Naushabah Khan MP: speeches

Speeches

• 30 Jun 2026 · High Streets · Hansard source

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  The Minister is making a powerful point about community partnerships and how we work together. Does she agree that involving the community in decisions about the future of the high street, as we are doing in Gillingham, is really important? It will secure the future of high streets.

• 3 Feb 2026 · Town and City Centre Safety · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure, Mr Dowd, to speak under your chairship. Our town centres are the heart of our communities. They give our towns identity and define how we interact with where we live. However, it is that very interaction that means people also need to feel safe, secure and welcome in town centres. That is certainly true in my constituency and in my home town of Gillingham, where the high street has become a visible sign of decline. Unfortunately, we are plagued by antisocial behaviour, graffiti, drug activity and knife crime. Our brilliant local police officers—Marcus, Matt and Issy—do a fantastic job in visibly patrolling our town centre, which shows the difference that community policing can make, but the fact remains that Gillingham town centre is in the top national decile for crime and residents just do not feel safe. That did not just happen overnight. It comes after chronic underinvestment by the former Conservative council and the damaging impacts of austerity under the former Government, which left Gillingham forgotten. My town centre is a reflection of how reduced civic investment has changed the character and feel of town centres. Despite that, I have hope for the future, because there are opportunities for change. The announcement of the Pride in Place scheme by the Government is a significant step in the right direction. Additionally, in partnership with Medway Council I have established a taskforce that adopts a multi-agency approach, working with the police, local councillors and other stakeholders to address the challenges that we face. Off the back of that work, we have launched the Love Gillingham initiative, convening a community panel of residents, stakeholders and businesses who have the same passion and vision for their town centre. I would argue such a holistic community-centred approach, which is also tough on crime and tough on the causes of crime, is needed, alongside national Government interventions, to truly ensure that our town centres across the country are safer and more vibrant.

• 17 Dec 2025 · Local Government Finance · Hansard source

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  After 14 years, the Tories should be ashamed of their legacy in local government. I know that my council, Medway, will welcome the Minister’s announcement about linking deprivation to funding, but we still face other challenges. Will she set out what the changes mean for my local area, and will she agree to come to Medway to meet us and discuss how we can take on some of those other issues?

• 2 Dec 2025 · Homelessness: Funding · Hansard source

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  It is an honour to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Vickers. Before coming to this place, I worked on the frontline of homelessness policy at the charity St Mungo’s and also in the housing industry for over 15 years, as well as being cabinet member for housing at Medway council. Those experiences taught me how quickly people can fall into crisis when systems fail, and how powerful the right interventions can be when they are properly funded and sustained. It also highlighted how complex the homelessness landscape is, and how important it is that we have an integrated Housing First approach, driven by evidence. Under the Tories, we saw rough sleeping more than double between 2010 and its peak, while local authorities faced a significant real terms reduction in core spending power—the very budgets that funded homelessness prevention. As a result, the system has become crisis-led, reactive and structurally incapable of meeting demand. Most strikingly, the Everyone In scheme demonstrated what is possible when homelessness is treated with the urgency it deserves, with over 37,000 people brought in off the streets overnight. It also highlighted the clear truth that rough sleeping is not an unsolvable issue, but a resource one. When we talk about homelessness, we are not only talking about those who are rough sleeping. We are also talking about those who are sofa surfing, hidden homelessness, and thousands of families who are placed in temporary accommodation, often miles from their schools, support networks and places of work. For example, many London councils are placing people in my constituency, driving up prices locally but also putting a real pressure on an already overstretched local authority. The scale of this crisis has got to the point where temporary accommodation has become a parallel housing system in its own right. Unfortunately it is no longer a safety net. Instead it is a symptom of a system under acute strain, and represents one of the clearest arguments for long-term, sustainable funding for homelessness prevention. The Government’s commitment to significantly expand the supply of genuinely affordable and social homes will help to ease the relentless pressure on temporary accommodation, as more families can access stable, long-term housing, rather than being trapped in the cycle of emergency placements. However, we must be honest about these structural issues and we cannot shy away from addressing them at their root. I therefore urge the Minister, whose work I really respect in this area, to look closely at the local housing allowance and ensure it is set at a level that reflects real rental markets. It will be one of the most effective levers we have to preventing homelessness at scale, and it must be a part of any credible long-term strategy. Finally, our approach to ending homelessness has been discussed for many years. The solutions that can work are ready and available. Now is the time for action.

• 4 Nov 2025 · Houses in Multiple Occupation: Planning Consent · Hansard source

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  It is an honour to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Dowd, and I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Mansfield (Steve Yemm) for securing this debate. In my constituency, the rise of HMOs has been nothing short of dramatic. In particular, streets in Gillingham that were once lined with family homes are now dominated by houses in multiple occupancy, which have often been converted at speed and without proper oversight. Permitted development rights have enabled this trend, coupled with relatively low-cost housing and a limited licensing regime. In fact, my town was rather scrupulously promoted by one website as being among “the four hottest HMO investment areas.” I understand that behind each of those conversions lies a simple market logic. However, I also fear a quiet erosion of the social balance, which will change the shape of our communities. Like other Members, I do not oppose in principle the existence of shared housing, or HMOs—we need them. The demand for HMOs exists among students, key workers and professionals, who are often priced out of traditional tenures. However, the problem is that when such conversions happen en masse in one area, and when the planning system is unable to manage that pace or even to track the number of HMOs, the cumulative impact is the fury that we all see at our surgeries and in our inboxes. Members will be aware that the root of this issue is structural. Conversions can take place under permitted development rights and therefore they can bypass planning consent altogether. Once councils such as mine, Medway council, have a mountain of evidence to support them, they can issue an article 4 direction, a licensing scheme and supplementary planning documents. However, by that time half the street has already been converted. We all know that saturating an area with one housing tenure type is never a good idea; it can create not only social challenges, but problems in the local housing market. That is why now is the time for a strategic approach. We must empower our councils to act.

• 23 Oct 2025 · Business of the House · Hansard source

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  This week, Reform-led Kent county council reneged on the £500,000 agreement it made with my local authority, Medway council, to maintain operations at key tourism and investment organisations, demanding a 100% increase in the contribution from Medway. Does the Leader of the House agree that competent leadership in local government is vital and that Reform is clearly not able to govern or deliver for residents?