Katie Lam MP: speeches

Speeches

• 3 Sept 2026 · Building Homes and Renewing Communities · Hansard source

  More

  I thank the Secretary of State for advance sight of her statement. It is a pleasure to see her again so soon. I join her in thanking those involved in the response to this summer’s wildfires, and applauding their remarkable courage. The Secretary of State is right to note that for far too many people across the country the sense of decline runs deep. In far too many places, organised criminals have taken over the high street, and in far too many cases, a place to sleep is something that people cannot take for granted. The stories I have been told by constituents who have experienced rough sleeping or unsafe housing remain some of the most challenging and profound I have heard since coming to this place. Although the Secretary of State talks about a new political and economic model, I am afraid that what we have heard today is a recipe for more of the same. While her focus on the scourge of organised crime on the high street is welcome, I am concerned that she addresses a symptom of the problem but not the underlying cause. While many bookies, vape shops and high street casinos are clearly legitimate, their cash intensiveness and lower overhead costs make them particularly attractive as fronts for money laundering. However, if those businesses are closed, criminals will simply find other types of high street businesses through which to launder money. What conversations is the Secretary of State having with her Home Office colleagues on dealing with organised crime? The right hon. Lady talks about the devolution of power and resources to local people, but what she really means is more politicians being given the power to increase the size of the state and raise taxes, but never to let people keep more of their own money or to interfere less in their lives. Will she confirm whether any tax raising powers devolved to mayors will be accompanied by powers to reduce tax—and if not, why not? Similarly, while the right hon. Lady is right to recognise the vital importance of addressing the housing affordability crisis, the answer cannot be spending ever more taxpayers’ money. Instead, the state must stop making it so difficult and so expensive to get new houses built in the places where people want to live. A greater supply of homes in those places will mean lower costs for everybody, particularly those who are renting and those looking to get on the housing ladder. In London, where our housing crisis is most acute, Labour has been in power for over a decade. Under Sadiq Khan, housing starts fell to their lowest level ever in 2024-25. Construction began on just 4,000 homes across our capital. Can the Secretary of State explain why Labour’s London mayor has failed to get to grips with this problem? Will the changes she proposes actually solve the housing crisis in the capital? If not, it is a little difficult to understand why she is introducing them. Finally, on homelessness and rough sleeping, we share the Government’s ambition to end rough sleeping, but it is impossible to ignore the fact that the new Prime Minister promised to do exactly that in his 2017 manifesto for the Greater Manchester mayoralty. His pledge was to end rough sleeping within three years. In fact, rough sleeping in Greater Manchester has increased every year since 2021, including in 2024-25 when the Labour party was also in power nationally. Can the Secretary of State therefore explain why the Prime Minister failed to solve rough sleeping in Greater Manchester, bearing in mind that it increased when both the local authority and the national Government were run by the Labour party? Can she explain why anybody should believe that he will be able to do so nationally?

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

  More

  When I have finished this point, I will give way. It should terrify all of us that election material in our country is being produced in a foreign language and designed to drum up support among a particular religious community. Not only does this contribute to a culture of group-based grievance politics, but it makes it impossible for the vast majority of the British public to scrutinise what candidates are saying.

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

  More

  I begin by paying tribute to my predecessor, my right hon. Friend the Member for Braintree (Sir James Cleverly), for his work in this role. He has left big shoes to fill, and I look forward to following in his footsteps as best I can. I would also like to register my thanks to my hon. Friends the Members for Orpington (Gareth Bacon), for Broxbourne (Lewis Cocking), and for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner (David Simmonds), alongside whom I am so fortunate to be working, including on this Bill, and to my hon. Friend the Member for Hamble Valley (Paul Holmes), who has been incredibly helpful in handing over, and who has worked so hard on this Bill. In the same vein, I thank the hon. Member for Chester North and Neston (Samantha Dixon) for her work on the Bill, and I pass on the thanks of my hon. Friends, too. I welcome the Minister for Homelessness, Democracy, Communities and Faith to her place, and I congratulate her. I know she is much liked and well regarded across the House, having chaired the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee for the past few years. I look forward to working opposite her and her departmental colleagues.

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

  More

  It is never anything but a pleasure to allow the hon. Gentleman to put Harlow into Hansard again, and I am happy to repeat his words. He is right: we must be incredibly vigilant. We must not be naive about the extent to which foreign powers are actively pursuing strategies to undermine our democracy, and ultimately, our nation. That must be treated with the utmost seriousness. While some of the suggested changes are being rushed through in a sweeping way, we feel that the Bill has shockingly little to say about the threats to our democracy that we already know enough about to take decisive action on. This includes the effective disenfranchisement of many British citizens living overseas. Our citizens abroad remain citizens and are often directly affected by decisions taken by this Parliament, but all too often they find it very difficult to register to vote, or to cast their ballot. To that end, we have tabled amendments that require the Secretary of State to make provision for overseas voters to cast their votes in person at British embassies, high commissions and consulates. Chief among the threats to our democracy today is the rise of coercion, fraud and sectarianism in our democratic process. These are, in turn, most often the result of a poisonous separatism that has taken hold in far too many of our towns and cities. Migration to this country has been far too high for far too long, against the wishes of the British people. Many of those who have come to this country come from cultures with very different norms from ours. At the same time, Britain has been complacent about enforcing our cultural and democratic norms, and far too tolerant of those who weaponise group-based identity politics for their own gain. One consequence has been the rise of explicitly sectarian political campaigning, whereby candidates appeal not to the individual interests of voters, or to the national interest, but to particular ethnic, religious or cultural groups. This is profoundly poisonous, and we must do everything that we can to root it out. One symptom of this emergent separatism in our society is the rise of so-called family voting, whereby a senior male family member directs other members of their family, particularly women, on how they ought to vote. At the Gorton and Denton by-election earlier this year, volunteers reported “the highest level of family voting at any election in the past decade.” Family voting was observed at more than two thirds of polling stations. It may have influenced the votes of more than one in 10 people who turned out to cast their ballot. In Birmingham, at this year’s local elections, polling station staff reported instances of family voting in 50 polling stations. Despite evidence being passed to the police by the council, no further action has been taken