Miatta Fahnbulleh MP: speeches 2025

Speeches

• 13 Oct 2025 · Coalfields Regeneration Trust: Capital Funding Request · Hansard source

  More

  The Government remain committed to supporting ex-coalfield communities, such as those in my hon. Friend’s constituency, and to tackling the decline and neglect we saw under the Conservative party. It was our party that established the Coalfields Regeneration Trust in 1999, and we are committed to working with it to support our coalfield communities. That comes alongside our wider efforts to invest in communities that were held back under the Conservative party through our trailblazing Pride in Place programme.

• 13 Oct 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

  More

  I thank my hon. Friend for his enthusiasm. He is absolutely right: we are putting right the neglect and decline that we saw after 14 years, where communities had been held back because the last Government failed to invest. We are putting communities at the very heart, and I look forward to working with colleagues across the House to unlock the potential to change our places.

• 13 Oct 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

  More

  My hon. Friend is completely right to raise this issue. That is why we are giving local communities greater powers to control the proliferation of gambling and vape shops. It is also why, through our Pride in Place programme, we are giving communities the funding and tools they need to shape their local high streets, so that those communities can have the shops they want in their place.

• 13 Oct 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

  More

  My hon. Friend is completely right. We had a decade and a half of decline and neglect under the last Government. This Government are getting to grips with it. I thank my hon. Friend for her enthusiasm and for working together to make this impact and to drive the change we want to see across our communities.

• 13 Oct 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

  More

  There are two processes going ahead: the devolution process, driven by economic imperatives to unlock the growth prospects across the country; and the reorganisation process, which is being done to ensure that we have more streamlined and effective public services. We are doing those in tandem, because the last Government failed to get a grip of local government structures and the funding pressures across the piece. We are getting on with it and we are driving it forward. Both processes are being driven with huge collaboration from local authorities across the country.

• 13 Oct 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

  More

  The flag is something that we must reclaim, and reclaim proudly. We know that in some communities flags are being used to intimidate and divide, and we are working with local authorities throughout the country to ensure that they have the support that they need to make those judgment calls, but I return to the fact that the flag is ours, we need to reclaim it, and we need to stand up against those who want to divide our communities across the country.

• 13 Oct 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

  More

  We recognise the uniqueness of Cornwall. We are committed to working with the local authority to ensure that we unlock the economic opportunities in the area and build on its existing devolution deal.

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

  More

  Q Councillor Craig, obviously Greater Manchester has been at the forefront of devolution and the development of mayoral strategic authorities; I had the pleasure of being there at the outset a decade and a half ago. I am interested in your take on the impact the difference and it has made on your communities and, critically, on the collaboration between constituent authorities and the mayor and the strategic authority. During the last panel, the concern was about the power, onus and importance of constituent authorities. I am interested in how it has worked in practice and what we can learn from that. Bev Craig: That is an important question. The difference for Greater Manchester was that we asked for devolution. That started the journey across the north of England initially, but it went out across the whole country. It has come off the back of a generation of co-operation in Greater Manchester, so it was built into a system. When the Greater Manchester authority was disestablished in the 1980s, my predecessors carried on with the meetings and kept that model alive. I will come on to accountability, but what helps is that people do not identify with local authority boundaries. We represent people who, in their normal lives, say that they are from a place. A colleague might say that they are from Middleton and they are proud to be from Middleton, but when they are on holiday and people ask where they are from, they say “Near Manchester.” There is something about creating a place that people can identify with; that has been really strong. When you look at models where mayors have been successful, it is because they have tapped into a place identity. That links to my point that rural areas can still have place identity. On accountability, in the Greater Manchester model of combined authorities, which moved to strategic authorities, we all have a role to play. Think about the role of the city. It is a major economic driver for not just Greater Manchester but the north of England as a whole. The whole region needs Manchester city centre to do well, in the same way that Manchester city centre needs the rest of Greater Manchester to do well if it is to have people with skills, good education, homes to live in and places to celebrate that they enjoy spending time in. That is why, through our model, we all hold portfolios. I am just as interested in getting Atom Valley in the north of the conurbation to be a success as I am in growing my life sciences sector in the city centre. There is something about getting people to take responsibility. When we look at the competencies, that is why the LGA argues for clarity in the Bill that local authorities will still have a stake in some of the areas that we might think mayoral strategic authorities lead on. I say this with kindness, and I often say it to my Mayor’s face: he can give the parameters of the homes that we build and he can help fund them, and I will put on his logo and picture if we need to, but fundamentally it is Manchester city council that is out there building council homes. That is why we built more council and social homes last year than at any point over the last decade and a half. It works when we work together. To clarify the role of commissioners in the context of the Bill, where they have been useful in Greater Manchester has been in an advisory capacity. We have been able to draw in people like Dame Sarah Storey as an active travel commissioner. She does not need to be a deputy mayor or take away my authority as a leader of a place, but she brings something that is additional. We must not lose sight of the fact that devolution models work with systems and Bills in place to deliver them, but actually it is about collaboration. There will need to be investment in the time that leaders of a place spend together if you are to get that relationship with the mayor to work. Kevin Bentley: The identity question was raised before and it is important that we say political boundaries might change but communities do not. Identity of communities will always remain strong, whether you are in a district or county council. I represent 1.5 million people. That could be a disparate place. If you want to say, “Which is the most important to your leader?” they are all important, because they all have their own identities.

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

  More

  Q But if I may, Mr Fletcher, do you recognise that the UK is an outlier? What we are doing is moving to a system that is consistent with other major economies and works well. Commercial investors operate in those systems with no issues. Ion Fletcher: England and Wales is an international outlier in that; it is also an international outlier in the strength of the rights that it gives to occupiers to renew their leases. Generally speaking, where countries offer occupiers the automatic and statutory right to renew their commercial leases, it tends to be restricted to particular sectors. That is not the case in England and Wales. You have to look at it in the round.

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

  More

  Q We think that strategic planning and the role of strategic authorities within that are quite important—in the context of how we want to “build, baby, build”, to quote my boss, the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government. I am interested in your take on how, if we get this right, it will have an impact on the Bill, and critically, where you think we might need to go further to make sure that we are delivering the buildings and the growth that we need? Catriona Riddell: What is set out in the Bill is going to help to develop things more quickly. We have just talked about viability; that is such a massive factor in everything that we do at the moment. In relation to strategic planning and spatial development strategy, I think the Minister for Housing and Planning, Matthew Pennycook, has referred to it as a spatial investment framework. If you look at it as that, and not as a big local plan, and if it does that role, that is going to set the precedent. It is going to say: “This is where we want to invest.” They are also long-term plans; they are 10, 20 or 30-year frameworks. Again, that is to start building investor confidence in these areas. What is needed, in terms of building investor confidence, is leadership and that is where the strategic authorities can help. Some of the planning mechanisms in the Bill are really important, but actually, it is more about the wider powers, such as the convening powers and the duty to talk to your neighbouring mayor—the sum of the parts has to add up to a national picture. We do not have a national spatial framework in this country, so the sum of the SDSs has to add up to that national picture. I think the softer powers in the Bill that mayors and strategic authorities will have to bring together stakeholders will be really important. I would say the measure needs to go further. My understanding of the convening powers is that they are largely about bringing local authorities and the public sector together, but one of the biggest challenges we have is around the infrastructure side of things—with utility companies, such as water companies and electricity companies, that engage at the very end of the process. We need to use these mechanisms—the convening powers—to bring them into the plan-making bit about the spatial development strategy from the start, so that there are no surprises at the end and nobody says, “We don’t have enough water or electricity to plug into these new homes that we have already permitted,” because that is what is happening all over the place. This is about getting the system working up front, much further upstream, so that the decisions on planning applications are much easier further down. The strategic authorities have a huge role to play in that. The only other, minor change I would mention is on national parks. I think that once we have gone through local government restructuring, all local planning authorities will effectively be a constituent member of a strategic authority. National parks will continue to be local planning authorities. They have plan-making powers and development management powers. At the end of this, they will be the only planning authorities that will not actually be part of the strategic authority, so I guess we need a shout-out to national parks and some thinking about what their role should be in this.

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

  More

  Q I have a question for Councillors Bentley and Hicks first on unitarisation, and then, if I may, a question to Councillor Craig on strategic authorities. Obviously you are going through the process of working hard with colleagues to put together a proposal for unitarisation. I am really interested in your perspectives and insights about how you—because we are putting it in the hands of local areas to do the heavy lifting—and we get that right. Critically, we are not doing this for fun; we are doing it because we fundamentally believe it will drive better services and better outcomes. I am interested in your perspectives, from your individual areas, about the sorts of impact that you think we can deliver if we get this right. Kevin Bentley: Thank you, and welcome to your new role; I am sure we will be seeing a lot of each other the coming months, Minister. In Essex, there are 15 councils. If you want to look at councils of any shape or size, come to Essex; we pretty much have them all, and a lot of them, as well. And while there are four different business cases coming from Essex—and you would expect that, as it is a huge county in terms of population and people have differing views—each has been done thoughtfully and carefully. The overriding message is that the 15 councils are made up of all political parties and none, and there is common cause. No one has fallen out. There is no argument. There is no row going on at all. We meet regularly in something we call the Essex leaders and chief execs meeting—I am talking about Essex here; I will talk about the LGA in just a second—and certainly our experience is of collaboration. We may have different views from the Government for them to consider, but the understanding that we need to do things differently is really there. That goes for all political parties. We understand that the current system cannot carry on, because it will just run out of money if we are not careful. We are already seeing that. The one thing to say is that everyone across the sector should be allowed to have their view and decide what is right for their area. When I started as a leader, the one question that I continually asked myself, and still do today, is, “What does this mean for the public and does it improve their lives?” Unless you can answer that question affirmatively, you should stop. So far, for me the answer has been yes—yes, we can do it better than we currently do it—and I think colleagues are in the same position. It is also important that our colleagues in local government across the country consult not only with each other but with the public to ask whether we can do this better. If they believe we cannot, okay, but I think they will find that we can. The most important thing is to not lose sight of why we are doing it. It is for the public and the people of this country, not for politicians and councils. Matthew Hicks: I would echo that. For us, it is about building on the experience of others who have been through this. We have been out to places such as Cumbria to ask for advice on what they learned and what works well. We have learned how others delivered on business cases or struggled to deliver on some of the items they included. Ultimately, for us, this is about a new and more positive relationship between local government and our residents and businesses; it is about doing things differently. With the two cases in Suffolk, ultimately, everyone has the interests of our residents at heart. The big issue is how you analyse the data that people are using, and the forecasting. That is where we are seeing the major variants, but the delivery and what we want to deliver are not too different.

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

  More

  Q Thank you for setting out how we are building on the community right to bid and the additional powers that are baked in to the legislation that will generally give communities the power to take over assets. One of the things that we have done a huge amount of work on over the past decade and a bit is building the capacity of our community organisations to be in the position to do this. I am interested in your take on the relationship with the neighbourhood governance powers in the Bill and the extent to which you think that this is an opportunity to build the capacity of some of our community organisations both to take over ownership but, critically, to have voice and power to change their places. Nick Plumb: I want to make a couple of points. It was a really interesting conversation this morning on neighbourhood governance from colleagues from parish councils and local government. Power to Change is a member of the We’re Right Here campaign, which has been campaigning for community power legislation such as some of the measures in this Bill. We are keen that the neighbourhood governance measures that are introduced through the Bill allow for local variation and for a whole range of different organisations that exist at a neighbourhood level to be a part of that neighbourhood governance arrangement. We think that one of the risks with the area committee model is that it is a prescriptive top-down model that says, “This is the way to do things,” rather than saying, “What exists already in a neighbourhood, and how do we build on that?” One of the ideas that Power to Change has been working on and testing in place is a community covenant. We have been testing that so far in Market Drayton in Shropshire through a partnership of 20 local organisations—everyone from the local authority to community organisations to representatives from town and parish councils—on the idea of a family and neighbourhood hub. So far, the results from that work are really positive. There was some initial scepticism about a new way of working, but one of the council officers has fed back that the new approach is a real gift that has helped them to move much further and faster with their communities than they would have done if they were just doing things from the council down. One of the calls from us through this legislation is to try not to be too prescriptive with neighbourhood governance but lean into a model that puts people on an equal footing and gives people an equal seat at the table. I will not spend too long on this, but my other point is that it is great that we have a piece of legislation with “community empowerment” in its title, and I think that community right to buy and neighbourhood governance, if done right, go some way. Power to Change and the We’re Right Here campaign would like to see community right to buy as one of several community rights. We have been calling for a community right to shape public services, which would entail involving the people who receive services from the state in the design, delivery and development of public services. That would build on provisions in the Localism Act, such as the right to challenge, and it would make that a much more expansive right. We would also like to see a community right to control investment, which would involve certain bits of investment from central Government sitting at that neighbourhood level. Both of those rights really lean into some of the Government’s existing agenda. The plan for neighbourhoods is a real example of that. There are some questions still to be answered on what that looks like, but it could involve trusting neighbourhoods to take hold of money and think, “How do we improve our lot together?” The right to shape public services is very in line with some of the test, learn and grow work that is happening in the Cabinet Office. We would see the community empowerment element of the Bill really living up to its name if it was the beginning of a set of community rights rather than the community right to buy tick and done.

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

  More

  Q Mr Whittaker, I want to pick up on the sporting asset of community value measures within the Bill. Obviously, sporting community assets are of huge value to our local communities, and I am interested in your view on whether the measures create a pathway to far greater community control and ownership of these assets. Robbie Whittaker: Thank you, Minister. We are certainly very encouraged by the proposal to create a new designation of a sporting asset of community value. It builds on what we have traditionally had before. It is something that we have lobbied for because we think—as we would—that sporting institutions have a valuable role to play in local communities, particularly in promoting empowerment of the kind that Nick was talking about. One of the interesting benefits of this proposal is that in the last year, as you will all know, we have created an independent regulator for football, which is going to bring profound change for a relatively small number of clubs—only 116 clubs at the very top of the English pyramid. The proposal in the Bill potentially attracts a far larger cohort of clubs further down the pyramid, which are not necessarily as commercially attractive to buyers from outside the country. Therefore, the right to buy is actually a realistic aspiration that some of those communities can have. We are increasingly seeing valuations of football clubs at the top end of the pyramid that take them beyond the reach of local community or fan groups. But that is not the case lower down. The extent to which you can create an opportunity here for local communities and people who follow relatively small clubs to feel that it is a pathway that they can go down and sustain is very welcome. I echo what Nick said about community ownership funding, or some equivalent thereof; the existence of that fund played a large part in the creation of the phoenix club at Bury. You may remember that Bury AFC failed spectacularly in 2019, and has caused a lot of angst within the football community ever since. The existence of that fund was quite crucial to enabling a new club to emerge in Bury that was able to play at the ground that had been used for around about a century.

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

  More

  Q I have a question for Mr Fletcher and then a question for both witnesses. You have expressed some reservations and concerns about the upward rent review. Is it fair to say that the position among your members is not unanimous? Mark Allan of Landsec, who I think was the previous president of the organisation, has said that he thinks the changes are favourable, and that the status quo is complex and suboptimal. It would be good to clarify that there is not a single position that thinks this is averse. Northern Ireland went through a very similar reform about a decade and a half ago. I am interested in your assessment, because most people would look at that property market and think it works well. There was a transition, and it has ended up in a position that, most people would argue, is not just benign and effective but consistent with what we see in other countries. I am interested in your views, and then I will have a question for both of you. Ion Fletcher : I think that Mark would also say that the way it was announced was not great; it should have been done with prior consultation. One of our main concerns is about how one of our members was recently in Malaysia and Singapore, and his investors were asking him questions about it: “Where did it come from? Why was there no consultation?” It has been noticed overseas, and by people who are deploying capital into our towns and cities. It was not something that was trailed, either in the Labour manifesto or in any of the discussions about devolution. In fact, it is a bit odd to find commercial leasing provisions in a Bill that is mainly about local government reorganisation and strategic authority powers. There is also the focus on the high street. Upward-only rent reviews are not what is keeping shops empty at the moment. That is more to do with business rates and a lack of demand for space. Most high street shops are on leases of five years or less, so upward-only rent reviews are not going to be an issue; they do not have those clauses in them. The real value of upward-only rent reviews to investors and developers is that they provide predictability of income. If you are thinking about undertaking a new development project or refurbishing an existing commercial building, having the confidence about the level of income that you are going to get gives you much more security, and it de-risks the project. It makes it more likely to happen. At the moment, there is a shortage of development going on—there is a bit of a development viability crisis across both residential and commercial property—so adding more uncertainty in the form of unexpected policy changes does not help. In relation to your point about international comparators, yes, Ireland went through this, as did Australia about 20 years ago. There is a transition period. The industry can and would find ways to adapt, but the point is: what problem is it really trying to solve? Is the disruption that it is going to cause in the meantime—the transitional costs, for example—worth the candle?

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

  More

  Q My first question is for Councillor Chapman-Allen. First, I should put on the record that the 500,000 number that has been cited is not fixed. The Government will prioritise making sure that there are clear links and that we have that democratic basis, so that communities feel connected to their local institutions. That is a priority for us and we will proceed on that basis. Strategic authorities are made up of constituent local authorities, and at their best, where they work, it is based on partnership. Can Councillor Chapman-Allen give the Committee examples from among his membership, where strategic authorities already operate, of that collaboration among the constituent authorities, which will always have a key role, working in tandem with the mayor to deliver for communities? I also have a question for Mr Griggs. The role of neighbourhoods and the connection between communities and the places where elected representatives serve is fundamental to what we are trying to do with the Bill. The part of the legislation on neighbourhood governance is looking to bolster and strengthen that. What are your views on how that will create new opportunities not only for community partnership working but, critically, for community voice and power? Sam Chapman-Allen: Thank you for your question. To start, I think the 500,000 figure as the initial threshold has caused confusion. I think that many of the submissions that will be received in the devolution priority areas next week and then in the rest of the country in November will show that many councils are submitting models of 500,000-plus. Let us put that into context: they will be some of the biggest councils in the western developed world. I think that will ensure there is a democratic deficit. In relation to strategic authorities and constituent members, the only model where all district councils, or all principal councils, are members are in Cambridgeshire and Peterborough. If you look at what is taking place there, you will see it is a really successful model. Yes, there is a little bit of grit every now and then, but that is why scrutiny, governance and accountability are so important. We will not always agree on everything. If we look at a model in which all principal councils are members—I cite Greater Manchester, with Andy Burnham and his 10 councils within that area—they all share responsibility together. All of them within that locality are the responsible authorities for housing and for planning, and they are working together to drive the agenda forward around the real challenges that localities face. They have had some real successes, and I do not think anybody should take that away from them. I know that you have Lord Houchen giving evidence later; he will give exactly the same example of where you have those principal councils able to pull the levers to get stuff done. Justin Griggs: First of all—

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

  More

  Q To follow up on the point that you made around local growth, which is a big driver of everything that we are doing, what things should we think about in the context of local government and powers and resources in order to deal with the huge challenge that we have around reviving our high streets? Andrew Goodacre: We touched on good examples, and we should look to learn from them. On local engagement, you need local leadership, but they need help sometimes. That help could be internally from the next level of authority up, or it could be from an external body. One body that I thought was beneficial to high street regeneration at a local authority level was the high streets taskforce that was set up as part of the Institute of Place Management for Manchester Metropolitan University. It has now ended as a body, although in name it carries on because stakeholders—we were one of those stakeholders—would meet on a quarterly basis to discuss opportunities, challenges, good news and bad news on high streets and high street regeneration. We would share those ideas and share them back with the high streets taskforce, and they would help that local decision making. Quite often what you find is that people know what they want to do. They just do not quite always know how to do it. A think-tank independently managed and run could help them with that “how” and the implementation of their ideas. If you do not bring it back as it was, something similar would really help that local decision making, because sometimes the pride is there, the passion is there; they just do not always have the nous to make it work in the way they hoped for. With regard to high streets, I see it from a retail point of view, but I recognise the fact that high streets are increasingly dominated by experiential elements—cultural, leisure, more hospitality driven—and I have no issue with that. It does mean that we need better change of use of some of the retail sites that become empty. I know planning is part of this whole issue, so speeding up the planning process is important. Ideally, I would like to bring homes back into high streets where the possibility exists. There are some large, empty buildings. I live quite near Stratford-upon-Avon and I still go past a VHS store that closed in 2016. It is still empty. I find it remarkable that a landlord can let a big place like that stay empty for so long. We have not looked at the opportunity of what more we could do with that, or what we could do differently with that. If we can bring homes and people back into high streets as places where people want to live, preferably with affordable properties for younger people, I think you would start to create local economies that would drive some of those high streets as well. Allen Simpson: The question is what level you devolve at. Clearly, we are all nimbys. Nimby is an irregular verb—you are a nimby; I am concerned about my local environment. There are circumstances in which we need to find ways of treating high streets like strategic infrastructure. There will be asymmetric benefits and costs if you live close to a high street or, as people used to, above shops—that is less common than it was—versus being in the surrounding community. Sometimes local politicians do need help. We have seen an approach to that in London that the Committee will have views on. I am very much in favour of hospitality zones, which have specific licensing approaches, where there is some form of recognition that you get to a “yes” more quickly. There is a specific question around Andrew’s point about bringing people back into former high street or commercial areas, in the City of London or elsewhere, around agents of change. I am very in favour of placing a burden on developers to fit the development around hospitality, rather than buying a flat next door to a pub and then being annoyed that there is a beer garden, for which I have zero sympathy.

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

  More

  Q I have two questions, one at the strategic level and one at the community level. Obviously we are pushing through strategic planning powers for mayors. I am interested in your assessment, given your huge expertise, of whether that is the right function, and what we need to do to ensure that it delivers sustainable development, which is obviously our objective. At the community level, we obviously want to build in a way that is sustainable, but we need to make sure that there is public consent. I am interested in how we ensure that strategic planning powers sit alongside community engagement and community consent to make sure that there is a whole place sense of the direction of travel and the development that needs to happen, in a way that builds public support. Naomi Luhde-Thompson: On public participation, the UK is a signatory of the Aarhus convention. Article 393 of the trade and co-operation agreement is really clear that when you are doing something that has an impact on the environment you must have a proper process of public participation. It must happen at an early enough time to influence the outcomes; otherwise, what is the point of having people involved? You are literally just asking them, “What colour do you want the gates to be?” You are not asking them to be involved in the full decision. The issue that you have here—I will talk about the products that are produced—is that, if you look at the spatial development strategies, it specifically says in the Planning and Infrastructure Bill, in proposed new section 12I of the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004: “No person is to have a right to be heard at an examination.” That is completely the opposite of what you have on local plans: any person who makes representations must be given the opportunity to be heard in front of the examiner. That is not going to send out a strong signal that you actually want people to participate in the making of these spatial development strategies. It is not a sell-out event to go to a plan examination, so I do not think that you need to be worried about that. I do, however, think that you need a right to be involved at that stage, and it cannot be at the discretion of someone else. I think that is one of the issues: if you have to wait for somebody else to give you consent or permission to enter that space, you do not have a right to enter it, because it is at somebody else’s discretion. That is why the formulation of such a right of access—a right to participate—is really important. Your other point was about the duties, and how that is carried out. I would be really interested to see how the local growth plan is supposed to comply with, for example, the environmental principles policy statement. How does it combine with that? How does it combine with the spatial development strategy? What is the interaction there? It is quite complex, if you look at the organogram of the different plans that, if you are a member of the public, might affect and shape the place in which you live, and therefore what the purpose of all these plans are—whether they are there to achieve sustainable development in the public interest—and how you are supposed to get involved in influencing the outcome of the decisions that are made through these plans. Richard Hebditch: It is probably also worth talking about the resourcing of all this. As people have discussed, we have the local government reorganisation at the same time. The new format for local plans, which are out of date, has new housing targets as well. Then we have the SDSs—spatial development strategies—on top of that. How do we make sure that we have the resourcing to develop all those things, which are happening at the same time? We then have wider planning reform, and we might have another planning Bill in the new year. There is a lot of potential chaos at the same time. I am sure the Government want to address that, and the resourcing for planners to develop the SDSs is very helpful, but there is a risk of not necessarily having a clear road map for how you get to that place. As I was saying, we are very supportive of the idea of spatial development strategies and the strategic layer, but the journey there is going to be quite chaotic. I think it would be good to look at issues around workforce skills and the timing of all the different things that are going on.

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

  More

  Q Let me start by thanking you for the support, encouragement and enthusiasm for what we are trying to do through the Bill. You are completely right that this is our baseline—our floor—and our ambition as a Government is to build on it. In that spirit, I want to pick up on the right to request that we are introducing through the Bill. I am interested in your views on how we can ensure that the right is as effective as possible in taking us on the journey of empowering our mayors to deliver for their communities. Tracy Brabin: I will be pithy—and congratulations on your role, by the way; I know that we have a champion by our side. What is important is the way that we can collectively come to a consensus on the Mayoral Council and say, “The mayors are agreed that this is the next step,” and then the Government have to explain why we cannot have it. There is also an opportunity for individual mayors to have something of value that relates to them and their region specifically. The key to that, Minister, is surely for it to be as straightforward and efficient as possible, rather than hoops and processes. As mayors, one of the things that we are discussing at the moment is taxi licensing. Just to give you the numbers, 49% of private hires operating in Greater Manchester are licensed by authorities outside of the 10 local authorities. We know, from Baroness Casey’s work about violence against women and girls, how that is a weakness in the system when it comes to the safety of young women. As mayors, we are looking to the council to help us to understand how we can do that more efficiently, but that may be something that affects only some urban metro mayors and not others. It is about how we can collectively ask, which is a really fast-track process, but then there will be individual conversations. Donna Jones: I really welcome the right to request. Following on from what Tracy just said about mayors and their unique geographical areas, in my patch, I—or whoever is successful next year—will have the largest island, aside from Ireland itself, of course, that we represent in part of England: the Isle of Wight. That piece of water creates a lot of problems for the Isle of Wight in terms of the supply chain and the skills market; things are a lot more expensive on the Isle of Wight. One of the things that I am really pleased about is that the Government are looking, through the Bill to establish Great British Railways, which is coming forward, to give mayors greater powers around the planning, performance, improvement and project management of rail networks in their areas. I argue that that should be extended to ferries, particularly for my area. The Isle of Wight has three main transporters: Wightlink and Red Funnel are the two car and foot passenger ferries, and Hovertravel is a hovercraft that runs until 6.30 pm every day. For a lot of people who live on the island, it is cost prohibitive to travel off it and back. If it is not included in Committee or picked up by you, Minister, I will be requesting the right to have a regulator power over the ferry companies that operate across the Solent, because of course they need Crown permission to operate across that piece of water. Following on from Tracy’s point about the uniqueness of certain geographical areas, I think that there are other good things, such as lane rental approval. I love the idea of that. Utility companies are given permission by the highway authority to dig up the road, and it goes on and on. That has an effect on transport, pollution and people’s travel to work time, and it has a knock-on effect on economic growth in the area, putting people off travelling to or from work or taking up jobs. We have to look at that. Giving mayors the ability to effectively tax or fine companies every day they go over the set period of two weeks, or however long it would be, is absolutely key. I could go on—there are some brilliant things in here—but I welcome what you are trying to achieve. Ben Houchen: The right to request is an interesting one. There is a bit of an academic argument about the Government wanting to standardise mayoral powers so they are same across the board, but then the right to request, if done correctly, would allow for differentiation. There is an issue about whether we are looking for a standard model or whether we want more of a patchwork. That is for members of the Committee to think about, but it is important: at the nth degree, if you have differentiation through the right to request, you could have areas with hugely different powers. That is going to create political problems, with people feeling like one area has more control than another. Administration from a central Government point of view is also difficult. Irrespective of devolution, there is always a clawback into central Government. That is probably right, rather than giving us carte blanche over everything, but it goes back to the strategic question about what you want to happen. The ultimate right to request—this is where you are going to have proper devolution that allows for earned autonomy over time—is the relationship between combined authorities, the Department and the Treasury. The key question that needs to be answered is how you get the combined authority to have an accountable officer within the organisation. Where I think combined authorities should get to is being treated as geographical Departments. We should be treated in the same way as a Department, bidding into Budgets and spending reviews, with our full, eclectic mix—from housing to transport and everything in between—and we should be accountabledirectly to the Treasury. The only thing holding that up is the internal civil service mechanism of having an accountable officer outside Whitehall. That sounds flippant, but it is a difficult thing for the civil service to deal with; once you deal with that, it negates the need for a right to request or anything else, because over the years organisations will mature with that direct relationship with the Treasury. It also gets into some key niggles that I know other mayors care about: “Why do you therefore need organisations like Homes England?”. If you get into the right to request, you do not need them. At the minute we are already doing half of what Homes England does. The Government have again gone into this halfway house of strategic partnerships, instead of taking the bold leap they should have taken: where you have mayors, you do not need Homes England, so make them the financially accountable body and ensure there are ties back in to central Government for oversight and value for money. Something more strategic could be done, but for me it goes back to the point that the Government did not want to address the strategic question of where devolution is going over the next five or 10 years.

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

  More

  Q Thank you, Mr Davies and Mr Butler, for setting out the gravity of the situation, the urgency and need to reform, and how the Local Audit Office is an important step. You both candidly made the point that it is necessary, but not sufficient. I am interested in what key building blocks are needed in addition. Obviously, we need to deal with the backlog—that is a given—but, alongside creating this institution, what are the top three things that the Committee should have in mind in order to deal with the problem we have today? Gareth Davies: The first would be skills and capacity. This sector has suffered from a loss of skilled expertise. Public audit is not interchangeable with company audit; it is a specialist field—you are auditing political institutions and reporting in the public interest. It is a different skillset, with some common areas with the rest of the auditing profession, and it attracts people who are interested in how public bodies become successful and how they achieve value for money, and so on. The pool of experts in that area has reduced sharply, so the system faces the challenge of building up that body of expertise and skills. It is not just the auditors. In the past, the auditors did a lot of the training, and people then went on to careers in local government, the rest of the public sector and other sectors. It was a breeding ground for the finance function of local authorities. Individual local authorities cannot typically sustain large training programmes of accountants on their own, so having a regime that supports the development of that skillset is vital. The other essential is getting hold of local government financial reporting and radically simplifying it, streamlining it in a way that can still be incorporated into the whole of Government accounts. That is always the caveat, and the reason for some of the complexity, but I do not believe that it is an impossible task. At the moment, the accounts are too easily dismissed as only of interest to the auditor because they are long, complex and quite difficult to follow in many places. There is no reason why we should put up with that. I know the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy and the wider profession have started work on what professionals think would represent a high-quality, meaningful financial statement that would clearly explain to taxpayers how we have used their resources. There is a danger that everyone focuses only on the council budget and ignores the accounts. That is dangerous, because the balance sheet matters as well as annual expenditure. Bill Butler: I can save quite a lot of time by saying that I agree with all of that. This may happen on a number of occasions, and we have not shared briefs. If you start with those who prepare the accounts, that needs to be revitalised. It is moribund, and people are looking at the scale of this task and finding it difficult. Some of this can be the support that Members and Ministers can bring to bear in terms of its importance, because—again, echoing Gareth—it is not considered to be interesting and it is too easily put aside, but that is not going to get any better. There is a real risk that it will get worse unless preparers are properly supported, and unless it is clear what revisions are possible to make the accounts simpler and deliverable. There are issues around how we encourage colleagues who work in the audit firms. That is a broader issue, because they are bound by the technical standards imposed across the firms by their relationship with the Financial Reporting Council. However, at the moment, that seems occasionally to act as a block to overcoming that risk. We need to be honest about the fact that that risk assessment is there and about what we can do around it. As Gareth said, we have been looking, with CIPFA, at reforming local government accounts for some considerable time. The clock has now ticked down, I think. One of the things I hope for is that the commitment shown to reform so far carries on across these broader areas, not of all of which are susceptible to legislation, but all of which would be, I hope, susceptible to encouragement. Gareth Davies: I would like to add one other thing, because an important bit of the full picture is governance arrangements in local authorities. I know that the Bill includes provisions on audit committees, but it is important that local authorities have robust audit committee-type arrangements. I am not prescriptive about exactly what form they should take, but meaningful engagement with internal and external audit and a connection to the governance of the authority as a whole through its political leadership are essential to good governance. That means having somewhere where difficult questions can be asked and answers gained. In quite a few of the disasters we have seen in local government finance in recent years, it is the governance arrangements that are primarily at fault in not picking up on excessive risk-taking and lack of understanding of the nature of the risk being taken on, and so on. It is another example of where a more robust audit system will not, on its own, solve everything—although it will definitely help, because it will bring those questions to the audit committee table—but the audit committee itself needs to be a functioning, robust and effective part of the governance of the authority. Bill Butler: If I may say so, these are not things that can wait for the Local Audit Office, which has a massive task to perform anyway. If we wait, these problems become intractable, and the organisation’s chances of succeeding, if it has any at all, are very low,. They are issues that need to be addressed now, while we have the opportunity and—I hope everybody agrees—a pressing need.

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

  More

  Q My first question is about your views on how the community right to buy provision in the Bill will help communities to better make use of and take ownership of community assets. Sacha Bedding: We welcome the community right to buy. It is a good step, a big step, and it is important. Communities often do not feel that they have those rights, because they do not, and when they see a treasured building or space go up for sale, and they have no opportunity to purchase or reclaim it—lots of these things are already ours—they feel disillusioned and hopeless. To have an avenue and pathway to change that will be important and helpful. It will need to be properly resourced; I think we should look again at a community ownership fund or a successor to it. Places that do not have capacity but have a willingness and desire should be supported in creating that. But it is a great opportunity for the people of this country.

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

  More

  Q Thank you, Ms Vaz. You have both campaigned to remove upward-only rent review clauses. Could you give us a sense of the negative impact that those clauses have had on your members, and, if we remove them, the impact that will have on both your members and the wider economy?

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

  More

  Q In the last panel, we got a sense of some of the challenges in the local government audit system. Clearly, multiple organisations currently oversee and regulate the audit sector. I am interested in your views on the impact that has had on the system more broadly. Aligned to that, the Government are introducing a set of local government audit reforms through the Bill. How do you see that impacting the private sector audit landscape? Mark Stocks: I have done this for a rather long time. I was an auditor with District Audit back in the day, then with the Audit Commission, and I am now with Grant Thornton. I have seen quite a lot of changes. The division of the Audit Commission duties has probably been the most impactful change, because it has created quite a confused landscape in terms of what the priorities are. The National Audit Office maintains responsibility for the code, which sets out the basis of our work, but our primary regulator has been the Financial Reporting Council, whose focus tends to be on the accounts. Public Sector Audit Appointments sets out the fees, and the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales decides whether we can act as a key account partner. That is quite difficult to cope with. Throughout my whole history as an local auditor, the accounts have been important, but it has been equally important that I spend my time on value for money. I have to look at the financial sustainability of authorities, as well as their governance and performance. That has changed, to be candid, over the last 10 years. The code changed, so we spent less time on value for money. Then it changed again, so we spent more time on value for money. However, our primary focus in the last five years has been on the accounts, which has led to a confused environment in terms of how local auditors have acted. In terms of what the Bill does, bringing in the Local Audit Office is crucial. Somebody needs to speak to the Government about the issues that auditors are seeing and what is actually happening out there, because some of the pressures on local government are quite immense. To be candid, I need somewhere to go and someone to speak to when I am concerned about what I am finding—someone who can say, “Let’s do this, or we’ll speak to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government.” The changes in the Bill are crucial for a functioning local audit in the future.

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

  More

  Q I want to talk a bit about the Bill, and I know you have publicly shown support for the direction of travel. I want to get your views on how important it is for us to be putting strategic authorities and our devolution framework on a statutory footing, in the way that we are for the first time, and what the impacts and implications are for the longevity and momentum that we are trying to create around devolution. Professor Denham: Thank you very much, Minister. It is absolutely crucial that the Bill underpins a really robust legal framework for devolution if it is to last—it cannot be for one Parliament. I will talk today about work that I have developed with Sir David Lidington—so that was a Labour Minister and a Conservative Minister coming together to say, “You need to have a consensus that lasts; otherwise, the Government changes.” This is where I would say we are at the moment: there are many good things in the Bill, but there are some real areas of weakness that could lead to it being undermined quite quickly. It depends on financial commitments to integrated settlements and long-term funding, which are not even mentioned in the Bill. The Bill creates no forum in which finance can be discussed between strategic authorities and central Government. One of the ways in which that could be mitigated, at least to some extent, is to put the mayoral council on a statutory basis. Mayor Brabin said earlier today, “Well, the mayoral council is where we talk about new powers for mayors.” The mayoral council is not in the Bill. If Ministers decided tomorrow that it was not going to meet any more, it would not. It has no terms of reference and no secretariat. The mayors have no legal right to put items on its agenda. I would give that as one example of where things could be embedded much more deeply. Parliament would have to come back and say, “We are going to abolish it”, in order to stop that meeting happening. If that sounds very radical in our system, every other European nation with a devolved system of government has a layer between the devolved level and central Government. I would suggest that it will be of benefit to Ministers, too. It is probably possible to manage relationships with a relatively small number of powerful mayors, but when there is one for every part of the country, there will be a cacophony of people demanding special treatment for their areas. The ability to corral that into a proper process would be an advantage. This has to be embedded. Prior to this, regional arrangements lasted for about 10 years before Government lost interest in them. If you want this to be here in 30 years’ time, doing the Bill, but adding to it, is crucial. Zo ë Billingham: I absolutely agree that it is essential that devolution through this Bill should be put on a statutory footing. I would highlight a few things that I think achieve that entrenchment, in addition to the legal aspect of that. First, the broadening and deepening is absolutely essential, with the right to request in combination with that, so that strategic authorities can decide what further powers they wish to request from Government. I agree with John that the integrated settlement is a really important entrenchment to give places the flexibility they need to demonstrate how different places make different choices about how they spend public money. That will be essential to showing how devolution can deliver differently according to the needs of different places. The moves towards votes at 16 and returning to a supplementary vote system for our mayors is absolutely essential to broaden the number of people who can take part in in local democracy. I would urge the Committee to consider going further in a few areas in the Bill, to build on that entrenchment from a statutory footing. Fiscal devolution has so far been completely omitted from the Bill. We at IPPR North have been looking at options, including a visitor levy to start with, to start the process of fiscal devolution that we think will really help to mature the model that we have today. Accountability is another key area. I know that you have talked in previous sessions today about LPACs, and we absolutely agree that we need to beef up the accountability of mayoral combined authorities—that is a two-way street, but I am sure we can get on to it later. Finally, in terms of public support, the flip side, if you will, of further empowering and rolling out devolution to the country is demonstrating to the public what devolution can deliver for them. The evidence shows that in places that have more powers and freedoms, voting turnout and engagement with local democracy go up, so we think it is important not just for the economy, but for democratic reform.

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

  More

  Q If I can pick up on the point about scrutiny and accountability, there are two parts to my question. Some evidence has been raised in these sessions about the connection between people and communities and the mayors who serve them. We have had a decade and a half of this experiment, so I am interested in your views on whether the claim of a democratic deficit—which I do not buy—is about something genuine in the experience we have seen. Secondly, we need to ensure strong scrutiny and accountability for any institution. We heard in the last session about some of the challenges with local government accountability and scrutiny. I am interested in your views on what we need to do to strengthen that and the provisions in the Bill to build on that. Zo ë Billingham: First, to your point on the democratic engagement of mayors, I do think, and I stand by the evidence that suggests this, that the more powers that mayors get, the more they are able to demonstrate to the public how they can tailor and do things differently in their places, according to what the public want. That is essential for the responsiveness of democracy; therefore, I also think that votes at 16 and the return to a supplementary vote are helpful additional aspects to this Bill, in terms of demonstrating that the Government are serious about broadening engagement with mayoral combined authorities. I would also pick up the proposal in the Bill for neighbour area committees. Something along those lines is essential. We know that, as currently drafted, the Bill is proposing full unitarisation of local authorities to a 500,000 population level, which is far larger than we see in local government in our European counterparts, for example. There is a question about how those unitaries engage with those communities, not on an ad hoc basis, but as an ongoing community conversation. I wonder whether, for instance, the neighbourhood area committees could be predominantly made up of community representatives and young people, so that they do not replicate the district level that the Bill proposes to abolish, but instead create an ongoing, democratic renewal at that local level. Secondly, to pick up your point on scrutiny, this is essential. If you speak to local leaders, mayors included, they are absolutely game for it. It is not something that central Government are imposing; it is an essential part of both enabling the further devolution of power and resources, and ensuring that the current model is not undermined because there is not enough scrutiny in place for what is already there. I totally support the proposal for a local public accounts committee—we have built on that idea ourselves at IPPR North, looking at mayoral accounts committees, which bring together overview and scrutiny, and local public accounts committees. We think that those committees need to represent place leadership; this is no longer narrow lines of inquiry about certain budgetary lines or solely about audit. It must be much broader. This is about place-based leadership, not only by the mayor and the mayoral cabinet, but by other public leaders locally who could be brought in front of such committees. We think that is a really important thing to go hand in hand with the future of devolution. Professor Denham: May I pick up and develop a couple of those points? There is no doubt that the Bill has a danger of an upwards movement of power: things are being moved from local authorities to strategic authorities and mayors have more autonomy. I understand why that is being done, but the Bill needs to build in a healthy counterpoint to that. I, too, would go beyond the neighbourhood governance proposal, which sounds a bit narrow and a bit prescriptive, as though the same model will work everywhere. Sir David and I proposed what we called community empowerment plans, and we proposed them even when we did not know there was going to be local government reorganisation. The strategic authorities should have a legal duty to set out how they will engage with local people across the whole range of activity—I should have declared an interest, in that I am the honorary president of the Hampshire Association of Local Councils—

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

  More

  Q I am interested in you giving us an assessment of the current system and the current state of the local audit regime. What your views are on the key benefits of us getting that system working right? Gareth Davies: I will start, and then Bill can come in with some facts and figures on the current state of play with the firm’s contracts. First, it is important to say that, before I did this job at the National Audit Office, I was an auditor in local government, so in the past I have had a foot in both camps. Audit in the public sector is a fundamental part of our democracy; in local government, it is a fundamental part of local democracy. Ensuring effective local accountability through independently audited council accounts, governance and value for money arrangements is a fundamental part of a healthy, functioning, tax-paying society. There is no doubt that we have run into some very serious problems with that in recent years, such as big backlogs of unaudited accounts. When those backlogs start to be cleared, at first we are seeing disclaimed audit opinions, which are essentially the auditors giving no assurance on those accounts. That is an unprecedented and unacceptable position to find ourselves in for a significant amount of public money. People have a right to expect audited accounts as a bare minimum when they pay their council tax and business rates, so this is a big system failure that needs fixing as quickly and robustly as possible. That is my starting point. The obvious question is: why has this happened? Unusually, we have a natural experiment in the UK on this. No other devolved country has the same problem as England, with a failure of local government accountability and audited accounts. Everybody has had a pandemic and changes in auditing standards and so on, but only one country has dismantled its audit machinery and expected it to function nonetheless. Those changes were not implemented in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, so we do not have to look far for the explanation. That is why I welcome the creation of the Local Audit Office in the Bill. It is the right measure to correct that problem. It is necessary, but it is not sufficient. We will want to explore what else will be necessary. The reason it is necessary is that it brings back together the essential functions that make for a robust audit regime. That includes letting the contracts with the firms to do the work, specifying that work; holding the firms to account for delivery on time and to the right quality standard; supporting the firms with technical advice and help with tricky issues, many of which we are seeing across local government; and robustly speaking with local government about where problems need to be fixed. It also includes working as a partner with local government to improve the quality of accounts, and make them less burdensome to local authorities and more useful to taxpayers and businesses. There is a big agenda beyond just the creation of the Local Audit Office—it is a necessary but not sufficient requirement. Bill Butler: I should also declare an interest, although mine is slightly more historic than Gareth’s. I spent 35 years in local government audit before I escaped. As you can see, Chair, I have been dragged back. I hope I am not going to sound too much like an echo, but I agree with everything that Gareth said. The effective audit of public bodies, which are funded by compulsory taxation and not by voluntary shareholders, is fundamental to proper democracy, governance and the financial credibility of English local government. The world looks down on the large number of disclaimed audit opinions. We should not underestimate what bankers in New York and the large accountancy firms are thinking. When they look at that, they cannot comprehend how we have ended up in this position. We therefore strongly welcome the commitment to reform, the changes in the Bill and the creation of the Local Audit Office. We particularly like the fact that it will reestablish a co-ordinated local audit system, and bring together responsibility for audit appointments, the code of practice, audit quality and the performance of auditors, because local government audit is in a very bad position. The only option available that anybody could think of to tackle the increasing backlog of delayed accounts was to disclaim opinions. It is really important that we do not replace a backlog with disclaimed opinions. Currently, there are 273 bodies that have received disclaimed opinions—51% of the bodies in England and Wales that we are responsible for appointing to. That is up to ’23-’24. Of those, 236 are for two or more years, and 53—that is 11%—are for four or more years. In total, that means there are 716 sets of accounts in English local government for which there is no assurance from the auditors. Gareth did not mention this, but it also affects his opinion on the whole of Government accounts, which he has had to disclaim owing to the disclaimers in local government, which affect and knock on to the credibility of Government across the country. We also think that there is a risk to the broader proposed local government reform because of the bad apple in the barrel. If you are constituting a new authority and you are incorporating an authority with a number of years of disclaimed opinions, sorting that out will get in the way of the effectiveness of those bodies at exactly the time when you want them to be focusing on their new responsibilities and opportunities. I will say the same thing as Gareth, but in a slightly different way: we cannot envisage a solution without the Local Audit Office, but it is not the solution. Bold action is required to cut through the Gordian knot that exists at present. The sector seems unlikely to resolve the underlying issues without, as Gareth has made clear, support both to those bodies preparing accounts and to those auditing the accounts.