Paul Holmes MP: speeches

Speeches

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

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  As the hon. Lady knows from when we were on the BBC’s “Politics South” programme some weeks ago, I rarely agree with Liberal Democrats, but I suspect that she and I agree on this point. I know that she stands for her area and, as a former council leader, for the wider area, and that she knows a lot about the Isle of Wight. I did not know that she got married there, but I am sure it was a lovely wedding, because the Isle of Wight is a beautiful place steeped in history. She is absolutely right that while Hampshire and the Isle of Wight have been together geographically, they have also been together in the way organisations have worked, over hundreds of years. I see the Solent as the water motorway connecting the mainland to the Isle of Wight. We could not interact without having it there. “Hampshire and the Solent” is the wrong name for the proposed mayoralty, because it leaves out the distinct identity of a proud people on the Isle of Wight.

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

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  I agree. I have had many a night out in Brighton, and I know that it is a very vibrant city. If it is good enough for Brighton to be named within that county, I do not see why the population of an island in this United Kingdom should not be named as part of its mayoral authority. I say to the Minister, in the same spirit of co-operation in which I know she will respond, that if there is no movement in the decision on the name, that risks wider implications for the Bill. Many other areas will then start to think about why we went through the parliamentary boundary commissions’ changes to the names of our seats. That was a very difficult thing; people were not recognised. The Isle of Wight has a precedent for being treated differently. It has always received special dispensation in the boundary discussions that we have had before. It would therefore be perfectly sensible for the proud and great people of the Isle of Wight to be recognised and have their name in a proud county name, if this devolution goes forward.

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

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  The Minister should be very careful about attributing motives to myself that are not there. I am very supportive of the fact that Hampshire and the Solent and will have a mayor. Hopefully, it will be a Conservative mayor, as that will drive the economy going forward. I want to press the point that we can see how divisive this is in the fact that three different versions of local government reform are being proposed. Hampshire and the Isle of Wight were told, in this Government policy, that if they did not go ahead and embrace devolution, it would be forced on them in a way they may not like. That is not locally led; it is compulsion, is it not?

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

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  I will briefly elaborate on what my hon. Friend the shadow Minister has said about amendments 43 and 44. I do so on behalf of my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight East, who has been a tireless and fierce campaigner for his constituents, and not only at Prime Minister’s questions. I represent a Hampshire constituency whose southern parishes look out on the Isle of Wight. If I take a walk down Hill Head beach or somewhere in Hamble, I always see it. In Hampshire, the Isle of Wight is a constant. It is a constant presence on the coast of southern England, but it is also a vital part of our county. It has a proud set of people who have a booming economy that contributes so much to the county of Hampshire, and which is a major part of the county’s identity. The Minister has talked about wanting local views and localism to be at the heart of the devolution agenda. I believe her. We had a brief interaction earlier, and although we can disagree about whether that devolution has been forced or voluntary, I absolutely believe that the Minister intends to make sure that if devolution happens, the regions involved have an identity and the right to an economic injection that delivers for people locally. It would be very easy for the Government to accept amendments 43 and 44, because they would do nothing to change the mechanics or principles of the Bill. They would merely ensure that a region of very proud people is included within the description of the mayoralty that is proposed for Hampshire.

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

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  The Minister says that it is not the Government who are making sure that it happens. I accept that. However, having been in her position for only a short time—that is not her fault, as the fickle finger of fate has rested it on her shoulders—she may not know that the negotiation process that has taken place among the local authorities in Hampshire has not been smooth. There has been an overarching view that the county council, which has rushed towards accepting this devolution notwithstanding the impacts of the Government’s decision to push it forward, has not worked collaboratively. There is a wish for devolution, but in the minutiae it has been a very county council-dominated process. As my hon. Friend the Member for Broxbourne says, the reason that there has not been a huge uptake in response to the consultation is the flawed nature of the decision-making process. I ask the Minister not to rest on the consultation responses, because as my hon. Friend says, a number of people on the Isle of Wight simply did not bother to respond. It is not about the make-up of a geographical devolution settlement; it is about a name. I ask her to listen to the elected representatives on the Isle of Wight who serve in this House, who have asked for it, and to consider it again.

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

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  I stand corrected, thank you.

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

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  On a point of order, Sir John. Forgive me, I may be ignorant on this, but on the selection list I do not see amendment 361 in the running order. If you could give me some clarification, I would be very grateful.

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

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  My intervention will be very brief. I am slightly burnt by my experience on the Planning and Infrastructure Bill Committee, where the Minister constantly said that they would reflect, and we never heard back from them until after the Committee had finished. May I seek assurance from the Minister—she does not need to give an answer today—that, on the point of the immediacy of the vacation of the office, she will come back to us in writing to give us the steer of her reflections and what actions she will take in regard to these concerns, if any? Will she commit to doing that before the Committee rises?

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

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  I thank the hon. Lady for giving way at what I think was the end of her speech. I just wondered whether she or her party had done any analysis of the extra cost that her amendment would put on mayoral authorities. I feel that the Liberal Democrats in Committee are having their cake and eating it—they have said that they want absolute devolution to local people, but now they want accountability to this Parliament on how the devolved mayor spends their money. We have no extra or special democratic right to do that, rather than the mayors who are being proposed. Has she looked at the cost that her proposal might put on the mayors?

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

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  I am not sure that I can beat the excellent oratory of my hon. Friend the shadow Minister, but I want to add some context in my own style on why this clause is a bit of a sledgehammer to crack a nut. The hon. Member for Brighton Pavilion has adequately and expertly addressed why there may be need for overlap in different local situations. She is absolutely correct to say that there have been instances where that overlap has been dealt with in an orderly manner and has been sorted within the usual confines of the democratic mechanisms we currently have. All the way through the Bill, which I think has admirable aims, the Minister and the Government have said, “Let local people decide.” Now, local people presumably have elected those mayors or those MPs who now might want to be a mayor; I declare an interest here, as this clause will stop me running for the Hampshire and the Solent mayoralty. I will not cry in front of the Minister, but it will mean that my hon. Friends here would have to listen to some of my more mundane speeches for the next three or four years. Local people have elected their MPs and they should have the right to determine whether those MPs are the people they want to be the mayors. The hon. Member for Barnsley North (Dan Jarvis), served as a mayor from 2018 to 2022. At no point did anybody on the Labour side of the House say that he was not good enough to do both jobs at the same time. Ken Livingstone was a mayor and a Member of Parliament from 2000 to 2001. I do not think anybody who was on the Labour side of the House at the time—I grant that many of the Members on that side of the Committee Room were not in the House at the time—was saying that he could not do two jobs at the same time. This clause just seems very restrictive. If an election is going ahead and a city or region says, “Actually, we do not want you to be our mayor—we want you to remain an MP”, that person will not win the election. The Minister has said many times today that, on elections and democracy, local people should have their say. I find it strange that we seem to be taking quite a restrictive measure on who can and cannot stand in a democratic event, decided democratically by local people, for candidates who, presumably, are local too. I have some concern that this is overreach. I also think that MPs are generally sensible—I do not want to create breaking news here, but they are generally sensible and, as the Minister said in the context of mayors setting council tax precepts, they are also not immune to the moods and feelings of the local people that they serve. If a local MP wants to stand for election as mayor, they have the right to say that to their constituents. If they get a massive kickback from their constituents, they either will not win the mayoralty or they will not stand. Local MPs should have the right to make that decision. Local people in that constituency or that region should have the right to say that they do not want that person; or that they might want that person, and allow that person to stand down from Parliament at a time of their choosing, if they are allowed to stand for the mayoralty, and resist the cost of a sudden burst of by-elections to this House. Let local people decide. Let local politicians be local. If they are not wanted, they will not be voted in.

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

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  Yes. I thank the Minister for involuntarily giving way to me—Sir John, your rule as Chair is a very happy time for me. The Minister may now think I am being facetious, but I assure her that I am not; I have genuine agreements with her vision for devolution. On her response, however, to the hon. Member for Brighton Pavilion about someone not being able to fulfil two jobs to the best of their ability, can the same argument not be made for Members of this House who are elected while councillors? I am speaking particularly of the Liberal Democrats, but also of some within the Conservative party, such as my hon. Friend the Member for Broxbourne, who is sitting behind me. Does the Minister stand by her view that someone cannot do those two roles at the same time? Why is it acceptable for that role, or even for her role as a Minister while she is an MP, as my hon. Friend the Member for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner mentioned, but the roles of the mayoralty and the MP seem to be different?

• 13 Oct 2025 · Homelessness · Hansard source

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  I welcome the Minister to her place. Youth and overall homelessness have increased since the Government took office, and charities have been harmed by policies such as the national insurance rises imposed by the Chancellor. We welcome the additional money that the Government have allocated for tackling homelessness this winter, but it is an admission that they have failed in their pledge to reduce homelessness. The former Minister had a novel touch, and sent the figure the wrong way. I will ask this Minister the same question that I asked in the previous Session: does she accept that homelessness has risen under this Government, and will she commit to eliminating it by the end of this Parliament?

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

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  Q Good morning, everybody. I want to go back to something that was touched on by the previous panel. We are going through simultaneous restructuring of local government and setting up the strategic authorities, and in her questions the Minister has outlined that the 500,000-people target for LGR was never a hard target; it was a soft target. That is not my recollection of when local authorities were approached in quite a speedy way to make sure we went through the LGR. My question is for all three of you: has there been a change of emphasis on that target from the early conversations that you had with a Minister, albeit a previous one? Do you think there has been a change in Government emphasis on the size, and how has that added to the confusion and the challenges of setting up these strategic authorities as the Bill goes forward? Kevin Bentley: Yes, I certainly thought that was a hard target. Most colleagues thought it was a target to hit. It changed. It is important that we listen to people; lobbying was done around that and the Government listened to people. Those who do not change their mind never change anything, as Churchill would say, so it is important that the change took place, but it did cause confusion about what they meant. For me, evidence leads the way. When we went into this in Essex, I was very clear that the evidence would tell us the shape and size of unitary authorities, and we would not set the number of unitary authorities and then make the evidence fit. That is what we have done. We are certainly doing that in the business case, and I believe other colleagues have done the same thing. It did cause confusion, and there was a lot of head scratching in the system to see whether we could test whether it was below, on, or above 500,000. To me, rules are there for the guidance of wise people, and the evidence leads the way. Bev Craig: In my recollection, the Minister was always clear. Some of the questions arose with the conveying of that from colleagues in the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government. At times, the sector felt desperate for a literal prescription, because until that point that was the kind of relationship we had had with Government. It had been quite some time since the Government had come to us and said, “Hey, come and be creative in terms of how these needs reflect your place.” The 500,000 figure has helped people to understand that the programme of reform does not work if what is created is even more local authorities, each with 180,000 people. So we have taken on the guidance but it has become more clear as we move through the programme that this is indicative rather than prescriptive. I think the reality is about having sensible footprints, where services can be delivered at an economy of scale that helps services to perform well, can work with the strategic authority, and still speak to a sensible place that people can identify with. That is complicated; if it were easy, we would have done this before 1974. Matthew Hicks: The size of the new unitary models really does matter; it is critical. Half of the members of the CCN are unitary authorities, and we see the benefits that this has brought, including large recurring savings, which is a big consideration. It also puts in place more sustainable structures. Back in February, the CCN supported the guidance in the invitation letters; we saw this as a means of reorganisation, with the numbers and the scale being about right for a sustainable long-term future. I do think that some elements have been undermined by inconsistent messaging over recent months. The stated ambition for new unitary councils was that they would cover a population of about half a million or more. We saw similar issues coming up around social care and using existing council boundaries. There have been mixed messages around the building blocks of the new unitaries. That inconsistent and slightly unhelpful messaging has led to a situation that will probably make life harder for the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, because we are now seeing a significant increase in the number of business cases coming forward, and that will make it more difficult for MHCLG to scrutinise. If we look at Suffolk now, we are going to have one application for three unitaries of 250,000 each, which is really very small, with new boundaries. So I think the mixed messaging will create more work for MHCLG, because it is important that it looks at the detail and the data, and that its decision is based on evidence, not just politically driven.

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

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  In case we do not get to it this afternoon, Donna Jones, one of the witnesses, is a personal friend of mine.

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

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  Q I have a quick follow-up question, particularly to Councillor Hicks: would it be fair to say that the policy on the local government reorganisation is a soft target, certainly, but it was portrayed as a hard target to local authority leaders at the time? Matthew Hicks: We certainly felt in the beginning that Suffolk, with a population of 750,000, was right in the middle of the range and would be an ideal candidate for one unitary.

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

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  Q I am pleased that you have mentioned the GLA, Ms Riddell, because it relates to a question that I want to ask you both. Mr Fletcher, you are absolutely right to say that this, as well as local government reorganisation, was not in the governing party’s manifesto. I therefore think that it is right that we try to make the policy work as best we can through scrutiny mechanisms such as this Committee. In London, there are structural and spatial planning powers and business powers that are currently operable and invested in the GLA and the London mayoralty. For example, the GLA has a scrutinising mechanism and a housing role, and the mayor has business retention powers and spatial planning powers. We have seen housing delivery fall under the current administration in London, and we have seen recent announcements that London is essentially a no-go investment area for many relevant organisations. Given the—I would argue—perceived failure in policy delivery in London, what lessons can we learn when the Government are attempting to replicate a structure in London that is not working elsewhere? Ion Fletcher: In general terms, it is helpful that London has its London plan and its spatial development strategy. The London plan was also the first to acknowledge the important role of build-to-rent housing—housing developed and managed specifically for rental purposes—and was a pioneer in protecting logistics in industrial space, so it does have those positives. The other side of the coin is that the London plan, in the view of our members, has become too long and too repetitive of policies that already exist either at a national level or at a local borough level. One of our members recently did some analysis and worked out that you could consolidate or eliminate roughly half the policies in the London plan in the latest iteration, so there is definitely scope for simplification. The lesson I would draw is that the new strategic authority should be focusing on the strategic stuff rather than getting too much into the development control side of things, which ultimately adds uncertainty and cost to the planning process. Catriona Riddell: I totally agree. The national decision-making policies that will soon come forward will help to strip out a lot of what is in the London plan. The idea behind spatial development strategies—this new model—is that they will be very high-level, they will not be very long, and they certainly will not be the London plan model. There is still a difference in terms of governance and decision making in London, and there still will be after the Bill. The decision making for the spatial development strategy in London—the London plan—sits with the mayor. I think a two-thirds majority of the GLA is needed to overturn that, whereas under the strategic authorities it would be a majority vote in most cases. There is a difference with the mayors under the Bill, and other places will have less power. One of the challenges for London and many other parts of the country is that the planning system has been overburdened with a lot of red tape and regulation that sits not within planning, but within building control or other regulatory systems. That has been one of the big blockages for the market in London. There is no doubt that that has had a knock-on impact right across the board. Stripping out some of the regulation that does not sit within planning, and making planning simpler, will help. I think the London plan has changed things significantly; in its 25 years, it has shown that it has actually been able to deliver. I do not think that it is the London plan that is the problem; it is the delivery end of things, which the mayor is facing at the moment. That is where the challenge is.

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

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  Q You are about to see that even though there was a south coast derby between Southampton and Portsmouth, we still can talk very politely, Ms Vaz—it was very boring, ending 0-0. Welcome back, Mayor Brabin; I wanted to ask about some of the evidence we heard earlier from the District Councils’ Network. There was a concern that the legislation could undermine some of the traditional links between the public and their parish and town councils. I will ask for a brief answer, because I am aware that there are other Members who want to ask questions. For the two existing mayors, can you give an example of how you have managed to encapsulate the views of town and parish councils to help to guide you through your mayoral term, and whether there are any lessons that could be learned? Donna, have you started to think about how you will encapsulate that and make sure that people are listened to on a ground level politically? Tracy Brabin: We have not been subject to much of that larger reorganisation, but we are determined to listen to the voices of others, whether through mayor’s question time, going out to the public, where councillors and individuals can ask any question, or “Message the Mayor” on the BBC, where anybody can ring in and ask any question. That also includes working with our voluntary, community and social enterprise sector, whether that is on the mayor’s cost of living fund, or working with smaller organisations on the impact in their communities, towns and villages. I would hope there would be a consensus in West Yorkshire that people felt heard. I know for a lot of people there will be a sense that there is potentially a power grab and powers are going in the wrong direction. I absolutely believe that this is localism in its pure sense, because these people are elected by the public—275,000 people voted for a Labour mayor in West Yorkshire. You have that mandate. We have skin in the game. We know our communities, businesses, further education colleges, universities, innovators and entrepreneurs. We can definitely deliver for villages, towns and cities in our patch. Ben Houchen: The honest answer is that, with the development of combined authorities and regional mayors, and a lot of reorganisation going on at county council level, as well as lots of unitaries—Teesside was one of the first unitary areas, many years ago—there are a lot of people looking over their shoulders at what reorganisation might mean. I say this as a previous town councillor and a former unitary councillor: I am not hugely convinced of town and parish council involvement at a regional level. There is a more fundamental question that should be asked around the modern need for town and parish councils in their current form. That is obviously well above my pay grade, and I am sure you will be considering that at some point in the future. It is not something I personally foresee getting much traction or involvement at a combined authority level.

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

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  I have one more question, if I may. We will move on, because it is clear that there was no assessment of the spending. On 16 December 2024, the hon. Member for Oldham West, Chadderton and Royton (Jim McMahon) sent a letter to local authority leaders setting out a target of 500,000 people per local authority. On 3 June, he said that that was a set principle and that any local authority that wanted to go above or below it would need to set out a clear rationale. On 20 July, he said that he continued to be asked about the 500,000 target, indicating the concern and confusion among local government leaders. Do you think that the Government have behaved in the right way to ensure an efficient and streamlined consultation process for local government leaders in the country? Miatta Fahnbulleh: Councillor Craig summed it up perfectly: the 500,000 was an indication of the type of scale that we thought makes sense for the outcomes that we are trying to achieve. I go back to the need to deal with fragmentation, the alignment of services and, fundamentally, the impact for communities on the ground. Ultimately, though, there has to be some give within that. It has to be aligned with the existing institutions and with what local communities believe is the right geography to deliver the outcomes they want. I think that we have been consistent, and I understand that my predecessor was pretty consistent. People ask whether it is 10,000 or 1 million; the 500,000 gives an indication. But part of the devolution process is about empowering places to use their judgment to come up with the right outcomes, and that is what we are trying to do. We have given an indication but, ultimately, we want proposals to come forward from places that say, “We can achieve the scale in the geography that makes sense to deliver the outcomes for our communities.” In the end, that is what this is all about.

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

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  Q Minister, welcome to your role. I know that you have not been in it for very long, so well done for getting through today; it has been a joint effort, I think. Do you think that you have inherited a disjointed mess from your predecessors? On the Planning and Infrastructure Bill, and now this Bill, all parties on the Committee—the Liberals, the Greens and us Conservatives—had concerns, quite frankly, about the disjointed nature of some of the reforms brought forward by this Government. For example, it is arguable that the Government are giving power to regional mayors, but taking power away from planning committees. There has been a hard target of half a million in local government reform, but now that is a soft target, and planning is being devolved, but also centralised on an unprecedented scale by the Government in the Planning and Infrastructure Bill. I would like to angle in on two issues. I think it is fair to say that most witnesses today have said that there has been confusion and doubt about the benefits, and there have been some concerns about the disjointed nature of planning reforms. I do not think I have seen before a Government bring forward two major pieces of legislation that, maybe unintentionally, deliver completely different things. My first question is: has your Department done any analysis or assessments on how much will be saved in local government from the unitarisation and devolution measures that you are introducing? Miatta Fahnbulleh: First, no, I do not think I have inherited a disjointed mess from my predecessor. Candidly, we are having to fix 15 years of another Government making a complete mess of the local government landscape. To the extent that these are big reforms and that we are having to drive through some big changes simultaneously, that is a function of where the Conservative party—and the hon. Member and his colleagues—left us. On the specific question about local government reorganisation, yes, savings are part of this, but it is much bigger than that. Ultimately—I think this came out really clearly in all the evidence sessions—this is about delivering better services and better outcomes for communities. It is about dealing with the fact that the landscape of local government is currently fragmented. It is about dealing with the fact that we do not have sufficient alignment around different types of services that we need to bring together in order to deliver the outcomes for communities. It is about ensuring that we are aggregating our resources and driving through efficiencies. It is about all of that. Candidly, when you speak to communities, they do not know who in their local area is responsible for what, so we have to strengthen that sense of accountability. The reforms go back to what works in service of communities. That is driving us. We are very clear that where we are is not where we need to be. If you speak to communities, they are clear that the landscape does not serve them in the way that they need it to, and that is what these reforms are trying to drive though. Yes, it is about efficiency savings, but it is a much bigger agenda than that.

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

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  Hear, hear! Professor Denham: So I am familiar with town and parish councils, and there are some very good ones, including in Mr Holmes’s constituency. But they are not uniform everywhere within the area, so a single prescriptive approach is unlikely to work. There has also been, in the last 10 or 15 years, a transformation in our understanding of deliberative, participative engagement with local communities by many local authorities. We need both the strategic authorities and the unitary authorities to set out, in a document that should be challengeable, how they propose to do that. I think that would be useful. Secondly—I will embarrass her—Zoë has written the best policy paper on local public accounts committees, so I will not say any more about that, except that I agree with Gareth Davies in an earlier panel: the challenge here is not local council audit, but the whole of public spending across a mayoral area. I was delighted to see the new Secretary of State backing the concept of total place, which is something I was involved in as a Minister 15 years ago; but, if that is going to work, you cannot combine that with upwards accountability to departmental accounting officers. Local authority scrutiny has very good people, but it is not up to the job. You have to create a new local institution, the local public accounts committee and, picking up on what Mayor Houchen said earlier, make the chief executive within the area the local accounting officer. So you have a complete audit model at local level that is not then channelled upwards through departmental accounting officers. I think that is what we need to work towards. Those two things would not only empower local people, but ensure that you have local scrutiny of what is being spent and what is being done with their money.

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

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  I thought you might say that—thank you. Donna Jones: I have represented my two counties, with 2.2 million people, for four and a bit years now. It is tough, because I have two large geographical counties; it would take me three and a half hours to travel from north to south of my patch, and I know colleagues have the same issue. If you are doing your job well and you are delivering, the press—the media, radio and TV—is your best friend. The power of being able to work with the press to get out the good news of what you are doing is very impactful. For mayors who have police under them, if the police are delivering and helping, that is another way of getting messaging out there. On parish and town councils, I think that in my area, the rub will come with local government reorganisation, which thankfully is a year or two behind devolution—or planned to be one year behind it. I am trying to very clearly separate the two: this is about spending and more power to our elbow in Hampshire and the Solent, and that is about how we save money through local government reorganisation. If I was still a unitary authority leader, facing the prospect of moving from 15 councils in my area to perhaps four or five, I would be consulting on parish and town councils, if we did not have them in the area that I represented. When you have four very large unitary authorities across a county such as Hampshire, which has 1.8 million people, the nucleus of your council becomes much further away from the village or town that you live in. Therefore, from a democratic perspective, getting things at that lower level to give real buy-in will be key.

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

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  Q Thank you, Minister. On the point about 14 years of the last Government, the situation that was left by them was that planning committees, elected by local people, were still making decisions on behalf of the people who elected them. That is questionable under both aspects of the major legislation going forward. Can I just drill down again, as you have not answered the question: has your Department done any analysis on estimated savings from the unitarisation of local authorities across England, and the devolution measures that you have put forward to the House today? Miatta Fahnbulleh: There is a big evidence base that sits behind the proposals, and an impact assessment that sits alongside this piece of legislation. Ultimately, we have taken an approach of asking places to come forward with proposals. That is the right approach because, in the end, it is about places and communities. A locality must make the decision about what works for their communities. It is quite hard to have a full and comprehensive assessment until you have that set of proposals. It is a function of the approach that we have taken, but I do not think a single Committee member would say that we should have just imposed boundaries across the country rather than go to communities and say, “What is the boundary that makes sense for you that will deliver the outcomes that we need for your communities?”

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

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  Q Thank you, Minister. The Government’s stated aim is to unitarise every local authority in England, so I would have thought there would be some indication of the savings for the Government, because there is a set level for the number of layers of government across England—

• 11 Sept 2025 · UK Ambassador to the US: Appointment Process · Hansard source

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  I associate myself with the Minister’s words about 9/11 and the untimely and tragic death of Charlie Kirk. Yesterday, it was reported that in 2008 Lord Mandelson emailed Epstein and said that his conviction in the United States “could not happen in Britain”, and encouraged him to go for early release. The whole House can see that the Prime Minister has an issue when it comes to judgment, acting only when he is pushed to by events in this House. Will there be an investigation of Lord Mandelson’s meetings while he was ambassador, to see if there was any conflict with his current business interests? Will the Government remove the Whip from him in the House of Lords, yes or no? And will Lord Mandelson be entitled to severance pay after this sacking?

• 11 Sept 2025 · UK Ambassador to the US: Appointment Process · Hansard source

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  On a point of order, Mr Speaker. This relates to the issue we have been discussing, but is about the House procedures. What I took from the Minister’s answer was that Lord Mandelson, a Member of the House of Lords, had not given a full account of his past actions while going through vetting processes. What disciplinary mechanisms can be used by the Lords to make him accountable for that, if true?