Meg Hillier MP: speeches 2025

Speeches

• 13 Nov 2025 · Food Waste · Hansard source

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  Too Good To Go and Winnow Solutions are two food waste businesses in my constituency at the heart of tackling food waste. I know that the Government do not want to put more burdens on business, but the companies I mention have proved that tackling food waste can save businesses’ bottom line. Is the Minister considering mandatory reporting of food waste, and promoting companies that help other businesses to tackle food waste?

• 13 Nov 2025 · Planning and Infrastructure Bill · Hansard source

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  I think I can reassure my right hon. Friend that, as the Minister has made clear at the Dispatch Box, very large changes would go through the old process. There is no watering down of that, which is absolutely right and proper; the Government are leaning in the right direction on that. Our concern was about turning smaller amendments into reflective amendments. The Minister outlined four categories of amendment; when he sums up, I would be grateful if he could clarify who decides which of the four categories an amendment would be in, and whether there is any prospect that the process could be misused by a future Government. I cannot imagine that the Minister would misuse it, but in a bad world, could this process be abused by the Government of the day?

• 13 Nov 2025 · Planning and Infrastructure Bill · Hansard source

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  I add my thanks to those in the other place for the work that they have done on this Bill, and particularly on Lords amendment 1, which I will explain my thinking on in more detail. I stand to speak on this issue because of the importance of scrutiny of Government policy by the Select Committees of this House. While this House has an important scrutiny task, and Bill Committees have their job to do, there is a valuable role for Select Committees in scrutiny because of the depth of knowledge of the Committee teams, which are made up of Members, experienced expert staff, and Clerks. That depth of knowledge can be very helpful to Ministers and Governments, who can get useful input as policy is developed, and Select Committees have a particular role in relation to national policy statements. More widely, I say to Members on the Treasury Benches that although I massively appreciate the work that the Minister has done to ensure that we lean into this issue —which I will touch on in a moment—Governments of whatever party need to be mindful when they are pushing legislation forward. We get elected with an agenda and, quite rightly, we are impatient to push things through, but we need to be mindful of the importance of parliamentary scrutiny. We diminish that at our peril, because we risk a slippery slope. One day, a mad, bad or dangerous Government—do not tempt me on that, given the past 14 years—could misuse the system. We need to stress-test what is being proposed by the Government of the day in the light of that important fact. We have 13 national policy statements covering types of national infrastructure. I do not need to go into detail on that, but they include energy, transport, waste water and waste. The normal process has been that these statements are laid before the House, and Select Committees are involved. For time reasons, I will not go through the technical detail of how that works, but basically, Select Committees have an important role to play in scrutinising any changes to national policy statements. The Government are concerned that this can take too long, and have decided, as the Minister has explained, to introduce a new reflective amendment procedure. Under that procedure, the Government would not be subject to the existing statutory obligation to respond to a resolution of either House, or to recommendations from a Committee of either House, regarding the proposed changes. The key question is: what is proposed to replace the existing procedure? As the Minister has said, there will continue to be a public consultation on reflective amendments —the smaller category of amendments that might be introduced. The Minister will need to write to the relevant Select Committee, and Ministers must make themselves available to appear before the relevant Committee to explain why the proposed changes to the NPS mean that the reflective amendment route is appropriate. The Minister and I have been discussing this for months—I have been speaking on behalf of those on the Committee corridor—and I thank him very much for his time. On Report, the Minister said at the Dispatch Box that Ministers would appear in front of Select Committees “as far as is practicable”. —[ Official Report , 9 June 2025; Vol. 768, c. 757.] I raised with him the concern that although “practicable” may be a legal term, it does not really work for Select Committees, because there is a question about what it means. The Minister could be on holiday, or could be visiting a constituency somewhere else in the country, and it might not be practicable for them to appear before a Select Committee. I have been a Minister, and it is right that Ministers should be accountable to this House. That should be a priority; it is the job of a Minister to steer legislation through the House, politically and practically. I know that the Minister has been looking closely at whether he can give us a reassurance that Ministers will be expected to appear before a Select Committee if required to do so, not just as far as is practicable. Under the new approach, an amended national policy statement will be laid before Parliament for 21 sitting days—I am glad that the Minister has been clear that it will be sitting days, not days during a recess period; that is critical—and the Government will respond to any Committee reports during that time. However, they no longer have a statutory obligation to respond. I hope that the Minister can reassure me further, at the Dispatch Box, that they would be expected to do so. Speaking on behalf of the Committee corridor, we are very clear that we would play our part in ensuring that these matters were turned around within a proper timeframe, and there would not be unnecessary delays. There is a great team of people behind our Select Committees. If you were not in the Chair, Madam Deputy Speaker, I would say that I am privileged to work with probably the best set of Chairs of Select Committees that we have ever had, but that would cut you out, and you did important work that set the tone for us all. You were a leader in this field when you chaired the Women and Equalities Committee; we follow in big footsteps. There is a very talented team of people on the Committee corridor who want to make sure that this process works. We take very seriously our responsibility to scrutinise Government legislation, and our role in getting it through Parliament, although not necessarily without amendment. We will work very closely with the Government when submitting our views.

• 11 Nov 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  We have seen a lack of maintenance of prisons, a stop-start prison building programme and all the challenges in our courts—is it any surprise that we are looking at non-custodial sentences for lower-level offenders? Does the Secretary of State agree that those on the Opposition Front Bench have some cheek to come to this House and question that when the failures in the system are down to 14 years failure?

• 11 Nov 2025 · Courts System: Funding · Hansard source

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  My hon. and learned Friend is right to commend court staff and to highlight the significant issues in the courts system. In my time on the Public Accounts Committee, we uncovered problems with the buildings, the IT systems and the Probation Service—the whole system was in real difficulty. How long does she think it will take this Government to clear up the mess that the last Government left?

• 11 Nov 2025 · Prisoner Releases in Error · Hansard source

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  When I chaired and served on the Public Accounts Committee, on which I served for more than 10 years, we looked at and, with the help of the National Audit Office, uncovered failures in the Probation Service—a policy area that yo-yoed between Ministers as they changed—as well as the failure to build and maintain prisons, failures with the courts IT system and failures with identifying information that needed to be shared. Is my right hon. Friend aware of the Magee review, which was commissioned at the tail end of the previous Labour Government, and can he speculate as to why the review was never implemented over the 14 years of the Conservative Government?

• 5 Nov 2025 · House Building: London · Hansard source

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  That is a fair challenge, and I am sure that the Minister will pick that up. It is important that we all know where the goal posts are. I would like to ask the Minister about the release of public land. This is something that I have looked at over the years. Whether it is the Ministry of Defence, Transport for London or the Department of Health and Social Care, the Treasury has, over many Governments, insisted that that money goes back to the Department. On one level, that is completely logical, but looking at hospitals or schools, if that land could be used for housing, it would help teachers, nurses or doctors to live locally.

• 5 Nov 2025 · House Building: London · Hansard source

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  The hon. Gentleman made a very good point about overseas sales, although I would contest his statement that people are having to receive housing benefit to live in many of those developments because, as he probably knows, they are advertised overseas by yield. We are seeing homes in London as financial investment vehicles for people who have no connection with this country. Many of those landlords have never even visited the property. What would his party’s policy be to tackle this issue?

• 5 Nov 2025 · House Building: London · Hansard source

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  I congratulate the hon. Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (Mr French) on securing this debate on such a vital issue. I echo many of the points made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Islington South and Finsbury (Emily Thornberry). Her neighbouring constituency now includes a ward that used to be in my constituency—a ward where house prices are reaching £2.5 million to £3 million in some cases. That is one end of the scale. At the other end of the scale we have a homelessness situation that is intolerable, with thousands of people on the waiting list. Exactly as my right hon. Friend said, every week I visit people in their homes, which is something that MPs do. We see people where they live, with the problems they have: triple bunk beds with little space for the third child to get into bed; five people in a room; and toddlers with no space to run around. I could give a different example every week, but a real one. This is what we need to resolve, so I welcome the Government’s plan to build more homes. There are a lot of challenges. The right hon. Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Wendy Morton) mentioned the “brownfield first” approach as a priority. There are plenty of brownfield sites in my constituency. I say “plenty” but, like the constituency of my right hon. Friend the Member for Islington South and Finsbury, my constituency is very small in relative terms but expensive to build on. House prices in Hackney are 18.5 times average income, so all the young professionals who might want to get on the housing ladder are stuck in shared accommodation, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Islington South and Finsbury said, and families are stuck in social housing, crowded and unable to go anywhere else because they cannot afford private rent, which gives no security anyway. Homeless families are increasingly in hostels for years. Only six years or so ago it would have been about six months before people had a chance of getting some sort of property, and now people are being moved out of the borough, wrecking their lives and opportunities. We have 3,400 homeless households in temporary accommodation, which is a big issue for us all and costs the taxpayer a lot of money. It does damage to the families and the children’s opportunities. It breaks our communities, and all taxpayers have to fund that, so we need to resolve it. We have a total of 8,500 households on the council’s housing register, and the notional wait for a three-bedroom property is over a decade—it is a nonsense wait, because by that time the children have grown up. Around 44% of Hackney residents live in social housing. We have more private renters than homeowners and that level of social housing residents. Even though house prices are going up for some, the housing situation is worsening for many others. Hackney council has been great at delivering properly affordable social housing. Affordable homes, which include both social rented and intermediate, make up 57% of council housing-led delivery. In crude terms, if Hackney council wants to build a home because of the land value, which I will touch on, it has to build one for private sale to pay for the one that is for intermediate or social rent. When I say to people, “We are working hard to get you a house,” they look at the houses I am pointing to on the neighbouring bit of land and say, “Will I get one of those?”, and I cannot, hand on heart, say that they will within any reasonable period of time. The devastation this is having is surely feeding into our special educational needs and health crises. It is just not long-term sustainable. Since 2022, the current council period since the last council elections and between now and next April, 956 council homes for social rent have been in design, planning or acquisition or under construction. It is cheaper to buy back a leasehold property on a council estate than it is to build new, because it costs £450,000 in Hackney to build a new social rented home. It is no wonder we are having challenges delivering and no wonder that the Government and the Mayor of London are trying to work out a way to get more homes built. If they are all for private rent, we are going to exacerbate the problem, so we need to work that out. Construction costs are now around £5,000 per square metre compared with £1,000 to £1,500 a decade ago. That is being led by a number of issues globally, including Brexit, but this is the reality we are dealing with. When I looked at this in my previous role on the Public Accounts Committee, the Government’s own figures showed—I am sure the Minister is aware—that bricks and mortar subsidies offered the best value for money for the taxpayer to try to resolve the problem. We need things not just on brownfield but on grey belt. I do think that the green belt has some grey belt —we need to be realistic about this. Bits of old car park that no one is using could be turned into homes. We need to be creative when looking at this.

• 5 Nov 2025 · House Building: London · Hansard source

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  I hear what the hon. Lady says, but I also recognise that there are financial challenges with the Treasury signing a fairly blank cheque to say that all public land could become housing. We need to be creative about this, and that is where we need a mixture of local knowledge and some flexibility from the Treasury. For example, the change of use of school sites was quite gummed up in the Department for Education under the previous Government. We need to make sure that any change of use can be dealt with relatively quickly. It will be better for health and education outcomes if we use that land for other things. We need a national mission on housing, and I applaud the Minister for leading on that. Does he have any plans to limit further overseas purchasers buying these properties? It is great for developers, because they get that cash in, but we need to prioritise local people, and tax does not seem to be doing it. Does he have any thoughts about restricting Airbnb? I know well the blocks that my right hon. Friend the Member for Islington South and Finsbury was talking about, because during covid, people paid rent to go to those places to isolate, but they were not proper homes. That is having a devastating effect on school numbers across London. Could the Minister look at the costs of building? The long-term costs of not doing it will be enormous, and we need to support those families who desperately need social rented housing.

• 4 Nov 2025 · HMRC Customer Service · Hansard source

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  The Treasury Committee looks at HMRC’s customer service. We have recently seen people having their child benefit stopped, ostensibly on the basis of travel data. Could the Minister explain what he is doing to resolve this issue and what data HMRC based its information on?

• 30 Oct 2025 · Infected Blood Compensation Scheme · Hansard source

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  I thank the Minister for his statement. On lessons learned, I hope he has looked at the National Audit Office’s work on different compensation schemes so that we can learn from that. I also hope that he supports the national campaign to encourage people who received a blood transfusion to get tested for hepatitis C, as two people a month are contacting the helpline to say that they were infected during the relevant period. To press the Minister further on the point raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Eltham and Chislehurst (Clive Efford) and the right hon. Member for New Forest East (Sir Julian Lewis), under this scheme people get compensation because they are dying due to infected blood; it is not random, coincidental or due to something else. If they happen to receive the compensation just before they die, their family will pay inheritance tax on it. The victims want to ensure that their families are properly supported, because they are no longer able to do that, so will the Minister renew his efforts to talk to the Treasury about this issue? This is a small, defined group of people, which does not need to set a more general precedent, but for this particular scheme—where the state failed people so much—the issue is an important one to resolve.

• 30 Oct 2025 · Israel-Palestine Conflict: Government Response · Hansard source

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  I congratulate the Committee on this important report, and I thank the Chair for explaining it and answering questions in the Chamber today. There has been a lot of discussion already, even in this short interchange, about gathering evidence. The right hon. Lady has highlighted the position of the Government on this, but there are international bodies that need to gather evidence, and I reflect the point earlier that even journalists are not allowed in. What can she tell us about other evidence that is being gathered by international organisations, and what more does she think the international community, not just individual Governments, should do?

• 30 Oct 2025 · Property Service Charges · Hansard source

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  Will the Minister give way?

• 30 Oct 2025 · Property Service Charges · Hansard source

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  I do not know the case the hon. Gentleman is talking about, but I agree that good communication is important. However, it was his Government, under Margaret Thatcher, who introduced the right to buy. That means we have leaseholders mixed with council tenants, so where a council has to improve a property, it needs to go to the leaseholders for their share of the costs. There was always going to be a tension there, and he must acknowledge that that will be a reality where we have pepper-potted estates—notwithstanding that he obviously needs to fight for proper information for his constituents.

• 30 Oct 2025 · Property Service Charges · Hansard source

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  I completely agree with my hon. Friend that we need clarity on this issue. We are talking a lot about service charges, but the insurance industry has a responsibility because it accounts for a large chunk of them. Regulators have a clear role to play, and it is important that that is considered in all the changes we are discussing. I am pleased that the Government have been consulting on these issues. The consultation on service charges ended in February, so I hope the Minister can give us an update about it. It is important to touch on a couple of other issues. We know that poor maintenance leads to high costs, so standards and expectations should be set on maintenance, which costs leaseholders, but costs them less in the long run if things are maintained. That is a repeated theme across my constituency, as some very modern blocks have not been maintained properly, which means leaseholders end up paying more in the end than they should have done. There is also an issue with greening blocks. I have constituents working very effectively to try to get electric vehicle charging points and better insulation in a block that is an old warehouse; the famous loft apartments were very popular in my constituency at one point. However, improving such things creates betterment, which increases the ground rent, because the owner of the building can say it is an improvement and can charge more. Such tenants are making their property greener, cleaner and more efficient—costing them less in a lot of ways—but they are ending up with their costs being put up somewhere else, which seems to be a complete imbalance that we have not discussed. On the right to manage and commonhold—I am a Labour and Co-op MP, and I am very proud to be pushing for commonhold—there can be issues where there is a right to manage. I am working with a development where there is a right-to-manage company, but the directors have hidden themselves away and are not acting responsibly in answering and providing information to their neighbours in the development. I think governance needs an overhaul in this area. It is not going to solve everything if residents take over the management but then do not do a good job, so there needs to be transparency all round. As we know, this is on top of increased mortgage charges, and let us not forget what the 2022 Budget did to mortgage charges. Shared owners are paying mortgages, rents and service charges, and this is all adding to the cost of living and causing huge upset, on top of the spending on building safety requirements that are hitting so many of my constituents. That is causing real problems, but we need to be clear, so rather than go through the list myself, I will endorse all the asks that my hon. Friend the Member for Doncaster East and the Isle of Axholme (Lee Pitcher) listed about transparency, openness and getting clearer rights for residents to challenge service charges and to make sure they absolutely understand why they are being charged such fees. That is the basic minimum, but we should be making sure it happens.

• 30 Oct 2025 · Property Service Charges · Hansard source

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  Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

• 30 Oct 2025 · Property Service Charges · Hansard source

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  I declare an interest as a leaseholder myself. Like my hon. Friend the Member for North West Cambridgeshire (Sam Carling), I will not name any managing agent or developments, because many of my residents are concerned that if their block is named, it will cause them very big issues. I was delighted to hear from my hon. Friend the Member for St Austell and Newquay (Noah Law) that there are some good management companies, because the picture is certainly mixed in my patch. The company that has been named often in this debate manages some estates in my area, and some are better run than others. A lot seems to depend on the individual property manager and how they run their development, and the size and age of a development definitely has an impact. In the short time that I have, I will raise a couple of important issues. One is about insurance. We know that costs went up post Grenfell because insurance moved from insuring just the floor that a flat is on to the entire block, but other increases have arisen that are difficult to explain, and there is a danger that we will struggle to get insurance. One block in my patch was able to get one insurer quote for 12 months only, and it was quoted an extortionately high excess rate at the beginning—somewhere in the region of £15,000. That was the excess that the housing association freeholder would have to pay before anything happened. It managed to get that down, but it could only get one 12-month period of insurance. I think we need to be careful in our discussions about the relationship between insurance companies and managing agents. I know from my role as Chair of the Treasury Committee that there are very strict rules on ringfencing operations, so insurance companies and managing agents should not have a cosy relationship. In law, they are not entitled to do so.

• 30 Oct 2025 · Property Service Charges · Hansard source

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  Many Members have raised the issue of the adoption of roads. Obviously, physical roads are easier to define, but there are parts of private estates that are only for that estate. Does my hon. Friend agree that there is a challenge, given the current financial situation, because it usually costs councils money to adopt a road, and under the current law, it could be a big hit for those leaseholders to pay the fee up front for the council to adopt the road?

• 28 Oct 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  Karim Ennarah is an internationally recognised human rights activist who has been subjected to a travel ban by Egypt and has been stuck there since 2020. What is the Foreign Office doing—or what can it do—to ensure that he is able to come to the UK to join his wife in my constituency?

• 27 Oct 2025 · Access to Work Scheme · Hansard source

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  Access to Work is vital. At the high end of the scale, it can sometimes be more expensive. I have in my constituency a very senior person in the world of theatre who runs Graeae theatre. She requires Access to Work support but, even with the right support, there is not enough for her needs, because she needs a British Sign Language interpreter with her at all times. Graeae theatre is at the pinnacle of assessing what people need, and I would love to invite the Minister to visit it, because staff there are great at supporting disabled people into work, with and without Access to Work support.

• 21 Oct 2025 · NHS Trusts: Performance · Hansard source

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  The Secretary of State need look no further than Homerton university hospital in Hackney for good performance: it has managed to increase productivity by over 11%. What is he doing to support great leaders who deliver great progress and to make sure that they have the funding they need to continue with that?

• 13 Oct 2025 · Security Update: Official Secrets Act Case · Hansard source

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  Following on from the point made by the Chair of the Home Affairs Committee, it is vital that Parliament is able to examine what has happened here. The Government have made a commitment to transparency. We have a wrinkle, in that the National Security Adviser has been appointed as a special adviser rather than as an official, which means that he has to appear in front of a Committee of the House in camera. That is far from adequate. Will the Minister commit to engaging fully with the Committee corridor to ensure that the relevant Committees get access to information, as is normal, in a reading room, in camera or in a Cobra situation, in order to ensure that Parliament can satisfy itself of the comments that he has made so clearly at the Dispatch Box today?

• 13 Oct 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  It is great that we are transforming leasehold properties, but many leaseholders are now stuck in a gap with their freeholders when it comes to betterment. If they want to green their homes through new roofs, new insulation and electric vehicle charging, they have to pay a huge extra cost. Will the Minister and, if necessary, Ministers from the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero meet me and my constituents to discuss this issue? There is a real gap when it comes to achieving green improvements.

• 13 Oct 2025 · Digital ID · Hansard source

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  Well, here we go again, 15 years after the Conservatives abolished it. I say to the naysayers that our passport data and our driving licence data is on a database, so we need to be careful about throwing out the baby with the bathwater. We have had GOV.UK Verify and Tell Us Once, so there have been attempts to do this, and we all log into our HMRC accounts, so we are using digital identification in many ways, but will the Secretary of State be really careful about the challenges that some will face? Also, why on earth is it mandatory? The previous proposal was for voluntary use, and interestingly it was popular with migrants, who really wanted to have that ID to prove their right to access, but they did not have to do so. That would allow public services the time to work with those who are digitally excluded.