Water (Special Measures) Bill [Lords]

Debate between Steve Reed and Richard Holden

2nd reading
Monday 16th December 2024 Commons Chamber

[Steve Reed]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. One of the reasons the Government commissioned a review into governance and regulation is because of the failure of the current system that the previous Government allowed to continue.

I share customers’ anger about the scale of water bill rises they seem likely to face. They are rightly furious at being left to pay the price of Conservative failure. I am grateful that the party opposite has indicated support for the Bill. It is just a shame its support has come so late. In December last year, while they were still in government, I called a vote on introducing a ban on unjustified bonuses for water bosses, but they refused to do it. They could have acted at any point over the past 14 years, but they would not do it. There have been many times in history when Labour has had to clean up the Tories’ mess, but rarely quite so literally as cleaning up the raw sewage polluting our country’s waterways.

[Mr Richard Holden (Basildon and Billericay) (Con)]

I thank the Secretary of State for giving way. Does he acknowledge, though, that under the previous Labour Government we saw none of the massive capital investment that we are seeing now with the Thames tideway tunnel, which was started under the Conservative Government in 2016? It will be completed next year and is one of the biggest changes to removing sewage from our waterways in history.

[Steve Reed]

The Conservatives had 14 years to fix the system and they chose to do absolutely nothing. They have left it to the incoming Labour Government to clear up the mess they left behind.

The truth is that the water sector needs a complete reset. It needs reform that puts customers and the environment first for once, and a new partnership with the Government to invest for the future and upgrade our water infrastructure.

Planning, the Green Belt and Rural Affairs

Debate between Steve Reed and Richard Holden

Friday 19th July 2024 Commons Chamber

[The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Steve Reed)]

It is a huge honour, on my first opportunity to speak from the Dispatch Box as the Secretary of State, to close today’s debate on His Majesty’s Gracious Speech. I welcome my predecessor, now the shadow Secretary of State, to his place and thank him for the way he has worked constructively with me. I look forward to that continuing, although I prefer it this way around.

It has been an honour to be present for maiden speeches from across the House. Unfortunately, I do not have the time to go through their excellent comments in much detail, but I would like to mention my hon. Friends the Members for Bishop Auckland (Sam Rushworth), for Edinburgh South West (Dr Arthur), for Cramlington and Killingworth (Emma Foody), for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland (Luke Myer), for Hexham (Joe Morris), for Heywood and Middleton North (Mrs Blundell) and for Bury St Edmunds and Stowmarket (Peter Prinsley). Many of them represent rural constituencies, and they all showed what great assets they will be to this House and to the communities they represent.

I cannot respond to everyone who has spoken—I am sorry about that—but I will do my best to cover what I can in the limited time available. I will start with the subject of planning. This Government were elected on a mandate to get Britain building again. As the Deputy Prime Minister said, reforming the planning system is the key to unlocking our country’s economic growth. The existing planning system is too restrictive, slow and uncertain, which undermines investor confidence and means that the homes that we desperately need do not get built. We will overhaul the planning system to tackle the chronic shortage of homes and power up the economy.

Alongside that, we were elected on a platform to deliver for nature, and will take urgent action to meet the Environment Act targets that the previous Government missed. We will protect, create and improve spaces that increase climate resilience and promote nature’s recovery on land and at sea, recognising that ensuring a positive outcome for nature is fundamental to unlocking the housing and infrastructure that this country so urgently needs.

We must take tough action to tackle the housing emergency and build the 1.5 million homes that we need over this Parliament, but we remain committed to preserving the green belt. Our brownfield-first approach means that that authorities should prioritise brownfield sites. However, brownfield development alone will not be enough, so we will also transform lower-quality grey belt land, such as wasteland or old car parks, into housing, including affordable homes for those most in need.

[Mr Holden]

rose—

Budget Resolutions

Debate between Steve Reed and Richard Holden

Monday 1st November 2021 Commons Chamber

[Steve Reed]

Given the Government’s announcement of their intentions to level up the country, the interesting thing will be whether those people feel that they have been levelled up at the next general election and the next set of local elections. That is the only test of what this Government are announcing that will really matter.

The Conservatives have broken the link between work and reward with a decade of stagnant wages and a tax raid on working people; they have undermined families by pushing half a million more children into poverty and refusing to invest properly in kids’ catch-up; they have ripped the fabric out of our communities instead of harnessing the innovation, creativity and compassion that they have to offer; and they have weakened our country with an economic model that has deepened the divides between regions and within communities. That is the polar opposite of levelling up.

[Mr Richard Holden (North West Durham) (Con)]

I am listening to the hon. Gentleman’s speech and I am really interested in what he has to say, but I cannot determine from what he has said so far whether he thinks that the Government are spending too much or too little. Perhaps he could be clear with the House and let us know.

[Steve Reed]

What the shadow Chancellor, my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds West, said—and I agree—was, wouldn’t it be nice if the Government asked everyone to bear their fair share of the tax burden, rather than, as this Government do, always going first and foremost to working families and clobbering them, but letting people who own assets, such as bankers and landlords, off the hook, absolutely scot-free? That is not fair. We want to see fair models of taxation.

What we need to do now is to remake our politics by tackling the power inequalities that allowed all this to happen in the first place. Labour would open up power across the country with a radical model of devolution that gets power out of Whitehall. We would give people a voice and the power to use it in the workplace, in their community and over the public services that they use. Instead of undermining work, we will respect the hard work and sacrifice that people make for their families, re-establish the link between hard work and fair pay, and invest fairly across the whole country. We will establish clear measures for levelling up to hold the Government to account for what they do or do not deliver.

This Budget is not about levelling up; it is about covering up the damage that the Government have done in the past 11 years. By deepening the divides across this country, the Government have closed down opportunity and made Britain weaker. Only Labour will bring Britain together, so that every British person, wherever they live, can reach their true potential—for themselves, their family, their community, and this country that we love.