Gideon Amos MP: speeches

Speeches

• 15 Jul 2026 · Estate Regeneration · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Dr Murrison. I congratulate the hon. Member for Basingstoke (Luke Murphy) on securing the debate. His call for minimum repair standards seems very reasonable, and I am happy to echo it. I was pleased to hear the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) identifying the regular attendees in this Chamber—I am tempted to say that it takes one to know one. I am sure we will see him again; it is always a pleasure to have him with us in a debate. It is a shame that the constituents of the hon. Member for Basingstoke do not feel they have been fully consulted, as they should have been, on the regeneration project he mentioned. Regeneration, when done with genuine community involvement, can change lives in some of the best ways possible. Community involvement, consent and consultation are fundamental necessities if that kind of positive and transformative outcome is to be achieved. Regeneration is one of the best tools we have to help solve the housing crisis. It allows us to build the new homes we desperately need—including, crucially, new social homes—on brownfield sites, saving precious greenfield from development. It allows residents to exchange some of the coldest, leakiest housing stock in Europe for better homes that are affordable to run, while adding the kind of infrastructure that the hon. Gentleman referred to, such as GP surgeries, school places and playparks, which some estates built 60 years ago never had. Many Liberal Democrat councils are showing the way to do this. My Somerset councillor colleagues, including Federica Smith-Roberts, Tom Deakin and Lee Baker, have led the way on the regeneration of the North Taunton estate. There are 162 defective prefabricated concrete Woolaway homes, unfit for the 21st century, being demolished and replaced with 229 council homes for affordable rent—67 more than we had before. The scheme was built around a resident design group from the outset, not token consultations or consultation after the drawings were finished. Local community champions like Lesley Councill, who has done amazing work at the Priorswood community centre, helped to lead that involvement and deserve to be credited for a lot of the work. Existing tenants were rehoused during the works, with a guaranteed right to return. Another example is the Cambridge road estate in Kingston upon Thames, in the constituency of my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Ed Davey). The Liberal Democrat council there insisted on subjecting the proposed regeneration scheme to the kind of ballot that the hon. Member for Basingstoke referred to. Those involved worked hard with local residents and the proposal received overwhelming support, resulting in 2,100 new homes and 871 new council houses—218 more than were on the site before. Those are not marginal examples; they are proof that the choice is not between going ahead with regeneration or getting community consent. With leadership and real involvement, communities can and do vote for more housing, not less. The Liberal Democrats want to see that ambition matched nationally, and we would go further. We want infrastructure to come first in these developments, so that regeneration comes with the GP surgeries, transport and drainage capacity that the extra density demands, rather than as an afterthought. As we have said: no doctors, no development. We would also get serious about the housing that already exists, but sits empty. There are more than 359 homes across the country that have been empty for six months or longer. Addressing that would ease the pressure to drive up to unsustainable densities in other parts of towns and communities, and would relieve pressure on greenfield sites. The same principle applies to our high streets. The Liberal Democrats want to see a properly funded high streets strategy that genuinely brings empty units back into use as accommodation and housing above shops, strengthens the town centre-first principle and supports property owners who want to do those conversions. We would deliver on our 10-year emergency home upgrade programme, starting with free insulation and heat pumps for low-income households, so that regeneration is not the only route to warm homes. We welcome the fact that the Government have made housing a priority. We have read that the new Prime Minister will want to increase the number of council and social rent homes being built. Does the Minister believe that the new Prime Minister will match the Liberal Democrat ambition to reach 150,000 new social rent homes per year? I am sure we would all be interested to hear that. We ask the Minister for an infrastructure-first requirement, so that regeneration schemes are properly funded to deliver the GP surgeries, schools and transport links that increased density requires; a national target for 150,000 social rent homes per year, rather than the market-led approach that we have at the moment; the delivery of a 10-year emergency home upgrade programme, starting with free insulation and heat pumps for low-income households, and a recognition that regeneration should never be done to a community, but done with and by the community.

• 8 Jul 2026 · Rearmament and Warfighting Readiness · Hansard source

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  Given the important armed forces community in Taunton and Wellington, which includes 40 Commando Royal Marines, 675 Squadron Army Air Corps, our sea and air cadets and our army cadet force, I start by thanking all those who are serving and all the veterans in my community who have served. At the weekend, I was pleased to have the opportunity to thank Ed Cullen and all the veterans who organised our superb Somerset Armed Forces Day event, drawing 49,000 people, which was a record attendance. I hope that the Minister will join me in congratulating them, as well as Terry Williams, who is fundraising to establish the “poppy of honour”, with 1.1 million named paper poppies for every individual lost in world war one. Indeed, I call on the Government to support that fundraising effort in a meaningful way. Speaking of those who have been on active service, I also congratulate my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Tunbridge Wells (Mike Martin) on his service. He brings to these Benches the sharpest of insights on defence and rearmament, and great experience too. How we treat our veterans is a vital component of how we will attract the men and women to serve in the forces and deliver the warfighting readiness that this debate is about. That is why the superb work of the NHS Somerset armed forces link team must not be cut back as a result of cuts to integrated care boards by the Department of Health and Social Care. Former Royal Marine Steven Summers has said to me that “the support provided…has been life changing. They have helped bridge the gaps between the NHS, local GP surgeries, and the commitments made under the Armed Forces Covenant… Their work really does make a difference.” The support that we give our veterans should also include those who served in Operation Banner in Northern Ireland. They should never have to face double jeopardy. That is why the Liberal Democrats voted against carrying over the Government’s Northern Ireland Troubles Bill. Given the heat, I will spend a moment thanking soldiers on ceremonial duties. I am personally appalled by the way a minority of members of the public treat the guards and their horses, as is regularly shown on social media. Veterans in my constituency have asked me to raise that here today. I urge the Government to consider whether anything can be done to better prevent people from interfering with guards’ duties. Cadets are tomorrow’s servicemen and women, so I welcome that our cadet forces are set to keep growing, and the 30% target must be met as soon as possible. A decent home for serving personnel matters, so I was proud as the Liberal Democrats housing spokesperson to take forward the work begun by my hon. Friend the Member for North Shropshire (Helen Morgan) and propose amendments to the Renters’ Rights Bill, which were eventually made by the Government, to bring service family accommodation up to a decent home standard by law. I am delighted that the amendments of my hon. Friend the Member for Lewes (James MacCleary) to the Armed Forces Bill would extend that to single living accommodation. I welcome the £15 billion defence investment plan, but as my hon. Friend the Member for Tunbridge Wells said, it does not go nearly far enough. With £4.75 billion of that yet to be found, any raiding of the military housing budget would be a false economy and bitterly opposed by Liberal Democrats. If this defence investment is to be spent well, the promise made to our small businesses to properly integrate them into procurement must be kept. The current 5% procurement budget for SMEs is a pittance. An SME in my constituency—Coker Engineering in Taunton—needs reliable access to steel imports. I repeat the call for defence companies to be granted exclusions from steel import tariffs so that they can make the arms our forces need. In conclusion, if the Government’s ambition falls short, the Liberal Democrats’ ambition does not. We call for: a new EU-UK defence pact providing the basis for negotiating UK entry into SAFE, or Security Action for Europe; decent homes for service families and single living accommodation; and a £20 billion programme of defence bonds to inject the capital that our forces urgently need to meet the challenges set out by my hon. Friend and the strategic defence review. That is the defence of our country that Liberal Democrats have been campaigning for, and that is what we would deliver.