David Simmonds MP: speeches

Speeches

• 24 Mar 2026 · Representation of the People Bill (Third sitting) · Hansard source

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  There is a high degree of cross-party agreement on this point, but I have a technical question. The Minister referred earlier to the status of secure accommodation for children. Such an order is made by the family court rather than the criminal court, but it is often handed down when a local authority youth justice team is concerned particularly about the risks of self-harm. Under existing legislation, any child who is in custody of any kind is de facto in the care of the local authority where they reside. Under the terms of the Bill, that local authority then has a duty to support those who may be in secure accommodation to access their vote. Could the Minister briefly set out what discussions, if any, she has had with the Department for Education, which owns that children-in-care legislation, so that we have clarity about what arrangements would be in place so that a child who is in secure accommodation, of which there is a very limited amount, often some distance from someone’s home, is able to exercise their right to a vote, which they would retain under these provisions?

• 24 Mar 2026 · Representation of the People Bill (Third sitting) · Hansard source

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  I have another technical question to provide clarification for the Committee. We know that there are different rules for who is eligible to vote in local elections and in general elections—and council elections are imminent—and the Government website sets out those criteria. One of the consequences of this change will clearly be to extend the franchise to a large group of people who do not and cannot currently vote in UK general elections. A question that may arise for an electoral registration officer is how to establish the age of, for example, an eligible Commonwealth citizen who arrives to register to vote, if their age is not clear. Will the Minister set out what guidance EROs might be expecting to spell out the evidence that might be sought to establish eligibility in terms of age if, for example, a citizen of Poland who has moved to the United Kingdom wishes at the age of 16 to join the electoral register for the upcoming council elections?

• 24 Mar 2026 · Representation of the People Bill (Third sitting) · Hansard source

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  On the hon. Lady’s point about consistency, we often hear about the age at which one can purchase alcohol on licensed premises, but that is not a restriction that applies at home, so there is a significant inconsistency. Essentially, one is free under the laws of this land to consume alcohol at home from the age of 5. That is what the law says; one simply cannot purchase it on licensed premises. It is not the case that 16 is the point at which this becomes part of a consistent approach in the way that the hon. Lady describes.

• 24 Mar 2026 · Representation of the People Bill (Third sitting) · Hansard source

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  I am sympathetic to the case put by the hon. Member for Bishop Auckland. I understand where he is going with it, but there is a distinction between the internal rules of political parties and the law of the land on electoral participation. Conservative party policy is that all members can vote to elect the leader of the party, but only those who have attained the age of majority can participate in elections to public office, whereas the Labour party recently changed its rules so that that only people over the age of 18 can participate in its internal processes for the same purpose. Does my hon. Friend think it is inconsistent for a political party to say internally that people have to be 18 to participate in leadership elections, but seek to allow 16-year-olds to vote in national public elections?

• 24 Mar 2026 · Representation of the People Bill (Third sitting) · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend is making an excellent case. I was elected as a councillor for the first time at the age of 22; at that time, someone had to be 21 to stand in local elections, although they could vote at 18. Inevitably, I think, the Government accepted the argument that there was a serious inconsistency if someone could vote in an election but was unable to stand in it. That goes to the point that my hon. Friend is making. There is an old saying: “If you are not a socialist in your youth, you have no heart; if you are not a Conservative when you grow up, you have no brain.” Does my hon. Friend agree that this issue is solely about trying to garner the vote of 16-year-olds, not about a change based on principle?

• 24 Mar 2026 · Representation of the People Bill (Third sitting) · Hansard source

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  To some extent, I have another version of my earlier question. In respect of children in care, within the provision there will need to be a process for registration and, in due course, a process for the administration of casting the ballot. If we consider the original judgment on prisoner voting, the European convention on human rights does not trump parliamentary sovereignty. The judgment went against the UK because, at that stage, there were no arrangements in place for prisoners to be able to vote, although the law did not specifically prohibit them from doing so. The court said, “You can’t effectively lock them up so that they can’t get to the ballot box, but at the same time say that they are still legally entitled to the vote; you have to make a choice.” Parliament made a choice and said, “We are going to ban those people from voting.” The Government have been very clear that young people in secure accommodation will be eligible to vote. We are also aware that those in the 16 to 18-year-old category who are treated as care leavers will often be in what is known as move-on accommodation as they transition from a fostering placement or children’s home to semi-independent living. What arrangements will the Government make to ensure that, in practice, under the terms of this legislation, those young people are not deprived of their ability to vote by virtue of moving around the country or simply lacking access to the service that they require, as opposed to being deprived of it by a deliberate decision of Parliament as part of the punishment inherent in a custodial sentence?

• 23 Mar 2026 · Draft Sussex and Brighton Combined County Authority Regulations 2026 · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Desmond. Let me say at the outset that the Opposition do not propose to divide the Committee on the regulations, because they achieve an ambition that we support. Indeed, Katy Bourne was selected some time ago as the Conservative candidate for the new mayoral role and has been campaigning for a good deal of time, in the expectation that the election would take place in May 2026, as per the original timetable. The fact that we are here considering this instrument, which will be made under Conservative legislation—the Levelling-up and Regeneration Act 2023—is an indication of how far behind the Government are on achieving their ambitions for devolution in England. We find ourselves in the position that elections will go ahead in May for councils that the Government are set to abolish, but not for the new mayor, who, it is envisaged, will take over some of their responsibilities. I intend to press the Minister a little on those issues. The first thing that it will be helpful to understand is the likely cost of the delay. As we know from feedback from local authority leaders around the country, the delays that the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government has introduced consistently to this process have meant that things like the renewal of contracts to provide children’s social care, adult social care, highways and pothole maintenance—all kinds of different local authority services—have been put in question, because the new authorities do not know when they will come into those responsibilities, and the authorities that currently hold them do not know when they will be abolished. That imposes a cost on taxpayers, causes a degree of uncertainty and bears down on the service quality that can be leveraged through that process. It will also be helpful if the Minister can set out what interdependencies there are between the draft regulations and the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill, which is yet to make its way through the parliamentary process. There is no carry-over provision for the Bill, so, with Prorogation imminent, the Government will have to undertake significant consideration of what parts of it will make it through, if any at all. Having spent many painful days on the Bill Committee, I am sure that the Minister is no more enthusiastic than the Opposition about the prospect of having to relitigate all the points on the Bill. However, the Bill is designed to create the underpinnings of the role that this mayor will occupy. Clearly, there is significant doubt about the ability to implement those policies, if the necessary legislation has yet to make it through Parliament. Finally, is the Minister able to say anything about the interaction between these regulations and the Home Office proposal to abolish the role of police and crime commissioner? The Government set out very clearly in the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill the expectation that these new mayoral authorities would take on some of the responsibilities of PCCs, but the elections of the new mayors have been significantly delayed, so there will be a gap between the end of the current PCCs’ terms in office and the election of the new mayors, of whom I think this the first to have delegated legislation underpinning their role.

• 23 Mar 2026 · Asylum Seekers: Accommodation · Hansard source

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  13. How many asylum seekers were in asylum accommodation on (a) 30 September 2025 and (b) 30 June 2024.

• 23 Mar 2026 · Asylum Seekers: Accommodation · Hansard source

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  The figures published by the Home Office show around a 7% rise in the asylum and dispersal accommodation numbers. My Hillingdon constituents would know, because we have the highest number of asylum seekers per capita of any local authority area in the country, and it is putting huge pressure on the supply of temporary accommodation. My local Conservative council argues that it should put the housing needs of long-standing local residents ahead of the needs of those who have newly arrived as asylum seekers. Does the Minister agree?

• 18 Mar 2026 · Representation of the People Bill (Second sitting) · Hansard source

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  Q I have a brief question about clause 47 on the voter identification requirements. We have heard quite a lot on the point about bank cards. I am mindful that the Government’s own MoneyHelper website sets out how to get a bank card if you do not have any ID at all and also if you are of no fixed address; I know that is routinely used in electoral processes to establish your entitlement to vote in a particular place. Clause 47 is also silent on the use of virtual cards. We know many banks issue payment cards that are online, so quite a lot of people have their payment card on a mobile phone and do not have any physical item with them that would meet that standard. Are the Government open to amendments to clause 47 to try to address that and at least bring clarity to what is meant by a bank card, so that polling staff, who may have to have that conversation with people, know exactly where they stand? Samantha Dixon: You mentioned digital ID. For example, we have introduced the digital veterans card as a form of ID. It has the holographic clock in it, which means that it cannot be screenshotted or used fraudulently.

• 18 Mar 2026 · Representation of the People Bill (Second sitting) · Hansard source

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  Q Just to be clear, the question is about digital bank cards. A lot of people have on their phone an image of a card; they will not have a physical card. Samantha Dixon: Right. My point is that, where a digital ID has that holographic clock, it is possible that the Government would consider that measure. But I do not believe that digital bank cards currently do.

• 18 Mar 2026 · Representation of the People Bill (First sitting) · Hansard source

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  Q There are two areas I would like to explore briefly. We heard a lot from the local government family about the chaos created by elections being cancelled, then uncancelled, and so on. Part 3 of the Bill includes a number of provisions to change the arrangements for elections. We heard about police needing to be put on the rota, then cancelled, then put back on again and schools needing to close, then reopen, then close again because polling was going ahead and then not. What are your reflections on the timeline, the consequences of those changes and the considerations that go with that? Secondly, new clause 37 is about the provision and use of election materials in non-UK languages. We heard a great deal about that in the recent Gorton and Denton by-election, when cross-party concern was expressed. What should the Bill say? Should that new clause be part of it? Do you have an alternative body of evidence suggesting that a different approach is required? Councillor Bentley: I would put in a plea for village halls, because they are vastly used and other organisations cannot use them for that entire day. If you are going to make changes to the electoral system, there needs to be clarity around that in advance. We do not want knee-jerk reactions so that suddenly all plans are off, then on, then off, then on again. We cannot have that. We need to be clear if elections are going to change. We are going through a great period of local government reorganisation, which may happen on other occasions. We need early indications so that we can prepare properly—not only the people organising the elections and the candidates, but people who may think that they can use their village hall or school and suddenly cannot. We need to have clarity in advance. It cannot be left to the last minute. On languages, from an LGA point of view all I would say is that it is important that everyone entitled to vote has the ability to understand what is actually happening. I think that is a fair way of putting it. Peter Stanyon: I echo the comments on timing. The word I often use around elections is “certainty”. For scheduled polls, you usually plan six months in advance. In reality, I think a lot of the authorities carried on during the on-off period when the local government polls were rescheduled recently. Parliamentary elections have six or eight weeks’ notice; you are doing six months’ work in eight weeks. It puts on pressure. Going back to the earlier point on the timing of postal votes, for example, anything that gives two or three days in a timetable is a huge benefit—not just for administrators, but for the suppliers who deliver those things. Going back to the earlier point on harassment, intimidation, translation into different languages and things like that, there needs to be a wider understanding of what elections are all about. We are living in a modern age, but elections are very much based on paper and pencil. They are trusted, in the main, but at the end of the day it is about making clear what the electoral process actually is. Some of the feedback we received about recent by-elections was simply about a misunderstanding of what the process is. There is an obligation on returning officers, the Electoral Commission and local authorities to do what they can to explain it, but there is also an obligation on candidates and parties to understand the changes coming in. We almost need a reset, to say, “What is the best way of engaging with voters to give them what they need?” I am sure Emily will echo this point, but the one thing that an RO will not want to get dragged into is any debate about whether something is crossing a line that they do not have control over. There are very, very strict boundaries at the moment. I will not say it is a safe place for returning officers to be, but it means we have the certainty to say, “That is a police matter,” or “That is a commission matter,” or “That may be a planning control matter,” for example. It is about taking a step back and learning about how we deliver elections, and that goes right from young people all the way through the system. It is also about having a reset, to say, “Where are we now?” because there is lots of misinformation flying around from various sources. Emily Yule: I echo Mr Stanyon’s points about the different sources of information. The Electoral Commission and the returning officer must be the trusted source of information for the democratic process for electors. We would, of course, welcome any provisions that improve accessibility and engagement, but it has to be within those boundaries of trusted and credible information. In terms of changes in electoral law, we always seek a six-month implementation window. Any change to this system will bring an element of risk, but our very skilled administrators and leaders across elections know how to deal with change and address it, and they will deliver safe elections. But having a six-month lead-in provides that security. I will repeat a comment that Solace often makes on behalf of its members: we would ask for indemnity for returning officers when any changes are brought in very close to an election, which may result in issues that are not any fault of the returning officer.

• 18 Mar 2026 · Representation of the People Bill (First sitting) · Hansard source

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  I declare that I am an unpaid parliamentary vice-president of the Local Government Association, which has supplied one of the witnesses for this panel.

• 17 Mar 2026 · Immigration Reforms · Hansard source

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  The hon. Member for Woking (Mr Forster) spoke about the absence of Members from certain parties from this Chamber. Those colleagues who we saw scuttling off to Reform have serious questions to answer about why, when given free rein in the Home Office, they failed to implement even the measures that this Labour Government have brought forward to address some of the loopholes that the hon. Member for Dewsbury and Batley (Iqbal Mohamed) highlighted. My right hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Sir John Hayes) described some of the characteristics of illegal migration. I have been to Calais and I have seen the drone footage gathered by the French police of the boats on the beaches and the camps set up by the traffickers who are bringing people over, and it is clear that we should be robust and extremely cautious. I have watched footage of people in those boats who, seeing the police approach, pick up children and throw them in the sea, knowing that the police will have to rescue them rather than stop the migrant boat. We should make no apology for taking robust action to address those concerns.

• 17 Mar 2026 · Immigration Reforms · Hansard source

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  I do not entirely share that view. I have seen the challenges that the French police face, with something like 1,000 members of their constabulary covering 10,000 km of coastline. The traffickers will sometimes send 50 or 100 boats to sea simultaneously, knowing that there is no way that the French police can possibly deter them. Each of those boats is worth €70,000 to €80,000-worth of revenue to their criminal enterprise, so they have a big incentive. The Minister is here in an honourable tradition of Labour Governments taking robust action on our borders. The first immigration controls that our country ever had were introduced by the post-war Labour Government in response to concerns about the exit from empire. No recourse to public funds, the first time that asylum seekers were taken out of the standard benefits system and eligibility for council housing, was introduced by the Blair Government. The asylum dispersal system was introduced by the now Mayor of Greater Manchester when he was the Immigration Minister in those years. On the Conservative side of the Chamber, we are broadly supportive of the measures based on the Danish model that are being brought forward by the Home Secretary. We remain very concerned, however, as my right hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings and my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Bedfordshire have highlighted, that many of those measures will still fall short and that our constituents’ concerns will remain. In the spirit of a constructive approach, may I ask the Minister whether he has given any further consideration to the idea of an asylum visa, going beyond the simple prospect of safe and legal routes? If people wish to study, work, come to get married or live in the United Kingdom for any other reason, they have to apply for a visa, but we do not have any such measures in place for asylum seekers, and that is helping to drive the illegal traffic across the channel. What discussions is the Minister having across Government about avoiding cost shunts, which are an increasing concern and a consequence of speeding up asylum decision making—in particular, the rapid rise in the cost of temporary accommodation for local authorities as asylum seekers get status and turn up at the town hall seeking help or are left destitute in local communities? What consideration will the Minister give to using protocol 16 of the European convention on human rights, since it is clear that UK tribunals go well beyond the provisions of that protocol in many cases, to ensure that we are not doing more than we should be doing? Even with all those questions, I can assure the Minister that as the official Opposition we will be providing support in the Lobbies to ensure that those measures are implemented, even if we remain of the view that they should go further.

• 17 Mar 2026 · Immigration Reforms · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Mr Stringer. I draw Members’ attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests: I host a researcher from an asylum charity in my office. I am sure that the Minister is glad to have a friendly face in this debate, so it is particular pleasure to speak and to congratulate the hon. Member for Perth and Kinross-shire (Pete Wishart) on securing it. I agree entirely with what he said about the timeliness of the debate. It has been a very broad-ranging one, so I will make a few observations on the debate and then finish with some questions, which I hope the Minister might address. It is clear that there is a degree of commonality between the official Opposition and the Government on many of the measures that are being brought forward. As the Leader of the Opposition said very clearly, the Government will have our support in implementing them, should they run into any difficulties in that respect. However, it is also clear that many of the challenges around asylum and migration, like many of the challenges that face our Government and our country more generally, are getting worse. The situation is deteriorating. My own entry into this area of work came because, as a local councillor, I saw the consequences for communities of the arrival of very large numbers of asylum seekers. Indeed, to this day, the Hillingdon part of my constituency has the highest per capita level of asylum seekers of any local authority area in the country, with more than 100 different first languages. Diversity and dealing with these issues at a local level are things with which my constituents and I are extremely familiar. Over those years, we have had many debates—I will touch on this in my questions to the Minister—about how we ensure a fair and appropriate dispersal of asylum seekers across the country. The hon. Member for Perth and Kinross-shire is now hosting some asylum seekers dispersed into his constituency—but for many decades local authorities in Scotland, for example, demanded a more liberal approach to our borders in respect of asylum seekers, while absolutely refusing to be dispersal areas for those people when they were here. While the 31 mostly Conservative authorities in south-east England volunteered to become asylum dispersal areas, the plea fell on deaf ears north of the border. It is clear that no party has a monopoly on practical compassion when it comes to support for those who seek refuge in our country. Indeed, we can thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Braintree (Sir James Cleverly), now the shadow Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, for the actions that he took during his time as our Home Secretary, which produced the significant fall in net migration into this country, which this Government have seen as a benefit. As my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Bedfordshire (Blake Stephenson) outlined in reference to his report, there remain significant concerns about putting the appropriate package of measures in place to ensure that our borders are robustly and consistently controlled. We need to make sure that these debates are happening. One thing that is very clear—I expect that most of us, as politicians, will have heard this while canvassing—is that voters tend to be very positive about all the migrants they personally know. They like the ones who run the local shop, who work in the GP practice, who drive the bus or who are their next-door neighbours. It is all the others they are worried about. There is therefore a big job of work about demystification. When we as Conservatives, in the previous Government, decided to open the door to large numbers of refugees from Hong Kong—people who were traditionally associated with our country and had a right to be here under that scheme—it gained very widespread public acceptance. The same was true of the Ukraine refugee scheme. We need to make sure that we have tough measures in place around illegal migration and an appropriate and compassionate response to those in need.

• 16 Mar 2026 · Draft Non-Domestic Rating (Rates Retention and Levy and Safety Net: Miscellaneous Amendments) Regulations 2026 · Hansard source

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  I apologise, but I meant paragraph 5.13, not paragraph 5.6, of the explanatory memorandum. I had turned over the page and misread my record.

• 16 Mar 2026 · Draft Non-Domestic Rating (Rates Retention and Levy and Safety Net: Miscellaneous Amendments) Regulations 2026 · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Barker. The Opposition do not propose to divide the Committee on this instrument, but I have some questions that I would like to put to the Minister. One of the challenges with an instrument of this nature is to understand what its consequences will be. We have just heard my hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Biggin Hill raise a question on behalf of his constituents about what this will mean in practice. The Government’s consultation on the business rates reset clearly described it as a “redistributive act”. The purpose of it is to take business rates growth away from places that have also had the consequences of developments, allocating it to other areas. We do not have the information in front of us to set out what the consequences will be at a local level, but we know that has been a key concern for council leaders of all parties, not least because if they consent to a very substantial development that leads to very significant growth in their business rates income, that growth in income is intended to offset its negative consequences. For example, the development might generate additional traffic or lead to a lot more workers travelling to a particular area, requiring additional emergency facilities. The loss of that income through redistribution to other parts of the country, through a formula that we do not have in front of us, could have quite a significant negative consequence. Over the years—it is no different with the current Government—central Government have been very keen to encourage local authorities to give consent to developments that create additional business that pays more business rates, creates jobs and all the rest of it. We know that is facing a significant challenge at the moment, and local authorities looking at this instrument can see that they will be losing out, having put the cost of consenting to a development on to local taxpayers, which will certainly discourage them from being so willing in future. Can the Minister set out briefly for the Committee what she expects to be the consequent changes in funding levels? Clearly, those could be quite substantial, and this is a system of top-ups and tariffs, as we have had in place to a degree for a long time, so it would be helpful to understand whether there are any significant winners or losers as a consequence of the decision that people are being asked to make. Secondly, when the Minister refers to a reset of the business rates mechanism, what does she expect it to reset to, so that those local authorities have a clear line of sight that says, “This will be the consequence for your business rates collection at a local level”? Finally, I draw the Minister’s attention to the explanatory memorandum that she has kindly circulated. Paragraph 5.6 addresses the way in which the funding is to flow. She is making a change to shift it from the general fund—that is part of the annual budget-setting process of a local authority—into the collection fund, which is subject to a longer period of decision making. I can see why there might be some arguments for doing that. However, it would be helpful to understand what she expects the consequence to be, so that when our local authority colleagues set their budgets, they have a clear sense of what the consequence will be of shifting the flow of that money from an account covered by the general provision on fixing council tax, which has to be balanced in-year, to a collection fund, where more flexible rules apply.

• 16 Mar 2026 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  My constituent, Vijay Odedra, has been telling me how his small business, CapnoTrainer, has been working with the Royal Navy to improve the fighting capacity and resilience of our sailors. While we wait for the defence investment plan, will the Secretary of State tell us what steps he has in mind to harness the innovation in our small and medium-sized enterprise sector?

• 10 Mar 2026 · Local Government Reorganisation: South-east · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Vickers. I draw the House’s attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests on my roles as an unpaid parliamentary vice-president of both the Local Government Association and London Councils. I congratulate to the hon. Member for Surrey Heath (Dr Pinkerton) on securing the debate. He, the hon. Member for Crawley (Peter Lamb) and my right hon. Friend the Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds) set the tone of a debate that has engaged, with a high degree of seriousness, not only with the issues that stem from the specifics of what is happening in Surrey but with what they say about the wider local government reorganisation debate. It was interesting as a parliamentarian to be present, a short time ago, at a Delegated Legislation Committee in which Committee members agreed the abolition of the historic county of Surrey and its replacement with two unitary authorities. That was the conclusion of a long period of debate in which, as the hon. Member for Crawley outlined, the leaders of county councils in particular argued strongly that local government reorganisation on the footprint of the existing county structure would be a way to save money. Many district councils argued strongly against that idea, and it was called into question by many experienced unitary leaders. We all recognise that there is a need to look again at our local government settlement. This country is already very under-represented in democratic terms at the local level, with the fewest elected politicians per capita of any developed democracy. It is also intensely centralised by comparison with most other countries, with decisions that would as a matter of routine be local decisions in most other democracies taken by Parliament or central Government. I have a huge amount of sympathy for the Minister, because while she is from the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, council services touch on the work of the Department of Health and Social Care, the Department for Education, the Department for Transport, the Treasury, the Ministry of Defence and the Home Office. The observations that other Members have made about the impact of special educational needs and disabilities demonstrate that complexity, where an issue that sits outside the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government is one of the single biggest factors in the viability of local authorities. The last time we faced each other across the Dispatch Box, I asked the Minister, with particular respect to Surrey, whether there was an update on negotiations. Surrey had set out very clearly that its deficit on SEND spending sits at around £350 million, and the Government had been clear—in fairness, it was Department for Education Ministers—that they would pay off 90% of that deficit. The offer to Surrey was £100 million, which was significantly less than the 90% that we were promised at the Dispatch Box. This is not simply a matter of what happens in a single Government Ministry; it brings together services, activities and decisions across Government. Reflecting on the long history of local government reorganisation, it probably predates the existence of our country as a unitary state. Certainly the role of some ancient Saxon kingdoms is quite akin to the behaviour of some local government leaders today. The particular challenges that come from the difficult relationship between central and local government are manifest here today. With regard to recent developments, I spent 12 years in local government under the previous Labour Government and a further 12 years there under the Conservative Government who left office in 2024, and many of the decisions that were made then by central Government—statutory requirements placed on local authorities such as SEND arrangements, social care, the fair access criteria that were introduced, housing—were never fully funded. Since the early 2000s, there has been steady growth in the share of local government spending that is consumed by social care and housing. We have seen an erosion of the ability of our elected local leaders to deploy locally raised resources against local priorities, to the extent that social care now consumes around 70% to 80% of the budget of a typical social care authority. That is not sustainable. Other Members have spoken passionately and with a degree of criticism about the impact that investment decisions at the council level have had. We all recognise that councils led by all of the parties represented here have made both good and bad decisions when it comes to investment, but we should be wary of criticising local leaders for having made decisions in good faith that did not end well. At a time when the public works loan board interest rate was 0.25%, the decision—even by a council—to take a loan and put it in the bank would have generated additional finance that could have supported local government services. Those decisions were not always innately wrong, but the impact of covid on local authorities’ investments in commercial property was absolutely devastating. Spelthorne, which has been mentioned today, is one example of that: what would have looked like an extremely sound commercial investment turned into a very bad one because of the impact of covid. We find ourselves today in a situation where Surrey is unusual. It is the only authority announced for the devolution priority programme that has got to the point of creating new successor unitary authorities. At the outset of this process, the Government were very clear that they were going to cancel the elections in all the devolution priority programme councils, which we voted against at the Delegated Legislation Committee that considered that matter. They did so on the basis that elections for the new unitaries and mayors would take place across the country. There were supposed to be elections this May for new mayors in Suffolk, Norfolk, Essex, Hampshire and many other places. Political parties and local leaders had been working on that basis, only to find after a 24-hour U-turn last December that the elections that were promised to go ahead were suddenly being cancelled. All this delay and dithering is imposing costs. I met yesterday with a finance company that told me that the procurement of new finance systems across the local authority sector has simply ground to a halt in the absence of any clarity from Government about what is happening. The commissioning of new services in social care to address homelessness has collapsed, which I know concerns the Minister, as has the delivery of housing—both the pipeline of new applications and the completions of new properties. Two thirds of London boroughs report no new net additional homes. That is an absolute indictment of the state in which many of our councils find themselves because of the delay imposed by this process. As the hon. Member for Crawley outlined, both the Government and the wider argument for this reorganisation rely on a now rather old report that was prepared by PricewaterhouseCoopers at the instigation of the County Councils Network to support the case for county-based reorganisation. It is clear from the evidence he presented that the hon. Member, who left us in no doubt about what he thinks of this process, knows of what he speaks. The start of the process was simple. Half a million people was the minimum footprint in order to secure savings. That was the level that the Treasury expected to see delivered. However, that is significantly larger than the existing footprint of most unitary authorities. As my right hon. Friend the Member for East Hampshire described, it risked losing the sense of place and identity. Ministers quite wisely backed off. They looked at the bids from the local authority areas that were instructed to submit them and settled on a smaller footprint. That fundamentally undermines the case that this will result in significant revenue savings to the Government in the medium to long term, for the reasons outlined by the hon. Member for Crawley. A concern that the Opposition have raised a number of times on the Floor of the House is that the Government have no independent modelling or independent financial analysis to back up their direction of travel on these reorganisation decisions. As all Members who spoke passionately about their enthusiasm for getting local Government right recognised, when we compare ourselves, sometimes unfavourably, to other European countries and ask why they seem to be able to build railways and public transport infrastructure faster than the United Kingdom, the answer is largely that those decisions are made at local and regional level; they are not made by central Government. Delivery of rail networks or citywide transport, for example, which I know is of concern to a huge number of Members where lots of good projects are on the stocks, is much faster and cheaper in many other countries. We need to look at what we can learn from their experience. We need to reflect on the role of the Treasury. I have heard former Chancellors say that when the demand for additional day-to-day spending becomes unbearable, the temptation is to simply slow down the exit of capital from the door on major projects. One of the benefits of localisation is that it removes that temptation from Chancellors and ensures that things that are committed to, become deliverable at a local level. There are many urgent pressures. One of the key concerns I hear from councils all the time is that the Government do not have a huge amount of time to think, not just in the sense of the parliamentary timetable but when we look across our country. Unemployment has been relentlessly rising every single month since the Government took office, homelessness has surged up 27% in London alone since the Government took office, debt is rising rapidly, planning decisions are grinding to a halt and housing delivery is grinding to a halt. We need to give local communities hope that there is a prospect of solving some of those matters. I share a concern with the hon. Member for Crawley, which affects us very directly. The decisions that the Government have made in the Home Office, speeding up decision making on asylum seekers, pushing those people out the door and up the road to the town hall which then has responsibility for housing them, is putting acute pressure on my local authority, his local authority and many others across the country who are doing their best in difficult circumstances. It is very clear that a whole range of issues are brought to our attention by what is happening in Surrey. I am grateful to all hon. Members who have set out their particular concerns. I hope that, as a result of the observations made in the debate, we may see the Government come back with a revised set of policies that reflect a clear sense of place and the opportunity for all our constituents to know that they will have elected representatives who can make the decisions that they want to see made at a local level.

• 3 Mar 2026 · Community Cohesion · Hansard source

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  I do not think there is any argument against the points that the hon. Member raises, and they reflect things that I am sure we have all heard as constituency MPs. When I visited one of my local synagogues on Friday, the people there talked about the difficulties that some of the children in that community had faced at school with the rising tide of antisemitism that they had experienced. That is part of the bigger picture. We need to ensure that, as far as we can, we build a level of common understanding. When we talk about shared values, sometimes people are prone to say, “We have sharia law in some parts of the country,” or, “We have the Beth Din, which sits outside of the law.” Indeed, the canon law of the Catholic Church, which has been part of our Christian community for centuries, permitted marriage at the age of 14 up until that law was changed in 2019. Sometimes these misunderstandings are not simply about a view of Islam; they are about different communities and cultures. We need to ensure that everybody recognises that the rule of law and the freedoms that it brings apply to everybody in our country. All of our citizens are free to decide that in the event of a dispute about a business, they would like a sharia court to be involved in settling it. If two Jewish business people wish to use the Beth Din to settle the matter, they can do that as well. That does not remove, under any circumstances, the freedoms and the protections that the law of the land gives to everybody in our country. That must always be there as a clear recourse. I will touch on an issue that we covered a little yesterday in the debate about the Representation of the People Act 1983. The issue of electoral interference is one that sits with the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, but is of concern to Members across the House. I reflect on a session of the Home Affairs Committee that was chaired by the now Foreign Secretary, who asked our intelligence services what evidence there was of Russian interference in the Brexit debate, which was the issue at the time. The response was illuminating. The point our security services made was not that Russia, China or Iran is seeking a particular outcome in a political debate happening in the United Kingdom. What those sponsors of terror are seeking to achieve is division in the United Kingdom and a lack of coherence in our society. We must make sure that we are always vigilant and that our laws are updated regularly to take account of how we can resist that. Moving to more local matters, a lot of the debate has revolved around what makes a community. I know you represent a constituency with a diverse range of local settlements that are different to those in London, Dr Murrison. When we think of community, we think of thriving high streets and places that people can feel proud of. We think of a strong economy and of places where people can get and keep a job that supports their standard of living and their opportunity. It will be interesting to hear the Minister’s reflections, because those things have been hotly debated in Parliament. We see the impact of rising taxes in the hollowing-out of our high streets. We know that 89,000 jobs have been lost in hospitality and 74,000 in retail since October 2024. The relentless rise in unemployment under this Government is putting enormous strain on the cohesion of our communities.

• 3 Mar 2026 · Community Cohesion · Hansard source

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  I would not accept that point, I am afraid. We can recognise, not least by simply looking at the statistics, that resident satisfaction with local government services rose continuously throughout the period that Labour have described as “austerity”. Any incoming Government dealing with a colossal legacy of debt will have to find ways to live within its means. Unfortunately, we seem to be set on the path of another colossal legacy of debt. It would be helpful if the Minister addressed some points, and perhaps acknowledged the impact that her Government’s policies are having on the ability of businesses and our residents to find good, remunerative work. The first point, which the Labour leader of Sheffield has been particularly exercised about recently, and which the hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Danny Beales) will know is of local as well as national interest, is the asylum funding situation for local government, which remains a major source of concern and grievance. The Government are providing some funding to local authorities to help them to meet the very significant costs. Hillingdon is a good example. As a gateway authority to Heathrow airport, it has accommodated many thousands of unaccompanied children over the years, and, currently, very large numbers of Chagossians are fleeing to the United Kingdom from the consequences of the Government’s Chagos deal and huge numbers of people are being placed in temporary accommodation by the Home Office. Those numbers have been rising very sharply, very fast, and their processing means that the numbers turning up at the town hall have increased dramatically. That means that the pressure on local authority temporary accommodation budgets is rising relentlessly. The Government refuse to say how much funding they are providing to local authorities to meet that cost, which is understandably fuelling campaigns by some in our society to say that those costs are not fully met. Does the Minister agree with her colleague Councillor Tom Hunt that the Government need to address this consequence of their actions?

• 3 Mar 2026 · Community Cohesion · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure as always, Dr Murrison. As well as congratulating the hon. Member for Rugby (John Slinger), I would like to say in opening how much value I place on the contributions from the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) and his colleague from Northern Ireland, the hon. Member for East Londonderry (Mr Campbell). In that part of the United Kingdom, we have had the opportunity over many years to learn a great deal about how cohesion can be done right and what happens when it goes wrong. It is particularly important to hear their voices in a debate on this subject. It is also important to hear from a range of Members, including the hon. Member for Birmingham Perry Barr (Ayoub Khan), who set out some quite particular insights on how the city of Birmingham has had to deal with many challenges. It is my privilege to represent an extremely diverse but thankfully very cohesive constituency. It is served by two local authorities, both of which are extremely proactive; they have interfaith networks and hold a huge variety of community events. In response to the situation when flags were being raised across high streets, which was clearly intended by many as an act of intimidation, they used those lamp posts and other public street furniture to display flags that celebrated the borough’s heritage and the heritage of the local community, in order to crowd out that space from those who sought to use it to divide the community. That shows a degree of local leadership that we all appreciate. The fact that we are having this debate in the context of housing, communities and local government demonstrates the breadth of council services. I reflect on my own time as a councillor, when the 9/11 incidents happened. Suddenly, the airspace of the United States was closed. Hillingdon council worked to provide accommodation for thousands of stranded travellers from across the world and to enable them to communicate with their family members to tell them that they were okay and that they had somewhere to stay for the night when all the hotels were full. It also worked very closely with the military, for example, to ensure that the logistics were laid on so that people were supported. As a number of Members have referred to, that kind of leadership came to the fore again during the covid era, when organisations such as H4All in Hillingdon and Harrow came out and ensured that people had food and medication delivered. We saw the work that was done by synagogues, mosques, churches and non-faith organisations to support each other not just in my community, but across the whole country. We know that cohesion is something that we can do well, and we know that its leadership often sits with local government. Indeed, when the last Labour Government promoted the roll-out of food banks, it was a recognition—as was the case in my community—that there was a level of need that statutory services were not always able to meet, which that particular community initiative was able to serve. That is why we saw the spread of those across the country to meet that specific need. We are having this debate at a time when there is a growing level of interest in issues around cohesion. Many will have heard the news coverage of the speech given by the Leader of the Opposition yesterday, if not the speech itself, in which she set out a number of workstreams seeking to address many of the concerns that Members have described today. It seems to me that this is an area where there is a high degree of cross-party consensus; we know that we need to address these issues in order to strengthen our society. Let me briefly set out some of the Opposition’s principles around cohesion, some of which are quite focused on local government and some of which are much broader. It is striking that all Members who have contributed to this debate have spoken of the importance of our society and values and the principles of freedom and the rule of law. I was particularly struck by the comments of the hon. Member for Birmingham Perry Barr; this must not become a debate about attacking Islam. We are a country that is a plural and liberal democracy. In a community like mine, that means that women and girls have the freedom to wear a headscarf if they choose to, and the protection of the law from those who would seek to force that on them if they choose not to. Both those things are equally important.

• 2 Mar 2026 · Power to Cancel Local Elections · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Mr Mundell, at a time when Parliament is very active in the world of local government, which shows how much it matters. We heard from my right hon. Friend the Member for Rayleigh and Wickford (Mr Francois) about his local government experience and the diversity of services that local authorities provide; over 800 different services are provided by each council on average. That reflects the level of interest that all Governments and parties have in ensuring that the organisation and structure are correct. As the Opposition, we have approached the issue of local government reorganisation with the seriousness with which we treated the same issue when we were in government. Where we are this evening, in looking at this petition, and where we have been in recent weeks, is fairly and squarely a mess of this Government’s making. We must reflect that, when in government, we undertook, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Rayleigh and Wickford described, a number of reorganisations of local authorities, in each case committing that elections would never be deferred for more than a 12-month period—and they never were. There are good grounds for saying to our constituents, “Why spend millions of taxpayers’ money electing councillors to an authority that is about to be abolished? Better instead to have elections for the successor authorities.” At the outset of this process—the former Minister, the hon. Member for Oldham West, Chadderton and Royton (Jim McMahon), is well recorded in Hansard —there was a very clear devolution priority programme in which councils were told, “You are going to be abolished. The Government will bring forward that legislation. Elections will go ahead for new unitary authorities or new mayors in your local area, so democracy will not be denied. You are engaging with this process in good faith. The voters will have their say. But what we are not going to do is elect people to councils that are about to be abolished.” We are in this position today because the Government have signally failed to deliver on their devolution priority programme. Just one of those local authority areas, Surrey, has achieved the status of getting its new unitary authorities approved by Parliament—18 months into a process that the Government have described as a flagship programme. Let us reflect on the process that Parliament followed. At the outset, the former Minister brought proposals to a Delegated Legislation Committee in March 2025 to postpone the elections in all the devolution priority programme areas. Members of the Conservative party on that Committee voted against those proposals, because we were not convinced by what the Minister was setting out about the deliverability of the underlying devolution priority programme. We have been proved correct. In a situation where the Government were clear that the authorities were going to be abolished but had yet to bring forward any clear programme for the creation of the new mayors, and had yet to pass the legislation in the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill that would set up the framework for that, we made the argument that cancelling elections was not a responsible thing to do. Nonetheless, the Government pressed ahead, despite those warnings from the Conservative Opposition. Following that, of course, there was a reshuffle in Government. At this point, it will be of value to reflect on the Gould principles, which underlie decision-making and state that, when cancellations of this nature occur, a minimum of six months’ notice is normally provided. Clearly, putting elections off for 12 months in authorities that, at the end of that period, would simply be 12 months closer to abolition creates huge uncertainty for local voters. When we look at the frequent urgent questions, the opportunities we have used in Hansard through departmental questions and Opposition day debates to raise this issue, it is clear that we have sought to hold the Government to account. I reflect, for example, that I was told in response to an urgent question in December that, to quote from Hansard , “the Government’s intention is that all the elections scheduled for next May will go ahead next May.” —[ Official Report , 24 November 2025; Vol. 776, c. 5.] The following day, the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government told the House that those mayoral elections scheduled for this May in those devolution areas were being cancelled after all. It is abundantly clear that there has been chaos in the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government —a complete lack of direction—and it has left local government leaders across the country, who have been seeking to act in good faith and with an eye to the good use of taxpayers’ money and maintaining democracy in their areas, in an incredibly difficult position. The fact that we have seen Ministers, literally 24 hours later, reversing the position that they had been telling Parliament, has been characteristic of that entire process. Let us reflect on the decisions that led to the most recent hokey cokey, the Government having made it clear that they were minded to press ahead with cancelling those elections. We know that the feedback from local government leaders around the country is that they were placed under enormous pressure by the Department and Ministers to say that they wanted the cancellation to go ahead, to the extent that drafts of letters were sent back to council leaders asking them to say in more clear and serious terms what the impact would be on devolution if the elections were to go ahead according to schedule; to their credit, many of those leaders and local authorities resisted the pressure that they were put under. But that resulted in the Secretary of State making the announcement that he would be bringing forward proposals to cancel elections in those 31 local authority areas, with Pendle being added 24 hours after the announcement was made—again, characteristic of the chaotic approach that the Government have adopted. What is curious about the whole process—and this is the nub of the questions that I put to the Minister—is that although we have heard a lot from Reform Members about the judicial review, we need to be clear that Reform did not win a judicial review against the Government. The Government surrendered without a shot being fired; they essentially offered no defence. The Secretary of State, with the judicial review coming into view, decided to reverse his decision. Had he brought forward legislation to Parliament to cancel or postpone these elections, that would have been beyond the scope of a judicial review, as parliamentary proceedings are—as was the case when he dealt with exactly the same set of questions on the basis of legal advice that the Department had been provided with, roughly 12 months beforehand. The key question is: what had changed? What was different that made something advised to be unambiguously lawful, dealt with through the delegated legislation process —with a clear robust defence from Ministers that it was the right thing to do and entirely in accordance with the measures in the Local Government Act 2000—become unlawful eight or nine months later? There is very little that legal advisers have brought to the Opposition’s attention that suggests that, had the Secretary of State pressed ahead with his decision, placed that decision before Parliament and had Parliament voted for the elections to be cancelled, that would be subject to challenge. It is clear, however, that in defending a judicial review the Government would have had to set out the correspondence and discussions that they had with all the local authorities that they were putting under such acute pressure to seek the cancellation of the elections. The Opposition are going to be pushing hard to understand what it was that led the Secretary of State to delegate the decision to a different Minister, rather than make it himself as the legislation envisages, and to instead reverse at the last minute, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Rayleigh and Wickford noted. That decision was taken at huge cost and had a huge impact on local authorities, many of which, on the basis of the Government’s assurances, had released the polling stations, told schools that they would now be open on polling day, and had stood down the polling clerks and staff who were not going to be needed because the Government had cancelled the elections. Many had told the police that they could stand down their planned patrols ensuring that those elections could go ahead, because the Government were cancelling. The police now have to put that operation back together at incredibly short notice. I know that the Minister’s answer to the question of what changed is likely to be that the Government do not discuss the basis of their legal advice. That is a principle that Governments of all parties have stuck to for many years. However, the legal context of the decision made in March 2025—I remind the House that we, as an Opposition, voted against the decision—was that it was lawful and in accordance with custom and practice for the Government to postpone the local elections. What was different when the Secretary of State came to put this decision before Parliament nearly 12 months later? What had changed—other than the grave concern of many Labour council leaders that they were facing a drubbing at the polls—to lead the Secretary of State to decide not to press forward with asking Parliament to agree, through the legislative process, that election cancellation, as he had indicated, in his own judgment, that he would? I finish with these points: in response to the understandable fury of many local leaders at the mess with which they had been left, the Secretary of State rather hastily announced £63 million of additional—as it was described—“capacity” grant. It would be helpful if the Minister set out, for the benefit of the House, what guidance has been given for the use of that capacity grant. It sounds rather like the amount that would be required to set the elections back up again at very short notice, expensive as that would be. I reflect on the words of one of the Minister’s predecessors, the hon. Member for Oldham West, Chadderton and Royton. He spoke in Parliament in a debate on an urgent question. He described himself as “blunt” and said: “Local leaders across the political spectrum have worked in good faith.” I agree. He—a former Minister of this Government—said: “They have put aside self-interest and differences, and they did everything asked of them to secure a better settlement for the people they represent.” He concluded, regarding this Government’s actions, that “we need to be better than this.” —[ Official Report , 4 December 2025; Vol. 776, c. 1166-1167.] Does this Minister agree?

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

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  I can hear voices challenging that, asking, “So a little bit of crime is okay?” We need to recognise a point similar to those made by Members across the Chamber about crypto. The world is changing. We have very significant and onerous duties for opening a UK bank account and proving our identity, but we live in a world where more organisations are coming to the market and saying, “We can provide you with that document, but without the need to meet any of those standards,” in exactly the same way as people are using crypto to transfer money around without the audit trail that we see with other forms of financial transactions. We need to make sure that our electoral system meets the test and that we can identify those exercising their vote in that way. In conclusion, we have heard from across the Chamber a variety of different examples of improvements that could be made to the Bill. Some of those we as the Opposition will agree with, and some of them we will not, but I hope that Ministers will heed the calls from Members across the House, and particularly those of their own Back Benchers. I was struck by the observations and criticisms of the right hon. Member for Birmingham Hodge Hill and Solihull North (Liam Byrne) and the hon. Members for Stockport (Navendu Mishra), for Rushcliffe (James Naish) and for Clapham and Brixton Hill (Bell Ribeiro-Addy), all of whom set out ways in which this Bill falls short of the minimum expectations that we would have for an appropriately modern and secure piece of electoral legislation. We will approach the Bill Committee in that constructive spirit, but I have to say that at the moment it certainly feels that a number of the measures are in this Bill specifically for the objective of the Government’s own electoral advantage.