealing with onerous back-and-forths, whereby responsibility is forever passed on and it seems like maintenance issues will never be solved. Just today, a resident described to me how there was a rat infestation at one point, and a contractor was apparently paid £30,000 of residents’ money to resolve it. It did not. The residents’ association was later able to sort it out, but not before that huge sum of their money was frittered away.

That brings me on to the poor communication. When highlighting the above problems, as well as concerns from residents about service charge breakdowns, I asked the managing agent what it would do to improve communication. I expected an answer that pushed back but at least agreed to look into the concerns I raised. I did not even get that. The response said it all:

“We do not consider that communication requires improvement.”

Then we come to the fourth horseman: a lack of financial transparency. I have been told by residents that they are contractually bound to an insurance policy with a £5,000 excess, making it completely unusable. A resident has shown me figures for one block that show a total insurance premium charged of over £60,000, of which just under £20,000—around 30%—was commission, in a confusing brokerage set-up, with much of that going to a company linked to the managing agent in quite clear ways, which smacks of a conflict of interest or worse. There are so many other examples of this. At another development in my constituency, accounts were provided late to residents for three of the last five years, and in the most recent two years, accounts have not been provided at all, despite much pushing from residents and leaseholders.

It is not just leaseholders in flats who are affected by service charges. I have not yet discussed the fleecehold scandal sweeping up so many of my residents in the newly built developments of Hampton. Unadopted roads are rife in new developments, meaning that residents are paying twice for their local areas to be maintained: once in their council tax, and once in a separate service charge. I counted the number of roads that need to be adopted but are without a section 38 agreement—meaning there is a long way to go before they are adopted—in the Peterborough part of my constituency. There are 289 of them, and they are mostly housing roads. That is an unjust extra charge for thousands of residents in Hampton, Stanground, Orton and elsewhere because roads are not being adopted. Some proposals have been made on how we could tackle this problem. The Home Builders Federation, for example, has made useful suggestions about common adoptable standards and mandatory adoption by public authorities.

[Dame Meg Hillier]

Many Members have raised the issue of the adoption of roads. Obviously, physical roads are easier to define, but there are parts of private estates that are only for that estate. Does my hon. Friend agree that there is a challenge, given the current financial situation, because it usually costs councils money to adopt a road, and under the current law, it could be a big hit for those leaseholders to pay the fee up front for the council to adopt the road?

[Sam Carling]

My hon. Friend makes a very useful point. I should have clarified that the figure I gave does not include the private roads that were not supposed to be adopted; it was purely the ones that are having this issue.

As my hon. Friend says, councils are in a difficult financial situation. The precarious state of local government finances after 14 years of cuts and freezes certainly has not helped. We also have a lot of councils blaming developers and developers blaming councils, and there is an increasing divergence between what council planning departments are requiring to grant permission for development and what the highways departments of said councils are willing to adopt. That is particularly vexing when there is a two-tier system, with planning at one level and highways at another. I hope local government reorganisation will help with that, but it is happening in unitary authorities too, and we need to explore ways to deal with that.

Ultimately, these are symptoms of a wider issue in how the system treats freeholders and leaseholders alike. The leasehold and commonhold reform Bill will be a vital step forward. I am pleased the Government are committed to ending leasehold for new developments. From my experience, that change cannot come soon enough. A key advantage of commonhold becoming the default tenure is that managing agents will be appointed by and responsible to leaseholders, rather than absentee corporate freeholders. Of course, the situation with managing agents still needs to be improved, and I am very supportive of mandatory regulation as a core step towards that, which I hope the Minister will comment on.

This debate comes in a week of real progress: the Renters’ Rights Act 2025 has become law, finally giving tenants the fair treatment they deserve. Let’s keep up that progress, because nobody should have to pay through the nose for poor service, broken promises and a system that puts profit before residents.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sam Carling]

I thank my hon. Friend for her work on this issue on the Treasury Committee. In my speech, I raised an insurance issue that my constituents have gone to the Financial Ombudsman Service about, but they are having problems about whether it is a FOS issue or a property ombudsman issue, and it is just not very clear. Would she join me in calling for more clarity?

[Dame Meg Hillier]

I completely agree with my hon. Friend that we need clarity on this issue. We are talking a lot about service charges, but the insurance industry has a responsibility because it accounts for a large chunk of them. Regulators have a clear role to play, and it is important that that is considered in all the changes we are discussing.

I am pleased that the Government have been consulting on these issues. The consultation on service charges ended in February, so I hope the Minister can give us an update about it. It is important to touch on a couple of other issues. We know that poor maintenance leads to high costs, so standards and expectations should be set on maintenance, which costs leaseholders, but costs them less in the long run if things are maintained. That is a repeated theme across my constituency, as some very modern blocks have not been maintained properly, which means leaseholders end up paying more in the end than they should have done.

There is also an issue with greening blocks. I have constituents working very effectively to try to get electric vehicle charging points and better insulation in a block that is an old warehouse; the famous loft apartments were very popular in my constituency at one point. However, improving such things creates betterment, which increases the ground rent, because the owner of the building can say it is an improvement and can charge more. Such tenants are making their property greener, cleaner and more efficient—costing them less in a lot of ways—but they are ending up with their costs being put up somewhere else, which seems to be a complete imbalance that we have not discussed.

On the right to manage and commonhold—I am a Labour and Co-op MP, and I am very proud to be pushing for commonhold—there can be issues where there is a right to manage. I am working with a development where there is a right-to-manage company, but the directors have hidden themselves away and are not acting responsibly in answering and providing information to their neighbours in the development. I think governance needs an overhaul in this area. It is not going to solve everything if residents take over the management but then do not do a good job, so there needs to be transparency all round.

As we know, this is on top of increased mortgage charges, and let us not forget what the 2022 Budget did to mortgage charges. Shared owners are paying mortgages, rents and service charges, and this is all adding to the cost of living and causing huge upset, on top of the spending on building safety requirements that are hitting so many of my constituents. That is causing real problems, but we need to be clear, so rather than go through the list myself, I will endorse all the asks that my hon. Friend the Member for Doncaster East and the Isle of Axholme (Lee Pitcher) listed about transparency, openness and getting clearer rights for residents to challenge service charges and to make sure they absolutely understand why they are being charged such fees. That is the basic minimum, but we should be making sure it happens.

English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill (Twelfth sitting)

Sam Carling Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 28th October 2025 Public Bill Committees

[Siân Berry]

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

It is a pleasure to move the new clause in the name of the right hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn), who is a well-known enthusiast for allotments. I am a keen gardener in a space similar to an allotment, and my colleague Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb in the House of Lords is also a huge enthusiast. I hope that this issue and this kind of provision will continue to be discussed in the other place, whatever happens in the Commons. The Bill quite rightly puts health and wellbeing at the heart of a lot of the strategic functions of the new authorities. Sadly, however, it neglects the role that access to allotments and green spaces can play in boosting public health. The new clause would rectify that with some specific proposals for allotments.

Across England, demand for allotments is huge. People have really embraced the health and social benefits that they can provide. There is much more awareness of the environmental benefits that they can deliver, supporting pollinators much better than other kinds of managed land. They can be part of green corridors, linking together nature-rich spaces. The demand has led to long waiting lists, while allotments are being taken away. In 1950, there were 1.5 million allotment plots, but we have only around 250,000 today. The biggest losses have been in urban areas, where people need them the most. There are now 108,000 people on waiting lists. For example, in Portsmouth, one in every 25 adults is waiting. That is one person on every bus sitting waiting for an allotment.

At the moment we do not have many legal tools for councils to fix that. There are no reporting requirements on councils and there are no waiting time limits for councils to drive forward ambition on providing allotments, but the Bill provides an opportunity to fix that.

The new clause would create a duty to increase allotment provision and boost public health, to report on allotment and nature-rich provision in areas, and to fund community organisers to widen public access to those resources. It would also require action if allotment provision falls below a certain threshold. The new clause takes inspiration from Scotland—we have not just invented it for England here. Under the Community Empowerment (Scotland) Act 2015, the Scottish Government have mandated a 50% or less waiting-list-to-allotment ratio, a maximum wait of five years or less, as well as annual reports. That has not been an insupportable burden on local authorities there; indeed, they have taken it up with some enthusiasm. It would be brilliant to have that in England. It would provide legal direction, but also practical levers for councils and real imperatives for them to act.

[Sam Carling (North West Cambridgeshire) (Lab)]

When I was a council cabinet member, I had responsibility for allotments. We are talking about strategic authorities, and the hon. Lady is talking about powers for them. I can see a duty in the new clause; I cannot see how it would help councillors who have responsibility for allotments to improve the situation, and I fear that having a combined authority stick its nose in could create extra bureaucracy and undermine the hon. Lady’s aims.

[Siân Berry]

Putting this duty on to individual smaller councils might be burdensome, but at a strategic authority level, collecting this information would seem to be really positive. As we have been discussing throughout the Committee, on many issues—land use, planning and support for community right to buy—there are levers for them to act. At a strategic authority level, it would be great to have some co-ordination—people from different councils getting together to find out how each of them is acting on this issue.

Let us not forget our aim here. We are talking about putting this issue within the health duty somewhat, and we know that time spent on allotments and other green spaces will reduce cardiovascular risk, improve mental health and lower people’s stress. We know that in areas where green space provision is better, men live three years longer and women nearly two years. We need to extend those benefits to the 20 million people who currently lack access to green space within a 15-minute walk, and allotments are some of the healthiest and most rewarding green spaces we can provide. The new clause is a path to more nature, more access to that nature, and improved public health.

English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill (Tenth sitting)

Sam Carling Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 23rd October 2025 Public Bill Committees

[Siân Berry (Brighton Pavilion) (Green)]

It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair this afternoon, Ms Vaz.

I rise to speak against clause 57; I believe it is extreme control freakery and overreach from the Government and in no way essential to this Bill. Why impose a leader and cabinet model on all councils, even against their will, along with all these other changes? The Government can see only the benefits and, like a poorly run council, they ignore the critical risks.

Good governance benefits in many places from a deeply involved voice for principled opposition councillors to vote on policy, check the numbers, put forward good ideas and raise mission-critical questions about issues such as fire safety, service quality or big projects and contracts, even when that is uncomfortable for the administration. Places need the right to choose, democratically, a new model of governance when appropriate—especially when councils face problems and need a fresh start.

Changes of this sort are sometimes made after a crisis or a period of problems; I will talk in the next debate about changes made by referendums. I hear the claims of stagnation and indecision often levelled at committee systems, but I point out that under the current system people who see that happening have the right to change the model and try something else. A new administration can vote to switch to a leader and cabinet for a period, or to a mayor, if it wishes, or the people can make the change themselves by calling a referendum. The Government want to take away all that choice. That is very wrong and this clause is overreaching in the extreme.

Given the exceptions being made for mayors in the mandate for leader and cabinet, it seems that the committee system is the one most under attack from the Government in this Bill, so I want to provide some words and examples from cross-party local councillors about its benefits for their areas. In July 2025, Sheffield city council voted unanimously for a motion defending its democratically chosen model, stating that

“the benefits of the Committee System demonstrated in Sheffield include: greater collaboration across political groups in policy formulation and in decision making; overcoming party political tribalism and focussing on areas of agreement, not antagonism; improving the culture of the Council, with officers and Councillors focusing on what is best for the city; all Councillors being involved in the decision-making of the Council, and greater accountability to the electorate; and improved outcomes for the residents of Sheffield”.

That is a cross-party view.

[Sam Carling (North West Cambridgeshire) (Lab)]

I ran a constitution review for Cambridge city council while I was a councillor there, and we spent a lot of time talking about the committee system versus the cabinet system. Does the hon. Member not agree that what she has just described is an example of really positive culture in a council, which can be had regardless of the governance system? Does she also agree that the key thing about the committee system is that it is slow, inefficient and leads to much worse scrutiny? Under a leader and cabinet system we have scrutiny committees, and we end up with much more detailed questioning of evidence in those than in a committee system.

[Siân Berry]

I implore the hon. Member to listen to the rest of my speech and further points I shall make on other amendments. In Sheffield, at the same time, the council resolved unanimously that

“Sheffield benefits from fairer, more representative governance arrangements, and that people expect the Councillors they elect to have a vote on the decisions that affect them”.

Bristol also has a committee system, and Bristol Green councillors have told me how their cross-party committees have had a series of task and finish groups, where policy is developed with the input of councillors from all parties. They say that, while everyone does not always agree, this process allows for much more rounded development of policy ahead of implementation, not just scrutiny afterwards or divisive call-ins. There is rich debate, with more voices taking part in it.

Those councillors also say that the committee system also allows for back benchers to have more influence and input, with a positive effective on equalities as well, so that more councillors with a variety of different characteristics have space to input, and that, in turn, has a positive effect on policy development. New councillors also have more of a chance to develop their skills and interests than under a cabinet model, where only a handful of councillors have proper influence and are hand-picked by the leader or mayor in many cases. Sheffield councillors also say:

“The critical budget-setting process has worked better in Sheffield since the committee system was introduced, avoiding last minute wrangling and hasty deals between the parties. This is because the detail of the budget process is worked through each Committee in the months leading up to the budget, so all councillors are involved. This contrasts with the last budget brought under our Cabinet system where the budget proposal was voted down as the council meeting descended into chaos.”

I also urge the Committee to note that none of the councils that have issued section 114 notices in recent years have been run under a committee system. Worcestershire city council has had a committee system since 2017, implemented after a council motion that was proposed by Conservatives and seconded by Greens. Councillors there tell me that they see scrutiny within the committee system working really well to improve policy before any decisions are made, and it has improved cross-party working relationships and helped to build consensus.

The council has also been independently praised for its collaborative approach, and was commended in the Local Government Association’s corporate peer challenge in April, which said:

“The peer team found evidence of good governance across the organisation. The peer team found there was positive Member collaboration across political groups which makes the most of the opportunities in this type of governance and there was comprehensive coverage of council business at Policy Committees”.

I can speak on cabinet governance from my previous experience as a councillor in a Labour council, as it is currently the choice of the Labour administration in Brighton and Hove, where my constituency sits. Cabinets can obviously be quicker to act through a rapid decision-making process, but that has risks too. For good reason, the saying is not “Measure once, cut once”. I have noticed a disturbing trend of scrutiny committee time being squeezed by leaders and cabinets, with some councils having just one broad scrutiny committee—I did not experience that and I honestly cannot even imagine it working in agenda terms.

A single scrutiny committee has, by definition, only a limited time to examine a wide range of upcoming decisions in any detail, and surely has no space on the agenda for the kind of through pre-decision scrutiny or issue-based evidence gathering to generate ideas or feedback on services that good scrutiny committees also do, and which I have seen. There are further risks; along with maintaining first past the post, the leader and cabinet model preferred by the Government is a recipe for seeing purely one-party decision making in more places, overriding all opposition voices when key decisions have to be made. One-party states are not more efficient or effective.

Renters’ Rights Bill

Sam Carling Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd October 2025 Commons Chamber

[Matthew Pennycook]

With the leave of the House, I will close this brief but thoughtful debate. I thank all right hon. and hon. Members who have spoken for their contributions. In the time available, I will respond to as many of the issues raised as I can.

Let me start by saying that I welcome the broad support for the Lords amendments expressed by both shadow Front Benchers. In our view, the amendments are reasonable and proportionate, and respond to legitimate concerns that were raised. They have the safeguards in place that we felt were needed, and we are happy that they are being incorporated into the Bill.

The shadow Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for Braintree (Sir James Cleverly), raised the issue of supply. We acknowledge that it will take time for the sector, including build-to-rent providers but also landlords of any type, to adjust to this significant change in regulation, but we do not believe that the legislation will have a destabilising effect on the rental market, or a harmful impact on future rental supply, which, it should be noted, we are taking steps to boost, not least by providing more opportunities for investment in a growing build-to-rent sector.

According to the English housing survey, the size of the private rented sector has remained broadly stable since 2013-14. Landlords have been aware of successive Governments’ plans to reform the sector since 2019. It is worth noting that a study from the UK Collaborative Centre for Housing Evidence looked at whether regulation of the PRS over the past 25 years, in the UK and internationally, had affected PRS supply. It concluded that there was no evidence to support the assertion that non-price regulation impacts supply. We will, of course, continue to work with landlords and their representative associations throughout implementation. We are committed to robustly monitoring and evaluating the private rented sector reform programme, and we will, of course, continue to monitor trends across the PRS, including the supply of properties, to understand how the market is responding to our reforms.

The right hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn) raised the issue of rent controls. He knows that the Government are opposed to introducing rent controls. As I have made clear on many previous occasions, we do not support them, including rent stabilisation measures, because we believe that they could make life more difficult for private renters, both by incentivising landlords to increase rents routinely to a cap, where they might not otherwise have done so, and by pushing many landlords out of the market, thereby making it even harder for renters to find a home that they can afford.

The right hon. Gentleman asked me about implementation. Following Royal Assent, we will allow time for a smooth transition to the new system. We will support tenants, landlords and agents to understand and adjust to the new rules, and ensure the sector has enough time to prepare. As he is aware, the Bill will ensure that the new tenancy system for the private rented sector is introduced in one stage. At that point, the new tenancy system will apply to all private tenancies. Existing tenancies will convert to the new system, and any new tenancy signed off on or after that date will be governed by the new rules.

As I said, I am glad that there is broad support for the Lords amendments relating to shared owners. It is worth saying that the Government will make provision during implementation to ensure that shared owner landlords with an existing tenancy will have an opportunity to provide the information in question to the tenant after the Bill comes into force. We want to take the time to get this right, and find a solution that works for shared owners. We intend to do that using the delegated powers to make transitional provision provided by clause 147.

The Liberal Democrat spokesman, the hon. Member for Taunton and Wellington (Gideon Amos), asked about various issues relating to the amendments about service family accommodation. In particular, he asked about investment. As I outlined in my opening speech, the Ministry of Defence has announced an additional £1.5 billion investment in SFA as part of a £7 billion commitment over the next five years to improving and modernising defence housing. That investment will unlock rapid work to tackle the poor state of forces housing, helping to support recruitment, retention and morale. As I mentioned, the defence housing strategy, to be published later this year, will also set out wider plans to improve service family homes.

It is also worth saying that redress is already available to service personnel, who already have a robust system in place for raising a complaint about the standard of their accommodation and receiving remedy or reimbursement. If not resolved, complaints can be escalated to a service complaint, for which there are further powers of reimbursement, charge reduction and policy redress, and ultimately to the employment tribunal in cases of potential discrimination.

[Sam Carling (North West Cambridgeshire) (Lab)]

I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Hastings and Rye (Helena Dollimore) about the delays to the Bill. I served on the Bill Committee more than a year ago now, and since then, so many tenants have experienced no-fault evictions. I encourage the Minister to move as quickly as possible to implement the Bill, so that I can tell my constituents how soon their assured shorthold tenancies will become rolling tenancies, and so they can benefit from that as quickly as possible.

[Matthew Pennycook]

I thank my hon. Friend for that point well made, which I will respond to directly as I wind up. We know that many tenants out there want the great security, rights and protections afforded by the Bill in place as soon as possible.

We promised in our manifesto to overhaul the regulation of our country’s insecure and unjust private rented sector, and this Bill delivers on that commitment. It will empower renters by providing them with greater security, rights and protections, so that they can stay in their homes for longer, build lives in their communities and avoid the risk of homelessness. It will ensure that we can drive up the quality of private rented housing, giving renters access to good-quality and safe homes as a matter of course, and it will allow us to crack down on the minority of unscrupulous landlords who exploit, mistreat or discriminate against renters. The Bill will also provide tangible benefits for responsible landlords who provide high-quality homes and a good service to their tenants, not only improving the reputation of the sector as a whole, but ensuring that good landlords enjoy simpler regulation and clear and expanded possession grounds, so that they can regain their properties quickly when necessary.

As I have argued many times throughout the passage of the Bill, the current system for private renting is broken. In abolishing section 21 no-fault evictions and modernising the regulation of the sector, the Bill will improve the lives of England’s 11 million private renters. It is a transformational piece of legislation and, if you will allow me a brief personal word, Madam Deputy Speaker, I take great pride in having developed and shepherded it through Parliament.

It would be remiss of me to conclude my remarks without thanking a number of people. I would like to express my gratitude to all hon. and right hon. Members and peers in the other place who have engaged with the Bill throughout its passage; the expertise and insight that have been brought to bear in both Houses have strengthened the Bill in a number of important respects. I particularly want to thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Angela Rayner), who was and remains one of the Bill’s biggest supporters. She was instrumental in ensuring that it was introduced so quickly after the formation of the Government.

I also thank all the stakeholders who have worked closely with the Government to ensure that the Bill will work for landlord and tenant alike. I cannot possibly credit them all in the time I have available, but I will put on the record my thanks to Generation Rent, Shelter, Crisis, Citizens Advice and the other members of the Renters’ Reform Coalition, as well as the National Residential Landlords Association, the shared ownership network and Propertymark. I will say a final thanks to all the officials in my Department who have devoted so much time and energy to developing and progressing the Bill, particularly the Bill team, Aidan Hilton, James Kennedy, our lawyers and many more, and my private office, specifically Will Gaby and Grace Doody, who provided me with invaluable support throughout the Bill’s passage.

Completing the Bill’s final stage today is obviously only the beginning; once the Bill becomes law, we need to implement its provisions. In doing so, we will balance the need to act quickly, so that tenants can soon benefit from the new rights and protections introduced by the Bill, with ensuring that the sector has sufficient time to adjust and prepare for a significant change in regulation. The Government understand the need for certainty, and we will set out our implementation plans as soon as possible. I very much look forward to working with hon. and right hon. Members, as well as all stakeholders, as we take forward that progress.

Lords amendments 19B, 19C and 19D agreed to.

Lords amendments 39B and 39C agreed to.

English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill (Eighth sitting)

Sam Carling Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 21st October 2025 Public Bill Committees

[Sam Carling (North West Cambridgeshire) (Lab)]

The hon. Gentleman moved an amendment specifically to rule out trade unions. The Bill does not rule them in, in any way. I am slightly concerned that he might be misleading us—inadvertently.

[Paul Holmes]

I am not sure whether it is parliamentary to say that I am attempting to mislead the Committee. He corrected himself, so I will not take offence.

English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill (Sixth sitting)

Sam Carling Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 16th October 2025 Public Bill Committees

[David Simmonds]

I will speak to amendment 287. We understand the point that the Minister is making about a need to ensure that there is strategic oversight of what is going on. Our concern is that, as we have seen in London, where a version of this already exists, there is sometimes a conflict between what a mayor seeks to do and the views of a local authority—in particular, the elected mandate of that local authority.

We have heard a lot of evidence and had a lot of lobbying as constituency Members of Parliament about issues such as the impact of floating bus stops on people who are partially sighted, and the conflict that the use of bus lanes can sometimes introduce with cyclists. Rather than a duty to implement whatever the mayor decides, there clearly needs to be a duty to “have regard to” it, so that those two things can operate constructively together. That is the thinking behind the amendment, which we intend to push to a vote in due course.

[Sam Carling]

The schedule contains comprehensive provisions around the designation of key route network roads, but I am conscious that we have not defined key route networks in statute. I am a little worried, therefore, about the potential for mayors to designate inappropriate roads as key route networks for political purposes.

I was struck by the evidence the Committee received from Mill Road 4 People, a Cambridge-based campaign group I was familiar with when I was a councillor there, although I was not involved with them in any way. The group is concerned that mayors could use key route networks to undermine or remove bus gates or low-traffic neighbourhoods that councils have introduced, in an attempt to gain votes by whipping up tensions around the so-called war on motorists. That could seriously undermine councils’ ability to bring in such schemes, very much against the Government’s commitments to active travel.

The group’s concerns are based on a local situation, as that is exactly what is likely to happen in Cambridge if the incumbent mayor gets his way over Mill Road, which is semi-pedestrianised through the use of a bus gate. Will the Minister consider introducing safeguards to prevent such issues by more clearly defining what criteria a road should meet to be eligible for designation as a key route network road? Should it perhaps have to be an A or B road, or else be subject to more detailed justification?

On a related note, has the Minister considered requiring the designation of key roads to be for a specific purpose? On page 139, schedule 8 requires that for the mayor to designate a key route network road, the combined authority has to pass a resolution approving it. However, when the mayor comes to give directions, proposed new subsection 23A of the Levelling-up and Regeneration Act 2023 does not require the passing of a resolution, and the power is vested in the mayor alone.

That could create a loophole whereby a mayor could get the combined authority to pass a resolution to designate a road for some reason, and a future mayor with different plans could use the designation for a completely different purpose without the combined authority board having to vote again. One option for solving that could be that when they create a designation, the mayor has to set out its purpose and broadly what powers they envisage exercising. I wonder if the Minister could consider whether that is an issue.

[David Simmonds]

On a point of order, Ms Vaz. I think, in my enthusiasm for the proceedings, I made reference to the amendments that we will be dealing with in the next grouping. I shall not repeat my observations, but I am sure the Minister will hold my comments in mind and be desperate to respond to them when she makes her introduction to the next group.

--- Later in debate ---

[Vikki Slade]

I rise to speak to new clause 11 on funding for transport authorities. There is a lot of merit in harmonising and simplifying the way that transport authorities work. Having borders between different systems can cause huge complications for people crossing them. Obviously, such borders will still exist, but hopefully they will be fewer and farther between.

The purpose of our new clause is to address the elephant in the room. The legislation adds a healthy set of new transport functions for combined authorities, set out across the various measures we have already heard about, and many of them are very positive, but the reality is that those transport authorities that are currently local authorities receive a lot of central Government funding, while the strategic and combined authorities sitting at the higher level do not. Their money is not coming from the magic money tree; it is coming from levies and precepts.

Additional responsibilities are great, but given the additional work involved in all this transport reporting that we have heard about, and the additional functions at a higher level, I am greatly concerned that we may be setting some of these organisations up to fail from the start. Through new clause 11, I am seeking assurance that the Secretary of State will continue to assess and review whether authorities have sufficient support and capacity to carry out these functions, and ensure that they are not too onerous given the source of their funding—levies on the authorities beneath them and precepts directly on the taxpayer.

This Bill is a move away from how we have been funding local authorities; yes, some local authorities are on zero revenue support grants, but many are still quite heavily reliant on central Government funding, and this is the first opportunity for me to say, out loud: are we sure this is a good idea? We are creating a whole framework of legislation and a whole set of local authorities, that have no real central funding. New clause 11 provides the first chance to ask that question and get assurance from the Minister about precisely where the money is coming from. If the money is coming directly from our residents through precepting, we should say that out loud, so that they understand what they have let themselves in for.

[Sam Carling]

I have a brief, technical question. I might be mistaken in my reading of the provision, but I seek clarification about the arrangements for local transport plans. On Tuesday, the Committee agreed to clause 6, which amended the Levelling-up and Regeneration Act 2023 and the Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Act 2009 to introduce a standard of simple majority voting on combined authority boards. However, we included a grandfathering provision to allow some distinctive governance arrangements at existing authorities to continue.

Schedule 9 makes a similar amendment to the Transport Act 2000, specifically for the adoption of local transport plans, as we have heard, but this amendment does not have the grandfathering provision. Thinking of my own combined authority in Cambridgeshire and Peterborough, where local transport plans require a two-thirds majority, I wonder whether the Bill could create legal ambiguity that could lead to judicial reviews or legal challenges. According to clause 6, setting out the general arrangements of boards, the existing arrangements stand once this Bill comes into force, but according to schedule 9 they are overturned. Will the Minister clarify the Government’s intention there? Then we can find a way to remove that ambiguity.

English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill (Fifth sitting)

Sam Carling Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 16th October 2025 Public Bill Committees

[Sam Carling (North West Cambridgeshire) (Lab)]

On the subject of local partners, could the Minister confirm that the intention here is to include private sector organisations as local partners? I am keen to see mayors make the most of this power, being able to use it to ensure that conversations can take place with, for example, large local employers or anchor companies to create economic alignment, or developers and utility companies to deal with issues during development.

English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill (Fourth sitting)

Sam Carling Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 14th October 2025 Public Bill Committees

[Vikki Slade]

There is a role for experts, but the role of the commissioners, as they are seen through this lens or this organisation, is far better suited to people who are elected. Councils around the country, including Manchester, can appoint individuals to do specific roles for a specific period of time, but the role of commissioner lies in those strategic decision-making pieces that are integral to their shape, and they ensure that an individual cannot independently run a fiefdom. I think it is really important that there are local people who are accountable. There is nothing to stop an organisation from appointing an individual expert, as they do all over the country, but they do not need to be called “commissioners”.

[Sam Carling (North West Cambridgeshire) (Lab)]

With your permission, Sir John, I will make some references to schedule 3 as well as clause 9, just to do it all in the same place. I will start by responding to some of the hon. Lady’s points. She raises some valid concerns. I will just give the perspective of someone who lives in quite a fractious combined authority area. I think my combined authority board currently has two Conservatives, two Lib Dems and two Labour—that is not enough people, so it must be 3:3:2, but I cannot remember which way around.

We also have the Manchester system at the moment, whereby different people hold different portfolios, which has led to a lot of politicisation. We have a Conservative mayor now, and we previously had a Labour mayor, but under both there was a lot of game-playing going on and a lot of difficulty, so I think it would be helpful for the mayor to be able to appoint commissioners just to get on with delivering their strategy. They are directly elected, and although I disagree with my mayor on a lot of things, I accept his mandate. It may well be helpful for mayors across the country to be able to deliver the strategy that they have stood on.

My concern relates to the relative sizes of combined authorities in a uniform approach to commissioners, and whether we can look at how to deal with that. To give an example, Greater Manchester has 3 million residents; Cambridgeshire and Peterborough has around 1 million. Similarly, the Greater Manchester combined authority has 3,500 staff—or 4,600 if you include Transport for Greater Manchester—while Cambridgeshire and Peterborough combined authority has 139 employees, according to a freedom of information request from March 2024. The difference in scale is significant, and obviously the amount of work for commissioners to oversee is therefore significant.

I do not want to put the Minister on the spot now, but could she write to me at some point to give context on whether the Government have considered modifying the number of commissioners that a combined authority mayor can appoint with respect to that variance in size, or perhaps the allowance payable to those commissioners, so they would be more part time in smaller authorities? I note that amendment 293, which we will discuss later, relates to allowances, and I can imagine that the Government want to allow flexibility so that local areas can do what is best for them, which makes perfect sense.

Within my area, if commissioners were paid at director level, that could cost well over £1 million. Senior officers can earn in excess of £100,000, which is a significant sum, and it is more than mayors themselves or many Government Ministers earn. That may well be appropriate in London, where it works and seems to be doing a great job, but London is a lot bigger than some other authorities. I thank the Committee for listening to those thoughts, and if the Minister could give some clarity on how we can deal with some of those issues, I would be really grateful.

[David Simmonds]

The Opposition have some sympathy with the points that have been made in the debate. It is an area in which there is scope to move towards a degree of consensus. I think that we all recognise that part of the underlying thinking behind the mayoral combined authority is that it brings a new element of leadership, and from those models where they are established, such as in London, we can identify some of the issues. As we heard at the start of the Committee, there is clear evidence about accountability.

One of the issues that persists in London is that there are a number of advisers—whether they are commissioners or not is a moot point—who undertake sometimes quite highly paid roles on behalf of the mayor, but they are not visibly accountable to the GLA, the boroughs or anybody else. That begins to undermine public confidence, and it clearly creates a sense of distance between those who are elected and those who they are there to serve.

While I agree that there is no reason why somebody who is elected should not occupy those roles, one of the issues with the proposed amendment is that there is clearly a risk of constraining them—in particular, in relation to the wording of the proposed amendment. When we consider some of the statutory roles that might be occupied—directors of children’s services, statutory directors of social care, monitoring officers, section 151 officers and others who have legal duties—there is a risk that by defining it as narrowly as the amendment does, we create some concerns about the interaction between those who are part of the professional officer corps that serves local government and those who are political appointees. I do not think that that is intentional; it is simply a risk that arises from the way in which it is drafted.

We will not be supporting the amendment, but I am mindful of the comments that have been made by those on the Government Benches about the need to ensure that those who occupy the roles are fit to do so, and that they are publicly accountable, because they will be public servants and they need to be answerable to effective scrutiny measures for the work that they do.

--- Later in debate ---

[David Simmonds]

These amendments concern the remuneration of commissioners and have two purposes.

There is a long-established principle within the arrangements for the remuneration of elected officials in local government that an independent panel, which is able to take evidence from the public and other good sources in the local area, will make a recommendation to the local authority about what the scheme of allowances payable should be. That brings a degree of transparency. Councils are currently required to consider the recommendations and to update their scheme from time to time, including voting to renew it each year. That has certain elements. One is whether commissioners—in this case, those who are appointed and are part of a mayoral combined authority—should be eligible for the local government pension scheme.

We heard an announcement from the Secretary of State on this issue, and it is the view of the shadow team that it is a sensible step. Changing the local government pension scheme from a final salary scheme to an average salary scheme was led by councillors, and it was instrumental in convincing a very large body of appointed officials to move over to that scheme, saving the taxpayer millions of pounds. However, it is also important that those appointed as commissioners are considered for eligibility and that each mayor is transparent about the recommendations and advice they have undertaken around that.

The second point to consider is around remuneration. We often hear it cited that there are people in the civil service, the NHS and local government who are paid more than the Prime Minister, which is used as a benchmark for excessive pay. Whether or not we agree with that—personally, I do not, as I recognise that there is a professional salary structure for these roles, in which those people will participate for the whole of their careers, that is very different from the context for politicians—it is none the less important to recognise that those who are appointed into mayoral roles should be subject to some degree of constraint.

As is the case with local government, it seems reasonable that we do not see elected officials appointed on a very significantly higher salary than senior professionals who are advising in the same field. The amendments aim to bring a degree of transparency and rigour to that, and to ensure that, in the potential circumstance where a mayor chooses to stretch the limits of their powers of appointment, shall we say, there is some degree of constraint so that the public can see that the taxpayer pound is being carefully husbanded.

[Sam Carling]

We have just heard the Minister speak about having statutory guidance on this issue. Does the hon. Member agree that one way of making this change, rather than through these amendments, would be for the guidance to include some clear indications to the remuneration panels about what roles they should consider comparable for mayoral commissioners. That might be council leaders or cabinet members rather than senior officers; or it may be senior officers, where appropriate.

[David Simmonds]

I understand the issue that the hon. Member is highlighting. One thing that emerged from the debate about councillor pensions was that they were essentially taken away by a decision of Parliament, without the process of legislation. One of the risks here is that statutory guidance, robust as it can be and coming with a duty to “have regard”, can be changed quite quickly. Therefore, if this is not clearly set out on the face of the Bill, the ability of this Parliament and of local communities, as we are observing, to exercise the degree of accountability and scrutiny that they might wish is undermined. That is why we have proposed these amendments.

--- Later in debate ---

[David Simmonds]

I draw the Minister’s attention to the existing arrangements for independent remuneration panels. She has referenced the proposals for how this kind of situation will be handled. However, we can envisage circumstances such as those that we heard about in Greater Manchester, where the mayoral commissioners are effectively drawn from the leadership of those local authorities.

There is a degree of ambiguity in proposed new sections 52A(6) and 113E(6), which refer to allowances paid

“in respect of the same special responsibilities”.

For example, I think of a situation where someone is a cabinet member with responsibility for transport in a constituent authority and also undertakes a strategic transport role as part of the combined authority. We as politicians would recognise that those are two different things, in the same way that a Minister undertaking duties in the Government is paid separately from their role as a Member of Parliament because those two things are distinct.

Transparency and clarity are important to retaining public confidence. Clearly, we do not want to create a situation where there is a degree of dispute, such as where a mayoral combined authority expects the constituent council to pay, or vice versa, and where an individual who wishes to take up those duties is inhibited from doing so. It would be helpful if the Minister could set out how the statutory guidance will address that issue so the Committee can be confident that we will not see this act as a barrier to participation in the governance of these new authorities.

[Sam Carling]

I have some more thrilling financial commentary, so I hope the Committee will forgive me. First, I welcome what the Minister has just said. Exactly this situation happened in Cambridgeshire and Peterborough, where our mayor went on medical leave for some time. His deputy, Councillor Anna Smith, who is a good friend of mine, ended up taking on the deputy mayoral role, so she had to drop hours at work and faced a significant loss of income. Our council took the decision to pay her as essentially a cabinet member, but it was not ideal. Clause 10 will resolve so many issues.

I want to highlight a discrepancy in that, at present, there is usually no allowance for members who sit on the combined authority board. A lot of the time, it is the leader of the council who does so, and it is often considered to be part of their portfolio, but it is not always leaders who sit on the board. That can lead to people taking on a very significant commitment without any financial support, despite potentially having to reduce hours at work and the like, if the councillor in question has a job, as many do. That is not conducive to having a diverse range of elected representatives to do these jobs.

Following local government reorganisation, if we have fewer leaders on boards and more holders of other portfolios and councillors, we may see this problem increase. I encourage the Minister to consider either altering the clause or making other provisions as the Bill progresses to allow combined authorities, if they wish, to pay an allowance to their board members for that role.

[Miatta Fahnbulleh]

I understand the concerns expressed by the hon. Member for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner and the context in which that could arise. Our judgment is that if the independent remuneration committee does its job, we can mitigate around that. There is always a balance. We are trying to live the spirit of the Bill and to create as much autonomy, space and power for the mayor and constituent authorities to make such decisions, rather than us specifying nationally. As we get representations from strategic authorities going through the process, we will reflect that in statutory guidance, but we think we have the right balance. The important role that the remuneration committee will play will help to mitigate some of the risks the hon. Member mentioned.

On the specific example raised by my hon. Friend the Member for North West Cambridgeshire, we are not prohibiting elected members from sitting on the combined authority. It is within the gift of the combined authority. Again, we are giving as much flexibility as possible for an authority to come up with measures that work for a particular local area.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 10 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 11

Mayoral combined authorities and CCAs: precepts

English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill (Second sitting)

Sam Carling Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 16th September 2025 Public Bill Committees

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

Q Let me start by thanking you for the support, encouragement and enthusiasm for what we are trying to do through the Bill. You are completely right that this is our baseline—our floor—and our ambition as a Government is to build on it. In that spirit, I want to pick up on the right to request that we are introducing through the Bill. I am interested in your views on how we can ensure that the right is as effective as possible in taking us on the journey of empowering our mayors to deliver for their communities.

Tracy Brabin: I will be pithy—and congratulations on your role, by the way; I know that we have a champion by our side. What is important is the way that we can collectively come to a consensus on the Mayoral Council and say, “The mayors are agreed that this is the next step,” and then the Government have to explain why we cannot have it. There is also an opportunity for individual mayors to have something of value that relates to them and their region specifically. The key to that, Minister, is surely for it to be as straightforward and efficient as possible, rather than hoops and processes.

As mayors, one of the things that we are discussing at the moment is taxi licensing. Just to give you the numbers, 49% of private hires operating in Greater Manchester are licensed by authorities outside of the 10 local authorities. We know, from Baroness Casey’s work about violence against women and girls, how that is a weakness in the system when it comes to the safety of young women. As mayors, we are looking to the council to help us to understand how we can do that more efficiently, but that may be something that affects only some urban metro mayors and not others. It is about how we can collectively ask, which is a really fast-track process, but then there will be individual conversations.

Donna Jones: I really welcome the right to request. Following on from what Tracy just said about mayors and their unique geographical areas, in my patch, I—or whoever is successful next year—will have the largest island, aside from Ireland itself, of course, that we represent in part of England: the Isle of Wight. That piece of water creates a lot of problems for the Isle of Wight in terms of the supply chain and the skills market; things are a lot more expensive on the Isle of Wight.

One of the things that I am really pleased about is that the Government are looking, through the Bill to establish Great British Railways, which is coming forward, to give mayors greater powers around the planning, performance, improvement and project management of rail networks in their areas. I argue that that should be extended to ferries, particularly for my area. The Isle of Wight has three main transporters: Wightlink and Red Funnel are the two car and foot passenger ferries, and Hovertravel is a hovercraft that runs until 6.30 pm every day. For a lot of people who live on the island, it is cost prohibitive to travel off it and back. If it is not included in Committee or picked up by you, Minister, I will be requesting the right to have a regulator power over the ferry companies that operate across the Solent, because of course they need Crown permission to operate across that piece of water.

Following on from Tracy’s point about the uniqueness of certain geographical areas, I think that there are other good things, such as lane rental approval. I love the idea of that. Utility companies are given permission by the highway authority to dig up the road, and it goes on and on. That has an effect on transport, pollution and people’s travel to work time, and it has a knock-on effect on economic growth in the area, putting people off travelling to or from work or taking up jobs. We have to look at that. Giving mayors the ability to effectively tax or fine companies every day they go over the set period of two weeks, or however long it would be, is absolutely key. I could go on—there are some brilliant things in here—but I welcome what you are trying to achieve.

Ben Houchen: The right to request is an interesting one. There is a bit of an academic argument about the Government wanting to standardise mayoral powers so they are same across the board, but then the right to request, if done correctly, would allow for differentiation. There is an issue about whether we are looking for a standard model or whether we want more of a patchwork. That is for members of the Committee to think about, but it is important: at the nth degree, if you have differentiation through the right to request, you could have areas with hugely different powers. That is going to create political problems, with people feeling like one area has more control than another.

Administration from a central Government point of view is also difficult. Irrespective of devolution, there is always a clawback into central Government. That is probably right, rather than giving us carte blanche over everything, but it goes back to the strategic question about what you want to happen. The ultimate right to request—this is where you are going to have proper devolution that allows for earned autonomy over time—is the relationship between combined authorities, the Department and the Treasury. The key question that needs to be answered is how you get the combined authority to have an accountable officer within the organisation. Where I think combined authorities should get to is being treated as geographical Departments. We should be treated in the same way as a Department, bidding into Budgets and spending reviews, with our full, eclectic mix—from housing to transport and everything in between—and we should be accountabledirectly to the Treasury.

The only thing holding that up is the internal civil service mechanism of having an accountable officer outside Whitehall. That sounds flippant, but it is a difficult thing for the civil service to deal with; once you deal with that, it negates the need for a right to request or anything else, because over the years organisations will mature with that direct relationship with the Treasury.

It also gets into some key niggles that I know other mayors care about: “Why do you therefore need organisations like Homes England?”. If you get into the right to request, you do not need them. At the minute we are already doing half of what Homes England does. The Government have again gone into this halfway house of strategic partnerships, instead of taking the bold leap they should have taken: where you have mayors, you do not need Homes England, so make them the financially accountable body and ensure there are ties back in to central Government for oversight and value for money. Something more strategic could be done, but for me it goes back to the point that the Government did not want to address the strategic question of where devolution is going over the next five or 10 years.

[Sam Carling (North West Cambridgeshire) (Lab)]

Q I have a question for the whole panel, but first I would like to come on to something Mayor Brabin just said. I was really pleased you raised the issue of taxi licensing. We have a border problem around my area of Cambridgeshire and Peterborough, where taxis register in certain councils because they have laxer standards. Do you think there is a case for adding something to this Bill to give mayoral authorities a role in that licensing process, or at least for making it one of the first things brought forward under the right to request?

Tracy Brabin: Thank you for that question; I know your mayor has raised that with me. The strategic overview is really helpful, because some councils might have different processes. Uniformity across mayoral strategic authorities can only be helpful. I would say that the majority of mayors feel that that is a solution to some of the problem, where we have seen cowboys from way outside people’s patches, not necessarily with the same expectations on their vehicles or safety and so on, and we do not know who they are. It is important to have that clarity for the safety of the public.

[Sam Carling]

Q Thank you; that is really helpful. On to my main question: in Cambridgeshire and Peterborough, our mayor announced that he intends to appoint as his planning commissioner a former leader of Peterborough city council, who is still a councillor, although currently in opposition. We have a democratic problem, where we have a commissioner who was denied a mandate, but has been brought in anyway. Is there a question here about how we ensure commissioners are accountable both to the public and to councils?

Tracy Brabin: I suppose the same question could be asked of the police and crime commissioner. The deputy mayor for policing and crime, Alison Lowe, is not directly elected by the public; she is accountable to me. I am the one directly elected, and we hold the chief constable to account. That is democracy. The outcomes from that individual will reflect on the impact that the mayor is having, good or bad, so that is about public scrutiny as well.

It is also helpful, if you are a strategic or combined authority, to have a good mix of partners. In West Yorkshire, we have three opposition members, so we are open to scrutiny and to challenge; that is where you can get the clear water of what is going on.

Donna Jones: On licensing and the taxi point, when I was leader of Portsmouth city council 10 years ago, we were one of the areas where Uber exploded first. We were a growth area for it on the south coast, but I think its registered office and its licensing for drivers was up in Wolverhampton or somewhere, so it was miles away and had no bearing on what I was trying to deliver in Portsmouth, in terms of signage on taxis and the uniformity we were trying to achieve.

On safety, and the point Tracy made about what we have been calling for as police and crime commissioners, I was calling three years ago for CCTV to be mandatory in taxis. What you could do, through Parliament, is to mandate that through separate taxi licensing regulation and law. Strategic authorities could play a part, if the licensing authorities remain, like local planning authorities, at the lowest level with the unitary authorities—as it will be after local government reorganisation. The strategic authorities could then have the right to call in or set some strategic licensing powers that the licensing authorities beneath them have to implement. That could be a way to address it.

Ben Houchen: On the commissioner point, I echo what Tracy says: ultimately, the democratic power of that is vested in the mayor. It is for the mayor to appoint, or not. That goes further than just commissioners, with the changes in the Bill around the establishment of mayoral development corporations, the appointment to the boards of those and the fact they can, if they choose, take planning powers, compulsory purchase order powers and so on. You are in effect appointing a board that the mayor appoints—nobody else appoints it; it does not have to be democratically elected, with the exception that there has to be a councillor from the authority where that development corporation is established. We have had some experience of that over the last couple of years in Teesside, as I am sure you are aware.

Ultimately, if you are not happy with that, or with the strategic direction that the mayor is setting for the board to follow, while individuals are not necessarily directly elected, the mayor is accountable. Therefore, if people are not happy with the commissioner, that can be shown through the ballot box at a mayoral election. Whether it is the night tsar or someone else—I apologise; I forget the one you said was appointed in Peterborough—ultimately, it is for the public to decide whether they are happy with how the mayor conducts matters and uses the powers given to them via the Government and Parliament.

[Paul Holmes (Hamble Valley) (Con)]

Q You are about to see that even though there was a south coast derby between Southampton and Portsmouth, we still can talk very politely, Ms Vaz—it was very boring, ending 0-0.

Welcome back, Mayor Brabin; I wanted to ask about some of the evidence we heard earlier from the District Councils’ Network. There was a concern that the legislation could undermine some of the traditional links between the public and their parish and town councils. I will ask for a brief answer, because I am aware that there are other Members who want to ask questions. For the two existing mayors, can you give an example of how you have managed to encapsulate the views of town and parish councils to help to guide you through your mayoral term, and whether there are any lessons that could be learned? Donna, have you started to think about how you will encapsulate that and make sure that people are listened to on a ground level politically?

Tracy Brabin: We have not been subject to much of that larger reorganisation, but we are determined to listen to the voices of others, whether through mayor’s question time, going out to the public, where councillors and individuals can ask any question, or “Message the Mayor” on the BBC, where anybody can ring in and ask any question. That also includes working with our voluntary, community and social enterprise sector, whether that is on the mayor’s cost of living fund, or working with smaller organisations on the impact in their communities, towns and villages. I would hope there would be a consensus in West Yorkshire that people felt heard.

I know for a lot of people there will be a sense that there is potentially a power grab and powers are going in the wrong direction. I absolutely believe that this is localism in its pure sense, because these people are elected by the public—275,000 people voted for a Labour mayor in West Yorkshire. You have that mandate. We have skin in the game. We know our communities, businesses, further education colleges, universities, innovators and entrepreneurs. We can definitely deliver for villages, towns and cities in our patch.

Ben Houchen: The honest answer is that, with the development of combined authorities and regional mayors, and a lot of reorganisation going on at county council level, as well as lots of unitaries—Teesside was one of the first unitary areas, many years ago—there are a lot of people looking over their shoulders at what reorganisation might mean. I say this as a previous town councillor and a former unitary councillor: I am not hugely convinced of town and parish council involvement at a regional level. There is a more fundamental question that should be asked around the modern need for town and parish councils in their current form. That is obviously well above my pay grade, and I am sure you will be considering that at some point in the future. It is not something I personally foresee getting much traction or involvement at a combined authority level.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Chair]

We will continue this session for 10 minutes. We have 10 minutes’ extra time—no penalties.

Mark Stocks: I have one final comment, if I may. The Member was asking whether the Local Audit Office was going to come into contention with local government. Some of the things we do are contentious, such as when we issue statutory recommendations and public interest reports. One of the things I have missed in the last decade or so is the support of a body when we do something as difficult as that, because, as you can imagine, it is me against the authority, even though we have the firm there. I would hope and expect the Local Audit Office to be part of the decision making around public interest reports and statutory recommendations, which I think will lead to some contention with local government, because that is the difficult end of what we do. However, we need to do that, because sometimes things go wrong.

[Sam Carling]

Q We have talked a lot about governance and the need to safeguard how financial procedures work on audit committees. I am interested in the flipside of that—in how we can protect taxpayer money through measures such as those in the devolution White Paper, including local public accounts committees. Could you give us your view on that?

Mark Stocks: That is a good question. There is a remit for a local public accounts committee, but only one, if we do that. The NAO provides all the information to the national Public Accounts Committee, so it is then about how you co-ordinate that across local auditors to deliver the information for a public accounts committee to hold local government to account. Personally, I think that should be a long-term aim and aspiration. I would worry at the moment about whether there is enough capacity in local audit to support a public accounts committee. At the moment we have just enough of us to do the job that we are doing.

[Sam Carling]

Q That is useful. You talked about potentially having only one that perhaps has quite a big remit across the whole country. Do you think that would have enough time to do the work it would need to do, or is there a kind of midway point where perhaps you have regional committees or some other mechanism?

Mark Stocks: I think it depends on how you view it and how much detail you want to get into. The contentious parts of local government are where things like regeneration schemes go awry, or where there are management decisions that lead to claims against the council in some form or another. Those tend to be national issues. I agree that to delve down into each one for an authority would be enormous, but looking at things in terms of thematics—how councils are coping with children’s social care, adult social care, regeneration or some of the Government policies—would I think be possible at a national level. Again, if you started to push it down into local committees, it is about who provides the information. That is always going to be the difficulty in having those committees.

[The Chair]

If there are no further questions, on behalf of the Committee, I thank you for coming to give evidence, Mr Stocks.

Examination of Witnesses

Zoë Billingham and Professor John Denham gave evidence.