Gideon Amos MP: speeches 2025

Speeches

• 14 Jul 2025 · Social Housing: Right to Buy · Hansard source

  More

  16. What assessment she has made of the potential merits of allowing local authorities to end the right to buy in their areas.

• 10 Jul 2025 · Business of the House · Hansard source

  More

  I declare my interest: I am a registered provider of social housing, and before the election I had support from a construction firm in my constituency. Yesterday the Competition and Markets Authority found, in its notice to accept commitments from the big seven house builders, that “suspected conduct may have had the object or effect of preventing, restricting or distorting competition”. It also stated: “It may be presumed that parties took the competitively sensitive information into account.” The CMA is considering accepting a payment of £100 million to halt that investigation. Given the scale and seriousness of the suspected conduct, should not Parliament decide whether thousands of people have paid over the odds for their home? Should it not decide whether it is right that the Government and the CMA should accept £100 million and whether the proposed commitments will go far enough to create the competitive industry we need to see?

• 8 Jul 2025 · Road and Rail Projects · Hansard source

  More

  People around the country have been plagued and let down by a transport system that was completely neglected by the last Conservative Government. The problems have ranged from potholes to cancelled bus services, along with entirely fictional budgets for rail and other transport projects. Given that a safe, reliable transport system is vital to economic growth, this capital investment is of course welcome news. We are pleased to see the Government answering the calls of Liberal Democrats and other campaigners for vital upgrades such as new rail investment and improvements on the northern trans-Pennine route. Given the hard-fought campaign by local people in my constituency, I particularly welcome the confirmation of new stations at Wellington—first proposed in the House by my predecessor Jeremy Browne—and Cullompton. I cannot go quite as far as the Secretary of State in agreeing to relocate Wellington in Devon—it remains in Somerset—but both those rail projects are long overdue, and I thank the Secretary of State for engaging with not just me but my hon. Friends the Members for Honiton and Sidmouth (Richard Foord) and others on both sides of the House, including the hon. Member for Exeter (Steve Race), who I see is present, on the vital importance of those stations to the regional economy. The long overdue funding for the west midlands rail hub is also welcome. Let me now turn to the road infrastructure projects. Many of the schemes announced today have been sought for many years. We are pleased to see investment in the A66, for which my hon. Friend the Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron) has consistently campaigned, as well as investment in infrastructure in Manchester, Derby and Nottingham. However, we still need clarity on exactly how the funds for these projects will be spent. After years of delays, broken promises and mismanagement—not least on HS2—public confidence in the Government’s ability to deliver major infrastructure is understandably low. Given the effects of inflation during the 12-month delay of the Wellington and Cullompton stations project, among others, can the Secretary of State confirm that that project will be fully funded and completed in the two years that it will take to construct the stations? When will the Government finally publish detailed plans for Northern Powerhouse Rail? Can the Government give the country a firm assurance that all these projects will be delivered on time and on budget, in a cost-effective manner?

• 7 Jul 2025 · Giving Every Child the Best Start in Life · Hansard source

  More

  I welcome today’s announcement, but Joanne from my constituency of Taunton and Wellington has asked me to advocate for children with special educational needs and disabilities, given the numbers involved and the limitations on resources. This is at a time when Somerset’s auditors have blamed the predecessor council for decisions that “led to funding shortfalls in each future year in perpetuity.” Will the Secretary of State and the Government ensure that councils such as Somerset are properly funded so that parents and children with special educational needs do not have to wait the one or two years they currently do for assessment, which can devastate their education?

• 23 Jun 2025 · Child Poverty Taskforce · Hansard source

  More

  As in Stroud and the north-east, children in poverty rely on food banks to get by—6,617 food parcels in my constituency alone. Will the Government take the advice of the Trussell Trust and seek and follow independent advice on the universal credit standard allowance?

• 18 Jun 2025 · Businesses in Rural Areas · Hansard source

  More

  I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for North Norfolk (Steff Aquarone) on the welcome focus on our vital rural businesses. When we talk about rural business, we are talking about the lifeblood of our countryside. In Taunton and Wellington, and across Somerset, businesses are not just economic units but the backbone of our communities. Family farms are not taxation units for inheritance purposes; they put food on our tables. The Government should think hard about their family farm tax, and should do so urgently. Rural entrepreneurs face rising costs across the board, unreliable infrastructure and a postcode lottery in support. Constituents in villages such as West Hatch, Staple Fitzpaine and West Buckland, as well as those around Wellington, simply cannot get reliable broadband or mobile signals. Transport is another key concern, which is why the Liberal Democrats proposed an amendment to the Planning and Infrastructure Bill that would have provided compensation for rural firms, such as Apple Campers, Western Recovery Services and TLC, that are losing business due to the closure of junction 26 on the M5 for three whole months under National Highways requirements. Public transport is also essential. It is about connecting the parts of our UK economy to make a stronger whole. Banking and postal access are also vital to our rural businesses. Although I welcome the introduction of the banking hub model in Wellington, as I know the Minister does, it is somewhat bizarre for residents to see, in a town that has no post office, a building with the Post Office logo above the door and window that is not a post office and does not provide post office services. That craziness is straight out of “Yes, Minister” and needs to change urgently. Rural businesses do not ask for special favours. All they ask for is fairness and for a level playing field for infrastructure, support and services.

• 11 Jun 2025 · NHS Funding: South-west · Hansard source

  More

  I congratulate my hon. Friend on bringing the NHS in the south-west into the spotlight. Does he agree that the pressures on Musgrove Park hospital, due to the closure of the Yeovil maternity unit, put staff in an almost impossible position, with 30° heat in summer and leaking roofs and walls with holes in them in winter?

• 11 Jun 2025 · Spending Review 2025 · Hansard source

  More

  I thank the Chancellor for her statement. As well as freeing people up by tackling the social care crisis, the real way to get the growth we all want is a target for publicly funded social homes—albeit, I welcome the funding that has been found for housing—and funding for the infrastructure that communities want, which will unlock tens of thousands of homes. The Wellington and Cullompton stations project was something I raised with the Chancellor last summer. She said at the Dispatch Box that it would be going ahead, because it had started. That project will bring £180 million of growth to the Cardiff-Bristol-Exeter corridor and generate hundreds of new jobs. Are my constituents right—a genuine question to the Chancellor—to be dismayed that there is no mention of any south-west projects in the statement today?

• 10 Jun 2025 · Planning and Infrastructure Bill · Hansard source

  More

  Shocking.

• 10 Jun 2025 · Planning and Infrastructure Bill · Hansard source

  More

  The amendment of my hon. Friend the Member for Henley and Thame would definitely provide a much stronger justification for a CPO that enabled footpaths and cycle paths to be made. As he said, it would create a more level playing field with the compulsory purchase powers already in use for highways. I certainly agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Honiton and Sidmouth (Richard Foord). New clause 22 is a very logical amendment, and there is no logical reason why Ministers should reject it, although that has not stopped them so far; I hope that they break the habit of a lifetime. We are clear in our amendments that communities should lead, and should be in the driving seat, when it comes to development and land. When people see the infrastructure for which they have been calling, it drives more community consent for the homes we need and the communities that we want to build. We need infrastructure for nature as well. Good places to live have gardens, open spaces, parks and meadows, so our new clause 114 would charge development corporations with ensuring those things. I remind the shadow Minister that development corporations discharged planning powers under Conservative Governments, just as under Labour and coalition Governments. It is not always local authorities that deliver development. It is therefore right to ensure that development corporations discharge their duties as effectively as possible. If and when they build new towns and major developments, as the Government want them to, they must ensure open spaces for nature—spaces that work for people and our environment. Amendment 151 would require them to report regularly on their environmental and climate duties. The first garden cities were supported by a Liberal Government and built without felling a single tree, as the hon. Member for North East Hertfordshire (Chris Hinchliff) confirmed yesterday. Their successes were emulated, and they are still emulated in the best developments, right up until today. The vision was a radical one of bringing people and the environment, town and country, and nature and humanity closer together. Those pioneers ensured healthier places to live in, an objective that our new clause 6, promoted by the Town and Country Planning Association, would insert in the planning objectives. Today, however, we face the much greater challenge of saving nature, as well as community cohesion and consent, before it is too late. These amendments may not pass, but make no mistake: there are no greater threats to our way of life than the breakdown of trust, which risks destroying communities, and the breakdown of our environment, which is destroying nature. Those are the challenges that our amendments would tackle head-on, and I humbly urge Members to support them.

• 10 Jun 2025 · Planning and Infrastructure Bill · Hansard source

  More

  Will the shadow Minister explain why the Levelling-up and Regeneration Act 2023 created vast new powers for development corporations, if he believes that all such powers should be discharged by local authorities?

• 10 Jun 2025 · Planning and Infrastructure Bill · Hansard source

  More

  I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way during his speech against all the things he voted for under the last Government, but I am confused by Opposition Members. Is there no limit to the amount of taxpayers’ money they would give to landowners, rather than to councils so that they can build social housing, roads and the other public facilities we need?

• 10 Jun 2025 · Planning and Infrastructure Bill · Hansard source

  More

  The hon. Member for Keighley and Ilkley (Robbie Moore) suggested that market value would not be paid for such land in compulsory purchases. Will the Minister confirm that the amount paid in compulsory purchases is the market value for the existing use of that land?

• 10 Jun 2025 · Planning and Infrastructure Bill · Hansard source

  More

  I am grateful to my hon. Friend who has done so much work to champion national landscapes and the need for them to have a seat at the planning table. In my own national landscape, the mellow and beautiful Blackdown hills of Somerset also deserve a seat at the planning table. We do not believe that cutting out consultees, consultation and voices such as Sport England from the planning process is the way to deliver more homes or better communities. We need to bring in voices such as those who support our national landscapes, and we would dearly like to put forward amendments to achieve that. On the rights of people to genuinely affordable homes, the rights of communities to fairness in the process, and rights to nature, we do not believe that the Government have gone far enough and we cannot support the Bill as it stands.

• 10 Jun 2025 · Planning and Infrastructure Bill · Hansard source

  More

  The hon. Gentleman knows he is talking absolute rubbish because those are not the words I said at all. What I said was that the occupiers’ loss payments “are made to recognise inconvenience”. He may have misheard me. I did not say that farmers were an inconvenience or anything of the kind, and Hansard will reflect that. As the proposed payments would clobber the taxpayer by making them pay double the land’s value, we cannot support the new clause. On the contrary, we say that people are fed up with money going to private developers, leaving local people with little to show for the sacrifices that they are making for new construction projects. There are further areas where the maximum commercial value of land should not have to be paid by public and community bodies. Under amendments 88 and 89, proposed by my hon. Friend the Member for Twickenham (Munira Wilson), hope value would not have to be paid in CPO cases where land is being acquired for sport or recreation. Her new clause 107, relating to disposals of land by public bodies, would ensure that top dollar did not have to be paid where the Secretary of State certified that the disposal was for “public good”; in those cases, a discounted price could be paid. As we have heard, another Liberal Democrat amendment, new clause 22 proposed by my hon. Friend the Member for Henley and Thame (Freddie van Mierlo), would provide a “compelling case” justification for compulsorily purchasing land for new footpaths and cycle paths. Knowing the location of Haddenham and Thame parkway station as I do, I congratulate him on this key proposal, which would really help his constituents.

• 10 Jun 2025 · Planning and Infrastructure Bill · Hansard source

  More

  I reiterate my thanks to all members of the Bill Committee and to the Clerks and officials, who I know had plenty to be getting on with during our sittings. I am grateful for the support of my colleagues for the amendments I have tabled. The Liberal Democrats’ new clause 22 on active travel, and new clause 114 on open spaces in new towns and other development corporation developments, and our amendments 88 and 89 on recreational land, form our key proposals for this part of the Bill. All of them urge the Government to go further when it comes to releasing land value for infrastructure that meets community and environmental needs. On part 5 of the Bill generally, our compulsory purchase proposals included that where major permissions of over 100 homes are not built out, greater powers to acquire that land for housing would be given to councils in a new “use it or lose it” planning permission. I was delighted to hear in the news that the Government are taking up that idea—although I gained a slightly different impression in Committee—even if the promise of more conditionally approved compulsory purchase orders will not give councils the same strong “use it or lose it” power that our amendment would have. Wary of your strictures to stay on topic, Madam Deputy Speaker, I hope you will briefly allow me to add my welcome to that of my hon. Friend the Member for Cheltenham (Max Wilkinson) of the fact that, following the introduction of his private Member’s Bill, the Government, to their credit, have agreed that all new homes will be fitted with solar panels as standard—his sunshine Bill really is “winning here”—bringing zero emissions a step closer, after all the hard work of Liberal Democrat and Labour Ministers on zero-carbon homes, before the Conservatives cancelled the programme in 2015. I turn to our amendments on compulsory purchase and development corporations. Our community-led approach is about the essential infrastructure people want to see being put in place ahead of the building of new homes. Clause 104 could support that by helping the building of council and social homes. It would reward landowners with a fair value, rather than inflated prices from an imaginary planning permission no one has ever applied for, as set out in section 14A of the Land Compensation Act 1961. Our manifesto supports that for the delivery of council houses, and we are supportive of steps that ensure that landowners are awarded fair compensation, rather than inflated prices, for specific types of development scheme. However, at my meeting with farmers in North Curry on Friday, there was concern about the idea—possibly as a result of rumours—that under the clause, farmers would lose land to Natural England so that it could carry out its environmental delivery plans, and in return would get only a reduced payment. I am not convinced that is what the clause does, but family farms have had a tough time recently. They provide food for our tables, and they have been hit hard by risky trade deals with Australia and New Zealand under the last Government, followed by a new inheritance tax on small family farms, the underspend of the agricultural budget, and the closing of the sustainable farming initiative.

• 10 Jun 2025 · Planning and Infrastructure Bill · Hansard source

  More

  It has been an honour and a privilege to represent the Liberal Democrats at the pleasure of my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Ed Davey) on the Planning and Infrastructure Bill in Committee and at all stages of the Bill. I thank my staff team for their work and my colleagues on the Liberal Democrat Benches for their spirited amendments across all topics; in fact, we put forward 78 amendments in Committee, which I can only imagine was an absolute joy for the Minister and his officials to respond to. I pay tribute to Members across the House for their work on this Bill. It has stimulated amendments from all corners of the House, as well as great debate, including my hon. Friend the Member for St Ives (Andrew George) working with the hon. Member for Bury St Edmunds and Stowmarket (Peter Prinsley) on their amendment on rural housing exception sites, to give just one example of the cross-party approach from different corners of the House towards improving the Bill. On Second Reading, where the Liberal Democrats were the only party—except Plaid Cymru—to vote against the Bill because of our principled concerns about it, we set out to address our concerns about people’s rights, communities and fairness, and the effects the Bill will have on nature. We sought to address all those topics with our amendments. First, on rights for people and individuals, as the Chair of the Select Committee, the hon. Member for Vauxhall and Camberwell Green (Florence Eshalomi), pointed out yesterday, what greater right could there be than the right to a decent, affordable home to bring up one’s family? We championed our proposal for 150,000 social homes a year to be built as a key target for this Government, and continue to encourage them through all means, including votes in this place, to move towards a target for building social homes, rather than simply a target for building millions of homes; without that, the target will be led by private market housing, which, on its own, is no solution to the problems we face. We sought to address communities and fairness by seeking to remove the power that the Government will grant themselves, and all future Governments, to interfere in the running of councils and to give decisions to employees and planning consultants over and above the heads of the councillors who employ them, and who are meant to be accountable for those decisions. For the first time, decisions could be made by council officers and consultants, and, though every single elected councillor of that authority may disagree, those decisions will stand in their name, and councillors will not have the power to do anything to change them. That cannot be right. It will undermine communities’ trust in politics and our planning system—a system in which people engage more at a local level than perhaps any other aspect of local government. The more people see the centralisation of planning powers, the standard method and guidance written by Whitehall, the appeals process dominated by Whitehall, and now even their own councillors not allowed to make decisions, the more we will damage communities’ trust in politics and their belief in the planning system and the system of local democracy, which is so important to our country. That is the principal reason that we object so strongly to the removal of powers from councillors in the Bill. We support a number of the measures in the Bill; there are many good measures. In passing, I pay tribute to the Minister for his work on bringing back strategic planning, on which he has worked for a number of years. However, we are gravely concerned about its effect on nature. The National Trust has called the Bill a “licence to kill nature”. It is right, of course, to bring in a system for phosphates, for instance, which could be mitigated at a strategic level through environmental delivery plans, but it is wrong to completely remove from that process the principle of “first do no harm” on the site on which we are developing. We should enshrine the mitigation hierarchy in this new system in the Bill, so that, first, we seek to avoid harm to the site, then to mitigate it and, finally, to offset it, but only where that is absolutely necessary. Our new clause 1 would have put that protection of nature into this new system.

• 9 Jun 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

  More

  Residents in Wellington, in Castlemoat Place in Taunton and in Agar Grove—homebuyers—are just some of a sample who have come to me, raising the scandal of house builders not properly finishing the buildings they have created, leaving them unsafe. What steps will the Minister take to bring forward measures to ensure that house builders repair and make safe their properties urgently, without people having to wait years?

• 9 Jun 2025 · Planning and Infrastructure Bill · Hansard source

  More

  I thank my hon. Friend for championing the need for social and council rent homes, which is exactly what the Liberal Democrats are doing. We welcome the £2 billion commitment that the Government have made to social housing, and we are listening carefully to what they are saying about the spending review, but there is still no target for new social homes in either this Bill or any of the relevant Government policy. That absence needs to be put right.

• 9 Jun 2025 · Planning and Infrastructure Bill · Hansard source

  More

  The hon. Gentleman leads me on to the next part of my speech. Our amendment 15, which would support the delivery of 150,000 new social homes per year, would be funded by the taxation proposal set out in our costed manifesto. That would provide an extra £6 billion per year, on top of the existing affordable housing programme and section 106 contributions. According to the Centre for Economics and Business Research, that would be enough to enable us to deliver 150,000 social homes per year by the end of the Parliament. On the rights of communities, more people engage with their local councils on planning than on almost any other area, but far too often that engagement becomes a dawning recognition that all the key powers and levers on planning have been taken away from local areas by successive Governments, leaving local communities and the elected councillors who represent them increasingly powerless over the development that takes place around them. Housing numbers are set by a formula made in Whitehall and dictated not by population, but by demand and supply ratios, even though studies show that that has never yet reduced the price of a single house. Private builders will quite reasonably act to sustain the price of their product, and adding consents in this context is only likely to unleash development in inappropriate areas.

• 9 Jun 2025 · Planning and Infrastructure Bill · Hansard source

  More

  Tomorrow, as the hon. Gentleman has reminded me. If, tomorrow, the Liberal Democrats are the only party to vote against the Bill because of the harm that it does to the rights of communities and local people, to fairness and to nature, all three of which are cornerstones of what liberals believe in, we shall bear that standard proudly—and we shall do so again.

• 9 Jun 2025 · Planning and Infrastructure Bill · Hansard source

  More

  I agree with my hon. Friend, who is a great champion of green spaces in development. In our contribution, we are showing how the protections of nature could be strengthened in the Bill without entire chunks of it being deleted. I shall say more about that later. As we heard from the Chair of the Select Committee, the hon. Member for Vauxhall and Camberwell Green (Florence Eshalomi), when it comes to rights for individuals, real freedom often depends on decent homes that people can afford and where they can bring up their families. When homes are genuinely affordable for local people, they will command real community consent and support in the planning process. Unless we give a commitment to a massive increase in the number of social and council rent homes, we will not be responding to the needs of those people, and we will fail to meet head-on the criticism that housing developments today are more about profit than about people.

• 9 Jun 2025 · Planning and Infrastructure Bill · Hansard source

  More

  Will the hon. Member give way?

• 9 Jun 2025 · Planning and Infrastructure Bill · Hansard source

  More

  On that point, will the Minister give way?

• 9 Jun 2025 · Planning and Infrastructure Bill · Hansard source

  More

  Let me start by thanking all the members of the Bill Committee, the Clerks, and the officials whose joy at receiving our 78 amendments I can only imagine to have been unbounded. The House will be pleased to hear that I will now be focusing only on those that we have prioritised for this debate. On Second Reading, the Liberal Democrats and Plaid Cymru were the only parties to vote against the Bill. All the others were content to support it; Labour and Green party Members nodded it through, while the Conservatives—the official Opposition—abstained. I hope that they will all consider their position more seriously on this occasion, and reconsider supporting some of the measures in the Bill, but if today the Liberal Democrats are again the only party to vote against the Bill—