Gideon Amos MP: speeches

Speeches

• 17 Mar 2026 · Rural Roads · Hansard source

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  I congratulate the hon. Member for South Shropshire (Stuart Anderson) on securing this debate. This has been a year of records for Taunton, Somerset and the Somerset levels: the Environment Agency reported the wettest week on record for at least 30 years, and in January, the River Tone and the River Parrett received 207% of the long-term average for January rainfall. The result of that was a massive and record reporting of potholes. One Blagdon Hill resident pointed out to us that the problem goes back 10 years to the period when the Conservatives running the county council reduced funding for highways. At the same time, the Government have reduced Somerset’s funding by removing the remoteness uplift of £20 million per year. The record I want to finish my speech on is that the council has just approved £160 million to be spent over the next three years on highways and potholes. That is a record amount, and at no other time have so many potholes been filled by Liberal Democrat councillors.

• 17 Mar 2026 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  Given the massive immigration tribunal backlog left by the previous Government, would it not make more sense to lift the cap on non-salaried tribunal judges who are already recruited, and invest in court venues such as Taunton, instead of abolishing their role and doing massive damage to morale?

• 16 Mar 2026 · Heating Oil Support · Hansard source

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  Residents of Curland and Hatch Beauchamp are among the 9,000 off-grid households in my constituency, and they have contacted me about the heating oil question. Given that prices have gone up so greatly, they will welcome the Government’s move, however small, against the soaring prices caused by Trump’s illegal and unprincipled war. However, given that the help works out at only £35 per house, would it not be better to have a VAT holiday and a permanent price cap so that these customers are not second-class energy consumers?

• 16 Mar 2026 · Grenfell Tower Memorial (Expenditure) Bill · Hansard source

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  I join the Secretary of State in paying tribute to the 72 people who tragically lost their lives in the disaster nearly nine years ago. The Liberal Democrats welcome the Bill, and we support it. Nearly nine years since the fire, families and communities have waited long enough for a proper legal and financial footing to be provided for a permanent memorial to the 72 people who lost their lives. As a chartered architect and a member of the Royal Institute of British Architects, I began the new professional training and development that the Grenfell report now rightly requires of all architects. Tragically, previous fires had exposed the problems of highly flammable cladding, which shows that the risks were known. There were opportunities to act and attempts were made to act, yet 72 people lost their lives. The social homes at Grenfell were provided to serve the interests of diverse and often low-income residents, but they were refurbished —in part, to improve outward appearances—in ways that militated dangerously against those people’s interests. That context is worth stating, because it speaks to a pattern of big institutions and corporations not seeing or valuing the people they are supposed to serve. On the question of justice, we need to be direct in pointing out that the Metropolitan police have said this week that prosecutions are not expected before 2027—10 years after the fire. All of us in this House must ensure that justice is done. That is one reason why the Liberal Democrats have called from these Benches for a new office of the whistleblower to create legal protections and promote greater public awareness of people’s rights. It is also why we have consistently supported the Government’s Public Office (Accountability) Bill, which will place a statutory duty of candour on public authorities and ensure equal legal representation for bereaved families. We are glad that the Government have committed to that legislation, and we will work on it—and on this Bill—with parties across the House so that its protections are delivered. On cladding and fire safety, there has been genuine progress since 2017, and the Government deserve credit for accepting all 58 recommendations of the inquiry, but thousands of people are still living in buildings with unsafe cladding. Remediation is taking far too long, and that needs to change. I would like to raise three key points before I conclude. First, will the Minister say something about the Grenfell projects fund, which has provided substantial support to the community since the fire? If it is being wound up, the Government should set out clearly what is going to replace it. Secondly, now that the tower has begun to come down—and I completely understand why people have different views about and reactions to that—I welcome the Government’s announcement last week about saving elements of the structure, and support them in leaving any decision about how they may be retained for consultation with the Grenfell community. Finally, we must all be vigilant in ensuring that all the recommendations are followed through, that the community is fully consulted on the memorial, and that the voices of those who raised concerns before the fire are—tragically, unlike those of the victims—at last properly heard and their concerns acted on. We owe it to the community to ensure that the commitments made to it since 2017 are kept, that buildings across the country are made safe and that the systems that failed are genuinely reformed. The voices that were not heard need to be heard and remembered into the future. Across this House, we should do what one reflection on the Grenfell memorial wall urges us all to do, which is to ensure that they not only rest in peace, but “rest in power”.

• 10 Mar 2026 · Courts and Tribunals Bill · Hansard source

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  Of course I accept that the legal system has evolved and changed, and that the right to trial by jury has changed, but my concern is that in serious cases, where someone could be imprisoned for up to two years and their reputation destroyed, people would want to be tried by jury. Our legal system currently protects that right, but that would be swept away by this Bill.

• 10 Mar 2026 · Courts and Tribunals Bill · Hansard source

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  I do. The hon. Member is right: the problem with these reforms is that they are not going to speed up the criminal justice system or solve the backlog issues. We have rehearsed all the challenges that the system faces—we know what they are, and they need to be addressed, but abolishing trial by jury for those affected will not do that. Madam Deputy Speaker, if I may, I would like to spend a few minutes on a missed opportunity in this Bill: dealing with the state of our immigration and asylum system, which we all know the Conservatives left in an appalling state. The asylum backlog more than doubled in just two years, from 70,000 to 166,000 people waiting in 2022. Instead of processing those claims, the Conservatives opened over 400 asylum hotels. As the Government began clearing up the—

• 10 Mar 2026 · Courts and Tribunals Bill · Hansard source

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  I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Chichester (Jess Brown-Fuller) on defending trial by jury, which is a long-standing right that people have enjoyed—albeit only in certain circumstances—and we should think very seriously before taking it away. One hundred senior barristers and KCs have written to the Secretary of State to say that taking away this right for those cases would be an “irremediable error”, and many others have criticised the move. When I visited the magistrates court in my constituency, magistrates told me of their challenges in recruiting, which must place serious doubts on the assumptions that have been made about the time savings that would result from this Bill. I also have serious concerns about the removal of the right to appeal those cases in the Crown court.

• 10 Mar 2026 · Courts and Tribunals Bill · Hansard source

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  The point I wish to make, Madam Deputy Speaker, is that this Bill should address the challenge faced by the immigration system. Alongside the Bill, the Government have a parallel proposal to abolish the current system and to replace immigration tribunals with a new appeals system. I believe that that should be debated in the House and that it is relevant to this Bill, but I will move quickly through my points about this issue so as not to irritate you, Madam Deputy Speaker. This Bill offers an important opportunity to address the immigration system. I am concerned that the creation of a new body and the abolition of the appeals tribunal is not the right approach, and that it will devalue the tribunal judges who are ready and available to sit and hear more cases. I genuinely welcome the Secretary of State’s announcement of an extra 26,000 sitting days for that chamber, but extra days will not be useful if there are not enough judges to sit for them. In the words of a judge who wrote to me, “there are not enough judges and if the Home Office does not do the work quicker at their end, which is where the delay is, it makes no difference.” There are enough immigration and asylum tribunal judges, but we need them to be allowed to sit for more than 220 capped days to deal with the backlog. I tabled a written question on this point. Those judges are prevented from being paid more than salaried judges, and therefore there is an effective cap on their sitting. Those are the kinds of issues that we need to deal with, as well as dealing with the backlog in the criminal courts and allowing our courts to be used for two sittings each day—am and pm—as my hon. Friend the Member for Chichester explained. Those are the kinds of measures that would speed up the criminal justice system, not the abolition of trial by jury for those cases that would be affected. Some hon. Members have made the point that trial by jury is not necessarily a constitutional right in all cases, and we understand that. However, denigrating trial by jury as unimportant or a minor right does not help the argument of those who are seeking to abolish it for certain cases. Looking back, it has been called in case law a “highly valued part of our unwritten constitution.” Going back to the 18th century, Lord Justice Camden said that it was “the foundation of our free constitution”. In the 20th century, Lord Justice Devlin said that “it is the lamp that shows that freedom lives”.

• 10 Mar 2026 · Courts and Tribunals Bill · Hansard source

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  Of course magistrates do a vital job, but when I visited magistrates in my constituency, they explained that they seriously doubt that it will be possible to recruit sufficient people to meet Ministry of Justice estimates about cost saving and time saving. To conclude, for me cases that will result in imprisonment of up to three years—or up to two years if they come before a magistrate—are serious enough to warrant the right of defendants to request a trial by jury. Those are the protections currently in place in law. We should hold on to those protections and defend them as a guarantee of our liberty in this House and in the country.

• 5 Mar 2026 · Palliative Care · Hansard source

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  I am sure the whole House congratulates the hon. Member for York Central (Rachael Maskell) on her immense work on this topic—I certainly do. I am sure that she would sympathise with one of my constituents, whose case was brought to my attention by Marie Curie. The lack of a doctor on duty over a weekend meant that proper palliating medicine could not be prescribed, resulting in a distressing death. Does she agree that as well as consistency in funding, we need care to be consistently available seven days a week and 24 hours a day?

• 4 Mar 2026 · NHS Capital Spending · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Mr Western. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Bobby Dean) on securing such an important debate. The No. 1 issue that I promised during my election campaign that I would focus on and prioritise, if elected, was care in the NHS, specifically Musgrove Park hospital and the dire state of the maternity unit. Of course, the Conservatives did not just promise to help; they promised 40 entirely new hospitals, including one in Taunton. As has been pointed out, there were not 40 of them, many of them were not hospitals and they certainly were not new. According to data from the House of Commons Library, as my hon. Friend the Member for Carshalton and Wallington pointed out, a staggering £4.3 billion of NHS capital spending was cut to cover revenue challenges under the last Conservative Government. It is hardly surprising that their enormous promise turned out to be entirely fictious. What is the result? In the summer, we have medical staff fainting in the 30° heat in single-storey buildings that were built in world war two, and in the winter, we have holes in the walls and rows of buckets in corridors to catch the water. We even have roof guttering mounted inside the building in several locations to deal with the leaks. I trained as an architect and I was not expecting to see external roof guttering inside hospital rooms. I genuinely welcome the Government’s increased capital spending for the NHS. Last year, as a result of cross-party campaigns and to the Government’s credit, Taunton and Somerset got a glass-half-full announcement about the hospital programme: it was included in the second wave of funding. Unfortunately that is not until 2033, which is later than is needed. We need action before that. I was delighted to hear the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care being challenged on the radio recently by the redoubtable Emma Britton, the voice of BBC Somerset. He said of the new maternity unit: “If I can bring forward the timetables of these schemes because we can get not just the money, but the contractors and the suppliers and everything else that is required—the planning to do that—we will do our best to bring forward schemes." I am working closely with the trust. They have sensible plans that could expedite those projects and get on with the vital planning work that we know needs to happen so far ahead of the project. That could be started next year. Can the Minister meet with me at some point to look realistically at the trust’s proposals to expedite the vital need for a maternity unit in Musgrove Park hospital in Taunton? A meeting was proposed earlier in the year, but got postponed. I understand the pressure the Minister is under. I know she understands the challenges and has many hospitals to think about, and I genuinely appreciate the work that she is doing. But, given what the Secretary of State told Somerset over the airwaves only a few weeks ago, and given the dire need at Musgrove Park hospital, I urge the Government to make a start on that key project as soon as possible. We know that care and our NHS are the key levers to getting our public services back to where they need to be, to helping people back to work and to boosting our economy. We also know it is the right thing to do for mums and medical staff in Taunton and Wellington.

• 3 Mar 2026 · Spring Forecast · Hansard source

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  Monkton Elm garden centre, with its 400-cover restaurant employing 120 staff, has been hit by a £70,000 increase in its business rates this year as part of £178,000 in costs put on by the last Budget. If the Government will not accept the 5% cut in VAT that the Liberal Democrats propose—we would fund that by a tax on banks, by the way, not from cutting services—those at the garden centre would like to know whether the Chancellor will none the less extend the 15% discount to pubs on their business rates to restaurants? That would give our local businesses the support they need and give everyone the boost they want to see in our economy.

• 3 Mar 2026 · Environmental Protection and Biodiversity · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech. Does she agree that habitat loss will not be helped if the Government accept recommendation 19 of the Fingleton review, which will weaken the duty to support our national parks? Our national parks did not stop the building of Sellafield, or of Trawsfynydd in Snowdonia national park; the Quantocks national landscape did not stop the building of Hinkley. We need to protect our national parks and landscapes.

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

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  I congratulate you on securing quality, if not quantity, of speakers in this debate, Mr Mundell; it is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (Jamie Stone) for introducing the debate, and the 262 of my constituents who signed this petition. They are right: the Secretary of State’s power to cancel elections, certainly without recourse to Parliament, should be removed. The Liberal Democrats opposed cancelling the elections and are opposing top-down reorganisations of councils in various places. We opposed the cancelling of the elections at the time, including in Parliament. That is why we tabled a prayer motion in the House of Commons and a fatal motion in the House of Lords, which would have stopped the Government’s secondary legislation that cancelled the elections. Unfortunately, the Conservatives did not support the motion in the House of Lords, and therefore the cancellation went ahead. The delaying of elections in certain local authorities meant that incumbent councillors were permitted to remain in post for longer than their elected period, which, as other hon. Members have said, directly contravened the democratic mandates given to them by voters. Simply moving the goalposts and silencing millions of voters is totally unacceptable and a subversion of the democratic process. The public deserve to know how such an obviously undemocratic plan was allowed to get so far. Even though the Government have said they will not provide it, the Liberal Democrats will repeat our call to see the full legal and other advice that the Government relied on, so that the public can see exactly how the plan came to fruition. It is not just this Government. In May 2021, 5,000 councillor elections went ahead, but not the hundreds of elections that the Conservative Government cancelled in Cumbria, Carlisle, South Lakeland and Somerset because of unpopular, top-down reorganisations. What the Conservatives began this Government have continued, with an unwanted, top-down reorganisation of many council areas. It was in not just Cumbria and Carlisle, but my own county of Somerset, where the Conservatives took it to extremes. The 2021 election delay to facilitate the unwanted Somerset-wide unitarisation was being discussed by Ministers with the then Conservative leader while the Conservatives’ previous merger of two Somerset district councils was barely a year old. The merged district council, which went on to become part of the new Somerset unitary council, has gone down as the shortest-lived local authority in history. Millions of pounds were wasted and the public will was ignored, just as it is far too often ignored now. In both Somerset mergers, calls for the previous Government to respect a referendum or poll of local people were ignored. Elections were delayed and the new super-large council emerged, covering 60 miles. About 20 towns and 400 villages were lashed together for Conservative convenience, even though the public voted clearly for two smaller unitary councils. Now, just like then, local authorities have been grappling with the severe and additional pressures that the Government’s reorganisation is placing on their budgets. As a result, and because of Government flip-flopping and the lack of clear and prompt communication about whether local elections will go ahead, many are now scrambling to prepare for elections in just a few weeks’ time. They are staffed by electoral services officers, many of whose district council employers have been lined up for abolition. Does that not raise serious questions as to whether they will be able to deliver essential free and fair elections? Given the Government have now reversed their decision to postpone the 2026 local elections, can the Minister confirm whether the same legal considerations applied to the nine local elections postponed in 2025? Does she believe that the postponement of the elections by the Conservative Government in 2021 was lawful or not? As the right hon. Member for Rayleigh and Wickford (Mr Francois) said, the characteristic here is cancelling elections for unpopular, top-down reorganisations. Somerset will be lashed together with Dorset, Wiltshire and some other authorities to become Wessex. When I have visited flooded villages on the Somerset levels, nobody has come up to me and said, “What I really want is a metro mayor.” Unless we can bring back King Alfred, I suspect they are not going to back the idea at all. Will the Minister make clear what amount of taxpayer money is being spent on legal costs arising from proceedings related to the proposed postponement of local elections? These are real questions that the Government need to answer. The Liberal Democrats, who oppose the cancelling of elections, will keep asking those questions. We have consistently stood against cancellations by the Conservatives and by this Government. We are clear that the decision to cancel should never have been taken, and democracy delayed is democracy denied.

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

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  My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech. Does she agree that we need a radical reset of democracy in our country to reinvigorate trust, which has recently been lost? We need to cap big donations, bring in fair votes, and abolish the ludicrous voter ID scheme from the last Government.

• 26 Feb 2026 · Business of the House · Hansard source

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  An important frontline healthcare company operating within the NHS in my constituency and across Somerset has relied on a certificate of sponsorship for a number of years to provide those services. An application to renew the certificate of sponsorship was made in the normal way, but because the company changed its structure a few years ago and there was a change in ownership, even though the qualified head of that company remained the sole director and beneficial owner, the Home Office has rejected the application, adding that there is no right of appeal. That could have a significant impact on healthcare services across Somerset. I have written to the Minister for Migration and Citizenship, the hon. Member for Dover and Deal (Mike Tapp), and I would be extremely grateful if the Leader of the House helped to facilitate a meeting, so that patients across Somerset do not suffer because of an overly heavy-handed approach to the rules on certificates.

• 25 Feb 2026 · Grenfell Tower Annual Report · Hansard source

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  The Liberal Democrats’ thoughts, like those of everyone in the House, are primarily on the 72 tragic losses of life that occurred in the Grenfell disaster. I welcome the spirit of cross-party discussion that the Secretary of State and the Opposition spokesperson, the hon. Member for Hamble Valley (Paul Holmes), have set out. I endorse the points made by the hon. Member for Kensington and Bayswater (Joe Powell). I welcome many of the recommendations and the actions being taken by the Government. In passing, I note that they apply to chartered architects. I have begun the training now required of all architects as a result of the Grenfell report—I declare an interest as a member of the Royal Institute of British Architects—which brings home, in a salutary way, the failure of the professions, successive Governments, industry and regulation on a tragic and horrendous scale. One of the key recommendations in Sir Martin Moore-Bick’s report, set out in the typically neutral language of a High Court judge, is a request for the Government to reconsider “whether it is in the public interest for building control functions to be performed by those who have a commercial interest”. Sir Martin Moore-Bick raised similar questions on the construction product testing system. The White Paper says: “Unethical manufacturers were able to exploit systemic weaknesses with appalling consequences”. The follow-up Morrell-Day report on construction product testing highlighted that there were conflicts of interest. The White Paper also mentions “virtually absent” enforcement. Those are all shocking parts of this tragedy. My first question is therefore whether that decision has been taken. We would go further and say that commercial interests have no place in building control inspection and product testing. My second question—

• 25 Feb 2026 · Grenfell Tower Annual Report · Hansard source

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  I will, Madam Deputy Speaker. My second question is about those excluded from the building safety fund. Tens of thousands of families are in buildings under 11 metres or living with products that might last an hour in a fire under PAS 9980—that is the wrong standard. We need all highly flammable materials and all buildings that have fire safety risks to be remediated. I ask the Secretary of State to address that question.

• 24 Feb 2026 · EU Membership Referendum: Impact on the UK · Hansard source

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  The hon. Lady mentions the trade and co-operation agreement, which was of course meant to remove tariffs. Does she share my concern about companies, such as those in Taunton and Wellington, that do not have to pay tariffs but who have to pay £300 for every cross-border transaction, to have all the paperwork done? That is effectively a tariff, and not the free trade we were promised. Does that not show the lunacy of the way the Brexit decision was carried out?

• 23 Feb 2026 · Leasehold Reform · Hansard source

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  Many of the 5 million leaseholders were looking forward to being freed from the feudal leasehold system until they read the draft Bill, which left many disappointed. There is no restriction on the development value that leaseholders are going to be charged and no broadening of the mixed-use blocks that will be eligible for enfranchisement, while leaseholders will continue to pay the legal fees of landlords, and service charges are still not being capped. Given the commitments in the Labour manifesto and the King’s Speech to enact these recommendations from the Law Commission, should the Government not be more courageous, take on the landlords and give leaseholders proper rights to enfranchise, as they promised?

• 23 Feb 2026 · Leasehold Reform · Hansard source

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  The Law Commission reforms are being enacted and there is no date yet for a Bill to be brought forward. I hope that the Secretary of State will provide one. Moving on to leaseholders who are still living with unsafe cladding and building defects, hundreds of thousands of people in buildings under 11 metres tall are living with cladding that is recognised as highly flammable, but are not eligible for the building safety fund. Is it not time that they were given the peace of mind and the safety they thought their home was providing them?

• 23 Feb 2026 · Local Government Reorganisation · Hansard source

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  Liberal Democrats believe that all authorities in England should be enabled to have the devolution deal and local government arrangement that is right for them. The shadow Secretary of State asked whether this was an isolated incident; in the context of top-down reorganisation, this definitely is not an isolated incident. Under the last Conservative Government, top-down reorganisation was forced on to areas such as Cumbria and Somerset; it was bitterly opposed by local areas, yet it was forced on to those local communities against local opposition. Cumbria county council took the Conservative Government to court, and Somerset councils opposed the forced reorganisation. When opinion polls were taken across Somerset and the wide conclusion was that two authorities would be better than one, the Government forced those decisions on to Somerset. My first question is therefore this: if polls are taken in areas subject to top-down reorganisation, will the results from the public be supported by the Government? Secondly, the Liberal Democrats opposed the postponement of these elections. We put down a fatal motion in the House of Lords that could have stopped the postponement in the first place, which the Conservatives failed to support. Given that nine authorities had their elections postponed in 2025, does the advice and rationale that apply in 2026 apply to the postponement that happened in 2025? If not, why not?

• 11 Feb 2026 · Local Government Finance · Hansard source

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  We may not agree on the cuts, which began in 2009, but the hon. Member has not yet touched on the removal of the remoteness uplift. Does he agree, in a cross-party spirit, that including a remoteness uplift just for adult social care, but not for children’s services or any other services, is contrary to common sense, and affects remote rural authorities more than others across the country?

• 11 Feb 2026 · Local Government Finance · Hansard source

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  The hon. Gentleman is right that massive savings were made after the financial crash in 2008—some would say around £40 billion over the coalition years. He would be horrified to learn that the only people suggesting cuts greater than £41 billion were those in the Labour party in their 2010 manifesto, which proposed £56 billion in cuts. [ Interruption. ] If the hon. Gentleman does not believe me, he can look at the headlines of the time: “Alistair Darling: we will cut deeper than Margaret Thatcher”. That was Alistair Darling in his 2010 Budget. Who began austerity? Who began the cuts? It was the Labour Government, who were planning to go further, faster and deeper, according to Alistair Darling, than the Liberal Democrats or the coalition did.

• 11 Feb 2026 · Local Government Finance · Hansard source

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  I hesitate to get too involved in the politics of Sheffield. I am concerned that we are seeing reductions in Government funding for councils across the country, particularly in the case of rural authorities, which are especially hard hit by this settlement. Rural authorities find delivering social care and other services far more costly than in tightly drawn urban areas; Somerset’s 4,000-mile road network, for instance, is a massively more onerous proposition than a network in a tightly drawn urban area. It is inexplicable that despite a consultation that considered maintaining the remoteness funding uplift across the country and across all funding heads of local government, it has been taken away from all funding heads apart from adult social care. Why would it be less costly to provide children’s services than adult’s services in a remote, rural area? Why would it be less costly to provide flood relief and flood protection than adult services in a rural area? A whole range of really remote authorities are affected, including Westmorland and Furness, Somerset, Devon and Cornwall, all of which are particularly badly hit. Remote authorities have much greater areas to protect from flooding. I have spent recent days with families in Stathe and Burrowbridge on the Somerset levels in my constituency, where I have seen how heartrending it is for families to watch the water coming closer and closer to their homes. Some people are going to bed with the water 200 metres away, but by the time they wake up the next morning and look out of their window, it is only 20 metres away. In some of the places I visited, the water is lapping up against the houses themselves. When Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron came down in 2013-14—the last time we had severe flooding—he promised Somerset that money would be no object. It turned out that he meant that Somerset residents’ money would be no object, because Somerset’s new rivers authority became the only one in the country not to be funded by central Government and to have to rely on local taxpayers. When the Flooding Minister, the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Haltemprice (Emma Hardy), came down to Somerset yesterday, she said that Somerset will not be forgotten. I ask the Local Government Minister what extra support the Government are providing to Somerset council to deal with this flooding major incident, which could easily become a national emergency if effective measures are not taken now—and I mean in the next few days. Water levels are still rising, Minister. Finally, we need an end to the massive expense of all this top-down reorganisation of local government where people do not want it. Forcing change on the structures of the natural communities that people know and love can only distract from the important work of reducing flooding, delivering care and all the other priorities that councils put first. No one I have met in Taunton and Wellington, in Somerset or on the levels has told me that what they really want to see is a metro-style mayor for their area coming down the road. Is spending almost half a billion on mayors really going to help any of our constituencies in the way that known, understood and strengthened local councils would? While we welcome the limited extra funding, the settlement leaves too many questions unanswered on how SEND costs will be met. It is still going to lead to big cuts in services for rural and remote authorities, and on social care it leaves council tax payers bailing out a broken system. For all these reasons, we cannot at this stage support the settlement.