Angela Rayner MP: speeches

Speeches

• 3 Sept 2026 · Building Homes and Renewing Communities · Hansard source

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  I thank my hon. Friend for recognising some of the fantastic work being done by the co-operative movement. Is our Prime Minister the first ever Labour and Co-operative Prime Minister? I do not want to mislead the House, Madam Deputy Speaker, but I think he might be—he is definitely a Labour and Co-operative Prime Minister and I think he is the first. Coin Street is the type of development that can happen when homes are built with a sense of community. Our Pride in Place work is about rejuvenating our local areas. In Tameside, in my local area, I have seen people going through difficult times. There have been some difficult times for our nation and our country recently, whether because of the covid pandemic, the austerity years or what has been happening locally, but people have come together. Pride in Place has allowed us to look not just at how we can stop the flow of some of the challenges, but at how we can work together as a community to tackle them together, and I am incredibly proud of that work.

• 3 Sept 2026 · Building Homes and Renewing Communities · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend is absolutely right to raise this issue: we have to do more to make sure that people who have exercised all their appeals and want to return home can do so. I will work with my colleagues in the Home Office to look at how we can tackle that issue, alongside the package that we are putting in place over the winter.

• 3 Sept 2026 · Building Homes and Renewing Communities · Hansard source

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  I can honestly feel the hon. Member’s frustration. One of the issues that I picked up when I first became Secretary of State, as I outlined earlier, is that it is not about opposition to new housing, but frustration because of the infrastructure not being there, the form of the houses built and how local people cannot afford them. I have complete sympathy with what the hon. Member is saying. That is why we have been making changes to the national planning policy framework and to how we do building consents, so that we can get these houses built where they are accessible to local people and where developments are contributing to the wider local community, including with services. I am happy to speak to her about the specifics. If there are empty houses that local people cannot get and the infrastructure is not there, I can fully appreciate why people would be frustrated.

• 3 Sept 2026 · Building Homes and Renewing Communities · Hansard source

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  May I put on record my thanks to Ministers, including the Housing Minister, who during my time of absence have seen the Social Housing Bill go through this place and the other place? Measures have been strengthened significantly and we will start to see, for the first time, that more council housing is being built than being lost. That is welcome—it has not happened for a long time. I am sure that the Housing Minister has heard everything my hon. Friend raised, but I know that is his intention and it is definitely mine.

• 3 Sept 2026 · Building Homes and Renewing Communities · Hansard source

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  We can look at it another way: I am confident that the right hon. Member and local councillors can work in partnership with us to recognise the acute housing need within his local area and to deliver, with well-connected local transport, the homes that are so desperately needed. His Government failed to deliver them, and I am sure his inbox is full of people who need those homes. We will work with his local leaders to deliver the homes and infrastructure that people in his constituency desperately need.

• 3 Sept 2026 · Building Homes and Renewing Communities · Hansard source

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  I think this is really important, and I congratulate my hon. Friend on the work that Bournemouth is doing, which sounds absolutely fantastic. These are exactly the sorts of projects we want, as opposed to vape shops, betting shops and other elements. This is about what do we do with that space, and the measures that we have outlined—on the community right to buy, high street rental auctions, giving local places practical powers and cutting business rates, as we announced over the summer—are about making sure that local areas can use that space. We are bringing forward a high streets strategy, and I hope she will engage with my Department about what she can contribute, because she has clearly demonstrated that she can do so in her local area.

• 2 Sept 2026 · Representation of the People Bill · Hansard source

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  I beg to move, That the Bill be now read the Third time. The Bill strengthens our elections and takes a stand against hostile actors at home and abroad who seek to threaten them. It extends the franchise to 16 and 17-year-olds and automates voter registration. It protects candidates and officers, and introduces new, tougher rules around political donations. The legislation reflects the commitments made in our strategy for modern and secure elections, which I published as Secretary of State in July 2025. It also now delivers much of the Rycroft review on foreign interference. It meets our manifesto commitments and sets the foundations for a new model of politics that is both stronger and fairer. I reassure the House and hon. Members that during the Bill’s passage we have committed to returning to various issues in the other place. I look forward to a strengthened Bill returning. I will briefly pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Chester North and Neston (Samantha Dixon), my right hon. Friend the Member for Streatham and Croydon North (Steve Reed) and the Minister for Homelessness, Democracy, Communities and Faith, who have carried the Bill through the House, as well as my hon. Friend the Member for Bethnal Green and Stepney (Rushanara Ali), who delivered much of the policy that led to the Bill. I also thank those hon. Members form across the House who have contributed to debates on the Bill. In particular, I thank the Opposition and those who took part in the Bill Committee. It would be remiss of me not to pay a special tribute to the hon. Member for Hamble Valley (Paul Holmes). As he said in Committee, the Bill is “groundbreaking” legislation, and I most certainly agree. Finally, I thank my team in the private office, all the officials at the elections directorate in my Department, and the Office of the Parliamentary Counsel, who have worked so hard to produce the Bill before us today. The Bill will leave our politics stronger and fairer, and all those who have contributed to its drafting and passage should take huge pride in having done so. The measures are the next step in the evolution of our democracy, strengthening our institutions and processes to ensure that they work for the people they serve. I commend the Bill to the House.