Vikki Slade MP: speeches 2025

Speeches

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

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  I completely agree with my hon. Friend—we have worked so hard together on this. I understand the situation with the finances, which is why new clause 43 is designed to impose a duty on local authorities to provide support to smaller organisations, some of which are brand new and will not exist until everyone is on this rush to provide them. I would like to press new clause 43 to a vote later, but on new clause 5, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion. Clause , by leave, withdrawn. New Clause 6 Councillors: proportional representation vote system “(1) The Secretary of State may by regulations introduce a proportional representation vote system in elections of local authority councillors. (2) The regulations in subsection (1) are subject to the affirmative procedure.”— (Manuela Perteghella.) This new clause would allow the Secretary of State to introduce a proportional representation voting system for local authority councillors. Brought up, and read the First time.

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

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  I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time. I will speak on behalf of my hon. Friend the Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Tom Gordon). I am sure that in doing so I will also speak on behalf of other Members, in areas such as Cornwall and Yorkshire—my hon. Friend the Member for North Cornwall (Ben Maguire) in particular, but I suspect there may be others, even in this room, who support the intent of the new clause. In short, the new clause would push devolution a step further.

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

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  I refer the Minister to the fact that I gave Cornwall as an example of a place where people may want to set up a regional governance body. The new clause was tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Tom Gordon), initially in reference to Yorkshire, which has a number of mayoral authorities that want to work together. The people of Yorkshire feel that they have an identity as Yorkshire, and they want a regional assembly. If the Minister would like me to withdraw my comment about the fact that that may work for Cornwall, she should feel free to ask, but I know for a fact that my hon. Friend the Member for North Cornwall (Ben Maguire) believes that the new clause would benefit him in Cornwall, so I will not withdraw it. It is important to give people the opportunity to have something that they feel works for them. Question put, That the clause be read a Second time.

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

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  Allotments also offer an opportunity for intergenerational activity. I wonder whether the hon. Member for Broxbourne would like to spend some time at an allotment, because it does not look like something he would like to do.

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

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  We will not push new clause 41 to a Division, but my hon. Friend the Member for Bath may wish to table it again on Report. New Clause 42 Power of mayors to convene meetings with local public service providers and government “(1) After section 17B of LURA 2023 (inserted by section 21 of this Act) insert— ‘17C Mayoral duty to convene meetings with local public service providers and government (1) The mayor for the area of a CCA must convene regular meetings with— (a) principal local authorities within their area, (b) public service providers in their area, and (c) town and parish councils within their area. (2) Meeting under subsection (1) must occur at least every 12 months.’ (2) After section 103B of LDEDCA 2009 (inserted by section 21 of this Act) insert— ‘103C Mayoral duty to convene meetings with local public service providers and government (1) The mayor for the area of a combined authority must convene regular meetings with— (a) principal local authorities within their area, (b) public service providers in their area, and (c) town and parish councils within their area. (2) Meeting under subsection (1) must occur at least every 12 months.’ (3) After section 40B of GLAA 1999 (inserted by section 21 of this Act) insert— ‘40C Mayoral duty to convene meetings with local public service providers and government (1) The Mayor must convene regular meetings with— (a) principal local authorities within their area, (b) public service providers in their area, and (c) town and parish councils within their area. (2) Meeting under subsection (1) must occur at least every 12 months.’”— (Manuela Perteghella.) This amendment would require mayors of combined authorities, mayors of CCAs, and the Mayor of London to regularly convene meetings with local government actors within their area. Brought up, and read the First time. Question put, That the clause be read a Second time.

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

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  On the basis that we now have it on record that new burdens funding has the potential to apply in this case, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion. Clause, by leave, withdrawn. New Clause 5 Resource and support for local authority implementation of the Act “(1) The Secretary of State has a duty to ensure that relevant authorities are provided with the resources and support necessary in order to carry out any functions conferred on, or required of, them by virtue of this Act. (2) Any resources and support provided by the Secretary of State must be sufficient to ensure that there is no delay to the holding of any future local elections resulting from the implementation of, or delay to the implementation of, this Act.” —(Vikki Slade.) This new clause would ensure local authorities are provided with the resources and support they need to deliver the content of this legislation with specific regard to preventing any further delays to future local elections. Brought up, and read the First time.

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

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  Would the hon. Member like to consider why it is that the Eastleigh side of his constituency keeps on voting Liberal Democrats in year after year, to make it almost a one-party state?

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

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  I welcome that intervention. During covid, a lovely, very elderly Conservative lady on Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole council decided to take her laptop into the toilet with her. I think we all have such stories to tell. There are huge merits in online training and training in person. We talked previously about audit training. There is compulsory training for our quasi-legal systems, including licensing and planning, but what about scrutiny, audit and even, “How on earth does a council work? How do I behave? What is the code of conduct?” Training on all those things is not currently required. It is not unreasonable to ask that when somebody takes on a responsibility—particularly when they receive an allowance so to do—they understand what is required of them. There should be a minimum training standard, across the board, but that is currently absent. Training is very variable from place to place. My simple request is for the Government to agree to the new clause and produce guidance that allows local authorities to look at the relevant content.

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

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  I thank the hon. Gentleman for another fabulous contribution. I thought he was going to criticise my love of town and parish councils for a moment, but he did not. I have made it clear that I would rather see the Government bring this funding back, but the new clause would introduce a duty to provide professional planning support, because we recognise the chances of it not coming back.

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

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  Can the hon. Member—not my hon. Friend anymore—explain to me why there is not a link? Proportional representation does not remove the link. It just allows people to have a proportional way of voting for somebody. We are not removing the link to a ward, division or constituency.

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

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  I would like to thank the hon. Member for his intervention, but I am not sure I should—I did not expect that coming from the Opposition Benches. I am glad that the Conservatives do not want to see elections delayed either. I hope that the Government will not delay any further elections, particularly in places that experienced a delay this year. The purpose of this new clause is to guarantee that elections are not delayed because councils are overstretched and under-resourced while trying to do neighbourhood plans at the same time. We do not believe that elections should be postponed because the Government have not given councils the means to do their job. On new clause 43, I am sure that every member of this Committee has heard from their town and parish councils—because they have not yet been mentioned this afternoon—and from communities that do not have town or parish councils yet but may wish to, that the ability to fund a neighbourhood plan relies heavily on grant money. One of the first neighbourhood plans was set up in my constituency—in fact, in my ward of Broadstone—where we set up a neighbourhood forum that allowed us to create a neighbourhood plan. I believe there was £10,000. We would not have been able to secure a neighbourhood plan in any other way because we did not have a town council at the time, although we will have one by next year. Without a town council, where does the money come from to do that? Even with a town or parish council, £10,000 would be a significant proportion of a precept, particularly for some of the small councils. It does not seem like a very fair thing to do to local authorities.

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

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  It is not a requirement of all local authorities to be a member of the Local Government Association. I speak as a vice-president and former board member of the Local Government Association. The new clause does not dictate what the training should be; it dictates that there should be a requirement for training. On that basis, I would like to push it to a vote. Question put , That the clause be read a Second time.

• 28 Oct 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  T7. On Saturday, I joined CAFOD and my constituents Karl, Harry and Jo on a deadlift challenge. We—and yes, Mr Speaker, that includes me—collectively lifted more than 100 tonnes, the equivalent of five aid planes to Gaza. CAFOD also works in the west bank, where Palestinians are being treated as second-class citizens living under military, not civil, law. What diplomatic actions is the Department taking to ensure an end to violence against Palestinians and to improve their rights while a two-state solution is negotiated?

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

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  My resistance is because I wonder how long it is likely to be before the different stages of the Bill go through. What assurance do we have that the new clause does not disappear, in the same way as other things have disappeared on the journey so far? That puts me in a difficult position, because this issue is hugely important. Allowing the Government time and then seeing the new clause disappear would not give us the chance to have anything on the record. It is because enough organisations feel that they want to have it on the record that we have pushed it. I know that the Minister wants me not to push the new clause, but I need to for the benefit of all those organisations that have worked so hard on it and that want to see it go as far as it possibly can.

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

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  I beg to move amendment 16, in clause 62, page 65, line 17, leave out from “acting” to end, and insert “who— (a) are wholly independent of the Local Audit Office, and (b) possess appropriate expertise. (2) The Secretary of State must approve any appointment made for the purposes of subsection (2), and may only do so when they are satisfied that the person to be appointed satisfies the criteria specified in that subsection.”. This amendment makes provision about the independence of persons appointed to scrutinise local authority audits. This is a very small amendment that replaces “acting independently of the Office” with “who are wholly independent of the Local Audit Office, and…possess appropriate experience.” Small words can make a big difference. There is a difference between acting independently and truly being independent—I am sure that we have all been subject to suggestions that we are not really independent. We often rework our institutions retrospectively, and this is a great opportunity, at the beginning of a new organisation, to get the language spot on and set the Local Audit Office up with the highest chance of successfully fulfilling its functions, particularly as there has been so much dysfunction within the very local audit offices up until now. Without this small amendment, we run the risk of certain members of the public and organisations challenging the true independence of the organisations, because often people will be double-hatting—acting in one space and then moving back to another, saying, “No, no. It’s okay, I’m independent”. Let us address that by writing this amendment into the legislation. It is right that the Secretary of State should approve appointments made under the terms proposed in the amendment because that would create distance from the Local Audit Office and the Government, and if we are to treat this process with the importance it deserves, the Secretary of State should be required to retain some of these things. This is a small amendment that would make a big difference. I hope the Government will approach the amendment in the spirit in which it has been tabled, and will consider either issuing guidance or changing the Bill in these very small ways.

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

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  I believe the public would expect it to be very clear that someone was not “acting independently”, but were in fact independent, so I will push the amendment to a vote. Question put , That the amendment be made.

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

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  Thank you, Sir John; I was feeling slightly confused. There is an irony about the issues in the Bill being followed by a reassurance that we should not worry, because the Government will issue guidance after Royal Assent. This is the point where we have the ability to improve the Bill, but we are not debating the areas where we want to do that—on things like requiring people to be properly trained—or to understand a bit more about the shape of these organisations. That is disappointing. I want to talk specifically to new clause 45, on local public accounts committees. On Second Reading, the then Secretary of State showed a lot of support for the introduction of local public accounts committees. We have already established—indeed, the Minister just said—that all strategic authorities will be held to the same high standards, as they should be. But we believe that that should apply across the public sector and to all those who hold public sector money and contracts. New clause 45 would make provision for new local public accounts committees to be formed within one year of the legislation being passed. These LPACs would be at mayoral strategic authority scale to ensure scrutiny and accountability of the mayor, but also scrutiny across the whole of local public services. Given the mayor’s convening power across all those areas, that feels like the right space for them. To convince the Minister of the necessity of LPACs, I direct her towards an excellent report by the Institute of Public Policy Research entitled “Accountability matters: Securing the future of devolution”. In it, the authors summarise the case well: “The system of mayoral accountability currently in existence is complex and broad, but yet also manages to be insufficient to keep up with the developing power of mayoral authorities.” Therefore, there is a clear need to ensure that as the Bill broadens the range of functions to be held, a suitable accountability system is built to keep powers in check. The local accounts committee is very much about the financial lens, but we also want to talk about accountability—justifying why money has been spent in a certain way and why choices have been made. The Public Accounts Committee in Parliament is held in high esteem not only in Parliament but out in the real world, where its reports are considered to be almost a go-to space for real scrutiny. I accept that there was talk on Second Reading about a single local public accounts committee possibly following, that is still going to be very remote. The south-west of England, for example, will have two or three strategic mayors, which is very different from Greater London or Greater Manchester. If we have a single local public accounts committee trying to talk about how things work in, say, Manchester, that will not mean very much to local people—it will not mean much more to them than the PAC here does. We have an opportunity to scale things down to a local level. Having led a local authority—as several members of the Committee have—I regularly witnessed the frustration of the public and council members when other organisations were not democratically accountable. The health authority is the perfect example, and I can see lots of raised eyebrows in the Committee Room. As a local government leader, I tried to sit in integrated care board meetings to bang the drum for local government, but people were not interested. However, it is local members who then knock on doors and get grief about the problems in the health service, the police service, the Prison Service or housing associations—all the organisations that people have experiences with. But it is local authorities they then turn to when they want someone to blame. Council members have a unique opportunity to ask the questions that no one else can, and it would be a huge missed opportunity—in setting up a whole new regime, with strategic authorities and the Local Audit Office—if we did not put an LPAC-shaped piece of the puzzle, as a holding space, into the regime. We are not asking for it to be set up now—we recognise that there is a lot going on—but for a commitment to put it into the system going forward, so that these organisations know that it is coming and can start to prepare for what it means. This is a perfect opportunity to do that. I will end with a quote from the Department’s White Paper on devolution, which set out plans to “improve external scrutiny of value for money on local public spending, including exploring a Local Public Accounts Committee model.” So it was there in the White Paper; there were quite a lot of things in it that did not make it into the Bill, and we would like to see this one dragged through.

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

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  The Minister talks about existing compulsory purchase rights for local authorities, but that is very different from communities wishing to list assets of community value and then coming together to go through the process of purchasing them. If the Minister wants to say, “Well, this isn’t needed because we already have that,” why is the Bill even bothering with assets of community value or giving communities the right to buy? This provision is designed to put the power in the hands of the community. We know that most of the district councils will not exist anymore, and the strategic authorities will not be interested in a little block of garages or piece of land. That is why the new clause is about the assets being in the hands of the community.

• 22 Oct 2025 · Heathrow: National Airports Review · Hansard source

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  Can the Secretary of State update the House with a bit more detail on the progress of airspace modernisation in relation to noise? Residents in my constituency who are on the flightpath for Bournemouth airport have no night-time restrictions and are seeing massive increases. In places such as Dorset, people are being disturbed in their homes and in their sleep. If regional airports will not be included, can the Secretary of State explain when we can get something further on them?

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

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  Amendments 21 to 23 relate to the integration of police and crime commissioners into the strategic mayoral system. They are quite straightforward, requiring the Secretary of State to make regulations and thereby ensure more parliamentary oversight of the inclusion of the police and crime commissioners, given that this is such a fundamental change in so many areas. I am upset that established authorities in several areas have already taken on those roles, but many of the strategic mayoral authorities are brand-new organisations that will potentially be taking on functions way beyond their scope. They will also potentially be taking on police and crime functions that run across completely different policing and crime areas with different strategies and ways of working in terms of police and crime panels and their scrutiny. We believe that to do that through the proposed process will produce a rushed system. I commend the Minister for her decisiveness, but sometimes it is better to pause and take a slower approach to bringing together those organisations, rather than rush the process. We are already seeing huge changes to our integrated care boards, with many being abolished. Rather than alignment, we see some coming together for financial reasons or for convenience. There is a real risk that trying to do all of that in harmony ends up not with the right outcomes but ones that suit the creation of a very simplistic jigsaw. Most of the mayors will be taking on roles that they have never performed before. We feel that it is time to pause, slow the pace and ensure that this has more parliamentary oversight.

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

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  I beg to move amendment 247, in clause 43, page 44, line 14, at end insert— “(2A) The Secretary of State has a duty to ensure that a combined authority has sufficient financial resources and adequate administrative support the duties in subsections (1) and (2). (2B) In discharging the duty under subsection (2A), the Secretary of State must regularly review the financial and administrative needs of a combined authority insofar as they relate to the needs described in subsection (1).” This amendment would require the Secretary of State to review the financial and administrative needs of combined authorities with regard to reducing health inequalities in their areas.

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

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  I beg to move amendment 24, in clause 46, page 53, line 15, at end insert— “(7) Regulations made under this section are subject to the affirmative procedure.” This amendment would ensure that regulations made by the Secretary of State regarding the functions of fire and rescue authorities receive parliamentary scrutiny.

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

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  I am content that the scope of the amendment may have been broader than intended in terms of some of the minor things that a local authority may wish to do, but I ask the Minister to keep in mind the larger-scale changes that may be required, which really should come with some form of Government statutory intervention. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn. Clause 49 ordered to stand part of the Bill. Clause 50 Powers to make regulations in relation to functions of strategic authorities and mayors Question proposed , That the clause stand part of the Bill.

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

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  I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

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

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  On the basis of that assurance, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.