Manuela Perteghella MP: speeches

Speeches

• 14 Oct 2025 · English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill (Fourth sitting) · Hansard source

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  The amendment would require any combined authority seeking new devolved powers to lay a formal report before Parliament, explaining why it is seeking those powers and how it intends to use them. It is of absolute importance that any devolution of powers is set within a framework of transparency and visibility on the reasoning, evidence base or expected outcomes for local people. The amendment would bring the process out of the shadows and make it open, transparent and accountable to the people whom local authorities are meant to serve. The powers devolved under the Bill are significant. They constitute major transfers of authority over transport, housing, strategic planning, education and skills, health and more. Such decisions must be backed by clear reasoning and, above all, a public mandate. The devolution of powers should be clearly justified and democratically accountable, and must not be imposed on communities or done for political convenience. Local residents must understand why an authority is seeking certain powers and what benefits they can expect them to deliver. MPs and peers—our Parliament—must be given the opportunity to assess whether devolution requests are handled consistently and fairly across regions. I therefore urge the Minister to consider our amendment.

• 14 Oct 2025 · English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill (Fourth sitting) · Hansard source

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  No, I do not.

• 14 Oct 2025 · English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill (Fourth sitting) · Hansard source

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  The amendment and new clause 46 are about giving devolution in England a clear direction and fair footing, and replacing uncertainty with a proper plan and accountability. It will create a clear road map for devolution. The Bill already includes a requirement for an annual devolution report to be published, but there are currently no plans to include any forward-looking strategy. Why is a commitment to publish a strategy and timeline for further devolution important and necessary? The local authorities that were left out of the devolution priority programme are facing a cliff edge in terms of funding streams that are now being redirected to mayoral strategic authorities. Right now, devolution is happening, but unevenly. Cumbria, Cheshire, Warrington, Greater Essex, Hampshire and the Solent, Norfolk and Suffolk, and Sussex and Brighton are all in the devolution priority programme, putting them on a fast track towards improved transport opportunities, housing and economic growth. Regions such as Kent and Wessex, which were left out of the devolution priority programme, are left not only without the benefits of funding and the regional voice of an elected mayor, should they want one, but without the knowledge of when they can expect those things. The amendment would require the Government to report annually to Parliament on progress made. This transparency will prevent future Ministers from delaying or cherry-picking which regions get devolution next. The amendments, which require a forward devolution strategy to be published, are therefore important to give councils like those in my area, which are at the beginning of their devolution journey, reassurance that plans are being progressed for devolution in their areas if they are not in tier 1. It is important that councils know not only their current financial situation, but how and when finance and governance are likely to change. The amendment would give local authorities certainty as councils could plan ahead, invest and prepare for new responsibilities. As I said earlier in the debate, devolution must be equitable and consistent, not a patchwork of deals and negotiations.

• 13 Oct 2025 · Leasehold System · Hansard source

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  Thousands of my constituents in Stratford-on-Avon now live in so-called fleecehold developments, often with a lack of transparency in how service charges are set and a lack of maintenance of public open spaces, including drainage infrastructure. Will the Minister reassure my constituents that any leasehold reform will including tackling fleecehold and that the reforms will be applied retrospectively?

• 13 Oct 2025 · Digital ID · Hansard source

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  EU nationals in the UK were guinea pigs for a digital-only status. Serious concerns are still being raised, including about access issues that resulted in people being wrongly denied work, housing, education and welfare. Extending digital IDs to the British people will result in another layer of mandatory surveillance and loss of privacy. Will the Secretary of State confirm what independent oversight will monitor data breaches, errors and misuse?

• 16 Sept 2025 · English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill (First sitting) · Hansard source

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  I declare that I used to be a parish councillor and, until March, a district councillor for Stratford-on-Avon.

• 16 Sept 2025 · English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill (First sitting) · Hansard source

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  Q My question is for Mr Griggs. With the creation of new strategic authorities, there is a real risk that the voice of rural parishes will be subsumed by the priorities of large urban centres. What changes would you like to see to the Bill to make sure that parish and town councils in rural areas have a guaranteed voice within the new structures? Justin Griggs: That links back to Mr Simmonds’s question on the democratic deficit and moving decision making further away from communities, particularly in rural and sparsely populated areas where unitary authorities will be much further away. The point was made earlier that there will be fewer councils and fewer councillors, and those 100,000 parish councillors will become even more important. As I explained in my previous answer to the Minister, that relationship can be strengthened in a number of ways, building on the good work that has been done in other parts of the country that have gone through local government reorganisation. That is where our network of county associations has been pivotal in working with principal authorities on their plans for reorganisation, being part of joint implementation teams, and co-designing how new structures and new partnerships can work. Certainly, in places without parish councils, they should be established. As I said earlier, you would need to set them up to give people a voice and an influence on decisions that affect them, and to be true partners with principal authorities.

• 16 Sept 2025 · English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill (First sitting) · Hansard source

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  Q I have a quick follow-up. I see that many parish and town councils are capable and eager to take on more responsibilities and deliver services, but I also see that some struggle to recruit enough councillors, especially in rural areas. How should the Bill recognise the different challenges that parish and town councils face with recruitment and building up resources? Justin Griggs: There should be more powers in the Bill for councils. They should have more tools, and it should be much more attractive to get involved in local democracy. We should not underestimate or overlook the people who already put themselves forward. The general power of competence, for example, that the Bill provides for strategic authorities is not extended to all councils. Parish and town councils are out of step with the rest of local government. That would be one measure. There are ways in which the allowances system could encourage more people to come forward and stand for election. It is ludicrous that people with caring responsibilities at parish level are unable to reclaim an allowance to cover caring costs. A number of things, such as remote meetings and strengthening the standards regime, are missing from the Bill. If they were added, they would support local communities and local democracy.

• 16 Sept 2025 · English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill (First sitting) · Hansard source

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  Q What consideration should be given to local nature recovery strategies when making planning decisions at a strategic level? How might that work in practice? Catriona Riddell: If we get spatial development strategies right, they should be the ringmasters of sustainable development, as I call them. Their job is to provide spatial articulation for local growth plans, local nature recovery strategies, local transport plans and health strategies—the range of powers, strategies and plans that strategic authorities and local authorities have. SDSs will have to take into account local nature recovery strategy priorities. The challenge we have is that the local growth plans and local nature recovery strategies are being prepared in advance of SDSs. Of the draft local growth plans that I have seen, there was maybe one that had any spatial content at all, and I think it is similar for local nature recovery strategies, so there will have to be some catch-up. SDSs are there to bring all the different plans and strategies together, to set out what that looks like across a place and to use local plans at a more detailed level. Do not forget that SDSs and local plans are part of the same development plan; they are two parts of a plan for an area, so they have to work together.

• 16 Sept 2025 · English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill (First sitting) · Hansard source

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  Q My question is for Mr Whittaker. I have many grassroots sports clubs in my constituency, which provide youth teams, women’s teams and walking football sessions, so they are fundamental to community wellbeing and inspiring the next generation of sports people. That is especially true in rural areas. The new provisions for sporting assets of community value apply to sports grounds with spectator facilities. Should those provisions be extended to include grassroots sports clubs? Robbie Whittaker: That is a difficult question to answer, because as you go down the size scale of sports clubs, the extent to which they are able to mobilise to take advantage of opportunities is different. However, where people in the local area can do that, there is no reason why the legislation should not be flexible in allowing it to happen. I do think that it is a horses-for-courses thing. One of the things that I have learned through my involvement with the FSA is that no two areas or clubs are alike, and no two sets of local circumstances are necessarily alike. It is an area where the legislation should probably give flexibility without mandating any particular approach.

• 16 Sept 2025 · English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill (Second sitting) · Hansard source

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  Q At the moment, we have a lot of expertise at district council level as the local planning authority. My own district council, Stratford-on-Avon district council, is now shaping the South Warwickshire local plan, so it has experience in plan making, planning policy and so on. With the demise of district councils, how can we be reassured that this expertise will be represented at the strategic authority level? Do you think that specific training should be introduced to support decision makers to make effective judgments on planning? Richard Hebditch: The Planning and Infrastructure Bill has the requirements on training for councillors when they make decisions. That is something we have welcomed, at that level. I think this goes back to the point on resourcing as well. The funding that has gone in to pay for planners to help develop at the SDS level is welcome. The Planning and Infrastructure Bill changes on being able to retain fee income from planning, and to vary fee income, are also welcome. There is still an ongoing issue, and there are particular issues that the Royal Town Planning Institute has raised around apprenticeships and being able to have new entrants into planning. Changes in the rules around apprenticeships might threaten that input for planners. Naomi Luhde-Thompson: We should be applying the subsidiarity principle. We should be making the decision at the closest level at which it is relevant to make that decision.

• 16 Sept 2025 · English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill (Second sitting) · Hansard source

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  Q What examples can the panel provide of effective relationships between retailers, hospitality businesses and local government? Can you also let us know whether those relationships work better at a local level, or can they be managed and led regionally? Andrew Goodacre: I am really lucky in the role that I do. I get to visit places around the country. I have become involved with initiatives. Recently, there was an initiative from Visa, which sponsored the “Let’s Celebrate Towns” awards. I was judge for one section of the awards, which was about high streets that had been regenerated. Local areas had to put themselves forward, and we considered elements of the regeneration—partly digital, and partly how they have integrated transformation into their world and understood their target market. I have visited three of those places since in the last two months. In fact, last month, I was in a place called Oakengates in Shropshire, near Telford. I visited Enniskillen in Northern Ireland, and I visited New Malden, a suburb in south London. Those are three different areas—three different socioeconomic places with different background foundations. What they all have in common is local pride, local involvement and local people making decisions. Not all of them are councillors or politicians, or sit on a local authority. New Malden was about a focus group looking at ways they could improve their status, being between Wimbledon and Richmond—often the forgotten part. They have created a fantastic cultural experience, because they have a large Korean population that is integrated very well into it. If you go to Oakengates, it has a very simple local high street. It has a huge retail park near it, but it works well. The local council and local people work well with the local authority, and they receive funding. It has free car parking as a policy—no wonder there is a 94% occupancy rate on the high street against an average of 86%. Enniskillen has a business improvement district, which is funded by rate payers, although it is slightly different in Northern Ireland. Again, local people are proud of their high street. When I walked up and down, I saw only one empty unit. It is about local people with pride in their area who really understand what they are trying to achieve. Each one has a different mission. New Malden wants to become a food centre and a tourist attraction in that respect. Enniskillen wants to build on the fact that it is the only island town in Northern Ireland and is worth visiting; it has so many fantastic local features. Oakengates wants to be a local place for local people, and not forgotten about despite the huge retail park next to it. I see plenty examples of local people, if they are given a chance and the right involvement and engagement, being able to make the right decisions for their areas, because they really understand what they need. Sometimes they need help and guidance, and it is not always perfect. I am sure that if I really thought about it, I could think of some bad examples, but just recently I have had the privilege of seeing three where it works. Allen Simpson: Great examples. I mentioned Folkestone as an example of somewhere that has regenerated incredibly strongly. That is, to some degree, non-replicable because one thing that has driven Folkestone’s success is a wealthy local man who has ploughed a lot of his personal wealth into regenerating his community—largely, from what I can see, for social purposes. Bootle is an interesting case study of a specific national Government grant being used locally to drive high street regeneration, with the intention of bringing in other sorts of business behind it. That has been quite successful. There is another example up in Aberdeen around the dock area, where a mixture of local businesses and—I think I am right in saying—council grants have reduced the cost of access. A universal trend seems to be peppercorn renting, to the extent that an ex-industrial, brownfield site will be brought online. This was true in Peckham when the cocktail bar, Frank’s, opened above the Peckhamplex. I was young at the time, so it was 15 or 20 years ago. Low rents have two benefits. First, they allow businesses to take a risk on opening in an area where it is unclear whether there is live spend available to them. Secondly, those opportunities are open to local people. That is an important point, because the wealth generated tends to be returned to the community in quite a powerful way. I come back to the point that if you can get that right—and there are lots of examples of where it has been less successful—you get other sorts of economic activity crowding in. If it goes well, you have to manage questions of gentrification and how you keep the character of the local area, but that is a second-order concern for a lot of areas.

• 16 Sept 2025 · English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill (Second sitting) · Hansard source

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  Q Do you anticipate any issues in the working relationships between the new Local Audit Office and the local authorities it will audit? Mark Stocks: The Local Audit Office cannot look like the Audit Commission. The Audit Commission took a particular tack in terms of what it did and the level of scrutiny that it put on local government. If the Local Audit Office follows suit, which this Bill does not allow it to, I am sure there will be problems. But the way the Local Audit Office is configured in the Bill is to make local audit stronger. As long as the Local Audit Office sticks to that, I do not think there will be too much of a problem.

• 15 Sept 2025 · Children with SEND: Assessments and Support · Hansard source

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  SEND families in Stratford-on-Avon want to work in partnership with schools and councils, but too often they are left without the support they need. They are battling an adversarial system. Does my hon. Friend agree that any reforms should strengthen, not weaken, co-operation between families, schools, health services and local authorities?

• 15 Sept 2025 · Children with SEND: Assessments and Support · Hansard source

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  Will the hon. Member give way?

• 10 Sept 2025 · Russian Drones: Violation of Polish Airspace · Hansard source

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  My constituency also has a large Polish community, who have been alarmed to see Russian drones violating Polish airspace. We all know that if Ukraine were to fall to Putin’s aggression, Poland would be next in his sights. How are the Government intending to support Poland in defending its sovereignty, and what steps are the Government taking to strengthen our own security?

• 9 Sept 2025 · Neurodivergent People: Employment · Hansard source

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  It is deeply concerning for my Stratford-on-Avon constituency that young adults over the age of 25 can no longer access NHS-funded ADHD assessments. Does my hon. Friend agree that, at a time when we should be removing barriers to employment, taking away access to such a vital first step is doing exactly the opposite?

• 8 Sept 2025 · Palestine Action: Proscription and Protests · Hansard source

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  Can the Minister tell me what safeguards, if any, are in place to ensure that terrorism powers are not misused against people exercising their democratic right to protest peacefully against proscription, including elderly vicars holding placards?

• 3 Sept 2025 · Hospitality Sector · Hansard source

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  Does the Minister agree that in Stratford-upon-Avon, hospitality is not just an industry, but the lifeblood of our visitor economy? Every pub, café or restaurant closure is a blow not only to jobs, but to our high street and our community’s sense of place.

• 3 Sept 2025 · Hospitality Sector · Hansard source

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  rose—

• 2 Sept 2025 · English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill · Hansard source

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  Devolution should mean giving power back to people and communities. Decisions ought to be taken as close as possible to those they affect, but this Bill imposes a top-down model from Whitehall with sweeping new powers for the Secretary of State, mayors and their unelected commissioners, rather than the real empowerment of councils and residents. My own constituency of Stratford-on-Avon is a good example of why this matters. In rural south Warwickshire, our needs are very different from the urban north. We face unique challenges such as unreliable public transport, which leaves local residents with poor access to key services. Our fire and rescue services have been reduced. That is why I support the two-unitary council solution for Warwickshire, reflecting the reality of our place and respecting the local identities. Further, we must not overlook the vital role that parish and town councils play in communities such as mine across Stratford-on-Avon. From creating neighbourhood development plans to supporting local groups and looking after our village greens and recreation grounds, they do outstanding work, and with the right backing, many stand ready to deliver more for their communities. Councils are already stretched to breaking point, with deficits running into the billions. For those authorities already in the deepest difficulty, devolution without proper funding is little more than rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. Unless Ministers face up to the scale of the challenge and provide sustainable resources, no new governance structure will succeed. Although bringing back the supplementary vote is a move in the right direction, the Government have missed a real opportunity to restore trust in politics through fairer elections. If the Government recognise that first past the post is not fit for mayoral elections, why is it fit for parliamentary and council elections? I welcome the strengthening of the community right to buy scheme, which will help safeguard valued local assets, particularly in rural areas, where protecting much-loved assets and community hubs, such as our pubs, is so important. The Government must go further on this, especially when assets are kept empty and derelict by landlords. In conclusion, the Bill could have been the moment to show that national Government are willing to put power in the hands of communities. Instead, by centralising rather than devolving, the Government have let the moment pass.

• 21 Jul 2025 · Extending the Ukraine Permission Extension Scheme · Hansard source

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  First, I am proud to say that the residents of my constituency have opened their homes and their hearts to many Ukrainian families fleeing this horrific conflict. They are now our neighbours and friends, they work or study, and they are part of our community. Does my hon. Friend agree that we a need bespoke route to permanent residency for Ukrainians who want to stay in the UK?

• 21 Jul 2025 · Sixth-form Colleges: Funding · Hansard source

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  A report presented to the APPG for care-experienced children and young people revealed that more than 4,000 young people in care either moved placements or left care during their A-level exam period. What steps is the Minister taking to ensure that schools and colleges are properly equipped to support care-experienced students facing such instability at a crucial point in their education?

• 21 Jul 2025 · Middle East · Hansard source

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  Does the Foreign Secretary agree that the Israeli Government should bear heavy consequences should they decide to proceed with the approval of the illegal E1 settlement plan in occupied East Jerusalem, which will threaten the two-state solution?

• 21 Jul 2025 · Independent Water Commission · Hansard source

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  My constituents have faced an increase in their water bills without any improvement in the dumping of sewage in their rivers and brooks or upgrade in their infrastructure. What assurances can the Government provide that those increases will not end up in the pockets of water company bosses?