Sam Carling MP: speeches

Speeches

• 5 Nov 2025 · Bronze-age Heritage: Cambridgeshire · Hansard source

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  Must Farm is just outside my constituency, in the constituency of the right hon. Member for North East Cambridgeshire (Steve Barclay), who I am very pleased to see here. It provides great support for people in Stanground in my area. Will my hon. Friend join me in welcoming its contribution to the broader area and exploring how we can encourage more people to visit it?

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

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  It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair today, Mr Dowd. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Mansfield (Steve Yemm) for securing this debate. HMOs can work for some people, such as students. With the average house price now more than 7.5 times the average salary, compared with the ’80s when it was three times, HMOs are increasingly becoming the default living arrangement for young professionals. After university or college, the last thing young people want is another year—or many years—sharing a space with others they do not know very well. It also does not mean that these people have significantly lower housing costs because, while cheaper than a full home, many of these places are still exorbitant. While HMOs have their place, their proliferation points to a bad housing market, one in which people are forced to share with strangers because other options are too expensive. As we know, by default, a family home can be converted to a small HMO without needing an application for planning permission, meaning that an awful lot of HMOs, which put an awful lot of pressure on local services, are being created without planning oversight. Peterborough city council’s article 4 directions mandate developers to apply for full permission in parts of Fletton, Woodston and Hampton in my constituency, which is welcome, but that varies by council and area, meaning that HMOs can still build up in one place. That inevitably strains public services; it means difficulties for waste collection, oversubscription to local GPs and—this is one of the most visible issues—not having anywhere to park. I join others today in calling for a simpler, stronger process for councils to issue article 4 directions. We need stronger regulation alongside a drive to build more appropriate housing, to increase supply and counter demand. We also need to have a real conversation about the housing mix that we are building. There are more and more single-person households now, who have nowhere to go other than the most expensive types of housing. Let us provide for them and slash the need for HMOs.

• 3 Nov 2025 · Huntingdon Train Attack · Hansard source

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  May I take this opportunity to put on the record my thanks to the first responders, the police and everyone on the train who put their lives at risk to protect others? So many people from the communities I represent in both Peterborough and Huntingdonshire have written to me today in absolute fear, shock and confusion at how this could have happened so close to home, particularly after we found out this morning that the charged individual is from my constituency. Constituents have also been worried and alarmed about reports over the last few hours that the offender may have been involved in further incidents in Peterborough and London. Will the Home Secretary join me in calling for community cohesion following this incident, and ensure that a full investigation takes place into those possible other offences?

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

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  Last month, I raised the case of my constituents in ex-Ministry of Defence housing in Wittering, who face huge backdated gas bills because their supplier will not take them off a Ministry of Defence contract. Things have escalated; TotalEnergies will not engage, and sends only stock replies, telling residents to fill in a transfer form. When they do, they are sent further debt collection notices, demanding that they cough up a sum of up to £8,000 or be disconnected within a week. Will the Leader of the House advise on how the House can hold such private energy companies to account for making our constituents’ lives a misery?

• 30 Oct 2025 · Property Service Charges · Hansard source

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  I am so pleased that we are taking the time today to debate property service charges in depth. Across my constituency, residents are drowning in soaring bills, deferred maintenance, opaque accounts and a carousel of management companies passing the buck. These charges do not exist in a vacuum; they sit alongside dodgy contracts, conflicts of interest and unadopted roads—a structural failure that leaves residents feeling trapped and powerless. Since being elected, I have had so many constituents come to me with leasehold horror stories. Of course, it is the service charge hikes are that are brought up most. In one case, a £4,600 charge in 2017 was due to increase to over £9,000 this year, in a property where many residents are retired and on a fixed income. That is not to mention the lack of transparency over what the charges were for. In this instance, residents pointed out that a £6,000 charge for staffing was levied during a time when there were no permanent on-site managers. I want to give credit where it is due. When I met the team at that management company for an explanation, they held their hands up and acknowledged that things needed to improve, and they have since followed up with residents. Other companies, however, are not quite as reflective. Having thought about this, I will not name the companies in my speech, because I do not want to blight the developments in question, but I must warn these companies that that is an option in the future if we do not see improvements. The managing agent of one development in my constituency did not respond positively to my letter setting out residents’ concerns. Indeed, it is displaying what I have come to call the four horsemen of the managing agent: hikes in service charges, inadequate maintenance, poor communication with residents and a lack of financial transparency. In a previous contribution in the House, I said that residents had informed me of a 150% increase in the service charge in two years. In its very blunt reply, the managing agent said that that was wrong and that the real increase was only a doubling in four years, which it considers reasonable. I do not, and nor do my affected constituents, who have pointed out that if we factor in various additional costs that used to be in the service charge but were then separated out, it is closer to the increase they cited. Maintenance work does not get done. When residents took me around their development this year, I saw for myself the shoddily constructed steps that create hazards, plus defective drainage, malfunctioning lighting and so much more. The responsibility for some of these issues is not clear, as the developer should be taking on some issues that arose shortly after development. The lack of clarity means that residents are dealing with onerous back-and-forths, whereby responsibility is forever passed on and it seems like maintenance issues will never be solved. Just today, a resident described to me how there was a rat infestation at one point, and a contractor was apparently paid £30,000 of residents’ money to resolve it. It did not. The residents’ association was later able to sort it out, but not before that huge sum of their money was frittered away. That brings me on to the poor communication. When highlighting the above problems, as well as concerns from residents about service charge breakdowns, I asked the managing agent what it would do to improve communication. I expected an answer that pushed back but at least agreed to look into the concerns I raised. I did not even get that. The response said it all: “We do not consider that communication requires improvement.” Then we come to the fourth horseman: a lack of financial transparency. I have been told by residents that they are contractually bound to an insurance policy with a £5,000 excess, making it completely unusable. A resident has shown me figures for one block that show a total insurance premium charged of over £60,000, of which just under £20,000—around 30%—was commission, in a confusing brokerage set-up, with much of that going to a company linked to the managing agent in quite clear ways, which smacks of a conflict of interest or worse. There are so many other examples of this. At another development in my constituency, accounts were provided late to residents for three of the last five years, and in the most recent two years, accounts have not been provided at all, despite much pushing from residents and leaseholders. It is not just leaseholders in flats who are affected by service charges. I have not yet discussed the fleecehold scandal sweeping up so many of my residents in the newly built developments of Hampton. Unadopted roads are rife in new developments, meaning that residents are paying twice for their local areas to be maintained: once in their council tax, and once in a separate service charge. I counted the number of roads that need to be adopted but are without a section 38 agreement—meaning there is a long way to go before they are adopted—in the Peterborough part of my constituency. There are 289 of them, and they are mostly housing roads. That is an unjust extra charge for thousands of residents in Hampton, Stanground, Orton and elsewhere because roads are not being adopted. Some proposals have been made on how we could tackle this problem. The Home Builders Federation, for example, has made useful suggestions about common adoptable standards and mandatory adoption by public authorities.

• 30 Oct 2025 · Property Service Charges · Hansard source

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  The hon. Lady highlights the problem of residents being charged late payment fees. I have a number of constituents who never received an original letter demanding payment, but who are then charged late payment fees despite not knowing a payment was due. Does she agree with me that the lack of communication is another critical issue that we must address?

• 30 Oct 2025 · Property Service Charges · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend makes a very useful point. I should have clarified that the figure I gave does not include the private roads that were not supposed to be adopted; it was purely the ones that are having this issue. As my hon. Friend says, councils are in a difficult financial situation. The precarious state of local government finances after 14 years of cuts and freezes certainly has not helped. We also have a lot of councils blaming developers and developers blaming councils, and there is an increasing divergence between what council planning departments are requiring to grant permission for development and what the highways departments of said councils are willing to adopt. That is particularly vexing when there is a two-tier system, with planning at one level and highways at another. I hope local government reorganisation will help with that, but it is happening in unitary authorities too, and we need to explore ways to deal with that. Ultimately, these are symptoms of a wider issue in how the system treats freeholders and leaseholders alike. The leasehold and commonhold reform Bill will be a vital step forward. I am pleased the Government are committed to ending leasehold for new developments. From my experience, that change cannot come soon enough. A key advantage of commonhold becoming the default tenure is that managing agents will be appointed by and responsible to leaseholders, rather than absentee corporate freeholders. Of course, the situation with managing agents still needs to be improved, and I am very supportive of mandatory regulation as a core step towards that, which I hope the Minister will comment on. This debate comes in a week of real progress: the Renters’ Rights Act 2025 has become law, finally giving tenants the fair treatment they deserve. Let’s keep up that progress, because nobody should have to pay through the nose for poor service, broken promises and a system that puts profit before residents.

• 30 Oct 2025 · Property Service Charges · Hansard source

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  I thank my hon. Friend for her work on this issue on the Treasury Committee. In my speech, I raised an insurance issue that my constituents have gone to the Financial Ombudsman Service about, but they are having problems about whether it is a FOS issue or a property ombudsman issue, and it is just not very clear. Would she join me in calling for more clarity?

• 30 Oct 2025 · Ageing and End-of-life Care · Hansard source

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  I am passionate about ensuring that older people in medical settings are not subjected to coercion over their medical decisions. I have recently been contacted by a whistleblower from the Jehovah’s Witnesses, who has expressed concern that some of the religious assistants who come in to support patients with their decisions are actually coercing them. Will he offer any thoughts, more broadly, on how we can ensure that people are not being subjected to coercion in older care settings?

• 28 Oct 2025 · English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill (Twelfth sitting) · Hansard source

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  When I was a council cabinet member, I had responsibility for allotments. We are talking about strategic authorities, and the hon. Lady is talking about powers for them. I can see a duty in the new clause; I cannot see how it would help councillors who have responsibility for allotments to improve the situation, and I fear that having a combined authority stick its nose in could create extra bureaucracy and undermine the hon. Lady’s aims.

• 27 Oct 2025 · Victims and Courts Bill · Hansard source

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  I really welcome this Government’s move to restrict the access of abusers to their children, in order to protect them. All too often, however, victims who are members of tightly knit, small religious groups are pressured to interact with their abuser when they get out of prison. Some religious leaders and organisations that I am aware of commonly tell victims that God has forgiven their abusers and they therefore need to do so as well. In some cases, I have seen those victims be ostracised or shunned if they refuse to engage. Does the Minister agree that the Government need to think about how we can seek to resolve that cultural problem in small religious groups?

• 23 Oct 2025 · English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill (Tenth sitting) · Hansard source

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  I ran a constitution review for Cambridge city council while I was a councillor there, and we spent a lot of time talking about the committee system versus the cabinet system. Does the hon. Member not agree that what she has just described is an example of really positive culture in a council, which can be had regardless of the governance system? Does she also agree that the key thing about the committee system is that it is slow, inefficient and leads to much worse scrutiny? Under a leader and cabinet system we have scrutiny committees, and we end up with much more detailed questioning of evidence in those than in a committee system.

• 23 Oct 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  I have been thinking about the cost of software licensing in the public sector, because North West Anglia NHS foundation trust is trying to move to an electronic patient record and one of the biggest ongoing costs of that is third-party payments for software. Other trusts are in the same position, as are many schools paying for pupil management software. Will the procurement Minister commit to looking into whether we can instead deliver some of that in-house and save significant sums?

• 22 Oct 2025 · Financial Inclusion · Hansard source

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  PwC analysis has shown that one in three adults in the UK struggle to access mainstream credit, largely due to poor or just thin credit files. That is causing a huge financial inclusion problem, especially for young people trying to get a mortgage. Will the Minister meet me to discuss ways we can improve that situation in collaboration with industry, for example through the reporting of rent payments to credit reference agencies?

• 22 Oct 2025 · Renters’ Rights Bill · Hansard source

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  I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Hastings and Rye (Helena Dollimore) about the delays to the Bill. I served on the Bill Committee more than a year ago now, and since then, so many tenants have experienced no-fault evictions. I encourage the Minister to move as quickly as possible to implement the Bill, so that I can tell my constituents how soon their assured shorthold tenancies will become rolling tenancies, and so they can benefit from that as quickly as possible.

• 21 Oct 2025 · English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill (Eighth sitting) · Hansard source

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  The hon. Gentleman moved an amendment specifically to rule out trade unions. The Bill does not rule them in, in any way. I am slightly concerned that he might be misleading us—inadvertently.

• 21 Oct 2025 · Rape Gangs: National Statutory Inquiry · Hansard source

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  I say to Opposition Members that their relentless politicisation of the issue is no doubt making it much harder to find a chair because it will be putting candidates off. As the inquiry gets under way, we must keep up progress on implementing the recommendations of the Jay IICSA inquiry. I raised concerns on Report during the Crime and Policing Bill that the Government’s proposals to implement mandatory reporting of child sexual abuse do not go quite as far as IICSA wanted, and those concerns were raised again in the other place last week by Baroness Grey-Thompson. Will the Minister ask her colleague Lord Hanson to meet me and Baroness Grey-Thompson to discuss how we can remedy that in a way that works for everyone and that protects children?

• 20 Oct 2025 · Post-16 Education and Skills Strategy · Hansard source

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  A constituent has written to me to highlight that they have successfully completed a level 3 BTEC diploma in musical theatre. To go on to university, they need an extended diploma—a third year—but their college will not let them do it because they have not achieved a grade 4 in GCSE maths, which their university course would not require anyway, so my constituent is being held back from a degree and a career as a result of not passing an exam in an unrelated subject. How can we break down these barriers so that young people are not held back in life?

• 16 Oct 2025 · English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill (Sixth sitting) · Hansard source

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  I have a brief, technical question. I might be mistaken in my reading of the provision, but I seek clarification about the arrangements for local transport plans. On Tuesday, the Committee agreed to clause 6, which amended the Levelling-up and Regeneration Act 2023 and the Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Act 2009 to introduce a standard of simple majority voting on combined authority boards. However, we included a grandfathering provision to allow some distinctive governance arrangements at existing authorities to continue. Schedule 9 makes a similar amendment to the Transport Act 2000, specifically for the adoption of local transport plans, as we have heard, but this amendment does not have the grandfathering provision. Thinking of my own combined authority in Cambridgeshire and Peterborough, where local transport plans require a two-thirds majority, I wonder whether the Bill could create legal ambiguity that could lead to judicial reviews or legal challenges. According to clause 6, setting out the general arrangements of boards, the existing arrangements stand once this Bill comes into force, but according to schedule 9 they are overturned. Will the Minister clarify the Government’s intention there? Then we can find a way to remove that ambiguity.

• 16 Oct 2025 · English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill (Sixth sitting) · Hansard source

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  The schedule contains comprehensive provisions around the designation of key route network roads, but I am conscious that we have not defined key route networks in statute. I am a little worried, therefore, about the potential for mayors to designate inappropriate roads as key route networks for political purposes. I was struck by the evidence the Committee received from Mill Road 4 People, a Cambridge-based campaign group I was familiar with when I was a councillor there, although I was not involved with them in any way. The group is concerned that mayors could use key route networks to undermine or remove bus gates or low-traffic neighbourhoods that councils have introduced, in an attempt to gain votes by whipping up tensions around the so-called war on motorists. That could seriously undermine councils’ ability to bring in such schemes, very much against the Government’s commitments to active travel. The group’s concerns are based on a local situation, as that is exactly what is likely to happen in Cambridge if the incumbent mayor gets his way over Mill Road, which is semi-pedestrianised through the use of a bus gate. Will the Minister consider introducing safeguards to prevent such issues by more clearly defining what criteria a road should meet to be eligible for designation as a key route network road? Should it perhaps have to be an A or B road, or else be subject to more detailed justification? On a related note, has the Minister considered requiring the designation of key roads to be for a specific purpose? On page 139, schedule 8 requires that for the mayor to designate a key route network road, the combined authority has to pass a resolution approving it. However, when the mayor comes to give directions, proposed new subsection 23A of the Levelling-up and Regeneration Act 2023 does not require the passing of a resolution, and the power is vested in the mayor alone. That could create a loophole whereby a mayor could get the combined authority to pass a resolution to designate a road for some reason, and a future mayor with different plans could use the designation for a completely different purpose without the combined authority board having to vote again. One option for solving that could be that when they create a designation, the mayor has to set out its purpose and broadly what powers they envisage exercising. I wonder if the Minister could consider whether that is an issue.

• 16 Oct 2025 · English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill (Fifth sitting) · Hansard source

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  On the subject of local partners, could the Minister confirm that the intention here is to include private sector organisations as local partners? I am keen to see mayors make the most of this power, being able to use it to ensure that conversations can take place with, for example, large local employers or anchor companies to create economic alignment, or developers and utility companies to deal with issues during development.

• 15 Oct 2025 · Educational Assessment System Reform · Hansard source

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  I wonder whether the Minister has the same experience as I do. When I speak to employers in North West Cambridgeshire, I hear time and again that young people do not have the skills for the workplace and that the education system has not left them with the right mindset and abilities. Is something going direly wrong with the metrics that the Conservatives have left us with when they talk about how we have had one of the best systems in the world?

• 15 Oct 2025 · Educational Assessment System Reform · Hansard source

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  Before the summer recess, I hosted a “Truth about SATs” parliamentary drop-in with educational reform group More Than a Score. It was a great event, with MPs from all sides of the House sitting down to take some mock SATs exams themselves. Lots of colleagues sat there quite relaxed, chatting to others and evidently fairly confident that these exams for 11-year-olds would not be too taxing. Then the worksheets arrived, and faces fell. That is why I hosted the event in the first place; I saw at first hand why over three quarters of parents think SATs harm children’s mental health, and why 93% of headteachers want the Government to review the entire system. The spelling, punctuation and grammar exams are stuffed to the brim with questions such as “What is a fronted adverbial?” and “Circle the modal verb”, and questions about subjunctives, determinants, inverted commas, prepositions and past progressives. We all use these grammatical structures automatically, and of course children need to be able to use them in reading and writing, but these are things that intelligent, hard-working adults up and down the country have trouble identifying, and understandably so. Do we really need such an intensive focus on labelling these devices instead of using them? No one is saying that we should not have high standards, nor is anyone saying that grammar is not important, but there are serious questions about whether that is the best way to teach it. In four—sometimes five—out of seven years of primary school, children are taking statutory exams. The results of those exams, as we have heard, are important to schools as they are used for accountability. Department for Education officials can use key stage 2 performance data when setting criteria for allocating additional funding, which leads to teaching to a test, focusing on a narrower curriculum with the hope that it leads to better scores for the kids, which schools—strapped for funding for years under the last Government—really need. There is a real danger that the exams will put kids off learning for life. Cramming a student’s head full of fronted adverbials and the like is not a recipe for a love of literature and language, funnily enough. This is a key concern of teachers and parents who lament that a focus on spelling, punctuation and grammar tests does nothing to encourage students to think creatively about reading and writing. We need to be clear about what exactly we are testing across the different stages of education. Are we focusing too much on detailed knowledge in some areas when we should be increasing our assessment of broader understanding and skills instead? We now have a Government willing to properly look at the shortcomings of curriculum and assessment, and I really look forward to the outcome of the review. The interim report talks ambitiously about empowering teachers to foster a love of learning. I hope to see more of that thinking in the final report. During my first year here I have had a lot of discussions around the importance of strengthening critical thinking skills earlier in the curriculum, as has been mentioned, particularly in this age we live in of online misinformation and the need to be able to tell truth from fiction from a much younger age than has perhaps been critical in the past. An ambitious and modern review would tackle these problems head on. Although the interim report gives a nod to critical thinking, I would like to see more of a focus there. To conclude, we have a real need to balance assessment, which is necessary to achieve high standards, alongside a curriculum that gives children the freedom to build a curious and inquisitive relationship with learning.

• 15 Oct 2025 · Educational Assessment System Reform · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend is giving a powerful account of the inadequacy of SATs. Does he agree that the fact that so many secondary schools retest their pupils when they arrive shows that they do not have trust in SATs either?

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

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  I have some more thrilling financial commentary, so I hope the Committee will forgive me. First, I welcome what the Minister has just said. Exactly this situation happened in Cambridgeshire and Peterborough, where our mayor went on medical leave for some time. His deputy, Councillor Anna Smith, who is a good friend of mine, ended up taking on the deputy mayoral role, so she had to drop hours at work and faced a significant loss of income. Our council took the decision to pay her as essentially a cabinet member, but it was not ideal. Clause 10 will resolve so many issues. I want to highlight a discrepancy in that, at present, there is usually no allowance for members who sit on the combined authority board. A lot of the time, it is the leader of the council who does so, and it is often considered to be part of their portfolio, but it is not always leaders who sit on the board. That can lead to people taking on a very significant commitment without any financial support, despite potentially having to reduce hours at work and the like, if the councillor in question has a job, as many do. That is not conducive to having a diverse range of elected representatives to do these jobs. Following local government reorganisation, if we have fewer leaders on boards and more holders of other portfolios and councillors, we may see this problem increase. I encourage the Minister to consider either altering the clause or making other provisions as the Bill progresses to allow combined authorities, if they wish, to pay an allowance to their board members for that role.