Helen Morgan MP: speeches 2024

Speeches

• 11 Sept 2024 · Oswestry to Gobowen Railway Line · Hansard source

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  I thank my hon. Friend for his really good intervention. It is true that we tend to underestimate the passenger numbers on the newly reopened lines, and the benefits are probably in excess of the business cases that have supported them. I will come to further developments on this line later, so I am grateful to him for making that point. Public transport is critical to the issue of productivity, growth and matching jobs with people who want to do them, so this line will be really important for job creation, education opportunities and economic growth in a rural area that has huge potential but is currently not meeting that potential. It will also be a huge boost to the regeneration of Oswestry’s beautiful and historic town centre. Oswestry already boasts a large number of independent shops and a relatively low number of vacant units. On the border between England and Wales, the town has a rich cultural history, a large number of native Welsh speakers and the potential to really thrive in the future. The area surrounding the station is planned to become a transport hub for the town, and the listed station building is undergoing works to ensure that it is structurally sound and fit for the future, but it will need tenants inside it. A fully operating station has the potential to unlock private investment in the area, to regenerate this important transport gateway to Oswestry, only a few minutes’ walk from the centre of town, and to provide crucial facilities, such as public toilets and a café, that would make connecting bus services into the rural area beyond much more viable. One of the big issues that local bus providers have with providing services in the area is that there is not a public toilet for their drivers to use when they stop over. That really hinders the ability for them to provide a decent bus service. People who live in Oswestry are largely dependent on their car. Linking local bus and rail services will reduce congestion and emissions and open a world of opportunity for those who, for whatever reason, are unable to access a car or drive one. As I said, it is not just me who thinks the reopening is a good idea. The DFT’s feedback on the strategic outline business case was extremely positive, saying that it was a “strong strategic case”, that the “proposal aligns to various local plans over the past decade”, and that the “appraisal outputs presented in the economic case show that all options yield ‘Very High and Financially Positive’ value for money”. Crucially, the project is expected to bring in more cash than it would cost to set up. That clear value for money is in stark contrast to the three other restoring your railway schemes approved by the previous Government last October, which were judged to offer poor value for money at best. It was the strong business case that persuaded the DFT to commit to funding the project through to delivery. To come to my hon. Friend’s point, when the business case was put together, it did not factor in the likelihood of the new Wrexham, Shropshire & Midlands Railway Company to provide a direct service on the line from Gobowen to London. If that service goes ahead—I very much hope that it will—the benefits for Oswestry will be even greater. There has been some local opposition. Some people have argued that we could just run a shuttle bus, seemingly unaware that there already is one. But the shuttle bus has not worked: it does not run in the evening or early morning; it is frequently delayed by congestion on the A5, which has to be crossed to get to the station; and sometimes it just does not turn up at all. It certainly will not unlock the economic regeneration of the transport hub in the centre of Oswestry that the rail reopening promises. It is also really expensive to travel by bus and train, because people need two different tickets. Perhaps most importantly, whether it is for an urgent appointment at the orthopaedic hospital or an overnight shift at nearby Derwen college, people cannot trust a bus that will not get them there on time. I welcome this week’s announcement that local authorities will be given the powers to franchise their own bus services. If that happens in Shropshire, we will see huge benefits across the whole of my constituency—for the many villages that have no service at all, and towns such as Market Drayton and Ellesmere, for which reconnection to the railway is desirable but not realistically possible. But we cannot pin our hopes on that. Given that the funding for all this brilliant new public transport remains unclear and uncommitted, it seems highly unlikely that Shropshire’s Conservative-run council will take on the revenue strain of start-up bus services. The council forecasts that it will balance its books this year by using up all its reserves, unless it can find a further £38 million of cuts, which would be on top of £58 million last year and £30 million already delivered this year. The ambition should also be to link rail and bus services, so that people can genuinely consider leaving their car at home because the alternative is reliable, convenient and affordable. The Oswestry to Gobowen line uses a railway line that is already there. It obviously needs to be upgraded if it is to be usable once more, but because it has not been built over, there is space for a footpath or cycle path to go alongside. The benefits of active travel are well documented, and they could be exploited here if the scheme goes ahead. The project has a capital cost of between £5 million and £15 million, and ongoing operating costs of £196,000 per annum. Critically, it is forecast to be cash-positive over the appraisal period. Local critics have highlighted the potential disruption caused by it crossing the A5, but it is important to emphasise that nobody is proposing to run a slow, steam heritage train over a major level crossing. The proposal involves very little disruption and many benefits. Indeed, it is difficult to see any justification for axing the project. The Government have said that they want to grow the economy, improve education, clear NHS backlogs and clean up the environment, but they are potentially blocking a scheme that would help to achieve all those objectives. Shropshire is one of the worst-served counties in England for public transport, with only one bus route running on a Sunday in the whole county, and the loss of more bus miles since 2015 than any other county in England. There are huge barriers in place to realising Shropshire’s potential, and the project would help to remove one of them. It would enable local businesses to find quality candidates for the vacancies that they cannot fill, it would remove a huge barrier for those without a car who are seeking work beyond the boundaries of their immediate area,and it would enable young people and those wanting to develop new skills to access a far greater range of educational provision. It would also unlock investment and regeneration in an important regional town centre. We cannot regenerate growth, jobs, skills and investment if a town is isolated from the rest of its region. That is why the previous Government promised to fund the project, and why the new Government should, too. I urge the Minister to come to Oswestry to see the wonderful potential of this historic market town and the additional value that the railway would bring to it. She should urgently reconsider the decision to remove funding from this fantastic project.

• 10 Sept 2024 · Exempt Supported Accommodation · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Sir Mark. I congratulate the hon. Member for Birmingham Edgbaston (Preet Kaur Gill) on securing this debate and on her excellent speech, in which she highlighted all the difficulties that we knew existed in this sector. She also provided some real colour about what those difficulties mean for residents of exempt supported accommodation units, for local residents who are impacted by some of the bad-faith actors, and for local communities. I do not want to go back over some of the ground that has already been covered, because she covered it so well, but I am afraid that I will have to. Before I go any further, however, I should declare that I am a vice-president of the Local Government Association. In 2022, I served on the Public Bill Committee for the Supported Housing (Regulatory Oversight) Act 2023, which was introduced by the hon. Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman) as a private Member’s Bill. It was an important step forward that had cross-party support from the then Conservative Government, the Labour Benches and the Liberal Democrat Benches, because the issue had become so severe. The system of exempt accommodation was well described in the October 2022 report by the Levelling Up, Housing and Communities Committee as: “a complete mess. There are many good providers, but in the worst instances the system involves the exploitation of vulnerable people who should be receiving support, while unscrupulous providers make excessive profits by capitalising on loopholes. This gold-rush is all paid for by taxpayers through housing benefit.” That is a sorry state of affairs. The then Government supported the Bill introduced by the hon. Member for Harrow East, because it was seen as a good way to deal with the situation that was described by the Select Committee and by the hon. Member for Birmingham Edgbaston today. In response to the Select Committee’s report, in early 2023 the Conservative Government said that the Supported Housing (Regulatory Oversight) Act 2023 would address most of the concerns that had been raised in the report, because it would introduce national standards for support and give local authorities the powers they need to set up licensing schemes to tackle poor-quality supported housing in their area. The Act provided for local authority supported housing strategies to review the situation in their area and the availability of and need for supported housing, and those strategies were to be renewed every five years. It also required the Secretary of State to set up a supported housing advisory panel to provide information and advice about supported housing; it allowed for the Secretary of State to set standards for the support provided in supported housing; and it allowed for regulations to be made to establish licensing schemes, which would include consideration of the condition of the property, the adequacy of the care and support provided, interactions with other licensing schemes, the costs, the financial penalties and all the things that needed to go with a properly functioning licensing scheme The Act also required the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, as it is now called again, to formally consult on elements contained within it, including the licensing regime, standards and any additional measures for securing compliance with the standards. As we have heard, however, much of that has not yet happened, despite the Act going through Parliament in 2023. The Act provided for better planning regulations; it said that somebody would not be treated as intentionally homeless if they left supported accommodation; and it provided for information management and sharing powers for those involved in the provision of supported housing. All in all, it seems to have been a pretty good piece of legislation, and the problem that we are experiencing now, as the hon. Member for Birmingham Edgbaston described in great detail, is that those provisions have not been enacted quickly enough. Today’s debate is about urging the Minister to bring forward the actions that are needed now to make sure that we improve the sector. The LGA is supportive of that legislation and has been a main stakeholder working with the Ministry to ensure that the Act works for councils, providers, and most importantly, residents in supported accommodation. But the LGA has raised significant concerns about the time taken to implement the Act and about the fact that councils have limited means to challenge poor providers, other than through housing benefit claims, which is problematic. We heard from the hon. Member that Birmingham city council has actually been able to challenge providers, so it would be interesting to find out from the Minister whether that is likely to be a model in future or whether better mechanisms will be put in place. As the hon. Member said, the delayed implementation of the Act is a problem for councils that have used the SHIP payments to improve supported housing in their area. The gap in funding between the SHIP payments and the new burden spending that comes with implementation of the Act means that councils will potentially have to let go of their skilled workforce and people with good experience of dealing with the problems and social implications of poor housing. It seems that in every debate at the moment, we must talk about the funding crisis for all councils. They need long-term funding arrangements with ringfenced support for housing, because the increased pressure on council budgets from that sector means that not only are we letting people down who have an acute housing need, but we are letting down everyone else whose services are impacted by the exorbitant cost of providing housing across the whole of England, particularly in communities where the sector is out of control, as the hon. Member alluded to. The calls of the LGA are, as always, very sensible. We need to review the current funding regime for supported housing. We also need to recognise the savings to the public purse that will come from not giving those unscrupulous providers limitless amounts of public money for a very poor service that will not realise any of the benefits that supported housing should realise for its inhabitants and wider society by providing the support they need. We need to ensure that the SHIP funding is there in the interregnum between now and the new burden spending, so that councils can continue the work that they are already doing, and crucially, can retain the skilled officers who are experienced in dealing with this situation. We also need to acknowledge that a licensing scheme and its enforcement, with improved standards for supported housing, will require proper funding. Otherwise, councils will be unable to deliver on the statutory requirement that we are about to place on them. The funding is so important. I know that the Government are dealing with a financial crisis, that they have extremely difficult choices to make, and that almost all Members will standing up in every debate to ask for more money—it is a difficult position to be in—but I urge the Minister to consider that, as taxpayers’ money is wasted so flagrantly on these unscrupulous providers, it would be a good use of public money to establish a proper licensing scheme. That would mean that we were not wasting taxpayers’ money and were instead putting it into support for the individuals who have had a crisis, hopefully turning their lives around, and costing the taxpayer less in future. That would be a wise investment of taxpayers’ money. On the important issue of resource, many councils are having to let staff go because of funding pressures. We cannot enforce and practise a licensing scheme without the right people in officer roles in councils, so the recruitment and retention of those critical staff is also extremely important. I honestly do not think that I have added much to the hon. Member’s excellent speech, but I hope that I have added my voice to her cause on regulating the sector properly.

• 9 Sept 2024 · SEND Provision · Hansard source

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  Maria, in my constituency, has a son who was in a specialist placement, and in October last year that school said it could no longer meet his need. Since then, he has not been back in full-time education, while another headteacher keeps telling me that special needs provision in Shropshire is decades behind elsewhere in the country. If the Secretary of State aspires for all children in the country to have their special needs met, how is she going to ensure that happens in places that are struggling so much with funding, such as Shropshire?

• 5 Sept 2024 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  T7. Rural businesses in the agricultural, horticultural and equine sectors in North Shropshire are struggling to trade with Europe. Will the Secretary of State update us on progress on making a sanitary and phytosanitary agreement and a veterinary agreement with the EU, so that they can trade without all the red tape that is bogging them down?

• 4 Sept 2024 · Preventable Baby Loss · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Mr Dowd. I start by thanking the hon. Member for Ashfield (Lee Anderson) for securing this important debate. Sadly, we have revisited this issue a number of times, even in the short period since I was elected in 2021. Members’ speeches today have been excellent, and I will touch on them briefly. I thank the hon. Member for Ashfield for telling the stories of his constituents who have come along today, and I thank them for sharing their stories, which were very moving. It is tragic that they have been through such experiences. The hon. Member for Clacton (Nigel Farage) addressed the fact that the subject is taboo and that we need to get over that if we are to support families properly. The hon. Member for Morecambe and Lunesdale (Lizzi Collinge), who I welcome to this place, stressed the importance of providing support for bereaved families and of the groups in her constituency that do that. The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) told us the moving story of his constituent Agnes, who felt her loss for the rest of her life. The hon. Member for Washington and Gateshead South (Mrs Hodgson) has been a pioneering campaigner on this issue. In particular, she has campaigned successfully on the issue of the birth and death certificate for a lost baby, and I am sure everybody is grateful to her for that. The importance of making memories for bereaved families is so important. The hon. Member for Rossendale and Darwen (Andy MacNae) pointed out the important statistics we need to consider and the importance of effective bereavement support. The hon. Member for Sheffield Hallam (Olivia Blake), who has also been an effective and tireless campaigner on the issue of miscarriage, made an excellent speech. I became co-chair of the APPG on baby loss shortly after I was elected, because of the scandal at Shrewsbury and Telford hospital NHS trust and the Ockenden report, which was issued shortly afterwards. There have been similar incidents at Morecambe Bay and East Kent, and we suspect there is a similar issue emerging at Nottingham, with the review by Donna Ockenden currently under way. The fact that scandals have emerged across the country means that there are endemic failings that we need to address, rather than blaming individual trusts. The reports on Morecambe Bay and East Kent were by Dr Bill Kirkup, while the Ockenden report was for Shrewsbury and Telford. They raised very similar issues, albeit in quite a different style. The first issue was the importance of safe staffing in ensuring that babies do not die unnecessarily on maternity wards. Sands and Tommy’s have also led a campaign on that, which the APPG supported. The former Government responded quite well in trying to improve midwife numbers and ensure that maternity units are safe places to be. Shrewsbury and Telford hospital NHS trust has achieved its targets on safe staffing. We need to keep the focus on that area, because safe staffing obviously needs to be maintained; it is not a one-off thing that we can do and then hope for the best for the future. Other issues that came up include learning from mistakes, listening to mothers and their families, and doing a proper review when something goes wrong, as it inevitably occasionally will, to make sure that lessons are learned. It feels like that has not happened across the NHS as a whole. In every review, we have heard about a lack of openness and transparency with the families and about blame being passed on to mothers who have lost their babies. We have heard about a toxic environment in some hospital trusts and about a willingness to cover up what has gone wrong rather than be candid and learn from mistakes. Those issues have been highlighted time and again, and it is important that the three reports—we are expecting a fourth—do not just gather dust on a shelf somewhere. Action must be taken to ensure that those mistakes do not keep happening. The hon. Member for Morecambe and Lunesdale raised the fact that there is an obsession with natural birth, and I feel that very strongly. After having an emergency C-section, I was asked by a midwife whether I felt like a failure for having been through that emergency medical procedure. The answer was, “No, not until you suggested that maybe I ought to,” but hon. Members can probably imagine the shame, guilt and depression that followed. We must get away from this obsession with natural childbirth. It is the best option for mothers with low-risk pregnancies, but it is not great for anybody who has a medical issue. We must not let ideology lead the evidence and science. I am conscious of time, so I will not take too long. Shrewsbury and Telford hospital NHS trust has made great inroads in implementing the immediate and central actions that Donna Ockenden recommended, but I would welcome an update from the Minister on progress on the national actions. If the disparity for ethnic minority women—whether they are black, Asian or from another ethnic minority—was happening in an individual trust, we would be up in arms and would get in a professional to investigate what was going wrong. We must not lose sight of that disparity and inequality. We must deal with the terrible outcomes for some of these women, as well as with the wider situation in the NHS. Independent whistleblowing is particularly important. In Shrewsbury and Telford hospital NHS trust, the freedom to speak up guardians report into hospital management, and people frequently report that they do not feel safe whistleblowing. I urge the Government to look at safe whistleblowing and to create an independent office of the whistleblower to ensure that when people raise medical concerns about safety, they are listened to, are not closed down and do not fear losing their jobs. These scandals do not apply to a single hospital trust; there is huge variety in the quality of care across the country. I urge the Government to look at maternity care across the country and to ensure that getting safe care is not a postcode lottery but is consistent and fair for all women.

• 4 Sept 2024 · Preventable Baby Loss · Hansard source

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  The hon. Gentleman is making a powerful speech. It is good to hear the story of Agnes, and I hope that he will agree with me that sympathising with our constituents who have suffered such awful circumstances and telling their stories in Parliament is a good way to ensure that they are heard in the future.

• 3 Sept 2024 · Cost of Living: Support for Pensioners · Hansard source

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  I thank the Chancellor for her answer, but nearly 22,000 pensioners in North Shropshire are forecast to lose their winter fuel payments very soon, just as energy prices for the average household are about to go up by 10%. Many of my pensioners live in bungalows and older housing stock, which is expensive to heat. A lot of them have been in touch with me to say that they are worried sick about this winter. We know the Chancellor has difficult choices to make, and we accept that, but will she consider that the broadest shoulders are not those of pensioners who earn less than the minimum wage and are about to lose this vital support?

• 3 Sept 2024 · Cost of Living: Support for Pensioners · Hansard source

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  5. What fiscal steps she is taking to support pensioners with the cost of living.

• 2 Sept 2024 · Social Housing Supply · Hansard source

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  Recent freedom of information requests by the Liberal Democrats found that four out of five councils that responded had someone on their social housing waiting list for more than a decade, and this shocking statistic comes all while the stocks of social housing have been reducing. Will the Minister consider reforming the land conservation Act, so that local councils can buy land at current value rather than hope value and get on with delivering the social housing that we so desperately need?

• 2 Sept 2024 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  Residents in rural areas such as my constituency are seeing drastic cuts to local services despite their council tax having gone up this year. That is because councils are struggling to balance budgets. When the fair funding review takes place, will the Secretary of State commit to considering the cost of delivering services in vast rural areas, which is in excess of the same cost in urban areas?

• 19 Jul 2024 · Covid-19 Inquiry · Hansard source

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  I welcome the statement from the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, and was particularly pleased to hear him talk about the role of local government. Local government was instrumental in the response, and I imagine the inquiry will find that had it had a greater role, there would have been better resilience. However, as we know, local government financing is in crisis; my own local council is trying to save £100 million this year. What reassurance can he give us that local councils will be given the funding they need to have in place the resilience we need for the future?

• 19 Jul 2024 · Planning, the Green Belt and Rural Affairs · Hansard source

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  The hon. Gentleman is muttering from a sedentary position. He may wish to know that my grandparents lived in social housing, and I have no particular prejudices against it whatsoever. We are committed not only to building the homes that are so important to easing the crisis throughout the housing market, but to ensuring that those new homes are of a high standard, that they are zero carbon and that they are built alongside proper infrastructure that provides communities with the services and amenities they need. Integrating public service delivery has to be part of the planning process, so in principle we welcome the Government’s plans to streamline the delivery of critical infrastructure, including in the housing sector, in the forthcoming planning and infrastructure Bill, but we need to be clear that the current system has benefited developers rather than communities. The Bill must take that into account. Crude targets alone have led to many developments being given permission, only for affordable and social housing elements to be watered down on the basis of viability once permission is granted. That must change. We know that local authorities are best placed to make the decisions about housing in their areas, so I urge the Government to ensure that their mandatory housing targets are built from the bottom up—by determining the type of housing and infrastructure communities need, and empowering local government to build social homes where they are most needed. We need the necessary infrastructure, including GPs, schools, bus stops and bus routes, while also ensuring that there is appropriate green space and access to the countryside, which is important for health and wellbeing. Our experience is that residents support good plans with good infrastructure. Now, I imagine that we will use the term “nimby” in this debate, and it has already been used about the Liberal Democrats, but it is not appropriate to approve housing in areas that are unsuitable—for example, where there is a high risk of flooding. It is not being a nimby to oppose poor planning; it is common sense. Local authorities are under enormous pressure and we know that their planning departments are overstretched. I welcome the Deputy Prime Minister’s comments on that point. They need proper funding to ensure that they make good and consistent decisions, and that their councillors are well advised.

• 19 Jul 2024 · Planning, the Green Belt and Rural Affairs · Hansard source

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  I do not know the details of that individual case, but we need to ensure that planning departments are properly funded so that the decisions made by planning officers are appropriate. Without knowing the details, I do now know whether it is a good development or a poor one, but those departments need to be empowered to make decisions correctly. Some proposals for development are inappropriate and some are downright dangerous—we mentioned the building of houses on floodplains earlier. The only insurer to re-insure houses on floodplains is due to close its operations in 15 years’ time. We cannot build houses on floodplains. It will not be possible for them to be insured or sold; homeowners will be trapped. We should also not be building housing developments without additional schools or GP surgeries. Most importantly, we should not be building housing developments where the developers do not prepare the roads and green spaces to an acceptable standard and do not allow them to be adopted by the local authority, but set up a shared management company and leave the homeowners fleeced for the rest of their home ownership experience. I encourage the Deputy Prime Minister to consider that in the forthcoming legislation. Good councillors approve planning for good developments. That is why, on the days when the Conservatives are not accusing us of being nimbys, they are telling people that we are going to concrete over their countryside. Planning is not just about housing. We have many demands on our countryside: housing, renewable energy, nature restoration and, importantly, the growing of food. We need to simplify planning so that all those things can happen. Housing, renewable energy and job creation are incredibly important, but I urge the Government to ensure that when they go ahead, it is not at the expense of food production. The Liberal Democrats have called for the development of a land use strategy so that these important and competing demands can be balanced, and so that we use land in the optimal way, protecting the highest grade arable land for food production and putting the infrastructure of renewable energy and housing in less prime places. I therefore hope that the Government will consider a land use strategy as part of their planning reform. That brings me to another important area of the countryside: our waterways and our beaches. It is a scandal that raw sewage has been allowed to be dumped into our rivers and on to our beaches, while water company executives have taken home huge bonuses and their—often overseas—shareholders have taken huge dividends. The Liberal Democrats are proud to have led the campaign to end the sewage crisis. We welcome the water (special measures) Bill and will be watching closely to ensure that the water regulator is given the powers it needs to finally end this sewage outrage. I will move on to rural affairs. There was no mention in the King’s Speech of rural communities or priorities for the countryside, which I hope means that the new Government will be ensuring that every policy is rural-proofed and that the demands of delivering public services in rural areas, where the population is spread over a large area, are being considered. I also want to mention the English devolution bill. The Liberal Democrats are the proud voices of local communities and community-led politics, and we absolutely welcome steps to devolve power away from Westminster, but I ask the Secretary of State to confirm what that will look like for those councils without a devo deal, a metro mayor or a combined authority mayor. It is important that all local councils have the powers and funding to deliver for their communities. That funding must reflect the cost of delivering services in rural areas. Rural councils have been taken for granted for far too long. We need to ensure that people who live in rural areas, who also see increases in their council tax, are getting the public services that they deserve. Rurality affects the delivery of all types of services, but I want to touch on just a few key areas. Health is an important issue in my North Shropshire constituency, where we have seen huge problems with GP and dentistry access and a crisis in our A&E service. While I welcome the Government’s plans to tackle the crisis in mental health service provision, which is also a big problem in rural areas, we really want to see rural-focused policy to deal with the recruitment crisis in rural areas and the cost of delivering health services over large distances, and to ensure that people who live a long way from a hospital or diagnostic centre can travel to it more easily. That brings me to public transport, which is quite problematic in Shropshire. We have lost 63% of our bus miles since 2015, which makes it difficult for anybody to access work opportunities, social opportunities, educational opportunities and, indeed, health services. I am really pleased that the Government will allow local authorities to franchise their own bus services—the Liberal Democrats have long called for that—but I would like to see the detail of how that will work and how we will get the funding to kick-start those routes and get labour moving properly around our countryside.

• 19 Jul 2024 · Planning, the Green Belt and Rural Affairs · Hansard source

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  I congratulate the Deputy Prime Minister and welcome her to her place, and I welcome the shadow Secretary of State as well. Because we are talking about local government today, I declare my interest as a vice-president of the Local Government Association. The topic of today’s debate is planning, the greenbelt and rural affairs. We need to talk about planning and housing, and I will certainly do so, but we also need to talk about rural affairs, and I am slightly confused about why none of the speeches by Front Benchers has done that. I welcome the Government’s focus on house building and the reintroduction of housing targets. In England, the number of people left languishing on the social housing waiting list has reached 1.2 million, and there are 8.5 million people in this country with some form of unmet housing need. Last year, under the Conservative Government, 29,000 social homes were sold or demolished, and fewer than 7,000 were built, so we all know that we have an unprecedented need for new housing, particularly social housing. The Liberal Democrats’ ambitious commitment on social housing would be to build 150,000 social homes a year by the end of this Parliament—

• 19 Jul 2024 · Planning, the Green Belt and Rural Affairs · Hansard source

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  Of course. I was briefly going to mention mobile signal, but I will rush over that because I have talked about it a reasonable amount in the House. I want to talk about farming and the rural economy, because that is the backbone of our economy and food production is extremely important. Farmers have faced a crisis over the last few years, with the botched introduction of the environmental land management scheme, the input costs they face and the fact that vast tracts of farmland are underwater and have been for the last 18 months. I must encourage the Government to look at trade deals to ensure that farmers are working on a level playing field, and to ensure that the sustainable farming incentive deals with the consistent problem of flooding following prolonged rainfall, given how our farmers are storing an enormous amount of water upstream. I will draw my remarks to a close because I am keen to hear the maiden speeches of all these new Members, who I welcome to this place. To reinforce the points I have made, community-led planning is so important, and we would love to see a land use strategy. We need to ensure that the cost of delivering public services in rural areas is properly considered and funded, and the infrastructure needs to be there. Finally, please do not forget about food security, which is so important to national renewal.