Commons Chamber

Thursday 15th January 2026

(began 3 weeks, 1 day ago)

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Ian Murray Portrait Rt Hon Ian Murray MP, The Minister of State, Department for Culture, Media and Sport (Edinburgh South, Labour)
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She makes a powerful case and I look forward to hearing more. >> Alex Ballinger. >> Question number five, Madam Deputy Speaker.

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Minister Madam Deputy Speaker, we monitor a wide range of evidence to aid our assessment of gambling advertising and its impact, advertising and its impact, including spending provided by the industry and independent sources. We will continue to keep our policies under review. In this context, there is a Westminster Hall debate on gambling harms later today, where hon. Members will get a chance to unpack these issues in

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more detail. Alex Ballinger thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. This week we've seen FIFA has announced a four year seen FIFA has announced a four year partnership so gambling platforms can stream World Cup games for the first time on on UK websites. Football football fans are already heavily exposed to gambling advertising, and the government has advertising, and the government has confirmed that there is clear evidence linking gambling advertising to harm, since the advertising to harm, since the Premier League has agreed to remove gambling adverts from the front of shirts this year.

Does the Minister share my concern that the live streaming of these gambling sites of World Cup games is a step in the wrong direction and can perpetuate further gambling harm?
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None Portrait Q6. What steps she is taking with Cabinet colleagues to help protect the creative industries in the context of AI. (907277)
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>> Neil Duncan-Jordan. >> Question six Madam Deputy Speaker. Madam Deputy Speaker, on the 15th of December, we published
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None Portrait Q10. What steps her Department is taking to help support cooperative live music venues. (907281)
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venues have benefited from the government's Community Ownership Fund, enabling communities to take ownership of valued local cultural
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None Portrait Oral questions: Church Commissioners and House of Commons Commission and Public Accounts Commission and Restoration and Renewal Client Board and Speaker’s Committee on the Electoral Commission
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representing the Church Commissioners and the hon. Member representing the House of Commons Commission and the Restoration and Renewal Client Board. Matt Turmaine.
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None Portrait Q2. To ask the hon. Member for Battersea, representing the Church Commissioners, what recent discussions the Church of England has had with the Government on the future of the Listed Places of Worship Grant Scheme. (907299)
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>> Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, with permission, I will group question two and for the future of the Listed Places of Worship scheme
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None Portrait Q6. To ask the hon. Member for Battersea, representing the Church Commissioners, what assessment the Church of England has made of the potential impact of the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill on end-of-life ministry. (907303)
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I Madam Deputy Speaker.
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Josh Simons Portrait Josh Simons MP, The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Makerfield, Labour)
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Minister. joint Minister across the Cabinet Office and the Department for science, Innovation and Technology, I'd like to respond to members concerns about the digital ID policy. The programme has two core objectives. First, to transform the state and make it work better for ordinary working people. To often accessing public services is harder than it should be. Digital ID will change this, providing the foundation of how we transform public services for everyone. The new digital ID will be a modern, secure and trusted way for people to prove who they are and to access services across both the public and the private sector.

It will be inclusive. We will issue the new digital ID to everyone who wants one and has the right to be in the UK, including the around 10% of UK citizens without traditional forms of ID, this will be transformational for how they access services to, and it will unlock government services that work better for people, saving people time, hassle and money. It will reduce fraud and enabling new possibilities for integrated services and make interacting with government easier for everyone.

That is why by the end of this Parliament, we will design and roll out a digital credential to every eligible UK citizen who wants one one that is easy to use and unlocks improved public services. Second, we are committed to reducing illegal migration and will be mandating that right to work checks are conducted digitally. Currently, employers can carry out checks of over a dozen different forms of ID, and for British and Irish citizens. Many of these checks are currently paper based.

This is confusing, vulnerable to fraud, and it doesn't always create a clear record of when and where checks have been carried out. As the Prime Minister clearly said yesterday, there will be checks, they will be digital and they will be mandatory. Those seeking to work illegally in the United Kingdom will no longer be able to provide fraudulent papers. Information obtained from digital right to work checks will be available to help crack down on unscrupulous employers who are undercutting British workers and hiring people without legal right to work.

This is about fairness, ensuring only those with a genuine right to work in the United Kingdom are able to work in the United Kingdom. We will be consulting imminently in a range of ways on how we design this scheme, and we want to hear from people, businesses and stakeholder groups across the United Kingdom on an approach that works for them. A new digital ID will put power back in people's hands, helping to make services more personal, joined up and effective, and ensuring everyone can access the support

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they need when they need it. And it will be. I assume the Minister is about to come to a conclusion is overrun.

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to come to a conclusion is overrun. His three minutes very quickly. I'm proud this Labour government is building this vital public is building this vital public infrastructure to make government work better for everyone.

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work better for everyone. Thank you. He he read that beautifully with a straight face in
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Mike Wood Portrait Mike Wood MP (Kingswinford and South Staffordshire, Conservative)
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beautifully with a straight face in because in September, the Prime Minister tossed this mandatory digital ID onto the table as a classic dead cat distraction, purely to keep Andy Burnham off the front pages going into Labour conference. And now it's left to the junior Minister to come here to explain why the policy that he spent months saying was absolutely vital is now being hollowed out. Now, I do congratulate him on his new appointment last Friday. I suspect that he's quickly learning that the price of his red box is to have to go out on a very thin limb, put his own credibility on the line only for those higher up in government to rev the chainsaw, leaving him exposed with only the flimsiest of pretences to protect his dignity.

The pretence that this policy is still a going concern because, Madam Deputy Speaker, in less than four months it has gone from dead cat to dead parrot. And like Monty Python's pet shop owner, the Minister is asking us all to deny what we can see clearly with our own eyes. He does everything short of inviting us to admire its beautiful plumage. But, Madam Deputy Speaker, this policy has passed on. So my questions for the Minister are does the government still expect digital ID in this new form to cost £1.8 billion? Is it going to be mandatory or not? And what on earth does the taxpayer get for that money if you don't even have to have it? But above all, when is he going to finally face facts? Stop spending billions on this zombie boondoggle that's wandering aimlessly in search of a problem to solve and save the taxpayers money? Madam Deputy Speaker, this is a dead policy.
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Josh Simons Portrait Josh Simons MP, The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Makerfield, Labour)
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Yes. >> Someone's had their Weetabix. Minister Simons. >> Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker.

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Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. Well, let me answer the hon. Gentleman by stepping back for a moment and stating clearly what British citizens and taxpayers will British citizens and taxpayers will get. Digital IDs will be rolled out free to everyone who wants one. If anyone does not want one, they do not have to have one. People will be able to use that credential to prove their right to work digitally. By the end of this Parliament, which will make it easier for businesses to check right to work and enable tougher enforcement against illegal working, we will harness the potential of this credential to deliver a transformation in digital government and public services.

I, for one, am tired of constituents frustrated by basic problems that we should have fixed decades ago, a lack of joined up government, a lack of control over their public services in their fingertips. This is free, voluntary digital infrastructure, a foundation for public service improvement and private sector innovation, which we should have built years ago as the hon. Gentleman, two predecessors in the last conservative government recognise. But of course we didn't, because, as the British people know very well and passed judgement at the last election, the conservatives gave up governing this country properly, they gave up on reforming the state and they gave up on making government work better for ordinary people.

This government will not Meg Hillier.
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Alan Campbell Portrait Rt Hon Sir Alan Campbell MP, Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Tynemouth, Labour)
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Office Accountability Bill. Tuesday, the 20th of January. Consideration of Lords amendments to the Sentencing Bill, followed by consideration of Lords amendments consideration of Lords amendments to the Holocaust Memorial Bill, followed by consideration of Lords amendments to the Diego Garcia amendments to the Diego Garcia military base and British Indian Ocean Territory Bill Wednesday, the 21st of January. Committee of the whole House and remaining stages of the National Insurance Contributions, Employer Pensions Contributions Bill, followed by a motion to approve the draft Northern Ireland Troubles Legacy and Reconciliation Act 2023 remedial Order Thursday the 22nd of January General debate on government support for the fishing industry, followed by a general debate on the impact of import standards on the agricultural sector.

The subject for these debates were determined by the Backbench Business Committee. Friday 23rd of January. The House will not be sitting. The provisional business for the week commencing the 26th of January includes Monday, the 26th of January. Second Reading of the Armed Forces Bill. Tuesday, the 27th of January. Consideration of an allocation of time motion followed by all stages of the Medical Training Prioritisation Bill. Wednesday the 28th of January, an opposition day, on a motion in the name of the Official Opposition, subject to be announced Thursday, the 29th of January General Debate on Holocaust Memorial Day.

The subject for this debate was determined by the Backbench Business Committee and Friday, the 30th of January, the House will not be sitting.
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Jesse Norman Portrait Rt Hon Jesse Norman MP (Hereford and South Herefordshire, Conservative)
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Shadow Leader of the House. >> Thank you very much, Madam Deputy Speaker. >> I thank the leader very. >> Much for. >> The clarity he has given us on

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The clarity he has given us on the business and in particular, the scheduling of the Diego Garcia bill scheduling of the Diego Garcia bill immediately after it was going to be as a result of the Hillsborough changes that he's made. Mr. Madam Deputy Speaker, I know the whole House will want to join me in expressing our continuing concern for the people of Iran in the face of the vicious repression that they have, and apparently may continue to face, if I may, I want to raise two issues today, one big one and one small.

But I think in its own way also big. The first is the issue of defence and security. This week we had the chief of the Defence Staff in front of the Defence Select Committee, and he revealed that the Strategic Defence Review was not fully costed, despite all of the assurances that were given at the time to the Committee and to Parliament. And the result of that has been that the Defence Investment Plan has been delayed repeatedly. And now, as it appears until March.

Why? Because apparently the government, the Treasury, is seeking to come to terms with the fact that we are in a pre war situation and that the actual cash spending power of many of our armed forces, this is a topic to be enormous importance to the whole House, the actual cash spending power of many of our armed forces will barely grow over the next two years. Now I raise that, but I also would be grateful for the leader's specific assurance that he will speak to number ten and the Cabinet Office, and ensure that my Shadow Cabinet colleagues continue to receive the appropriate security briefings as they require to do their job.

I would say one further thing on the issue of pubs and hospitality that has consumed so much power, a concern and interest of this house, we are always apt to get lost in generalities, and that's in a way, a condition of politics. We debate the laws of the country and the general issues, but I think it's also very important to zero in from time to time on a particular fact situation, and use that to try to get a wider sense of what's happening.

And in particular, I want to put in front of the house the actual and specific facts. In one particular case in relation to hospitality, this concerns the Bay Horse Inn in my own constituency in Hereford, on the outskirts of Hereford, a great country pub supporting local people serving my constituents. From April of this year, the Bay horse's business rates are scheduled to rise from £31,000 to over £51,000 a year, a 67 increase. The landlord, Neil, tells me that the energy costs there have now risen to £5,500 a month.

Unlike households, there is no price cap for commercial energy. Indeed, pubs are charged risk premia and are locked into prices of nearly £0.40 a unit, while domestic customers pay around £0.28. The pub already pays above the minimum wage, and Neil estimates estimates that the rise in the National Living Wage will add £18,000 a year to his costs. Meanwhile, monthly national insurance contributions have risen by nearly 170%, made worse because the higher employer contributions now exhaust the employment allowance more quickly.

This is a direct tax on employing people, especially young people, and it lands hardest on small, labour intensive businesses such as pubs. Now Neil has a few guest rooms at the Bay horse, so he doesn't even know if he'll be helped by the latest rumour of a U-turn on rates support. So, Madam Deputy Speaker, this is the reality of the government's unwillingness or inability to join up policy in relation to a key set of sectors in the economy. In in hospitality.

All of these increases are the result of current ministerial decisions. Every member in this House, every member opposite, will have pubs and hospitality businesses in the same situation as this one. And the Bay horse is not just a business, it's raised over £60,000 for the Hereford Lions Club. It's installed a defibrillator, the landlord's own expense. It provides supervised, responsible drinking. It supports schools, the hospice and local causes year after year. Yet government policy treats it as expendable.

So the question is when a Minister is going to start talking to each other, put away the rhetoric of helping and actually get on with assisting small businesses. And can we have a debate in this House which debates not just the specific issue of hospitality, but the generality of all of the different government policies across different departments that make life so difficult for these hard working, struggling local businesses.
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Alan Campbell Portrait Rt Hon Sir Alan Campbell MP, Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Tynemouth, Labour)
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Leader of the House Madam Deputy Speaker and I certainly join the shadow Leader of the House in sending our thoughts to the people of Iran at this very and indeed in the region at this very difficult time. May I also send our congratulations to Lord Forsyth, who was announced as the new Lord speaker earlier this week. And I want to pay tribute to Lord McFall as the outgoing Lord speaker for his service and his commitment. Madam Deputy Speaker, I am glad to welcome the Shadow Leader back to his place this week.

Last week he was on a shadow Cabinet awayday. I thought that he might want to start by giving us a readout for that. And as to whether or not a place was set at the top table for the leader of the opposition's new advisor, Nadhim Zahawi, who shortly afterwards had his own away day when he defected to reform. But I understand also, Madam Deputy Speaker, from breaking news that things get worse for the Leader of the Opposition who's just sucked her Justice Secretary and rival amidst rumours that he was about to join reform two.

So we watch with interest developments are there. Can I address the points that the hon. Gentleman raised on defence and give him assurance that he knows, because he's a member of the Defence Select Committee and takes a keen interest in these matters. He knows how sometimes how difficult often these decisions are. But we are absolutely committed as a government to increasing defence expenditure and also to making whatever decisions are necessary to defend our country. As far as briefings are concerned, he raises an important matter about access to the information that the opposition official opposition in particular require.

He knows that I am a strong advocate of the role of the official opposition. I spent quite a long time in opposition myself. It is important that the opposition get access, and I will take back to number ten and others his request and ensure that that happens now on the point of pubs which he's perfectly entitled to to raise. There are some fantastic pubs in his constituency and in that part of the country, and he is right to do so. But I would gently remind him that 7000 pubs closed under the conservatives, and in this Budget we put £4.33 billion worth of support over three years to help pubs deal with the transition on support that they previously received, on top of the other measures.

On top of that, other measures that we've taken, including easing, easing licensing to help pubs offer drinks more flexibly, maintaining our cut to alcohol duty on draught pints and capping corporation tax. But we do recognise, Madam Deputy Speaker, that pubs are still worried and many of them are in a difficult situation, which is why the Chancellor has commissioned work examining pubs support package. That's not just as the shadow Leader of the House. That's not just words, Madam Deputy Speaker. That is action.

And in terms of joined up policy across government, of course, the government is joining up our approach, particularly on the economy, because the House may have noticed this morning that performance statistics show that waiting lists are down by 312,000, and more people are being treated within 18 weeks in November, Madam Deputy Speaker actually saw the second biggest monthly drop in waiting lists in 15 years. The government also announced this week that we will deliver Northern Powerhouse Rail, a multi-billion pound investment which will create a turn up and go railway across the northern growth corridor of Liverpool, Manchester, Bradford, Leeds, Sheffield and York.

We've also launched the first ever Town of Culture competition, which will boost local pride and celebrate the unique stories of our towns, not just urban areas, Madam Deputy Speaker, but rural areas too. And today, Madam Deputy Speaker, is National Pothole Day. The Leader of the Opposition might think it's national. Dig yourself into a hole day. But but but it's actually National Pothole Day. And this government has provided a record £7.3 billion of funding for local roads announced in the Budget, allowing councils to get on and fix our roads.

Which just demonstrates, Madam Deputy Speaker, that this government is getting on with the job. very.
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Bobby Dean Portrait Bobby Dean MP (Carshalton and Wallington, Liberal Democrat)
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Liberal Democrat spokesperson. Bobby about to join the Reform Party. And I just want to clarify, that is not me, I am, I am staying put. I quite enjoy watching the numbers dwindle to the right of me. Madam Deputy Speaker, we talk a lot about the Home Office, immigration and asylum in this place, and we mostly talk about people's right to come here and the shameful asylum backlog. But we talk much less about the people that are already here, the ones that have built their lives, held down jobs, paid, taxes raised, a family contributed.

And, Madam Deputy Speaker, I think the story of immigration in this country is largely a positive one. And it's sad that that is not said enough in this place. If you've worked hard, you've played by the rules. You deserve to be treated with respect. But the Home Office, unfortunately, is treating many visa holders seeking to settle here with disrespect. People that have lived here for years, sometimes over a decade, are being made to wait years, sometimes with indefinite service standards for answers about their future in this country.

And the Home Office recently has even taken to lecturing people with the line that citizenship is a privilege, not a right. As if, as if to say, how dare they ask about remaining in a country they've contributed to for so long? So can the leader House bring this to the attention of the Ministers in the department and urge them to review their service standards so they can treat these people with a bit more respect?
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Bob Blackman Portrait Bob Blackman MP (Harrow East, Conservative)
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Chair of the Backbench Committee, Bob Blackman. Bob Blackman. >> Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, and I join with the leader in congratulating Lord Forsyth on congratulating Lord Forsyth on being elected in in the other place, in addition to the business that the leader has announced, next Thursday, there will be a select Committee statement from the Energy Security and Net Zero Committee on their report on tackling the energy cost crisis, followed by on Thursday, the 29th of January. There'll be there'll be a select committee statement from the Health and Social Care Committee on the first 1000 days in Westminster Hall next Tuesday, there'll be a debate on the role of the NHS in preventing domestic homicides and domestic abuse related deaths.

On Thursday, the 22nd, there'll be a debate on transport connectivity in the Midlands and North Wales, followed by a debate on the International Day of Education on the 27th of January. There will be a debate in Westminster Hall on UK bus manufacturing, and on the 29th of January, debates on non-recognition of Russian occupied territories of Ukraine, followed by a debate on protecting and restoring river habitats. Madam Deputy Speaker, can I advise the leader? We have a large number of of what I would call time sensitive debates that have been requested for both February and March.

So early warning of of what dates we're going to get would be very helpful for us to allocate those debates accordingly. Now, the predecessor adjournment debate, madam Deputy Speaker, I raised the situation of Bangladesh and the leader quite rightly wrote to the Foreign Secretary about the disastrous situation that is there now. Hindu men are being murdered on the streets, their houses being burnt, the temples are being burnt and other religious minorities are suffering similar fates. Next month there are due to be so-called free and fair elections.

The Awami League, who are a major political party in Bangladesh, are banned from competing in those elections despite the fact they command something like 30% in the opinion polls. Equally, the Islamic extremists have called for a referendum which would change the constitution of Bangladesh forever. So could we have a statement from the Foreign Secretary next week on what action the government is going to take to ensure that there are free, fair and inclusive elections and minorities are protected?
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Alan Campbell Portrait Rt Hon Sir Alan Campbell MP, Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Tynemouth, Labour)
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Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. As the hon. Gentleman knows, the As the hon. Gentleman knows, the government has always said that this is for Parliament to decide. I this is for Parliament to decide. I would say to the other place that they should respect the will of this elected House. We did support the bill. However, there job of scrutiny is up to them, and I would urge them to get on with it so that we make every effort. I'm a supporter of the Bill, and the Prime Minister has made it clear he's a supporter of the bill, too.

But I know there are real concerns about the bill. I've also made clear that should there Lordships arrive at the point where, presumably with amendments made, it comes back to this place. We will facilitate time here to make that happen. But we've got to be clear about this. The Lords have got a job to do. They're getting on with it in a particular way. We might not like it, but it's their job to it's their job to get the bill into shape.

And if it can get back here,

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we will do everything we can to get it onto the statute books. But it's not a government bill. Members should be aware that I

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Members should be aware that I am seeking to finish business questions by around 1230, so please keep questions short and succinct.

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keep questions short and succinct. Rachel Hopkins thank you Madam Deputy Speaker. May I take this opportunity to publicly praise Luton Town Football publicly praise Luton Town Football Club for calling out racist online comments directed at several of its black players, and early this week
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Andy Slaughter Portrait Andy Slaughter MP (Hammersmith and Chiswick, Labour)
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Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, >> Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, and I thank the Backbench Business Committee for allocating time for me to make a statement on behalf of me to make a statement on behalf of the Justice Committee, I'd like to make a statement regarding the government's response to the committee's sixth report in this Parliament tackling the drugs crisis in our prisons. The report was published on 31st October 2025, and the government's response received on the 29th of December 2025 and published on the 9th of January 2026.

Our inquiry was launched because the committee was concerned by the growing level of drug use in prisons in England and Wales, and the profound damage that is doing to both the criminal justice system and individual prisoners. Our findings were bleak. The trade in and use of illicit drugs has reached epidemic levels, creating a culture of acceptance where just shy of 40% of prisoners said they find it easy to acquire illicit substances. We found a system struggling to keep pace with changing drug use, where established substance substances are being replaced by highly potent synthetic opioids and cannabinoids, often sourced by organised criminal gangs.

This crisis is not merely institutional, it is a human tragedy. Between December 2022 and December 2024, the Prisons and Probation Ombudsman investigated 833 deaths, of which 136 were classified as drug related. While the government has acknowledged the seriousness of the issue, we are disappointed by the response to our report that only accepts eight out of 29 of our recommendations, while partially accepting 19 and rejecting two, we feel the government's response fails to match the urgency or degree of the drugs crisis.

In our prison. We ask for mandatory drug testing to be returned, at least to pre-pandemic levels, and for wastewater testing to be rolled out faster. Essential steps just to identify the source, the scale and nature of the drug problem. We call for more drug free wings and for full body scanners to be provided in all prisons. Essential steps to controlling drug ingress. These. These recommendations were not, however, agreed. The Chief Inspector of Prisons, Charlie Taylor, has described a menu of drugs entering our prisons through a variety of methods.

Traditional routes, such as social visits and post, continue to be significant channels for smuggling in drugs, as do throw overs, i.e. packages thrown over prison walls. We had drugs being concealed in babies nappies or new psychoactive substances being sprayed onto fake legal correspondence and children's drawings. A major failure of security is disrepair in the prison estate, which allows access through broken windows and collapsed netting. We recommended that prison governors be able to procure critical security repairs within 72 hours.

The government has rejected this in favour of existing facilities management contracts. When we visited HMP Brixton, we heard that it took one year to repair netting that had collapsed due to snowfall. While most prison staff are dedicated professionals, a small minority are manipulated by organised criminal gangs to smuggle drugs into prison. We recommend that all frontline staff undergo a mandatory face to face interview led by governors to improve screening. The government has only partially accepted this. We believe that bypassing governor scrutiny in the hiring process facilitates criminal activity.

During our inquiry, we took evidence from the Prisons Minister and HMP officials. We were provided with what we believe to be a clear and ambitious vision for vetting reform. We heard that HMP was moving towards a lifelong vetting model, ensuring that security assessments are not just a one off event at entry, but a continuous process throughout an employee's career. We were told that the organisational position was to align the standards of HMP vetting with other tier one agencies, such as the police.

Our committee recommended that the government commit to this lifelong vetting model as the minimum operational standard. In their response, the government stated that they do not accept the need for a lifelong vetting model at the minimum operational standard instead of the continuous lifelong assessment described to the committee in the ministerial session, the government has opted to revert staff only once every 3 to 5 years. We are alarmed by the paradigm shift caused by drones, which now deliver bespoke packages of drugs and other contraband, such as phones, directly to cell windows.

There was a 770% increase in drone sightings between 2019 and 2023. An official at the Moj told us that they had seen drones that could lift a moderate sized person. One of the most concerning findings of our report is the dominant role that organised criminal gangs now play in the prison drugs trade. We have moved away from what was described as a cottage industry, a small scale smuggling towards a sophisticated gang led structure. These gangs monopolise the lucrative prison market, where drugs can sell for up to 100 times their street value, fuelling debt, intimidation and violence.

Debt incurred by drug users is often collected from family members who, if they cannot pay inflated bills, are coerced into cuckooing or criminal activity. Prisoners in debt are also used as guinea pigs to test the potency of new, untested drugs. We called for systems capable of tracking the electronic financial transactions that underpin organised crime operations within prison walls. As long as these criminal networks can communicate reliably through illicit smartphones to coordinate debt and supply, the crisis will only deepen.

We acknowledge the £40 million investment in security infrastructure. However, the government's commitment to the committee specific recommendations for disruption remains limited. While partially accepting our calls for better security, they have yet to comment to commit to the rapid, state wide development of a Skynet system, which is working well in Guernsey. We also addressed the drivers of demand. Our report found that 49% of prisoners enter the system with an identified drug need. Yet the environment they find themselves in routinely locked in cells for up to 22 hours a day, drives them further towards drugs as a form of escapism.

Without access to work, education or therapeutic programmes, prisoners are left in a state of idleness, where drugs become a primary coping mechanism. To get through their sentence. The government has accepted our recommendation to expand access to purposeful activities, but this will be contradicted by rumoured cuts in prison education, the physical and operational toll of drug use is catastrophic, characterised by a surge in medical emergencies known as code blues, these incidents divert essential healthcare resources and force regime restrictions, further reducing access to the very purposeful activities that might steer prisoners away from drugs.

This environmental frontline staff, desensitised to the daily suffering and at risk of illness themselves due to secondary exposure to drugs. We called for substance misuse treatment to be commissioned separately from general healthcare contracts, a move supported by evidence from Dame Carol black. The government's plan to transition responsibility to NHS integrated care boards falls short of this. The period immediately following release is a time of vulnerability, but the government has rejected our recommendation for universal rollout of take home naloxone kits for those leaving custody, citing concerns over value for money.

When 61% of post-release deaths are drug related. We believe that saving lives must be the priority here. In conclusion, the government response lacks the comprehensive plan needed to gain control over this crisis. Without reform and investment, we are unlikely to tackle sophisticated supply networks, deficiencies in treatment, lack of purposeful activity, poor condition of the prison estate and serious capacity pressures. Prisons will remain unstable, unsafe and incapable of gaining control over the drugs crisis. We know the Prison Service and ministerial team are committed to taking tangible and practical steps to control the prevalence of drugs in prison.

Failure to do so undermines the government's whole programme of prison reform, and their sincere intent to tackle the crisis in our prison, which they inherited. This is the problem for the current government to solve. I hope they will look again at some of the recommendations that we've made and increase the the the intensity with which we drive down the drug culture in prisons. It's the first step to ensuring that prisons are not only a place of safety, but a place of rehabilitation and reform.
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None Portrait Backbench Business: General debate on New Towns
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12:54
Katrina Murray Portrait Katrina Murray MP (Cumbernauld and Kirkintilloch, Labour)
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Yeah, yeah. >> To move that this House has considered New Towns Act, and I am grateful to the Backbench Business Committee for finding time for this important debate as we reach the 80th anniversary of the New Towns Act 1946. It feels like exactly the right moment for the House to pause and reflect on what was, at the time, a bold and radical idea, one that sought not just to build houses but to shape communities. Eight decades on, as we again face the challenge of large scale housing, housebuilding and the prospect of a new generation of new towns, it is right that we reflect honestly on both the shortcomings and the successes of that legacy.

This debate has a personal resonance for me. I was brought up in Markinch, on the edge of the new town of Glenrothes. I went to school there and like many people growing up in and around a new town, it simply felt like home. A place shaped by decisions taken long before I was born, but which defined everyday life. And it feels like a fitting symmetry that years after leaving school in 1989 and embarking on my own career journey, I now have the privilege of representing another new town in this house.

Cumbernauld has just marked its 70th anniversary and its story of ambition, achievement, challenge and renewal mirrors the experience of so many new towns across the country. Which is why I am so pleased that colleagues from across the House are taking part today. This debate gives us the opportunity to reflect not only on what new towns have delivered, but what they can still teach us. To understand new towns, we have to remember why they were created in the first place.

Post-war Britain faced severe housing shortages, overcrowding and poor living conditions, and there was a clear recognition that simply expanding existing towns and cities would not be enough. For many families, that was an abstract policy. It was daily life. One local residents. As someone who's now a close friend, described moving from a top floor slum with damp walls, no hot water and a shared toilet on a stair landing to a three bedroom home with a bathroom, her own bedroom, a garden and space to live.

That move was life changing. The New Towns programme was a deliberate choice to do things differently. It was not just about building houses quickly, it was about planning whole communities with homes alongside jobs, schools, services and green space so people could build decent lives. And for those of us who grew up in or around new towns, there were some very familiar signs. You know, you live in a new town when your second driving lesson is entirely about roundabouts, not because your instructor has it in for you, but because there's so many of them.

You know? And let's be honest, the only new traffic lights are in the new town are generally on a roundabout. You also know that you live in a new town when housing numbers make no sense to anybody arriving by car, where number one is across from number 25 and the street across from can be seen from number 43, and the street itself start on neighbouring street starts at number 420. Looks a bit like next week's lottery numbers, but what residents know and delivery drivers very quickly discover it is designed to make sense on foot.

It works by neighbourhood, by paths, by walkways might confuse the satnav, but it's been a postal workers friend for decades. But behind those quirks was a serious purpose. Cumbernauld is designated in 1955, was built to meet urgent housing needs and to offer better living conditions, access to work and a strong sense of community. It was part of a wider post-war belief that planning done properly could improve people's lives, and for some families it changed the course of their lives entirely.

Another, another resident told me that they don't believe that they would ever have gone to university if they hadn't escaped Glasgow and attended Cumbernauld School. That treated

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children with dignity and ambition. I will give way. I am grateful I was making an

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I am grateful I was making an excellent speech about the importance of new towns. I was brought up just outside Kilwinning, brought up just outside Kilwinning, which is part of the Irvine New Town in in Ayrshire, and she and I are probably of a similar age. And does she remember the campaign, the iconic campaign in the 1980s, which was what is it called? Cumbernauld? was what is it called? Cumbernauld? I just wondered how successful that campaign was, in her view, in terms of bringing people to the town and

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bringing new, new employers to the area. And I do thank, thank the hon.

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And I do thank, thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention, the fact that you couldn't go anywhere in the 80s without Chorley seeing in the 80s without Chorley seeing that that statement means that that the knowledge of Cumbernauld happens across, across the across the country. I remember my first trips to London seeing that that trips to London seeing that that hoarding on on the tube. But other new towns of course try to get get get in on the act.

Living in Livingston didn't quite hit as well as well as it did, but that was the beauty of part of our development cooperation that actually shone the shone part of that, that design more widely. Oh, I'm very aware of the timing on this, but on you, on your goes.

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Madam Deputy Chair, thank you. And thank you to the hon. Lady for Cumbernauld. And can Kirk Tulloch. Cumbernauld. And can Kirk Tulloch. I hope I've got that correct. Apologies if my accent is destroyed Apologies if my accent is destroyed that word but but those the last new term we had Northern Ireland was back in 1965. That was some 60 was back in 1965. That was some 60 years ago. I was ten years old. I started in secondary school. But. But does the hon.

Lady agree with the growing populations that we the growing populations that we have across the United Kingdom, that new towns should be established in areas that have the space? And does the hon. Lady also agree that a working group must look UK wide at this issue to provide people with communities, and not just simply houses? It's not just about a house, it's a better community.

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I think the hon. Gentleman is getting on to the other parts of my speech as we're as we're coming on. As I was about to say, new towns were never meant to just be housing were never meant to just be housing schemes. They were meant to be places, planned communities where jobs, homes, jobs, services develop jobs, homes, jobs, services develop together so people could build stable lives close to where they stable lives close to where they work. That vision is now is clear in how Cumbernauld was developed, brought together families moving out of overcrowded parts of Glasgow alongside others, often younger people and professionals who moved there specifically to work in the in employment with central.

Not an afterthought. Major employers, including Burrows, played a central role in the town's early growth, provided skilled employment at scale. Initially manufacturing mechanical adding machines. Remember those and later moving into computers and printers. People moved to Cumbernauld for work opportunity and to put down roots, and as industries change, the site evolved into what is now the Wardpark Industrial Area. Continuing to support employment in different forms and around that, neighbourhoods were designed to function as real communities. Social housing was central, not marginal.

Each area had its own shops, post office, parking garages, public transport with regular bus services connecting people into Glasgow and beyond. When we discuss new towns now, the focus is often on buildings or concrete, but what often gets overlooked is the thought given to how people would actually live. How housing, employment, transport and green space all fits together. Now, Cumbernauld is sometimes judged by its built form, but it's also defined by its green space, deliberately woven into daily, daily life.

That's a new town model at its best. It is impossible to talk about Cumbernauld without mentioning the town centre. In the 1960s it was genuinely celebrated, award winning, internationally recognised and seen as a confident expression of modernist and brutalist design. Officially opened by Princess Margaret and Lord Snowdon for families arriving at that time, that optimism was real. Modern buildings, light, space and public services that felt like it was stepping out of the 19th century conditions they were used to and into the modern world.

Decades later, that very same town centre went on to win awards of a very different kind, including the Carbuncle Awards and the plaque on the plinth. In the early noughties that tells its own story. It is not about a lack of ambition, but it is about what happens when bold design is left without sustained investment, renewal and long term stewardship. Today, the town centre is undergoing long term regeneration, made possible with the investment of the UK government focussed on making the centre work for modern life rather than erasing what came before.

The same issues can be seen in parts of the housing stock houses that were built quickly, using methods that were innovative at the time did not always stand the test of time. In Cumbernauld, areas such as Ainslie Road were affected by concrete deterioration, leading to homes having to be demolished, while flat roofed housing very much of its era proved less suited to Scotland's climate. As buildings aged. But that experience has also supported local expertise, including firms like Briggs and Masco, a Cumbernauld based flat roofing specialist investing highly in skills and apprenticeships.

Challenges not unique to to mine like my town across the new towns, infrastructure and housing. Aged at the same time without the funding of the governance structures to renew them properly. When the development corporations were wound up and assets sold off, responsibility became fragmented. In many cases, ownership passed from hedge fund to hedge fund, with no real long term stake in the place beyond what appeared on the balance sheet. What went wrong was not the new town concept itself, but the failure to plan properly

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for what came next. That is a lesson we cannot afford to ignore. Yeah.

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Yeah. If we are serious about learning from new towns and building new ones, the ambition at the start has ones, the ambition at the start has to be matched with responsibility over the long term. When we talk over the long term. When we talk about new towns, it's easy to focus on plans and buildings. What what really made places like Cumbernauld work with the people who stepped up, saw what was missing and got things done. That early generation who made sure that this was their community.

One of those people was Sheena Walker, a true pioneer in disability care. When she moved to Cumbernauld in the late 1960s, there was no local support for children with learning disabilities. She refused to accept that through sheer determination and tenacity, she brought parents together, worked across the Development Corporation, the Council and social work to create community housing, day centres and respite care. Her drive was the difference and the services she helped to build became so strong that families later moved to Cumbernauld, specifically

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because of them. The hon. Lady. I will have to give way. My hon. Friend is making an

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My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech as co-chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Housing and Care for Older People, we're about to complete an inquiry into intergenerational communities. So will she join me in calling that So will she join me in calling that the new new towns are built and designed for all ages and all abilities as inclusive communities?

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abilities as inclusive communities? Yeah. I very much I very I very much commend my, my hon. Friend's suggestion there. What has been quite clear exactly how important it has it is to have have intergenerational, intergenerational towns and accessible housing built, built at the same point. Another a another local legend with Danny McGowan, who taught generations of Cumbernauld children to swim. He founded Cumbernauld Swimming Club and built it into a competitive force, driven by his passion for the sport and for giving young people confidence in the water, all despite the very small challenge that the council had built the swimming pool the wrong size for it to be a competitive pool rather than be put off.

He worked around it and thousands, probably hundreds of thousands of children have benefited as a result. Both of these stories matter because it shows that new towns were never just about infrastructure. There were about people with commitment, imagination shaping communities from the inside, making places work for those who lived there. So what does this tell us? Not just about Cumbernauld, but about new towns more broadly? One clear lesson is that long term responsibility matters. Building homes and infrastructure is only the beginning.

Without clarity about stewardship, places struggle to thrive decades later. Another lesson is that homes and jobs must be planned together. New towns worked best when people could live close by to where they worked, and when towns weren't just allowed to become purely commuter settlements. And renewal has to start with people. Regeneration is not just about buildings and master plans. It has to involve communities and respect the identity of places people care deeply about. This feels particularly relevant as the government looks to build a new generation of new towns in England.

We are serious about it. If we are serious about doing this well, we have to learn from the first generation planning for stewardship from day one and giving communities a real voice. As places grow and change.

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Yes. Our first generation of new towns are no longer new towns in towns are no longer new towns in any meaningful sense. They are simply towns with families, histories, challenges and pride histories, challenges and pride built up over generations. People were born there, raised their work were born there, raised their work there, stayed there, left there, came home. They have marked. That's came home. They have marked. That's what matters. When we talk about the future, I hope this debate helps ensure that as we build again at scale, we do not just create new places, but we create.

We commit to them for the long term, and I look forward to hearing the contributions.

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The question is, as on the Order Paper I call Richard Fuller. Thank you very much, Madam Deputy Speaker, and I would like to Deputy Speaker, and I would like to make clear that I am speaking in an individual capacity as a constituency MP, the Member of constituency MP, the Member of Parliament for North Petherton start by congratulating the hon. Lady, the Member for Cumbernauld and Kirkintilloch, for her speech and Kirkintilloch, for her speech and for the extraordinarily human way that she described her life in way that she described her life in a new town for people in North Bedfordshire.

That may be a timely testimony, because I'd like to draw the focus to proposals for new, new
13:11
Richard Fuller Portrait Richard Fuller MP (North Bedfordshire, Conservative)
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towns that are in this government's recommendation. The New Towns recommendation. The New Towns Taskforce Tempsford in North Bedfordshire is a historic village, Bedfordshire is a historic village, a village that is the site or was the site of a decisive battle in 917 AD, when King Edward the Elder's forces stormed a Danish Elder's forces stormed a Danish stronghold, killing the Danish king and effectively breaking Danish power in the region. A village that includes here a village that includes the former RAF Tempsford airfield, from which multiple special operations were flown to send people to help resistance movements in Nazi occupied countries.

A village of 234 households, comprising fewer than 500 people, and a village that has been in two parts since the dualling of the A1 in 1962, and a village that the new Towns Commission report stated is, quote, a unique opportunity with potential to provide over 40,000 homes in a standalone greenfield settlement. Tempsford is the largest of the proposed new towns and will take this village of 500 people, potentially into a new town of at least 40,000 homes.

So that's 100,000 plus people. And so I thought I'd take a few minutes in this individual capacity to raise some points that have been raised by my constituents in recent meetings with residents, with the parish council and with their local councillor, Adam. One of the questions, of course, is, is why Tempsford? It's not what we want, we don't want this change, etc. and that is an important issue for consideration and we'll await the final decision of the government. But if that decision is made, the number one source of scepticism is that much of Tempsford is a flood plain, and there is a legitimate question about how the flood risk will be managed in any new town.

It's a floodplain, both for the River Ouse and the River Ivel. Sticking on the themes of music, local residents have for years dealt with a range of sewage overflow issues, and I myself have been witness to a number of these and held residents with that. And it's important in that that the water company, which wishes to obviously improve these, if we have a new town, that adequate funding is available both to provide the wastewater and sewage water infrastructure that is required, but also to solve the existing problems.

And as the Minister, be aware, the pressure on water resources in Bedfordshire is extensive. We have we are also the site of Universal Studios, which is a theme park that will attract up to 8 to 10 million people a year. That's the equivalent of an additional population of 50,000 in terms of water usage. And so with that being developed over the next five years and the new town, the one source of water that runs through it is the River Ouse.

And we just need to make sure there is a plan for the River Ouse. There is a group set up by Bedford Borough Council called the North Bedfordshire Water Management Group, run by Paul Leinster, formerly of the Environment Agency, and I would encourage the Minister to meet with him to discuss those issues, both about universal and about Chelmsford. The Minister should be recognised also that the proposed new town fit into a context of very rapid housing growth, so hon. Members should be aware that the pace of housing growth in terms of households in Bedfordshire has been growing at two and a half times the national average already for the last decade or more.

And so we already have this build up over 15, 20 years of additional pressures on local services. And the meeting that we held last week with the parish council, with residents, the number one issue other than the flood plain was local services provisions. People already don't have access sufficiently to GP services. They don't have access to transport services. And just a few miles away is the village of Northstowe, which is sort of the poster child for getting it wrong in terms of local services.

All the things that the honourable from Cumberland were saying were already there. They're not there, weren't there in Northstowe, no shops, no GPS for a number of years while residents were moving in. We also local residents don't want to see that happen in any change of terms for New town comes forward power supply. It's a village that still runs on oil heating. There is no other power supply, and a number of residents were keen to understand whether in the new town, solar and as a ground source, heat pumps would be a prerequisite for the new housing or not a key point.

Of course, if you're a village with a proposal for a new town of up to 100,000 people is village identity, village heritage and in particular around RAF Tempsford, with a lot of concerns about the existing build. One of the most important existing buildings there of Gibraltar Barn, and making sure that any plans take account of that and nature and wildlife. My residents are connected. They chose to live in a rural area. They are proud of their rural environment. The RSPB is the head office is literally just five miles away from Templer, so it's crucially important that we do whatever we can if we move ahead or the government moves ahead to maintain the nature and wildlife of the area, adequacy of road networks and also questions about the type of employment.

Briefly, if I can cover a couple more hours, Madam Deputy Speaker, Professor Doug Cleland and Doctor Nigel Moore, who are two independent experts in the area of planning, have have completed research on Telford in the last two years and provided evidence to the House of Lords built Environment Committee report new towns laying the foundations. And this goes to both the footprint, the scale and the timeline in the in the evidence provided Professor Cleland and Doctor Moore. They present a compact centre of 25,000 homes over 4.5mi², and that footprint connects Saint Neots to Sandy, in an area between the A1 and the Great Northern Rail line.

That's a very extensive area, but then there is a wider footprint, which is for the building of additional could accommodate an additional 15,000 homes in satellite developments that would stretch south from Tempsford to the village of Blunham, onto Great Barford, to Wildern, to Little Staunton, then across to Hale Weston and including the villages of Staploe and Huntingdon and Roxton and Potton and Everton. Everton and others with a similar impact on the Cambridgeshire side of of Tempsford. Now don't expect all members to know all those villages beautiful though they are, and well worth visiting as they should.

But what I wanted to say is just to make sure that local residents are aware the scale of what might be occurring if this goes ahead in North Bedfordshire and in parts of Cambridgeshire, and I'm not sure local residents have internalised that, and there's a lot of work the government would have to do if they decide to move forward, and in particular to be clear about the use of farmland, because this is a primary agricultural area. So there are some questions for me to leave with the Minister of.

I'm a the first is. The government has a housing target of 1.5 million. Personally, I'm not sure it's got off to a particularly good start on that, and that may have an impact on the type of housing being built I'd be interested in. The Minister could just any references to Bath Chelmsford about that? Number two, I've mentioned that the housing growth in North Bedfordshire is two and a half times. The national average is the government's position that new towns should not count in that total.

But come on, really? I mean, we're already struggling to keep up. There is no way that you can then plop on this additional amount of housing on top of that pace of growth, and not expect things to to break. Number three, the government's social housing targets social housing target. Will that apply or not? In the context of these very large new new towns? Number four, in the decision about new towns, can I just alert the Minister that this is just one potential, potentially one of six nationally significant infrastructure projects in Bedfordshire, of which two are directly in this footprint, one of which is black Cat roundabout, which is underway and will be completed.

And that's fine. But there is also a proposal for a large scale solar farm over 900 acres. That's the size of Gatwick Airport and a bit more. And that's within that boundary that was defined by as the satellite boundary. So what on earth is going to happen with that? Clearly, to me it's a choice that you can do one or the other. You can't you can't possibly do both. And the local residents are really keen to make sure that their local voice is is heard.

I must say I had a meeting with the civil service, Madam Deputy Speaker, who's dealing with this, and she was 100% on board with that. I prepared some documents for that, and I'm sure the Minister will see his nodding from his position. And I think my residents will be very, very clear about that. And once a decision is made, if Chelmsford is one of those, I would strongly encourage the ministerial team to come up to Chelmsford, to listen to the villagers have a conversation with them, because so much can be done.

As the hon. Lady said in her speech, in the end, this is about people, and if the government takes people along with them at the start, if it makes that decision, it will set itself up in a much better, a better way forward. So thank you very much, Madam Deputy, for the chance to speak.

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About Abana SRA. Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, I want to begin by thanking my hon. Friend begin by thanking my hon. Friend for Cumbernauld and Kirkintilloch for securing such an important for securing such an important debate on new towns. As my hon. Friend said, her constituency is Friend said, her constituency is one of Britain's great post-war new towns, so I think it's very clear that she knows a lot in this area and from in its evidence from her speech that there are a lot of opportunities and responsibilities to come and with shaping places for the long term, not just building homes, but also building communities.

I also want to congratulate covenant on its recent 70th anniversary and pay tribute to the generations who's made it with place, identity, pride and resilience. I also want to. It's an honour to always follow the hon. Member for North Bedfordshire and to hear about the proposals for New Town Thamesford. And I also agree with him that it's important to bring in those communities that are likely to receive a new town along those journeys on the journey, so they don't feel divided as part of the process.

And it's something that I'll be speaking to as well. I wanted to speak today because my constituency of Erith and Thamesmead now faces a similar moment of opportunity, one will that will shape the lives in my constituency for decades to come.
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Abena Oppong-Asare Portrait Ms Abena Oppong-Asare MP (Erith and Thamesmead, Labour)
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So I was particularly delighted when last September, Thamesmead when last September, Thamesmead Waterfront was shortlisted as one of the New Towns Taskforce as one of the 12 locations nationally for of the 12 locations nationally for the next generation of new towns. I know both the Shadow Minister and know both the Shadow Minister and the Minister know the area quite well, and I'm sure they'll agree that it's an opportunity in this to that it's an opportunity in this to have this new town.

I welcome this huge opportunity to tackle London's housing crisis, boost economic growth and unlock long overdue investment in transport and infrastructure for my constituents, tells me. Waterfront is a 100 hectare site that offers capacity for up to 15,000 new homes, alongside thousands of new jobs, expanded new town centre and high quality green spaces. It is one of the most deliverable large scale opportunities in the country. We will see this happen with a joint venture alongside Peabody and Lendlease that's already in place with a vision for an area which I see backed by the government and also my council.

Greenwich Council, which is led by Councillor Anthony and the London Authority, and the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan. It is central to Thamesmead Waterfront's success in the extension of the Docklands light Rail, also known as the DLR, which is something that I've campaigned on since I was first elected in this House in 2019. The proposed DLR extension is critical to unlocking these thousands of homes and jobs, with transport for London estimating an economic boost of around 18 billion.

It will finally connect Sea 28, which is the only postcode in London without a rail or tube station to the wider city. That is a question of fairness as much as growth and I hope once it's done, Madam Deputy Speaker will come and come on DLR to visit my constituency. I know that local residents want this as well, and I understand that about 85% of respondents to the TfL Poole poll supported the DLR extension. So it's widely welcomed.

So this is exactly the kind of infrastructure led development that the new Towns programme should champion. Building homes in the right places, in the right order, with transport plans from the start. So, alongside my hon. Friend for West Ham and Beckton, I was delighted to hear the Chancellor's commitment in her Budget last November to work with TfL and the GLA to support the DLR extension to our constituencies,

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but if we are serious about happy to give way. I thank the hon. Lady for giving way and she is correct. I am very way and she is correct. I am very familiar with the site in her constituency that is proposed to be one of the new towns. I also acknowledge and accept and support her argument that the her argument that the infrastructure, the DLR in this case would stimulate the regeneration of Thamesmead. Is it a regeneration of Thamesmead.

Is it a cause for regret, therefore, that the site in her constituency is not included in the three new towns that are scheduled to begin work before 2029?

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I'd like to thank my hon. Friend the Shadow Minister, and I also want to say thank you for supporting the work that I'm doing, particularly in Thamesmead, and recognising this, I feel very optimistic about what the optimistic about what the government is doing in terms of proposing the deal. The Thamesmead is one of the new towns. This is is one of the new towns. This is the reason why we're working in a collaboration with the government on this, and part of the reason on this, and part of the reason that we are having this debate today, and why the government has prioritised this, is they recognise this alongside the announcement that the Chancellor made in November with the extension of the DLR to me.

So I remain optimistic and I hope that I hope the shadow Minister can support me in this. But I also want to point out that if we are serious about new towns, we also must be serious about learning from the past in terms of looking at the lessons. So if you just look at Milton Keynes, which is a new town from the 70s, I know that my hon. Friend for Milton Keynes and North has been highlighting lessons that have come from that in terms of making sure that when we're looking at the future of the new towns, we don't make mistakes of the past and recognise the importance of the future.

I know that he's been working alongside my hon. Friend for Vauxhall and Camberwell Green, who was the chair of the housing, Communities and Local Government. And I know that they've been looking at evidence to in terms of the new towns, the new towns I feel must build with existing communities in mind. This is something that has been echoed by past speakers. It's designed to bring real opportunity, identity and community to the people that will live here. And engagement must go beyond consultation.

We must look at young people, families and future residents should help shape the identity of the place from the start. I also want to say that stewardship must be permanent, not temporary. There must be clear accountability. Accountability for maintenance, renewal, and adaptation. As the town evolves over decades. One of the strong lessons, lessons from the past new towns, is that housing numbers alone are not enough. We need to look at schools, health services, culture venues, transport links and public spaces must be treated as priorities, not as an afterthought.

We also need to look at how well-designed streets and public spaces work as well, because they're important as well. These are not luxuries. They are. They shape how people feel and how they live and where they want to live. So we need to look at the right housing mix, which is vital. There are worrying examples from the past of a lack of provision for the elderly and those from different income levels, and worryingly, from those of ethnic minority backgrounds.

So new towns do have a bright future, but only if we apply those lessons to ensure they're inclusive, integrated and successful for the long term. I do believe that Thames Waterfront does offer a unique opportunity. It can serve existing communities, future residents and the wider London and national economy. So back in Thames waterfront as a new town would provide additional momentum, helping align central government, the local council, transport plans and delivery partners. And with this ambition, leadership and long term commitment, alongside lessons learned from the past, Terry Jermy waterfront can become a new town that generally improves lives not just a housing scheme, but a place that people are proud to call home.

I also wanted to raise with the Minister, as I know decisions are being made at the moment, particularly on viability and delivery models. Can the Minister clarify how new towns will continue to receive the long term stewardship they will need, so that they remain inclusive and well managed? And communities are not just decades, not just die in the build out phase. That is something that I think is particularly important. Madam Deputy Speaker, I'd like to conclude by saying that I do welcome the New Towns taskforce and the ambition of the government to deliver new towns as part of our wider goals to deliver more homes, economic growth and make Britain a better place to live.

And I urge Ministers to recognise the strength of the opportunity in Thamesmead as decisions are taken in the months ahead. Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, Florence

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Speaker. I rise and thank my and congratulate my hon. Friend from Cumberland and Kirkintilloch for securing this debate and and her securing this debate and and her outlining her experience and her passion and and in terms of representing a new town. When we representing a new town. When we talk about a generation of new towns, it's important we listen to towns, it's important we listen to the experience of current new towns like Cumbernauld. And I'm pleased to see many colleagues representing
13:31
Florence Eshalomi Portrait Florence Eshalomi MP (Vauxhall and Camberwell Green, Labour )
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other new towns in the chamber today who who I'm sure will give us a flavour of what they've seen in a flavour of what they've seen in their areas. And it's important because we have to think about the challenges those towns have faced and what MPs in those areas are and what MPs in those areas are going to be saying in maybe 70 years time, when we've all left years time, when we've all left this place, the town and the the town and country Planning Associations network highlighted Associations network highlighted some of the common features in the 2021 report.

They highlighted both the positive legacies of innovation, accessibility, social housing, but they also highlighted some of the challenges of New town renewal and the need for the whole scale estate regeneration, and not having rushed and poor quality housing. And if we want these new towns to last, it is critical that the government listen to the experiences of the new town today to ensure that we get the placemaking element of those new town programmes right, to ensure that the current and future new towns get the support they need from government to recognise the unique challenges each individual location faces.

Now, in announcing the new towns, the government described the original New Towns programme as the most ambitious town building effort ever undertaken in the UK, saying it transformed the lives of millions of working people by giving them affordable and well-designed homes and well planned and beautiful surroundings. In announcing the taskforce in July 2024, the then Deputy Prime Minister and the taskforce said that this is going to deliver the largest house building programme since post-war period. The new taskforce made 44 recommendations and I'm sure that all members have read all those recommendations and the need, and they included making sure that the new towns are built to a density sufficient enough to enable residents to walk to local amenities, making sure that the support for public transport, unlocking social infrastructure, creating active and liveable neighbourhoods, and establishing clear minimum density thresholds.

Those new towns should also provide a diverse range of high quality housing, an issue that many colleagues have already highlighted today. And this should also include the minimum target for 40% of affordable housing, of which at least half should be social rent. The new town should also support thriving communities by creating the access to the schools, the cultural, the sport and the healthcare facilities and other social infrastructures that meets the needs of residents from the outset. And the also states that the new towns, the starting point for the delivery of all these new towns should be the development corporation model.

Yeah. Now the government needs to be very clear on the interactions between the new towns and local housing need targets, which the hon. Member for North Bedfordshire highlighted earlier on the New Towns Taskforce found through their investigation that strong support for homes delivery as part of the new towns should count towards local housing targets. And it was good to see the government and the Minister welcome the the task force recommendations and the government setting out their recommendations. And the government have announced that they're commencing with the Strategic Environment Assessment to understand how the implication and environmental implications will impact the new towns.

And we heard that this assessment is going to make come back and then make the final decisions on the locations. Madam Deputy Speaker, I welcome the Minister to the House again to discuss the new towns. This is the second time this week in that we discussed this earlier at our select committee earlier this week on Tuesday, and I don't want to rehash that session, but I did want to follow up on a few things that were said during that session. And I hope that the Minister can give some answers to that.

In response to the task force, the government agreed that the development Corporation should be the primary delivery bodies for the new towns. Now, this is welcome, and the Minister will recall that on Tuesday in questions. In an answer to the question from my honourable colleague, the Member for Milton Keynes North, that development corporations can sometimes take a long time to set up, and that this may come after rounds of consultations. I'd be keen to know from the Minister how, soon after making any final decisions on locations, will the government look to set up these development corporations? I know that the Minister is keen and we all want to see those spades in the ground on at least those three sites by the end of this Parliament.

So does he expect that he will have those development corporate, that the development corporations will be in place? Secondly, our committee recommended in our report earlier last year on land value capture that the government should enable greater use of tax increment financing instruments to fund the infrastructure for new towns. Now, this model allows local authorities to borrow money against anticipated tax receipts, resulting in future infrastructure. And this is something that was used by TfL to finance the London Underground Northern Line extension from Battersea to Nine Elms.

And I should declare an interest in that. The lovely new Nine Elms station is in my constituency, and our committee heard that this could be used more widely across England as a way of financing this. So I want to know to the Minister, is the government considering this, and if not, why? Madam Deputy Speaker, the Minister told our committee that the funding for the new towns will be coming from the department's existing programmes, including the £39 billion Social and Affordable Homes programme.

Now this is a welcomed pot biggest investment we are seeing in the Affordable Homes programme, showing this government's commitment to making sure we build those much needed new homes. The bidding for the Social and Affordable Homes programme opens next month, but the answers to our committee indicates that we will only see significant bidding on the vast majority of these sites into the early 2030s. So this could mean that those homes are down the lines in many years to come. And in a sense, this will do very little to address the acute homelessness we are seeing now, which is facing over 300,000 people in the UK today.

So I'd be grateful if the Minister could outline what discussions he's had with Homes England in terms of maybe prioritising this funding from that pot, and if there'll be any new weighting given to social housing in the shorter term. Mr. speaker, the Secretary of State told our select committee in November that he's committed to the new towns delivering 40% affordable, minimum affordable homes. The Minister told our committee on Tuesday that this is an aspiration and we cannot discount viability entirely.

We know that affordable housing was at the centre of the task force report, and at the centre of the government's recommendations in terms of placemaking, and is part of the government's gold standard for new towns. Can the Minister confirm to the House that, as the Secretary of State highlighted to us in November, that he is committed to the recommendation that the new town should deliver a minimum of 40% affordable homes and at least half should be social rent. Finally, Madam Deputy Speaker, Stakeholders and members this afternoon have stressed the importance of local communities being involved in new towns.

From the beginning. Doctor Victoria Hills, chief executive of the Royal Town Planning Institute, said at one of our committee sessions, the first wave of new towns showed what can be achieved when governments and planners work at scale, but they also highlight the importance of getting the design, infrastructure and the community voice right from the very start. Public support for new towns will develop on learning those lessons, and making sure they reflect on the aspirations of the people who will live and work there.

And I know that the Minister has committed to ensuring that the public are brought along on this and the important principles of the community, engagement and community and leadership. So it's important that the government continue to listen to this, making sure that there are opportunities for local communities to shape the infrastructure, shape the vision, and make sure that everyone is committed to seeing that end goal of the new towns being, being, being built. I hope that the Minister will agree and share our ambition that the New Towns opportunity offers offers a chance for looking at economic growth, supporting communities, building a much needed new homes we know we desperately need.

We can't keep saying where we are in a housing crisis and not do anything about it. It will secure that national objectives and making sure we are getting the honest and good infrastructure at scale and pace. I thank the Member for securing this, and I know that there will be many more discussions as we continue on this.
13:41
Tim Roca Portrait Tim Roca MP (Macclesfield, Labour)
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I won't put a formal time limit on, but if members keep their speeches to under eight minutes, that will help everybody else.

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Tim Roca thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. In Macclesfield, there has been one topic dominating conversation for several months now, which is the proposed new town at Adlington. Every street corner, every coffee shop, every parish meeting will almost every conversation. Because for one glorious weekend, Adlington was briefly knocked off the top spot by briefly knocked off the top spot by the small matter of Macclesfield beating Crystal Palace. And I know I'm on dangerous ground here because the Minister, I think was brought up in south London, so I'll just leave the football at that.

But jokes aside, this is an important debate and I'm grateful to the hon. Member for securing it. I am not a Nimby, I support housebuilding, I support development, and I support the principle of new towns done well in the right places, with proper planning and in the right manner with proper infrastructure. This country needs homes, especially genuinely affordable homes and new towns have a proud history, as we've heard this afternoon, of delivering them when they're carefully planned, sensibly located. And I don't oppose that ambition, I welcome it.

But supporting the principle of new towns does not mean signing a blank check for every proposed site. And it certainly doesn't mean abandoning the basics of good planning. Which brings me to Adlington. Adlington is not an empty space on the map. It's a small rural community, about 1000 people first recorded in the Domesday Book. It's a place shaped by continuity fields, farms. It's still working farmland, still producing food, supporting local jobs and sustaining wildlife. The proposal before Macclesfield, would place up to 20,000 homes on 1000 hectares of strategic greenbelt, wiping out 15 working farms, ancient hedgerows, hedgerows, bluebell woodlands and fragmenting some of the most environmentally sensitive land in Cheshire.

And that matters because the greenbelt isn't an accident, it exists for a reason to stop urban sprawl, to protect countryside and to make sure we regenerate brownfield land. And once greenbelt of this scale is gone, it's gone forever. And I want to make a point about the the New Towns task force, more broadly, the short list, because this is quite telling. Among all the sites recommended, Adlington stands out not as the most suitable, but as the one that has faced the greatest opposition.

And the opposition hasn't come from one group, one parish or one campaign. It's come from across the community, across political lines and across civic society. And I'm grateful to the Minister for meeting with me before Christmas to discuss those concerns. It's particularly striking that the campaign for the Protection of Rural England, an organisation that has not opposed a number of the other new town sites recommended by the task force, has taken a clear and firm position against Paddington.

So when they single out one site among many, it's because something genuinely doesn't stack up. And if that weren't enough, Madam Deputy Speaker, Cheshire East Council the local authority, has not a planning authority that's dragging its feet or shirking its responsibilities. They're now preparing a new local plan, which will set out how housing need will be met in years ahead, transparently, democratically and with proper public engagement. And that is how planning should work. They've delivered before and with their new plan, they'll deliver again, but without dropping 20,000 homes into the open countryside against the opposition of local communities.

So opposing this site doesn't mean opposing housing. It means respecting the plan led system rather than bypassing it. I mentioned brownfield land Madam Deputy Speaker. There are brownfield sites across Cheshire, across Greater Manchester and across the wider region that are crying out for regeneration, many of them close to jobs, transport, schools and services. Building their first isn't anti-growth, it's sustainable planning. Indeed, there are alternative Newtown sites in the North west that could be considered as well. So let's not jump straight into one of the most sensitive stretches of greenbelt in the region, next to a national park.

Let's think again. And powerful points have been made about infrastructure already this afternoon. These concerns have not been convincingly addressed. Adlington has limited rail services, constrained road capacities, utilities that were never designed to support a town 20 times its current size. Fixing that would take decades, not years, and there remains no clear answer about who pays, who delivers, or when any of it would realistically be in place. And it's been compounded by the way that we've gone about this.

Madam Deputy Speaker, we need engagement with residents. There has only been one engagement session by the company with local residents. Communities have been left scrambling for information about the proposal, and that's not how you build confidence in a major national project. So before I finish, I want to thank local campaigners and activists, people who never expected to become planning experts, transport analysts or ecology specialists, but who have given up their evenings, their weekends and savings. Indeed, to engage constructively, responsibly and in good faith.

They've not shouted from the sidelines. They've done the hard work of evidence, scrutiny and civic engagement. And that's democracy at its best. They deserve recognition. So let me be absolutely clear once more, Madam Deputy Speaker. This is not about saying no to development. It's about saying not like this and not here. We should be building in homes where infrastructure already exists, where growth can be absorbed sustainably, where local authorities are partners rather than bystanders, and where the environmental cost is justified by an overwhelming and proven need.

Adlington does not meet that test, and so I'll end with a little bit of history Madam Deputy Speaker because this House likes its history in the in the office of the Minister hangs a picture of Clement Attlee. I think is a hero to both of us. It was Attlee's government that created the greenbelt precisely to protect landscapes like this from unchecked development. It wasn't anti-housing, it was pro planning. It's about balance. It's about foresight. It's about stewardship. So we owe it to that legacy and to future generations to show that same care now.

So let's support new towns. Let's build the homes our country needs. But let us also say calmly and clearly in the aptly spirit, Adlington is the wrong place. Thank to.
13:48
Shaun Davies Portrait Shaun Davies MP (Telford, Labour)
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Follow my hon. Friend who's just spoken. We are a little bit further spoken. We are a little bit further ahead than he or other new new towns are going to be, having been designated in the 1960s. I'd also designated in the 1960s. I'd also like to congratulate my hon. Friend for securing this debate and her powerful words. We were a second phase and learnt from her communities journey into New Town, and it's a delight to see our my hon. Friend the Minister in his place, responding for the government and unlike so many of his predecessors, a housing Minister that not only understands housing but has been in his position longer than a few minutes, I knew towns like Telford, Chris Bryant and East Kilbride and the hundreds of thousands of people who live there are the physical embodiments of hope and opportunity first made possible, as we've already heard by the government's new towns, gave families like mine a chance for a new life.

The increase in affordable, high quality housing made home ownership and renting away from the big cities possible for people who could never, ever dream that that would be their future or their reality. They weren't just life changing for the newcomers to those new towns, but for those like my family who were in the area before the new town designation, and they saw the opportunities for their children and their grandchildren that they could not dream of them themselves. But there are lessons, as the chair of the Select Committee has quite clearly outlined, that these new new towns need to learn from those that came before them, because new towns aren't only important as symbols of hope and aspiration, they are incredible achievements in their own right.

Telford still grows at a rate unlike any other, almost any other town in the country, with 1800 new homes being built last year alone. Despite being one of the biggest and most yimby towns in the country, Telford excels in its access to nature thanks to the local authority. Since its existence, Telford has designated 20 local nature reserves covering 600 hectares, more than 300 protected green spaces, more green and green flag green parks than ever before, and these spaces are loved and cared for by volunteers like Richard Shaw environmental and thousands of street champions and countless friend groups who take love and passion and pride in their communities.

New towns were built on a principle. People don't just live in houses, they live in homes, in communities. They need schools, jobs, healthcare, transport and green spaces. And Telford is a community that is thriving thanks to the dedication of groups like Telford Community Support and Telford Crisis Support, new towns continue to offer unique opportunities thanks to good transport links, Telford has become a hub of industry and manufacturing, in particular in regards to the defence sector with the RBS manufacturing tanks and employing over 1500 people, but also major centres for Kraft Heinz, Besblock bridge, cheese and more.

For a new town like Telford. And it also has a history. It has a claim as the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution with Ironbridge and Coalbrookdale, and I would like to pay tribute to Marcus Keen, of Telford Memories, and Steve Bowers of Telford Ultimate Guide for the work that they do in promoting Telford's proud history and rich diversity, and also to people like Dennis Athersmith of Dawley, members who celebrate what came before Telford's designation. But we do need more Madam Deputy Speaker, more like the M54 M6 link road that was proposed at the same time as the designation of Telford, but has never come to fruition.

Thankfully promised by this government. A direct train link from Telford to London scrapped under the last conservative government, with plans to reinstate it with this one. Better buses, a town that was designed for cars, means that our bus transport system is limited and perhaps one day we can dream of a metro system. For decades, governments have failed to keep up with the keep up and support new towns. New towns have grown significantly above the regional and national averages, and particularly at times when the rest of the national economy has stalled.

New towns have continued to power on, but that has resulted in new towns not getting its fair share of enablement funding. And I also refer to what other hon. Members have said about housing. Houses, in particular around South Telford, were built with a life expectancy of 30 or 40 years. Now, 60 years later, they need regeneration. But for the last 14 years we've not had an ambitious programme of estate renewal, and I ask the Minister to consider what this government can do with regard to that.

But we're also seeing an ageing population Madam Deputy Speaker with those people that came to Telford 60 years ago now in their 70s, 80s and 90s, and we have the fourth highest growth in the elderly population in England today. I welcome the renewed interest in new towns, thanks to this government's agenda to build three new towns. And I hope that the Minister and those new new towns will look to places like Telford and other new towns for inspiration. But as Captain Matthew Webb said, the first person to swim the English Channel, nothing great is easy and we must measure the new towns.

Not in ten years, but in 50, 60 and 100 years so that they can realise their potential. As the new towns are built, the government should also turn to the former new towns, experience towns and in some cases the new cities to understand how the mistakes that were made frankly around town centre positioning can be avoided and to invest and back them. Madam Deputy Speaker, I have three specific asks for my hon. Friend the Minister. One is to ask each existing new town, with a record of delivery, what it needs to do to break through the Whitehall machine to reach its next phase of opportunity.

If the government has got, and I genuinely do believe the government has an ambition to get the economy growing and to build those houses, why not look to those areas that have been doing it for decades before and give them the opportunity to contribute to that national mission? Two as I've already mentioned, learn from those new towns in Telford. It was the council, not Homes England, that delivered new homes. It remodelled town centres. It created a converted a shopping centre into a place where universities are springing up, where people are now living and that new town centre identity will be so important to Telford's next story.

And three, as the 1980s advert said Come to Telford, I would love to take the Minister on a tour of communities like Lightmoor, Bournville, Bournville, Village, Village and shown the history and the beauty of Ironbridge Gorge, the future and whether the new theatre, being backed by government funding, the new swimming pool in Dawley and the first person the home of the first person to swim the English Channel or take him to Southwater, our new town centre, where people like Dan have continued to campaign and to turn that place from a shopping centre into a town centre, or to see the amazing Ansteys Hall in mainly a former working men's club that has now been regenerated with a fantastic all female leadership team and so much more.

And Madam Deputy Speaker, I'll close on this. If this government backs these new towns in the same way that Atlee and previous Labour governments did, there is a moment in history for this government and this housing Minister. So in 50, 60 and 70 years time, they can look back and see

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the legacy of this government. Thank you. Speaking limit of seven minutes Chris Curtis.

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Chris Curtis. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. And I'd like to thank my friend not just for securing this debate, but the very passionate and moving speech she passionate and moving speech she gave at the start of it. I'm going to start by building on some of the comments made by the hon. Member comments made by the hon. Member for North Bedford because when he was talking about his speaking to his constituents and their experiences of what is potentially the beginning of a new town process, it reminded me of a conversation I had coming back from Labour Party conference two and a half years ago,
13:57
Chris Curtis Portrait Chris Curtis MP (Milton Keynes North, Labour)
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when we, in opposition at the time, announced that if we won the announced that if we won the election, we would move forward with the new Towns programme. I got back, maybe slightly worse for wear back, maybe slightly worse for wear to Milton Keynes, popped into the the family home to see my 92 year old grandmother at the time with her friend Georgie in the living her friend Georgie in the living room. The two of them grew up in a small.

She grew up in a small farmhouse in a small village at the time of Will Stone, about 300 people. It's since been consumed into what is now Milton Keynes, and they were talking, as they often did, about how things used to be the roads they knew by name the rivalry between the cricket teams of the local pubs in that in that small village, and also spoke about, you know, just as we we heard from some of the conversations I'm sure are happening in Chelmsford their fear at the time about what change would bring with the new town programme to their communities, how it would change the tight knit community that they were used to and grew up in.

The very many concerns about what it would mean for local culture, local infrastructure. And I think it's very easy for us politicians just to stop there in our conversations with local constituents. But I think when I went with that conversation was a little bit further and it was, you know, she would talk about how actually she lived long enough to see what a difference the community that was built in Milton Keynes, my hometown, I'm the first MP to be born, grew up in the new town of Milton Keynes, made to the lives of her daughter and her grandchildren.

I owe almost everything to the fantastic start that Milton Keynes gave me in life, because it meant that my parents could afford decent and affordable housing. It meant that there were good and decent jobs available because of what the development corporation did. It meant that public services were there when we needed them. And there's talk about just like just like Tempsford, Milton Keynes was built on a floodplain, the river floodplain, which again, I know is often a concern for people. The development corporation solution for that was to build balancing lakes.

And, you know, her and Georgie were pretty opposed to the balancing lake at the time. It was filled next to the farm she grew up on. It's massive diggers and slurry everywhere coming in. She used to call it that daft puddle, but actually what that does today is not just provides flood protection alleviation because of what the development corporation was able to achieve pretty significant infrastructure project to tens of thousands of homes, allowing the building of the city I call home. It also means that my city has 5000 acres of beautiful blue and green spaces that are enjoyed by thousands of people.

It's also the lake where my parents met learning my dad, teaching my mum not particularly well to learn to sail, because also the city was really determined to ensure that recreational activities were available to people, whatever their background. And I lost my grandmother just before Labour Party conference last year and the hospice that looked after her in the last weeks of her life looked out over that very same lake. And I mentioned this just to say that the story of my life, the reason I'm here, I owe so much to the vision, the confidence, the level of ambition that was shown to build somewhere truly special in Milton Keynes in the 1960s and 1970s.

And I think it is only with that same level of confidence and that same level of ambition that we can hope to have people talk so positively about the work we are doing now, as I can talk about the work that was done by the Milton Keynes Development Corporation in the 1960s and 70s, I'll just mention a few points that potentially make me nervous about whether we are going to fulfil that ambition, some of which were mentioned by the chair of the Select Committee, particularly in relation to to where we are.

We are these projects are not going to come cheap to the government. We obviously need to maximise the financing options that we can use, and we're also going to need to look at maximising the amount of land value capture. Now Milton Keynes was given £700 million in the 1960s. If you wrap that up to today's money, that's about 14 billion. I don't think anybody is looking at that level of ambition for a new town project, but it is going to have to be money.

And that money came back to the government multiple times over because of the economic value that was generated by the building of the city. But we are going to have to see money, not just capital money and direction to those pots of money that are available on capital, but also revenue spending in order to set up the development corporation. And I don't think we've seen enough from the department about that, about that approach yet. Secondly, I fear about death by consultation.

We've obviously had, you know, a process in order to come up with a list of new towns, a very good piece of work done by Sir Michael Lyons. And I think we should all pay tribute to the work that he did on this project. But now we've got a government response to that which is taking further months. There will be a consultation on that. And if development corporations are set up further consultation on that. So we do need to look at how we can streamline the process and get these projects going as quickly as possible.

And the final concern I'll just raise is in conversations with local councils. At the moment, it seems like there has been an approach from the team working on this to go back to that kind of begging bowl culture, to turn around to the sites that have been selected. And obviously Milton Keynes is one of those sites. And to be asking them, even though Michael Lyons did the work, so Michael Lyons did the work for why? For why these 12 sites were correct, but asking them to go back and convince them that they should get the resources that are going to be required to deliver what the government is saying needs to be delivered.

And I think that is not going to lead to success. Just one example. A big part of the report was talking about the importance of building communities that are not dependent on the car, that have good public transport options. If you take my area, which is very car dependent, and if we are going to continue to grow, we can't be, we're going to need that support from DfT in order to do so. The approach from DfT has been, why do you need this money? Your roads aren't congested yet, and that is completely out of line with the government's ambition and the New Towns Act approach.

So we need to change the culture for, I think, how the government is approaching this new town programme, if it's going to be a success and if in decades to come, somebody can be standing in this chamber talking about being the first MP for the new town of Chelmsford and talking there about how much of a success this programme has been. Thank you, Chris Law.
14:03
Chris Bloore Portrait Chris Bloore MP (Redditch, Labour)
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Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, let me begin by congratulating my hon. Friend for securing this debate and for her tireless debate and for her tireless advocacy for her community. For 62 years ago, Redditch was selected as the West Midlands second Mark two New Town after some were called Telford, a deliberate policy decision to relive to to relieve the post-war housing crisis gripping Birmingham and the wider conurbation. Unlike the first generation of new towns, Redditch was not built on empty land. It had over 800 years of history and an existing population of around 32,000.

Planners therefore faced a unique challenge how to expand a living town, not replace it. That is why Redditch matters so much to this debate. It's a story of ambition, achievement and unfinished business that offers powerful lessons about what worked, what was not sustained and what must we do differently today? Redditch wasn't simply given a population target and left to chance. The Redditch Development Corporation, led by Chief architect Brian Bunch and his team, delivered an innovative master plan published in 1967. Built around Beed like districts along key transport routes, each neighbourhood was designed to be largely self-contained, with schools, shops, churches and green space, while preserving green corridors between communities and a plethora of roundabouts.

The aim was to integrate old and new, bringing together town and country MPs in this place later praised the generous landscaping and planting of open areas, amenities far beyond what normal local authority budgets could have delivered. Redditch also pioneered something pioneered something radical for its time a new town designed around public transport rather than the private car. 3 million trees were planted. Roads were banked to reduce noise, pedestrians were separated from fast moving traffic. Those were luxury. Those were not luxuries.

They were choices about quality of life. Within two decades, a town of 32,000 had grown into a community of more than 70, eventually reaching around 90,000 by the end of the century. Many families escaping overcrowded terraces and the slums in Birmingham. The estates that emerged, Churchill, Matchborough, Winyates, Greenlands and Woodrow were planned communities where working families could own their own homes, raise children, and access to schools, parks and services within walking distance. Arrow Valley Country Park remains one of the great successes of new town planning.

900 acres of protected green space at the heart of Redditch. Historic sites were preserved to the Forge Mill, Needle Museum and Bordesley Abbey, anchoring centuries of history within a modern town. In 1983, Queen Elizabeth II opened the Kingfisher Shopping Centre and Forge Mill National Needle Museum. Thousands lined the streets in Millwood. In Millwood Square, the Queen unveiled Eduardo Paolozzi s mosaics celebrating Redditch's needle making heritage. Astronauts and needles side by side, symbolising past and future. The chair of the Development Corporation, Professor Dennis Hinton, said at the time this marked the completion of an enterprise of which everyone can be proud.

But Redditch wasn't just built on being a new town, it had manufacturing at the heart of its DNA. It produced 19% in the early 20th century of the world's needles not cottage craft but precision metalworking at scale. Those skills fed into bicycles, motorcycles, springs and defence manufacturer Royal Enfield BSA. Aerospace components. Redditch had an industrial DNA. During the Second World War, High Duty Alloys employed 13,000 people, producing aircraft for Rolls Royce and others. Post-war, those same skills flew in Concorde and British defence systems.

The Development Corporation understood this. The new town was deliberately planned around manufacturing led economy, not a dormitory suburb, but a place with skilled local employment. For a time that promise was kept. The landscaping and design principles established by Hugh Wilson, Lewis Walmsley and their teams proved durable. But something changed. Something fundamental changed when the Housing Corporation was wound up in 1985, housing targets were met, but the commitment to self-sustaining local economy faded. Cheap imports hollowed out traditional industries.

Over time, Redditch became increasingly a commuter town for Birmingham. Between 2007 and 2017, the UK lost 600,000 manufacturing jobs. Redditch were twice the national average. Employment in manufacturing was hit harder than most. Today. Manufacturing output has declined even more. Where employment remains, skill pathways are narrowed. The defence and aerospace sector survive, but a fraction of its former scale. Even core services have faced sustained pressure. The Alexandra Hospital has lost services like paediatric services and maternity services, undermining public confidence and reminding us that infrastructure builds once still requires long term support.

And underpinning all of this is social pressures, drugs, crime, child poverty. Over half of the Redditch households experience at least one form of deprivation. Neighbourhoods built up modern, built as modern housing for working families like Greenlands and Woodrow, and now designated as areas of such concentrated deprivation that they qualify for £20 million of targeted regeneration funding. I welcome that investment, but it should give us pause. This was not the future those planners envisaged. What Redditch teaches us is that new towns worked when they combined five key things a clear social purpose, long term institutions, integrated employment, infrastructure, built up front, community cohesion by design.

Redditch achieved all of these things between the 1960s and 1980s. We lost momentum when that comprehensive approach was abandoned. The lesson is not that new towns failed, it's that when we stop thinking long term, stop planning for jobs and start backing places with sustained investment, we broke that model. As we debate new towns today, we must ask, are we prepared to commit to the same level of ambition that created Redditch, or will we settle for the piecemeal fixes after decline that has already set in? My.

My constituents are proud of Redditch's new town heritage, but pride alone will not secure its future. To honour that legacy, we must renew it with long term investment, integrated planning and the political will to see it through. That is not nostalgia. It is a hard headed realism about what works and what my constituents deserve.

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Chris Vince thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, and can I thank my hon. Friend from Kirkhill and hon. Friend from Kirkhill and Cumbernauld for the other way round for securing this debate. It's one that I'm hugely passionate about that I'm hugely passionate about and gives me an opportunity to have seven minutes to talk about Harlow. seven minutes to talk about Harlow. So thank you very much. How do you begin to describe a new town like Harlow? Do you talk about the
14:10
Chris Vince Portrait Chris Vince MP (Harlow, Labour )
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Harlow? Do you talk about the houses, the bricks and mortar, the gardens and the trees, or do you talk about the people, the young and the old and everyone in between? I think you start with the people, but I'm going to start, if I may, Madam Deputy Speaker, with the history. Harlow was designated a new town in 1947 as part of the post-war reconstruction. Many people moved to Harlow from London to start a family calling Harlow its first nickname, Pram Town.

The master plan for Harlow was drawn up by Sir Frederick Gibberd, with the help of Dame Sylvia Crowe and others. It was designed to have a sense of community, with every neighbourhood having its own shopping centre, its own shopping hatch, a play park and green spaces and its own public art. I don't think Madam Deputy Speaker. There are many places that you can walk down the street, go into a state and come across a road or a Barbara Hepworth just on your daily rounds, or in fact, the odd concrete donkey and what and that sense of community still shines through today.

It shines through every time I go and watch Harlow Town Football Club, every time I pop for a pint in the hair, visit the art studios at Parndon Mill or the Gibberd Gardens, or visit our beautiful town park for the parkrun, which I'm doing slightly more often than usual, we see that sense of community Madam Deputy Speaker in the many incredible charities and community organisations that Harlow has, many of whom I've had the pleasure to visit during my 18 months as Harlow's MP, and two of which the youth concerned trust and raise roof.

I have the absolute honour to be a trustee of. We see it in the way our town supported one another during the pandemic and yes, how people in Harlow often support me as well. Gibbons. Gibbons designed for this state. I can absolutely echo what my hon. Friend said about the housing numbers. I would defy anyone to walk around London and try and explain to me the logic around that sort of numbering system. I can assure you, it was also designed to be a place where managers and workers lived side by side as part of that same community, with that same ambition to achieve.

And I think that's something that we've lost sight of a little bit. And as some of the issues that my hon. Member for Redditch mentioned about the decline in manufacturing, which has had a huge impact on on places like Harlow as well. Madam Deputy Speaker, I said in this place a number of times, Harlow might not be the oldest new town. I was waiting for an intervention from an

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old friend, for Stevenage. Friend? Can my. Friend for. Harlow confirm. Which. Is the.

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Is the. Oldest town in the UK? Yes. I think my hon. Friend from Stevenage knows fairly well, but Stevenage knows fairly well, but and but it's nearly the oldest new town and it might not be the best or I think it is the best, although or I think it is the best, although it's probably not the best if you're a fan of being able to park your car anywhere near your house, your car anywhere near your house, but it absolutely is the new town, Madam Deputy Speaker, with the biggest heart.

I hope that when this government looks at the creation of a new generation of new towns, it will look at the things that did work in Harlow, because creating a new town isn't just about bricks and mortar, about trees and gardens. It's about people and communities too. I am proud to represent Harlow with its history, but I'm determined that Harlow will have a strong future as well, and the commitment last year from this government to ensure that the UK Health Security Agency will have its permanent home in Harlow is huge for this country.

As I mentioned earlier, the decline in the manufacturing industry has had an impact on Harlow. We have seen some of that industry go. We are still got some fantastic industry in terms of Raytheon and other really important manufacturing businesses. But of course we've seen that decline. And I absolutely agree with comments from my hon. Friends, about the importance of the need for continued investment in our new towns, to see them survive and thrive for the future, and the importance of that long term stewardship.

Just one anecdotal fact about Harlow before I wind up, Madam Deputy Speaker, wind up the. Madam Speaker, maybe. Is Harlow fantastic cycle network. Now of course they need more investment. And I would always push Essex County Council to continue to invest in our cycle network. But interesting fact about Harlow is you get one side to the other without ever going on a main road because of our fantastic cycle network and our green wedges and green fingers, which are hugely important to that sense of community.

Madam Deputy Speaker, everybody deserves a place in the history of Harlow, even those like

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me who came to Harlow from afar and together we are the perfect blend. Sounded more like a maiden

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Sounded more like a maiden speech, but Kevin Bonavia. It was. Thank you.

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Madam Deputy Speaker. It is a pleasure to come second on this occasion to to my hon. Friend the occasion to to my hon. Friend the Member for Harlow and we and Stevenage. We may not have a
14:15
Kevin Bonavia Portrait Kevin Bonavia MP (Stevenage, Labour)
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concrete donkey. We do have a donkey park, and we do have a concrete polar bear in shells, which we're very, very proud of. I would also like to congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for. For securing this really important debate on the occasion of the 70th anniversary of of her new town. Now, my new town of Stevenage is celebrating its 80th anniversary as the first new town UK this year. And as its it shares its birth year with the birth year of my mum, who's actually 80th birthday is today.

So, so after after celebrating my my new town, I will be celebrating with her later. And my mum was born and grew up in Glasgow and like many people growing up in the 50s and 60s, they sought a new life. She didn't end up in Cumbernauld. She went to circuitous route via Malta and then back, back, back, back to London. And, you know, she had ambition for her family and as did my dad John, my brother Gary and I ended up in Stevenage.

And this is a town that's really welcomed me as somebody who wanted to start a new life there. And that is a story of new towns where people it's not just, you know, if you get lucky enough to be born there and grow up there, but you choose to live there and start a new life, and your aspiration becomes your aspiration. And that is the story of new towns. But as I'm sure my hon. Friend the Minister is finding now, creating and developing new towns isn't easy, and one of his predecessors, the Minister for housing, Lewis Silkin, came to what was then the large village of Stevenage in the 1940s and arrived to see the Stevenage, the sign of Stevenage station being marked out and replaced with Silkin Grad.

He was not assured of a warm welcome, but that Minister had determination and he said, we're going to build this town. And and so we did. And it was really, really a huge achievement. And it showed the benefit of planning, thinking ahead, thinking about the kind of homes people need, but not just the homes, the schools, the jobs, the parks. If you come to Stevenage, to this day, the first impression you will get is how green is this place? And if you're lucky enough to be able to work in Stevenage itself, whether you live there or you come there for work, you'll find how easy it is to get to that work.

And we have great companies that developed over generations. Generations of people have worked at what is now MBDa and Airbus in aerospace and defence sectors. Over a quarter of satellites in space are made in Stevenage missiles. The Storm Shadow missiles are made in Stevenage that are sent to Ukraine to help them. The defence of against the horrific invasion by Putin's Russia. So new towns like Stevenage play their part. But a debate is really important today because it's like many members of this House today.

It's a lessons from new towns. And what can we do to rejuvenate new towns? My hon. Friend came to Stevenage weeks after the general election with Sir Michael Lyons, and he was there with fellow Minister there, Baroness Sharon Taylor, Stevenage Graham. And she herself has helped shape Stevenage and is doing a great job shaping homes across this country. And what they saw was a new development in town centre, new affordable homes to deal with today's housing crisis.

And it was. Stevenage was built in response to the housing crisis back then. So the challenge now is even more immense because Stevenage once had 38,000 council homes. That's 8000. And I've knocked on doors where I've seen people live in private rents there, and they have that insecurity. This government is working to fix that. But we need to get those new homes and we need to rejuvenate our town centres. As has been said previously. And that ain't easy because the lesson from development corporations was, what do you do once you've got them up and running and they've done their job? And what happened in Stevenage was in 1980, it was transferred to hedge funds and pension companies.

And it's so much harder now to rejuvenate those town centres. And that's one of the biggest things I get on the doorstep homes and what's happening in that town centre. So we really, really have to not just learn the lessons for new new towns, but for our existing new towns. We need to make sure that we will reshape them. Now, Stevenage remains ambitious. We have a council and a council leader in Richard Henry, who's leading the push for a 1 billion regeneration project in the town centre, including Stevenage Gateway, which will need government support.

A new station, new homes, new education facilities right in the heart of our town. Because Stevenage isn't a commuter town. Well, many people do come and go from TV to work, but it is also a community with neighbourhoods, with amazing individuals who I'm very proud to site. Time in, time out in this place. And they didn't just turn up their luck. It's because people had the foresight. Lewis Silkin, Monica Felton, Eric Clapton these were the pioneers of Stevenage.

We now have the chance to learn from them as we build our new towns for the future. Thank you.
14:21
Richard Baker Portrait Richard Baker MP (Glenrothes and Mid Fife, Labour)
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OK. brilliant, transformative Labour government of 1945 accepted and endorsed the idea of investing in the construction of new towns as a way of providing much improved living conditions for people throughout our nation. I'm delighted that this Labour government again does that today, and I am proud to be the MP for Glenrothes, the second post-war new town in Scotland, following East Kilbride, which was born on the 13th of June in 1948, when the Development Corporation was set up under the New Towns Act.

And of course, we are proud to be where the. My hon. Friend the Member for Cumbernauld and Kirkintilloch grew up, and I congratulate her on securing this debate today, which I think has been a really good debate on the path of new towns and on their future as well, and the purpose for Glenrothes to be established was to generate economic growth and renewal in Central five, and the town has achieved this despite great setbacks even at its foundation, which, and it's a story for Glenrothes, which I think can inspire us to tackle the challenges which new towns face today.

Because initially The Glenrothes was founded, was to support the development of a newly established National Coal Board super pit called the roughest Country in 1958, which hardly ever worked at all because it was at a plethora of of problems, much like the Conservative Party, such as flooding and geological faults. And when the the pit closed, further development of Glenrothes almost came to a halt. But the people of Dan Norris didn't give up and I, the Fife Council and the Development Corporation targeted the growing electronics industry to attract them to the town, and Glenrothes became an important centre for light industry.

The town played a significant role in establishing Scotland's Silicon Glen, with many high tech companies investing in the area. And as my hon. Friend said in her speech, this debate, it shows how new towns are have to reinvent themselves and are soon not new and have to look towards the future. And that's what we're doing today in Glenrothes, where we are already the administrative centre for Fife, and we maintain a a strong presence in the technology and manufacturing sectors. With the population of of just under 40,000, and this is the third largest settlement in Fife after Dunfermline and Kirkaldy.

And looking to the future with investment in in pride of place in my constituency, Methyl and Buckhaven, nearby Glenrothes and also in our regional growth zone, new funding for which was announced by Douglas Alexander, Secretary of State for Scotland, last week. And while we can't boast either concrete polar bears or concrete donkeys, we do have concrete hippos for which are greatly valued in the town and for which we are renowned. But in terms of business, the reason that many companies continue to make Glenrothes their base is that the town is has a great location in the centre of Scotland.

We have much to be thankful for in terms of investment in our infrastructure is an attractive destination to invest, but the town does face significant challenges and we know about the challenges faced by many new towns. We've heard about them in the debate today and indeed the Communities and Local Government Select Committee report of 2008 identified three particular infrastructure problems facing new towns throughout the UK. Transport, town centre, investment and housing design and public space. And I think we've heard throughout today's debate these are still issues which affect our new towns.

And certainly it's the case in Glenrothes that the idea of a 20 minute neighbourhood is a distant prospect still in our communities, and rail connectivity in particular is poor. So I will take a brief intervention for a moment. Thank

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Wilson. I've already spoken. One of the issues that Harlow did have is they kind of built the M11 on the wrong kind of built the M11 on the wrong side. So you have all these, these, these big lorries going all the way through Harlow to get to the through Harlow to get to the industrial side. So the industrial sites on the other side of the town. So would he agree with me? Actually, it's really important that when we it's really important that when we design these new towns we really make sure we get that transport, transport infrastructure.

Absolutely right.

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Could not agree more with my hon. Friend. I mean, the history is certainly in rail connectivity in new towns, and Scotland's railway stations are either not there at all in the town or a great distance away from the town centre. So we have to learn those lessons for the future. And certainly looking at issues, for example, in town centres, a Kingdom centre in Glenrothes is the centre and the high street of the town, but it's ageing. It needs to have investment in its infrastructure.

It requires a collective approach to offering new retail and entertainment opportunities. We need more community facilities in our housing estates and we have an ageing housing stock where homes are not energy efficient, they're expensive to heat and in a town where 20% of children are living in relative poverty, it's one of many strains on low income households in the town with with families struggling with increasing costs of living. And that's why it's so important, this government to action on energy bills and the fact that housing stock in new towns is too often too aged and needs to be improved is a key issue for that area of policy.

And the sad reality is that years of underinvestment in local authorities under a Scottish National Party government has resulted in a housing crisis across Scotland and Glenrothes, established to address these challenges in the first place is no exception. Fife Council has a housing stock of around 30,000 properties, but a waiting list around 13,000 people really badly affected in so many people in my of my constituents in Glenrothes. Yet the Scottish Government's Budget announced on Tuesday, gave a rise of just 2% to local authorities despite record breaking block grants for the Scottish Government, with Labour delivering an additional £10.3 billion for public services in Scotland since the last election.

A 2% increase for councils will not address the challenges faced by new towns in Scotland, and these towns are, as my friends said, they're not new anymore, they're not preserved in aspic. They need investment, and the establishment of new towns shows that change is inevitable, but that the principles and values which inspired their creation remain constant. And we need to hold on to those ideals. The ideals which created Glenrothes and other new towns in the first place need to continue to strive for progress, for growth, for modernity, both in our built infrastructure as well as our and transport connectivity, as well as in our public services, in education and health in our new towns.

And for that, we need to have leadership from government at all levels. And in Scotland, that means a Scottish Government with a vision to actively support local authorities, to support those authorities which do have responsibility for new towns, like five Council to achieve the positive change which our new towns now are badly in need of. And that means investment. That's why we need the Scottish Government capable of making new towns like Glenrothes feel new again.
14:29
Chris Hinchliff Portrait Chris Hinchliff MP (North East Hertfordshire, Labour)
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the Member for Stevenage mentioned it was his mother's birthday and I've been given an update. The mother is called Yvonne Bonavia. It's a happy birthday sir. Mr. speaker. will need for a thriving and fulfilling life, offers a much more hopeful solution to the housing crisis in this country than the proliferation of overpriced and characterless, built on estates thrown up by profiteering developers in recent years. As Ministers press on with these plans, I would like to highlight some of what can be learned from the radical and transformative history of previous such projects because, of course, Madam Deputy Speaker, the development of new towns in this country grew out of the garden city movement, and the very first and best garden city in the world is Letchworth Garden City in my constituency.

And I won't take any interventions. The principles on which Letchworth was founded offer several lessons, which I believe should now inform the plans for future new towns. Firstly, that the land on which the town will be constructed and the large rural greenbelt they need for healthy recreation and the supply of food should be brought into common ownership. This was always absolutely central to securing Ebenezer Howard's vision of the best of countryside and city life. This means having the ability to encourage industry through access to cheap sites, having being able to keep housing affordable by capturing rising land values and using ground rent to fund community assets.

To this day, the fact that Letchworth Heritage Foundation continues to have a substantial property portfolio allows it to invest in and subsidise many facilities that enrich life in the town, including the Garden City Greenway, the Broadway Cinema and Standalone Farm. So, Madam Deputy Speaker, lesson number one is that the development corporations for the next generation of new towns must be empowered to purchase all the land they need at current use value through cpos if necessary. Secondly, Madam Deputy Speaker, we must always remember that the purpose of Garden Cities was never just about the supply of housing.

From the outset, Letchworth was always envisioned as a way to bring employment and industry to a depressed rural economy. In short, new towns need a purpose, not just a housing target to hit. Communities thrive and grow around the industries that define them. And without this, new towns will never escape the rather dismal fate of becoming little more than a commuter dormitory. So as we build the new towns of the future, we must be clear from the outset about what the economic anchor institutions of those communities will be, whether they will be new university towns born as Cambridge was by scholars ready to set up fresh seats of learning to rival those of the past or new industrial sites for green technology, we must ensure that there is a clear economic identity defining the existence of future new towns.

Thirdly, in an era in which a tiny proportion of our homes are actually designed by architects, the Royal Institute of British Architects of British Architects have estimated just 6% are, we should strive to match the optimism of the Garden city movement, which sought to prove that beautiful, bright and well-built homes could be made affordable for ordinary people. To this day, the arts and craft inspired architecture of Letchworth makes an incredibly special place, and as we build the next new towns, we should suffuse them with the same values and the same determination to provide genuinely affordable homes alongside constant proof that life is beautiful.

That means commissioning architects to shape unique and inspiring local vernaculars that create a special identity for each town. It means embracing aesthetics and ornamentation as well as functionality, and it means patient public capital investing over the long term, above all in a high proportion of desperately needed council homes for social rent. In the context of the office for Environmental Protections, warning that we are largely off target for the UK's environmental commitments. It is also absolutely crucial that future new towns follow the Garden City model of development in harmony with nature.

Letchworth was built without cutting down a single mature tree, and there is no reason we cannot do the same now. Similarly, we must match the importance in Garden City principles of a well protected green belt, securing permanent and easy access for the inhabitants of new towns to the peace and joy of a countryside next door that is teeming with wildlife. And finally, Madam Deputy Speaker, while not all of Ebenezer Howard's vision ultimately came to fruition, and like all towns, Letchworth has its own challenges today the strength of the community it continues to foster.

Nearly 125 years after it was founded, should shape the policies we pursue to support the new towns to come from Decarbonise Letchworth to Wilbury Community Cafe and the Friends of Norton Common, the ordinary residents of Letchworth are a constant source of energy, passion and determination to tackle the challenges we face as a society. From environmental collapse to loneliness and the cost of living, the Labour government should foster and embrace these grassroots movements by combining new towns with a new drive to put power back in the hands of ordinary people, to give new communities the ability to shape their lives and their local area in a way that meets their hopes for the future.

We need a new charter of community Rights. Fortunately, Madam Deputy Speaker, the amendment I tabled to the Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill to do just that has, I believe, recently been retabled in the other place, providing the government with an excellent opportunity to rectify its oversight in failing to adopt the charter. When I first brought it to this House, designed to put power back in the hands of ordinary people, the charter for Community Rights offers a starting point for restoring popular agency in our democracy, which I believe is an essential ingredient to getting new towns right with a right to a clean and healthy environment, a right to a healthy home, a right to play, a right to grow food on public sector land, a right to roam and swim, to participate in decisions shaping communities, and a right to challenge local decisions.

Adopting the charter for Community Rights is the final ingredient to ensuring this government's new towns are genuine communities, capable of nurturing social life and cohesion from the outset. And that, Madam Deputy Speaker, should be an objective we can all share.
14:36
Andrew Lewin Portrait Andrew Lewin MP (Welwyn Hatfield, Labour)
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Andrew Lewin. >> Madam Deputy Speaker, I must start by congratulating my hon. Friend, the Member for Cumbernauld and Kirkintilloch, for a powerful and Kirkintilloch, for a powerful but also a deeply personal speech and I think Madam Deputy Speaker that has been the theme of this afternoon, Sons and Daughters of New Towns, but also stories of people who have come to new towns and made their lives there. And it is the case that each new town has its charm, its own history and unique identity.

They are home today to 2.8 million people, and just as the post-war New Towns programme was integral to rebuilding the country after the war, this government's ambition for 12 new communities is one of the most important of this Parliament. In my maiden speech in this place, I celebrated the history of Hatfield and Welwyn Garden City, but emphasised the importance of regeneration and investment for places to thrive. They can't be static. Every town needs to evolve and renew for the future.

In that first speech, I referenced the iconic shredded Wheat silos that have sadly lay dormant next to Welwyn Garden City train station for years, and I'm very pleased to report to the house and my community that since I made that speech, planning permission has been granted for a 578 home development. Crucially, the silos will be maintained and all its history, and the developer, treble eight, is proposing to transform them and to create a Sky bar and restaurant at the summit. There are lots of people in the town who are really excited about this, and it's precisely the type of imagination and investment that we need in our towns.

The sooner the building work begins, the better. In Hatfield, we've seen marketplace in the town centre open, a new public play area, and I'm continuing to have conversations with the borough council about a much more ambitious regeneration programme for White Lion Square, which is at the heart of the town centre. And it's a conversation that can't just be between politicians. As soon as I can, I'll be sharing more information with Hatfield residents and asking for their input, imagination and ideas. Madam Deputy Speaker.

Our next generation of new towns should take inspiration from the past, but they must learn lessons as well. And many hon. Members have talked to these in depth. Today. I want to commend particularly the Member for Redditch who I thought made a very excellent and insightful speech, but we're looking to design places that we want to see thriving in the 2040s. And of course, that is a very different challenge to building in the late 1940s. That said, I believe there are examples of best practice and some timeless principles to look to.

Again, I want to congratulate Sir Michael Lyons and his team on the New Towns Commission. They delivered a serious piece of work at pace, and were clear that there has to be a long term vision for each new place that we build. But there can be common elements to all. My friend, the chair of the select committee talked to some of these earlier, but I think it's worth returning to a few of them again. Number one, higher density incentives so that residents can walk to local amenities and that the footfall created means that there is demand to support a viable and vibrant high street, dedicated space for businesses and commercial activity so that new communities sustain jobs and attract ongoing investment.

Easy access to parks, green spaces and nature, social infrastructure, the good schools, cultural and sporting facilities, healthcare and hospitals in place from the outset, and balanced communities with a range of housing tenures. And it's the need for social and affordable housing that has always been important to me and integral to the New Towns project. Outside of our largest cities, our existing new towns have the highest concentration of social homes in the country. We need to build social homes at scale again to meet the urgency of the housing crisis, but to plan with consideration as well.

In our existing towns, there is too often a visible divide between estates and roads full of private homes for the more affluent. In our next generation of new towns, let's build tenure blind communities. Our ambition should be to walk down a street and not be able to tell the difference between a private home one for private rent, one for shared ownership, or one for social rent. And as we walk down these streets of tomorrow, let's make sure that they're lined with electric car charging points, homes with solar panels and heat pumps, and are never too far away from a green space community centre and in my case, a cricket club.

Madam Deputy speaker, I was born in Welwyn Garden City and it's my privilege to represent two brilliant and unique places and new towns in Parliament. So while I will always be a champion for them, but if we are to meet the moment and address the housing crisis, we need advocates for the next generation of these communities on all sides of this chamber. Let's invest in renewing the new towns that have been with us since the 1940s. Let's be bold in planning the communities of the future, and let's get building John Slinger.
14:41
John Slinger Portrait John Slinger MP (Rugby, Labour)
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Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend, the Member for Cumbernauld and Kirkintilloch, particularly her moving comments about community. And while obviously community starts with the people, it does need a bit of a boost from the planners and the developers from time to time. Now seeing is believing when it comes to delivering the homes this country urgently needs, and I've seen and been inspired by things in Rugby. And just as we've heard from hon. Members, how old new towns inform the new new towns, so can the urban extensions to old, old towns like Mine of Rugby provide some guidance and inspiration? I want to put on record my belief that we have a fantastic housing Minister who is totally committed, as is the government, to delivering on the 1.5 million houses are commitment.

It's vital and it will avoid a return to an era when successive governments fail to build enough homes for our growing population. Now, whether old or new town what our constituents want a first class links to essential facilities, GP surgeries, schools, green spaces, libraries and transport. In October 2024, Madam Deputy Speaker, I spoke about what I called the moon landing paradox how human beings can land a man on the moon, create artificial intelligence, nuclear power stations and the rest. But we seem incapable of providing sufficient homes of sufficient quality at an affordable price to to sufficient numbers of our citizens.

Now, a regular refrain in my inbox is concern over rugby's expansion as a conurbation, one that I appreciate stems from the fear that infrastructure and services haven't kept pace with development. As an MP, I, like all my colleagues, meet with developers to ensure that the appropriate section 106 funding is used to alleviate these problems. But in rugby, as an urban extension, we have a place called Houlton where urban and civic are the master developer, and in my view, it's a model of some success that deserves close attention because of some of the key ways they've sought to overcome the stumbling blocks that often lead to public scepticism or opposition to new housing developments.

And that's clearly vital as the government proceeds with its plans. Key to Holton's success was the early investment in amenities, working with local and national stakeholders, providing confidence, reassurance and demonstrating the tangible benefits of large scale developments. For example, the early delivery of a five kilometre link road to rugby immediately mitigated the concerns of residents over congestion that would have occurred. It enabled the accelerated development of the Saint Gabriel's Primary School ahead of the first residents even moving in, and they also accelerated the development of Houlton.

Houlton School and I recently visited the extension to that school of a primary school. The accelerated it by seven years, just taking the link road. Imagine if it had been delivered when the planning obligation required it, which is in 2026. My inbox will have been filled to the brim, quite rightly, with complaints about lorries, road traffic and road safety and so on. Developers thought carefully about the amenities to put in place a supermarket, cafes, restaurants, the Dolman Farm community hub, great pedestrian routes and more.

A parkway train station, Madam Deputy Speaker will also arrive. But of course, like trains these days, it may take some time, but it is coming. I'm assured to replicate such developments and achieve the goals of this government. We must be clear eyed in our focus, maintain our vision and invest significantly. Something I know that the government is doing with its £39 billion Affordable Homes plan, a priority of my constituents. What's clearly needed now is resolute focus by the government, which I believe it has on working in partnership with developers and investors and making sure that the master developers or corporations have the resources and backing to deliver on the promises that they make to our communities.

Housing and planning are a terrain littered with broken promises and unintended consequences. We've constructed an edifice of often well-intentioned constraints on government, which exists on the surface to protect the environment or archaeological sites, local political opinion, wildlife, and so on, but which in reality makes it harder for developments to be brought forward quickly. Now, while I didn't coin the phrase, I was the first MP to say in this House last January, last last January that we should build baby build.

And I stand by this statement. I commend the government for moving quickly and boldly in reforming our planning system and having an ambitious home building target, and insisting, often against the will of some housebuilders, on affordability and the provision of social housing. But what I would like to see, Madam Deputy Speaker, is even more of an action this day approach, which I am confident that these benches will support, so that we would use every power available to us as a government to overcome any and all impediments to to the delivery of these new towns across the country.

And to get them started pronto, for example, we could stipulate some ideas that I would like to suggest to the Minister. For example, we could stipulate five areas across the country where there are large populations of young people, and we could pass legislation, perhaps to allow modular housing developments, and we could ensure their high quality by running a competition globally and nationally for the best architects and engineers in the world to design small modular homes with up to two bedrooms for substantially less than the cheapest site built home.

I spoke about the moon landing paradox Madam Deputy Speaker. Well, this could be something of a moonshot, an effort to show the country and those of lower incomes, or people starting their careers or their families, that we have their backs. We could further use the prisoners building homes model to innovate, to reduce costs, and simultaneously to reduce reoffending. I'd be very grateful if the Minister would comment on these moonshot type suggestions that I have put forward today to the House.

Bold action is needed. Madam Deputy Speaker, it is essential if we are to truly make a difference for our communities, and that is exactly what we are seeing from this government. More power to

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their elbow. Sam Rushworth. Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker.

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Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. And often, last but hopefully not least in my contribution. And may I also thank my hon. Friend, the also thank my hon. Friend, the Member for Cumbernauld and Kirkintilloch, for what I thought was an excellent opening speech, was an excellent opening speech, but also other colleagues, particularly those from new Towns who who've spoken today. I who who've spoken today. I represent a town that was founded in the seventh century. But and I'm really proud of our history and heritage.

But something that's really struck me today, as many of my colleagues have spoken, is the
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Sam Rushworth Portrait Sam Rushworth MP (Bishop Auckland, Labour)
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importance also of neighbourhood and community in what makes a great and community in what makes a great town. This government's plan to build 12 new towns is a positive build 12 new towns is a positive change from the short termism, lack of ambition and decline that we've experienced over the past decade experienced over the past decade and a half. I think for too long, Britain's lack of affordable housing has been put in the too housing has been put in the too difficult box where challenges get tinkered with.

But the big decisions. So where challenges get tinkered with. But the big, difficult decisions get perpetually delayed, and where politicians do what is easy for now rather than what's right for the future. So I welcome this government's decision to restore the dream of home ownership for the rising generation. New towns, new transport infrastructure in the north announced yesterday, and new home-grown clean energy that will over time, mean that energy bills make up a smaller share of a household's income and New Britain Madam Deputy Speaker though we will get new homes, there will not be a new town in County Durham.

Other areas need them more, but we will. I think the whole country benefit from them, not just from the economic growth, but their potential to modernise our country. And when these towns are built there, as others have said, I hope that they are truly 21st century towns for a new era. Beautiful green and harnessing the best of British ingenuity. So moved by the Member for Vauxhall and Camberwell, who who spoke, I thought really eloquently about what those towns should look like.

And I've come here today with one simple ask that every new town be sustainably built with a modern district heating network. This is not radical. It's not a new or untested approach to providing cheap, cheaper and lower carbon power. The government announced last year six areas that will be put on heating networks that are not, but I've not heard it mentioned in conjunction with the new towns in Denmark, 70% of houses are already connected to district heating networks and 75% of those are already using fully renewable green energy sources.

And they've got a goal of increasing that to 100% by 2030. The average Danish home on a district heat network has an average energy bill of £835 a year. That's around £1,000 a year less than the average home in the UK. In Germany, about 15% of homes are on district heating networks, but in cities like Munich, Hamburg and Berlin, this is closer to a third. And they've got an ambitious goal to bring this up to a half. The very fact that being heat networked is more energy efficient, but that energy efficiency grows when the most sustainable energy sources are used for the network.

I want to encourage the government to look seriously at the opportunities presented by geothermal energy, so we do not risk getting left behind. Germany's got a goal to increase their geothermal energy tenfold by 2030. This can mean deep geothermal, where deep wells bring water to the surface at a very high temperature, such as the Eden Project or United Downs in Poole or Stoke-on-Trent South heating system, or in Southampton, where a city heating network draws from deep geothermal wells, a project that I believe was set up by the Minister for Energy Security when he led Southampton Council.

It could also be shallow geothermal with water passed through a heat exchanger, including those using mine water, mine water such as in Gateshead or Lanchester wines in Durham. Geothermal can be done anywhere, but three of the new towns lend themselves particularly well to this because of their geology. Those are Manchester, Victoria, Lees, Southbank and Adlington. Though having listened to the contribution of of my hon. Friend the Member for Macclesfield, I can suggest other alternatives where the geography is even more advantageous.

So the use of geothermal heating networks would be also beneficial to the UK's just transition from oil and gas. Since we have skilled workers in drilling and pipelines, and the National Geothermal Centre and Durham Energy Institute, a world leading in this area and on hand to work with the government to develop the right solutions. Imagine moving into your new home in a new town, knowing that you have 100 years of free heating flowing through your pipes from under the ground. So I would ask gently that the government seriously considers looking at the way that these new towns and their infrastructure draw their energy, because I believe that in doing so, it will benefit the efforts that we're making in other parts of the country, including in Durham, to be

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part of this national story of renewal. Hey. Come to the front benches and I

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come to Liberal Democrat spokesperson Gideon Amos. Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker,

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Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, and I'd like to express my gratitude to the hon. Member for Cumbernauld and Kirkintilloch for a Cumbernauld and Kirkintilloch for a really engaging speech about how it's the people who invest their lives in the community that make it lives in the community that make it what it is, and I'm sure we all share in that sentiment, and I've learned a great deal more about new towns from all the hon. Members across the House. It's been a privilege to to listen to this debate.

Our manifesto. The Liberal Democrats committed to ten new garden cities. So we are we're welcoming of this debate and we're welcoming of the government's ambitions for new towns, depending
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Gideon Amos Portrait Gideon Amos MP (Taunton and Wellington, Liberal Democrat)
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on how they are done, of course, they're vital to have a new they're vital to have a new generation of major communities, given the terrible state of given the terrible state of affordability in which the housing sector got to under the last conservative government. And that's conservative government. And that's why we have an ambition for a big ambition of 150,000 social homes per year, above the government's current targets. But new towns mustn't be at the expense, of course, of existing communities and towns.

My hon. Friend on these benches are engaging constructively with a range of new towns on their on their boundaries with the government and with local communities in a positive and constructive spirit. They must deliver, of course, in social terms the homes provided, but also environmentally and economically as the Mark one, two and three new towns actually did so successfully. So there are three critical principles that need to be met Madam Deputy Speaker in our view, environmental ambition. Successful in social terms, that means infrastructure.

And thirdly, long term financial investment sufficient to ensure housing is genuinely affordable and will offer a decent home in a good environment in all senses of that word. As hon. Members have expressed it in many different ways throughout the debate. So firstly, on environmental ambition. Garden cities, I regret to say, seem to be being and I hope, I hope unintentionally airbrushed out of this programme in ways that are out of keeping with the post-war New Towns programme. What was built as town garden in Stevenage, originally called Town Garden, was a great reflection of how the Garden City principle informed and provided the basis for the new towns.

It was the Garden Cities Association, which campaigned for a New Towns programme before the war, and now is the Town and Country Planning Association, and I should probably declare an interest as an honorary voluntary vice president. Garden cities. So Garden City is not just words, they are the basis of the new towns Letchworth and Welland, as we've heard well, and many others let the countryside invade. The town was ebenezer's one of Ebenezer Howard's cries. I often wonder if he wrote those words at this very desk here, because his day job was a parliamentary clerk, and in his spare time he wrote a radical piece called tomorrow A Peaceful Path to Real Reform.

It didn't sell very well, so he renamed it a year later, Garden Cities of Tomorrow. And that laid the foundation for the garden cities and the new towns that were to come throughout the country. He was surely right to and to espouse a vision of how people and nature can thrive together, how town and country need to come together, how society and the environment need to thrive together. He was right then and surely that is right now. So these towns, these new towns, need to and must set the highest standards of the protection of nature, protection of well-insulated homes that are cheap to run with solar panels on the roof, as promoted by my hon.

Friend for Cheltenham sunshine Bill. Yes, with district heating and cheap heat. As the hon. Member for Bishop Auckland pointed out, good for the planet as is good public transport which doesn't pollute and jam up the roads. These these are the ideas that are pioneered by many of the garden cities in the first place, and some of the best techniques were established, as you will remember, for Letchworth as well, explained the Heritage Letchworth Heritage Foundation, which the environment was effectively endowed with assets and resources so that it would be continue to be protected into the future, which means that for over 100 years, the trust has has been able to fund and care for the environment.

And, as one member said, put money back into Letchworth as a community. And and that provided the great model and the example in another reflection garden cities into new towns, the Milton Keynes Parks Trust, which does exactly the same thing where where such estates have not been sold off as has been described in other new towns. That is an incredibly successful model. It's vital to endow the public realm and the environment with the resources and the investments going to be needed to sustain them.

As members have said, for ten, 20, 30, 40, 50 and 100 years, so on. Social impacts and infrastructure. How? I'd like to ask the Minister, and we'd like to ask the Minister how councils and communities are going to make decisions over the impacts of the new towns. Any spatial development strategy is going to come after the event. They've already been designated parish councils like Somerton in Oxfordshire, which my hon. Friend for Bicester and Woodstock is working hard to advocate for, pointed out a range of simultaneous proposals in Oxfordshire, including the Oxford Strategic Rail Freight Interchange, 280,000m² of warehousing at Barnards Green, coincidentally being considered today by Sherwood District Council, the Puy de Foo Leisure Park and many other developments, which together will generate 47 million additional trips per year.

The ongoing Strategic Environmental assessment, which of course I welcome, which the government is engaged in at the moment, may assess some of these impacts, but there is no plan that local authorities will be able to take part in to resolve these decisions and to take decisions about how the new towns, such as Heyford Park in Oxfordshire, will land in their midst and how that will affect the existing network and hierarchy of towns and communities. So there's a there's a strategic planning missing link and it needs to be put back.

That would allow the community led approach to these developments that we would like to see and allow affected local authorities to have their say. After all, Milton Keynes was a negotiated location for Newtown between central and local government. As another example, and as the hon. Member for Cumbernauld, and also said it's vital to respect the identities of the place in which these new towns are located. So can I ask the Minister if he will commission a rapid subregional plan process for the councils in each of these locations so that they can resolve these issues? And will he? He's already indicated he may, but will he visit in due course all of these locations so he can engage with the local communities concerned? And will he confirm? And I think he said he said he was thinking about it, that as members have raised around the chamber, that the planned housing numbers will indeed count towards local plan targets imposed by the government standard method, because it's going to be impossible for local leaders and local councils to develop these new towns at the same time as trying to develop, as trying to deliver impossible housing numbers targets which many of them are facing 41% increase in plan numbers in my Somerset council area alone, for example, and on social impacts within towns, the pre-war Garden City, as post-war new towns were 90% affordable social housing.

So and I know in the select committee the Minister indicated perhaps the government's walking back from the 40% affordable housing target. So so what is the minimum the government will accept? Can the Minister tell us and on infrastructure, which is needed, of course, by new and by existing towns, particularly those affected, for example, Edward Leigh station is needed to serve the Heyford Park New Town and the existing community. But there's other forms of infrastructure as well that too often go missing.

And it's not just a new towns urban extension, such as Orchard Grove in my Taunton and Wellington constituency, and the extensions at Bicester in my hon. Friend for. Hon. Friend for Bicester's constituency. GP surgeries that were promised and were needed have never come forward. So will the Minister ensure will the government ensure that existing communities won't lose out GP surgeries as a result of new towns being given those facilities, for example, these are the vital relationships between the existing community that need to be resolved.

Transport, water, energy, health, active travel that infrastructure must come first and before the housing. And thirdly, on the financial support that these developments will need if they're going to be successful. And of course, all these things Madam Deputy Speaker cost money. I recognise that we recognise that. So we're disappointed that I think the Minister said to the committee there is no new town pot for funding, and that posing poses a real risk that the £3.9 billion affordable housing programme per year funding will be used to fund this programme, which would inevitably take funding away from other areas.

So while the land value capture model that the government is promoting is welcome and we support that, and I want to make that put that on the record, it's not going to be enough. The original post-war New Towns Act members opposite, many members opposite will know, had significant 60 year Treasury loans, about £4.7 billion worth now, depending on when you base that. If you take the 1960s, that would be if you base it in the 1960s, that's about £140 billion today.

Those loans were repaid. They were repaid not just in full, they repaid with a surplus coming back to the Treasury, both in 1999 when the bulk of it was repaid. Since then, almost another billion pounds was repaid from further receipts and land sales and receipts on that investment. So it's a sound investment. No doubt the Treasury will be saying somewhere that don't worry, the market can deal with this. We don't need any public money into it. But markets don't look 50, 60 or 100 years ahead.

Markets don't know how to build communities with community facilities for real people. The kind of people the hon. Member for Cumbernauld and Kirkintilloch pointed out. So there needs to be long term financial investment from the government so that these will be successful without that long term investment, we risk repeating some of the failures of the past. So in conclusion, Madam Deputy Speaker, we stand ready to work with this government and in a constructive way on their New Towns programme, but only if it gives the financial investment that's needed so that its success, and crucially, so that existing towns don't lose out if it recognises it, must commit that long term investment over and above the land value capture, so that local councillors and mayors are not left out in the cold trying to promote these projects with one arm tied behind their back.

And finally, if it recognises that in a society under threat from climate change, environmental ambition needs to be

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at the forefront. Learning from the very best of the Garden City ideals. Thank you. I call the Shadow Minister

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Gareth Bacon. Yes. Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker.

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Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. At the outset, I'm grateful to the Backbench Business Committee for allocating time for this important allocating time for this important debate. And to the hon. Lady, the Member for Cumbernauld and Kirkintilloch, for bringing it forward, I do apologise. I've been rehearsing that in my head for quite some time and and I've made a mess of it right from the outset. I apologise, hon. Lady. I'd also like to thank the hon. Members who have so far spoken in this debate.

Madam Deputy Speaker, it seems that every time I return to this place, the government have fallen further and further away from justifying their increasingly mistaken belief that they can deliver on their 1.5 million homes target. No one believes they're going to reach such a lofty, albeit much needed figure. We've pointed out before that the government's efforts to reach this unrealistic target
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Gareth Bacon Portrait Gareth Bacon MP (Orpington, Conservative)
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appear geared towards removing as much local input to decision making as possible, and to shifting as possible, and to shifting development away from brownfield sites in cities and urban areas where demand and infrastructure where demand and infrastructure exists, to rural areas where demand is often lower and infrastructure is far less well provided or even non-existent. Which brings us to their new New Towns policy, a policy about which, as it's policy about which, as it's currently framed, we have significant concerns, which I will touch upon shortly.

At the Labour Party conference at the end of September last year, the Secretary of State pledged that the government will go ahead with working on new towns in at least 12 locations. Since then, it has emerged that only three of these new towns will begin before the end of this Parliament, with the rest after 2029. Looking at the three new towns that we are supposedly meant to see begun before 2029, we've been told that sites in Tempsford in Bedfordshire, Leeds South Bank and Helen Hayes Park in the London Borough of Enfield will be the first.

While His Majesty's opposition recognise the need to build new homes, we hope that the government works harder to listen to and address the concerns of local people in these three sites than they have with the hon. Member for Macclesfield, whose constituency includes one of the other nine lower priority new town sites. The hon. Gentleman highlighted some of His Majesty's Opposition's key concerns for us when he presented a petition to the House on the 17th of December last year about plans for the Adlington Newtown.

He did so again in his excellent speech earlier today. The concerns he outlined included the adverse impact on the green belt, the adverse impact on agricultural land, strains on local infrastructure and services, and the adverse impact on local communities. We are sympathetic to his concerns and they're not restricted just to Adlington, one of the first new towns earmarked for building is in the London Borough of Enfield, a borough with 37.3% green belt and 47.6% open space, according to the CPR.

The green space of Enfield, much of which is based on the borders of the Enfield Chase Heritage Area of Special Character, gives large parts of Enfield a rural character comparable to Richmond Park or Hampstead Heath areas, also of significant local and historical value. The site of the new proposed new town currently comprises commercial horticultural nurseries, garden centres, a golf course, working farms and greenfield land. The local businesses employ around 1000 people and all of this is threatened by this proposal. These are not vast swathes of undeveloped potential, but important green spaces that help as much as urban centres to define an area's character and community.

Tempsford in Bedfordshire is much the same and has been chosen as an area for a whole new standalone town. My hon. Friend the Member for North Bedfordshire highlighted on behalf of his constituents some of his concerns. As the local Member of Parliament, it is vital that the government works to fully and properly consult a local community like Tempsford, an area currently made up of small villages. Rather than continue their top down crusade against the countryside. And this is why, on this side of the House, we have repeatedly sought assurances from the government about their plans for full and proper consultation of local people and local communities, so I hope that the Minister will commit to this today.

And of course, Madam Deputy Speaker, the impact of new towns do not stop at the boundaries of the local authority area in which they are developed. My hon. Friend the Member for Broxbourne has highlighted the proposed cruise hill development in the London Borough of Enfield will be closer to the village of Goffs Oak in his constituency than it is to Enfield Town Hall. The imposition of a new town of 21,000 properties on the border of his constituency cannot avoid having a direct impact upon his constituents.

Will the Minister therefore commit to proper consultation of communities and councils adjacent to the local authority, in which the proposed new town may take place? He is a decent man and I place? He is a decent man and I hope that he will. He's walking away. Mr. speaker, Madam Deputy Speaker, I do apologise again. The opposition recognises that the country is in desperate need of not just more housing, but more housing in the right places, with the right infrastructure to support it.

The hon. Lady, the Member for Erith and Thamesmead, made precisely this point in her speech identifying where places have the right infrastructure, brownfield or urban capacity, and where new homes are most wanted is a key factor in this. The government must get serious about their failure to improve house building in this country. During their first 18 months in power. They must stop making excuses and blaming everybody else, and instead look at how to get the country building in the right places.

And that is why the opposition has called for a brownfield first approach to be properly actioned, and not just paid lip service to as it is by the benches opposite. According to the CBRE, in a large number of local authorities, there is enough brownfield land with planning permission to meet the targets set by the government's standard method for calculating housing need for at least the next five years. The same report shows that England's brownfield sites are increasing in number, land area and minimum net dwellings by up to 54%, 6% and 34% respectively, between 2018 and 2024.

Now, the government will no doubt point to their brownfield passports policy. In response to that criticism, it should be noted that this policy of action is not without risk. It could result in the bypassing of crucial local input, minimising local community power in their own local neighbourhoods and rushing through developments despite legitimate local objections. And that will do nothing for people's faith in democracy. But even if that proves to be a misplaced concern, brownfield passports do not deal with some of the deep seated causes of brownfield delays.

After all, we know that there are already hundreds of thousands of planning permissions on sites that have not yet been built, and it is a lazy generalisation and an inadequate explanation simply to blame all of that on greedy land developers. Land banking, because the causes are more complex than that, funding complexity, increasing regulatory burdens and delays and other factors all play their part. And if the government do nothing to address these factors, then all they will succeed in is achieving more undeveloped planning permissions.

And as we all know, people need real buildings to live in, not unexecuted planning permissions. I'll give it a moment.

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I'm very grateful for my friend giving way and for making this point about brownfield sites the point about brownfield sites the priority for brownfield sites, and I think he's giving the Minister some very good advice. So in terms some very good advice. So in terms of the villages where so much more housing is going to come upon them, potentially the first question potentially the first question they'll say will be, well, why haven't you built in those areas which are already developed? Have you maximised the potential in you maximised the potential in those areas? It is to the government's benefit if they can demonstrate, as I'm sure the Minister will, from Dispatch Box shortly, that they are going to push as hard as they can on existing urban areas to maximise the housing potential and avoid

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some of the artificial blockages. My hon. Friend is talking about. And I agree with my hon. Friend,

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And I agree with my hon. Friend, I think it would be a great tragedy if the government pushed on with their new towns policy, if they simply think their brownfield passport thing will solve everything else, and we end up with fewer developments on brownfield fewer developments on brownfield sites, some developments on greenfield sites end up losing that precious greenbelt and still not deliver the amount of housing that deliver the amount of housing that we need. And that would be an own goal from the government.

So I do hope that they will take this away and do something about it. The government need to look further and faster into proper development of brownfield land, rather than ripping up the greenbelt and steamrolling over local democracy, local voices and local communities. And recent history shows that this approach works. If the government want to see urban regeneration or DESNZ or densification done right, then they can follow conservative examples and pursue brownfield, not greenfield. First, as my right hon. Friend, the Shadow Secretary of State highlighted at the Conservative Party conference, the government need look no further than the Olympic Park in East London, a brownfield site transformed into a superbly connected hub of housing, business, retail and leisure.

Completed under Boris Johnson as conservative mayor of London. It was the same with Canary Wharf under Margaret Thatcher and Michael Heseltine, when the old dilapidated docks were completely regenerated, revitalised and reborn. And finally, Madam Deputy Speaker, as we mentioned in the final stages of the Planning and Infrastructure Act's journey through this place, the government should add to their growing pile of U-turns and reverse the damaging blows. The Chancellor and the former deputy Prime Minister dealt to the housing market and the construction market through their unholy trinity of economic decline, tax hikes and cuts to demand side housing policies.

Because, Madam Deputy Speaker, only through a genuine brownfield first approach and a reversal of the damage inflicted by number 11 and the former Secretary of State, will the government succeed in protecting our countryside and get to building real homes, properly connected with the right facilities that people actually want?
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Matthew Pennycook Portrait Matthew Pennycook MP, Minister of State (Housing, Communities and Local Government) (Greenwich and Woolwich, Labour)
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Minister Pennycook. >> Deputy Speaker, it is a pleasure to close this debate for the government. Can I begin by congratulating and thanking my hon. Friend, the Member for Cumbernauld and Kirkintilloch on securing it, and the Backbench Business Committee for granting the House an opportunity to debate this incredibly important matter. I was particularly struck in what was an incredibly strong opening speech by my hon. Friend, by her emphasis on people and, as she said, planning done properly, being able to change lives.

I think that's a hugely important statement and a principle that guides the government in all areas. Can I also thank the hon. Members for contributing to the debate? We had a series of thoughtful, passionate and incredibly personal in many cases contributions. Madam Deputy Speaker, and the most references to concrete animals that I think of any debate in my 11, nearly 11 years in this place. But it has been a thoughtful and important debate and rich with history as well. The post-war New Towns programme was the most ambitious town building effort ever undertaken in the UK.

It did transform the lives of millions of working people by giving them affordable and well-designed homes in well-planned and beautiful surroundings, and the 32 communities it created are now home to millions of people, including a number of hon. Members who have made contributions this afternoon. I want to stress that the government will continue to invest in the regeneration of our existing new towns. My friend made reference to some of the investment being made currently in hers. My hon. Friend's for Telford, Rugby, Welwyn Hatfield and Stevenage all made the case for what is happening, but what they want to see happen in the years ahead to further revitalise the places they represent.

But alongside those efforts, we are determined to bring forward the next generation of new towns as per our manifesto commitment. In so doing, we've taken inspiration from the proud legacy of the 1945 Labour government, who, through the 1946 New Towns Act, initiated the first post-war wave of new town building as well as the subsequent waves in the 1960s. But we've also sought to learn crucial lessons from those previous efforts, for example, and this was a point that several hon. Members made. The fact that previous New Town initiatives did not always embed long term stewardship into their development, and that the detrimental consequences that has had for those locations, as in the House, will know to progress the next generation of new towns.

The government established an independent New Towns Taskforce within months of taking office. That taskforce, chaired by Sir Michael Lyons, with Dame Kate Barker as his deputy and eight other highly regarded expert members drawn from across the built environment sector. And I pay huge tribute to all the work they did in producing their final report. That task force was given a clear mandate to make recommendations to Ministers on the location and delivery of new towns, with the objective of supporting and unlocking economic growth, as well as making a significant contribution to meeting housing demand in England, the government made clear that the taskforce should consider not only large scale, standalone new communities of the type Chelmsford might be, but also urban extensions and urban regeneration schemes that would work with the grain of development in any given area.

We specified that each of the new settlements should contain at least 10,000 homes, but made clear we expected the number to be far larger in size. We also commissioned the taskforce with ensuring that any proposals would deliver well connected, well-designed, sustainable and attractive places where people want to live with the infrastructure, amenities and services necessary to sustain thriving communities. And let me be clear and hon. Members are right to have raised this success on those criteria will be integral to the success of a programme as a whole.

Last September, the government published the final report of the taskforce, as well as its initial response to that report and immediate next steps in that initial response. Madam Deputy Speaker, the government warmly welcomed all 12 of the locations recommended by the taskforce on the basis that, prima facie, each has the clear potential to deliver on the government's objectives. We also made clear that Chelmsford crucial in Enfield North Leeds South Bank look particularly promising to us, as sites that might make significant contributions to unlocking economic growth and accelerating housing delivery.

Madam Deputy Speaker, we are determined to get spades in the ground on at least 3 to 3 new towns in this Parliament, and I stress at least three because three is not the limit of our ambition. The shadow Minister, I think, incorrectly assumed that it is just three, and it's just those three locations we've cited as promising. We are determined to deliver at least three, but we're prepared to progress work on a far larger range of locations if that proves possible. We're now, as I'm sure you're aware, Madam Deputy Speaker, in the process of conducting a strategic environmental assessment to better understand the environmental impacts of new town developments in respect of the locations recommended by the taskforce, as well as refining the scope of the programme more generally.

And again, I want to stress that no final decisions on locations will be made until that concludes and prioritise. Locations could change. As a result of that process, we intend to consult on the programme to directly respond to the Shadow Ministers Point alongside the completed report in the coming weeks. The feedback to that consultation will inform final decisions on the locations we intend to adopt, as well as other matters such as how we allocate funding between sites and how we define and support new town locations in planning policy.

At the point we make decisions, we'll publish a comprehensive response to the Taskforce's final report. Madam Deputy Speaker, hon. Members have raised a number of specific points in the debate today, which I will respond to as fully as I can within the constraints of the ongoing CA and programme scoping process. The hon. Gentleman, the Member for North Bedfordshire, raised the matter, as did the Liberal Democrat spokesman of LN, of how housing targets interact with our New Towns programme. We have been clear, not least because we expect construction of the new towns that come forward as a result of the programme to only begin in earnest towards the end of the Parliament.

That our starting assumption was that New Town should deliver over and above the targets produced by the standard method. But I have been reflecting on this matter, not least in response to representations made from hon. Members. And I want to ensure that when we come forward with our final position on it, is one that's fair and consistent across the country, and does provide the necessary incentives for communities to want to see new towns come forward. The chair of the Select Committee and other hon.

Members raised the issue of affordable housing. Can I assure the House we are not walking back from our commitments on affordable housing? We're not watering them down. We've been very clear. New towns should have a range of housing types available, including adequate proportions of genuinely affordable homes. It's worth stressing Madam Deputy Speaker that the taskforce, in its final report, endorsed the government's commitment. It was a government gold standard to aim for that 40% affordable housing target. The taskforce have been very clear in their final report that they endorsed that.

They want to see that 40% come forward as a minimum half of those being social rented homes, and we desperately need social rented homes, and that is why it's such a priority for the government. But what they very clearly said was where viability makes achieving that 40% target challenging, that, the government should look to meet the requirement through grant funding. And that is something the government does have to consider as its scopes. The programme, particularly in those locations with low land values where meeting that affordable number will be more challenging.

But again, we'll bring forward further detail on those and the other placemaking principles in the task force final report. After the environmental assessment and consultation, when we can provide hon. Members and the public more widely with more detail. My hon. Friend referenced delivery models. The government does agree with the taskforce that our preference for New Town should be the development corporation model. I think the House well understands the benefits that come with that model. There are, of course, a range of development corporation types from centrally led corporations, mayoral ones or even locally LED ones.

It all depends on the location of the town, its devolution settlement and the capacity and capability of the authorities delivering. Again, we're assessing which delivery vehicle options are most appropriate to individual locations will come forward with further information on that point. In due course, several hon. Members raised the issue of funding, challenged me to make clear why there has not been more detail on funding, why there isn't a dedicated pot of funding for new towns. That is because the funding required for new towns Madam Deputy Speaker in this spending review period will vary according to the needs of the places which the taskforce have recommended, and which we ultimately adopt through the scoping process.

But I want to make clear to hon. Members that the delivery of new towns will be backed by funding across the government's landmark housing programmes, such as the £39 billion Social and Affordable Housing Programme, but also the hundreds of millions of pounds of grants that are available from our National Housing Delivery Fund for land and infrastructure investment, and the additional capital funding that will be managed by the new National Housing Bank, which will invest in housebuilding across the country. So there are funding sources to draw upon, even though there isn't a specific New Towns fund that was announced in the Budget.

I'm happy

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to give way to the hon. Gentleman. Minister. Who's always very. Generous giving away. Could I could I press him a little further? could I press him a little further? Has the Treasury ruled out long term loans as per the New Towns

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programme post-war? Well, I'll come on to talk about financing in slightly more detail financing in slightly more detail and in particular the options we're considering. But again, I'm afraid he'll have to wait for the he'll have to wait for the publication of the report and the programme that will go out to consultation. And he and others members across the House, including their communities and neighbouring communities to the sites that are proposed for adoption, will be able to feed into that process more widely.

But there is funding and long term funding available in this spending review period and going forward, because many of these propositions, Madam Deputy Speaker, will be large scale new communities that will have to be built out over in some cases, decades. I want to just finish with touching on 2 or 3 other issues that were raised, but most importantly, public engagement. And this has been a theme that's been raised by a number of hon. Members. Now, what we got through the what the taskforce got and the government was kept on top of Sir Michael Lyons, reported to me quite regularly about the work of the taskforce, as the House would expect was through the call for evidence through engagement with local areas, local leaders.

There is a huge appetite for new new towns to come forward. There are lots of parts of the country which would desperately welcome a new town, but I recognise in other areas where particularly small villages such as Telford, there's trepidation about what may come. There's questions that residents want answered and in some cases, and my hon. Friend the Member for Macclesfield has been forthright and honest about this. There's outright hostility in objection to some of the locations that have been proposed.

And in his particular case, I can assure him we've met on this subject. We've had several conversations. I do recognise the strength of feeling that exists in his community, and his residents can be in no doubt about the fact that he has conveyed that strength of feeling very forcefully to me on that particular location. The task force report is clear that existing communities should be a key part of any new town. Development, and community engagement is one of its core recommended placemaking principles.

The government is working closely with local leaders as part of the scoping process of the programme and building our evidence base to understand the impacts of potential new locations and will carry out, as I've said, the appropriate assessments and public consultations before any final decisions are made on locations. But I must stress, and we have been entirely candid about this fact from the outset. Ultimately, we're clear that decisions on New Town locations will be made in the national interest. I'll happily

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generous. Of his time in giving way, and for reinforcing the government's strategic direction, which I think most of us agree with in his his remarks there. It seems as we've remarks there. It seems as we've moved on to this next stage, there has been many local council leaders that he's spoken about who are that he's spoken about who are feeling that there is friction and frustration with the communication between their local councils and between their local councils and the government department, with the government department making it feel like they are supposed to be bidding for this money.

So can he meet with local council leaders to try and reset that relationship so it can be more constructive as we

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move forward through this next stage of the process? Well, my hon. Friend made the same points that the Select same points that the Select committee where I appeared earlier in the week. I've taken them on board. I'm happy to look at what the department can do to ensure the department can do to ensure that there is a constructive relationship going forward. In each instance where the government is seeking to build its evidence base. seeking to build its evidence base. But I certainly don't recognise that that's the government's intention.

If you like to be going out to local areas and asking them out to local areas and asking them to bid in to the programme, but we do want to work with local communities, local leaders to better understand and assess what is the proposition in each particular case. Two very quickly, Madam Deputy Speaker, issues that I do want to pick up. Firstly, on financing all of the lessons suggest, and several hon. Members made this point very forcefully, that the long term increase in the value of land once development is underway in New Town sites can be captured and reinvested.

And the hon. Gentleman, the Lib Dem spokesman, is absolutely correct that the new three waves of New towns programmes each repaid the money that the investment that was ploughed into them up front. So we know that and the taskforce in particular, are recommended that we should explore a role of options, including taxation, within the financing model we are exploring. I think it was a point made by the select committee chair. We are exploring, for example, Tifs and what role they might play in New Town in the New Towns programme.

And lastly, I just did want to because it was an important theme, as I said that several hon. Members raised addressed this point of stewardship, which I think is particularly important. We very much welcomed all of the recommendations made by the Taskforce on Placemaking, on other issues that will be pertinent in the years ahead as we take the programme forward. But in regards to stewardship in particular, they recommended rightly in my view, that a long term stewardship model should be in place from the outset and that should include clear governance and funding structures to manage and maintain communal assets so we can learn those lessons that of the earlier waves of new towns coming forward and get things right for this new programme.

So to conclude, Madam Deputy Speaker, the government's New Towns programme, in the government's view, provides a once in a generation opportunity to fundamentally reshape the delivery of large scale new communities and by delivering them, boost economic growth and productivity and make a significant contribution to meeting housing need in England over the coming decades. The government remains resolute in its determined to bring forward the next generation of new towns and will work tirelessly across government and with delivery partners and local communities to ensure that they are, in the words of the taskforce, not just places to live, but places to live well and places for people.

I'm grateful to my hon. Friend, the Member for Cumbernauld and Kirkintilloch, for securing and opening the debate again, as I said to other hon. Members for taking part, and I very much look forward and I know hon. Members will take me at my word at this to further engagement across the House as we advance the ahead.
15:30
Katrina Murray Portrait Katrina Murray MP (Cumbernauld and Kirkintilloch, Labour)
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Katrina Murray to wind up. >> Katrina Murray to wind up. >> Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. And when I applied to the Backbench Business Committee debate for this debate, I even though the bravado said yes, there were lots of interest, I did have some concerns that it might be a little bit niche. And so I have so, so glad to have seen the debate this afternoon. We have had the debate of the mothers and grandmothers. I also want to wish everyone a very happy birthday, and it's been a wonderful opportunity to do what has been described to me as write love letters to our communities, whether it's our towns, our garden cities or the villages as they currently are.

And we and we currently love. It has also been a debate of real concern, and I hope that the hon. Member for North Bedfordshire and the hon. Member for Macclesfield have had the experiences of both the members from Milton Keynes North and Stevenage. If you have. If you haven't, I'll also ensure it's not enough. I'll introduce you to my mother, someone else whose village was subsumed into the Glenrothes New Town, but recognised that it was the only way that she was going to be able to stay in her area and raise a family and and raise a family without having to, because the jobs and life was there.

Final. Thanks. A particular thanks to my hon. Friends for Harlow and Glenrothes and Mid Fife for their references to town art. It doesn't matter if it's concrete cows, polar bears. Polar bears, hippos, elephants. In my case, it's a totems. They were a strong part of the the development corporations making sure that they use the ready developed the ready amount of concrete at their disposal and town artists to make sure that it is not just there was beauty in the built environment as well.

And I would encourage the next generation of development corporations to include town artists as part of, as part of

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their workforce. Thank you all. And thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. The question is, as on the Order

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The question is, as on the Order Paper, as many are as of that opinion, say I of the contrary. No, I think the ayes have it. The ayes have it. I will allow a couple of have it. I will allow a couple of moments for the front benches to moments for the front benches to swap over. We now come to the backbench debate on financial support for small businesses and individuals during the Covid 19 pandemic. I call Manuela pandemic.

I call Manuela Perteghella, who will speak for a maximum of 15 minutes. maximum of 15 minutes.
15:33
Manuela Perteghella Portrait Manuela Perteghella MP (Stratford-on-Avon, Liberal Democrat)
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Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I stand to move the motion as on the order papers in my name. Before I start, I would like to thank the Backbench Business Committee for allowing us time to debate this important issue. I would I would also like to thank colleagues across the House for their tremendous support. When I applied for this debate, and in particular, my hon. Friend for Montgomeryshire and Glyndwr, who is the chair of all of the all party Parliamentary Group on gaps in Covid 19 financial support, of which I am also an officer.

I want to place on record my thanks to the UK for their tireless and formidable campaigning. Without their work, many of these stories would never have been heard. Without them, many people would have been left to suffer in silence. They have shown persistence, compassion and a commitment to justice. This debate is about a national scandal during the Covid 19 pandemic, which impacted millions of individuals and families, including mine. My spouse could only apply for a Bounce Back Loan when everything stopped.

I want to speak about three things today. First, why I'm campaigning on this issue. Second, the people behind the statistics, including my constituents in Stratford-on-Avon who contacted me in desperation and still still feeling horrendous impact of a policy decision by the then government to exclude them from any kind of financial support. And third, what needs to change? When Covid struck, the message from government was clear help will be there and no one will be left behind. The Chancellor at the time, the right hon.

Member for Richmond and Northallerton, vowed no one will be left without hope. For many that was true. But for millions of others that promise rang hollow. They paid in. They followed the rules and when they needed support, they were told they did not qualify.

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People lost their income overnight. They lost their savings, their homes. I will be grateful. Chris Vince.

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Chris Vince. Thank you, Madam Speaker. A genuine question because I've obviously followed this campaign from afar. Could the hon. Lady from afar. Could the hon. Lady explain to me what were the reasons given by the government at the time for these people to be excluded in this way?

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this way? And I will, I will get. Thank you. Yes. Thank you to the hon. Member. I will get through to that Member. I will get through to that in my speech. And some lost their lives in Stratford-on-Avon as well as up down the country. Businesses owners ask a simple question why were they excluded when they had paid tax for years? These were people running events, businesses, training services, consultancies, freelancers from the arts, music and creative sectors, and small companies.

The form part of the backbone of our local economy. This is the injustice that this debate seeks to address. It is important to say from the outset that we are not denying the scale or urgency of the government's response. In March 2020, the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme and the Self-Employment Income Support Scheme were introduced at a speed and on a scale never seen before. According to the House of Commons Library, the overall cost of Covid 19 business support ran into tens of billions of pounds, and for many people and businesses, it prevented immediate hardship and business collapse.

That context matters because it shows that the government was capable of acting decisively. The state was capable of dealing with a set of diverse and complex scenarios. So the question is why? Alongside that intervention, millions of people were left without nothing at all. They were simply abandoned. So around 3.8 million UK taxpayers were excluded from meaningful financial support during the pandemic. That figure is supported by analysis from HMRC, the National Audit Office and research cited by the House of Commons Library.

They included company directors paid through dividends, newly self-employed people, new businesses pay, freelancers, new starters and those whose circumstances such as maternity, adoption, adoption or parental leave, or those on Carer's Allowance place them just outside rigid eligibility rules. This was a substantial part of the British workforce. This government support schemes work well for many but excluded millions by design. The problem was not the absence of data, but the choice made about how that data would be used. Company directors, pay through dividends were told that their income could not be verified, despite submitting annual self-assessment, corporation tax returns and company accounts to companies House.

New businesses were excluded simply because they had not traded for long enough. Mixed income workers were penalised for having diversified their earnings. These people were not invisible to the tax system. They were invisible to the support schemes. The decision to exclude them was not an administrative necessity. It was a policy decision. And for that alone, the 3.8 million people left out must have an apology. These decisions are now rightly being examined by the UK Covid 19 inquiry. Module nine, which focuses on the economic response, is considering how eligibility criteria were set, how fraud risk was assessed and how trade offs were made between speed and fairness.

And this scrutiny is essential because the consequences of exclusion were not abstract, they were human, financial and in many cases long lasting. The inquiry must not simply catalogue what happened, but confront what it meant for those left outside the system. Yes, I will.

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Thank you. A 2021 University of Bristol report said that the women in their 40s with dependent children were disproportionately represented among the excluded, which raises concerns about child poverty, mental ill health and compounding effects of gender pay compounding effects of gender pay gap. Does my hon. Friend agree that research is needed into these and other longer term impacts so they

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other longer term impacts so they can be addressed? Absolutely. I fully agree with my hon. Friend and in fact this is one of our asks as well so that we not make the same mistake again. My constituent Victoria, who is in the gallery today running events, business, hosting exhibitions and award ceremonies and was ineligible for any scheme a Bounce Back Loan was taken out simply to survive and five years on, the debt remains. The recovery never fully came and the business is now closing.

Another constituent of mine moved roles and it was informed that it would not be furloughed by his new employer. As the cut off for furlough through payroll had passed. There was very little consideration for people in that position. Another constituent was the director of a small education consultancy. They were told that income as dividends could not be distinguished from unearned income, despite verified accounts and professional oversight. The effect of that decision did not end when lockdowns lifted. The financial impact of exclusion was severe, but the human cost was greater still.

Campaign groups have documented widespread mental distress across those excluded from support, including cases of suicide linked to financial hardship during the pandemic. There were people who felt hopeless, abandoned and unseen. The mental health consequences of exclusion are still being felt, and they should weigh heavily on this house. The excluded have three requests of this government an apology to the nearly 4 million workers who were abandoned. Parity of support and an acknowledgement of loss of earnings, a consequential loss.

And I asked the Minister to come and meet with the Appg on gaps in Covid 19 financial support so that he can hear directly from those affected. At the same time as millions of taxpayers were excluded from support, vast sums of public money were spent on dodgy PPE. The National Audit Office has confirmed that billions were lost through error and fraud across Covid 19 schemes. The PPE Medpro case illustrates this imbalance starkly. A company fast tracked through the government VIP lane was paid 122 million for surgical gowns, later ruled unfit for use, and has since been ordered to repay 148 million to the public purse.

Therefore, this debate is not just about reflecting on what went wrong in the past. It is about recognising and acknowledging the injustice, starting with an apology to the nearly 4 million workers who were abandoned under the previous conservative government. We also must prepare properly for the future. Public health experts have been clear that future pandemics and national emergencies are not a question of if, but when, when the moment comes. This House has a responsibility to ensure that no one slips through the gaps again.

Emergency support schemes must be designed around the reality of how people work in this country. Millions of people do not fit neatly into a single employment category. They combine paid work with self-employment, run a small limited companies, take time out for caring responsibilities or build new businesses from scratch. That diversity is a strength of our economy, not a problem to be designed out of eligibility. The state already holds vast amount of information through HMRC, companies, House and other bodies.

The lesson of Covid is that the issue was not a lack of data, but a lack of willingness to use it flexibly and fairly. Of course I will.

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Thank you. I worked in health and social care during the Covid pandemic and so I didn't experience. pandemic and so I didn't experience. In fact, we worked very, very hard indeed. Some of these self-employed people that were excluded that people that were excluded that you're referencing, I mean, they are still suffering today. Does she agree with me that they are paying agree with me that they are paying the price of the sheer incompetence of the previous government in how it managed that process?

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it managed that process? I thank the hon. Member for making that point. Yes, I fully agree with him, and I hope that the new Labour government will actually reflect on what went on and engage, engage with, with all those that were excluded. So I look forward to the response from the Minister on this. So next time. Inclusion must be the starting point and not an afterthought. But preparing for the future is not only about better scheme design, it is also about restoring trust in our public.

Money is handled during the pandemic, many legitimate taxpayers were denied support on the grounds of fraud risk, while at the same time vast sums of public money were lost through waste error and contracts awarded through so-called VIP lanes. The PPE Medpro case raises serious questions about how decisions were taken and who benefited from them. While hard working families and small businesses were pushed into debt and hardship, those connected to questionable contracts were fast tracked and rewarded.

Huge sums were handed out with little scrutiny and in some cases, for equipment that put our brave doctors and nurses at risk that could not even be used or ended up incinerated. And that imbalance matters because it corrodes trust. If we fail to learn these lessons, then we fail the very people who kept paying in, even when they were left out. And if we succeed, then future emergency support can be fast and trusted. And this is what those who were excluded deserve.

And that is what this House should

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commit to delivering. Thank you. The question is, as on the Order Paper I have in the region of ten Paper I have in the region of ten members wanting to speak, so if they would restrict themselves to about five minutes each, I'll

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about five minutes each, I'll probably get every body in Steve Witherden. Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker.

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Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. And can I also thank my friend, the hon. Member for Stratford on Avon, for securing this incredibly important and long overdue debate and also for being such a strong
15:46
Steve Witherden Portrait Steve Witherden MP (Montgomeryshire and Glyndŵr, Labour)
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voice for those excluded from Covid 19 financial support, the gaps in 19 financial support, the gaps in Covid 19, financial support APPG of which I chair, currently has 77 which I chair, currently has 77 cross-party members, demonstrating the strength of feeling across the House and desire to represent constituents affected by this issue. We have just heard a powerful case We have just heard a powerful case for the acknowledgement that approximately 3.8 million people were wholly or partially excluded from meaningful Covid 19 financial support.

Years on, many remain burdened by unimaginable debt, some disgusting smears, declining mental health and the loss of homes, businesses and livelihoods. I was an advocate for some of these underrepresented people in my previous role as the national executive member for the six counties of North Wales, supply teachers with no contracted hours at all and no guaranteed work from day to day, even before the pandemic were placed in a terrible position in four of the North Wales counties, I represented, a furlough type payment was arranged in two Gwyneth and Usman.

A furlough payment was not arranged. This cohort of workers went through incredibly difficult times in any capacity, professional or otherwise. When you speak with people who can't pay their rent or are in mortgage arrears, or where you can hear over the phone young, hungry children crying in the background, it leaves a deep and lasting impression on you. During the run up to the 2024 general election, I met with campaigners for excluded UK and learned that this situation was far bigger than supply teachers in two counties in north west Wales, and that it affected millions of people across the country and in many different industries.

One of these campaigners was Ken, a small business owner and now constituent of mine. He remembers the right hon. Member for Richmond and Northallerton, promising to the nation that no one would be left behind. And then the shock of finding himself with no support. Not only was he left without support for day to day living, but he also had to shoulder the ongoing costs of keeping a business afloat. The pandemic brought much to a halt, but software licences, professional fees and other essential overheads did not stop.

Ken began working at 17 and is now 72. He describes this as the only time when he needed help. The help was not there. That feeling has stayed with him ever since, not only because of the toll on his mental health, but because of the monthly reminder when he has to repay the Bounce Back Loan he was forced to take out to survive the pandemic. And Ken's story is just one of many still suffering from the after effects of being excluded.

40 known suicides have been directly linked to exclusion from Covid 19 financial support. Hundreds more have attempted suicide alongside widespread clinical anxiety, depression and trauma. These figures relate only to individuals known within the excluded UK membership, and are likely to represent only a fraction of the true number. So I asked the Minister, will he acknowledge that the exclusion of around 3.8 million taxpayers from meaningful Covid 19 financial support was a serious policy failure? Will the government publish an assessment of the continuing financial and psychological harm, including suicide risk, and set out the support pathway for affected people? And finally, what steps is he taking to ensure future crisis support will be inclusive, with stronger parliamentary oversight? I wish to put on record my personal thanks to Jennifer Griffiths, head of welfare at excluded UK and Secretariat of the Appg.

She is the backbone of this campaign and without her tireless work, many more lives would have been lost. And also to Tim Pravda for his long standing advocacy and indispensable voice in this ongoing fight for justice. I would appreciate if the Minister would agree to meet with the Appg, the excluded UK and bereaved families of those who died by suicide linked to exclusion.
15:51
Esther McVey Portrait Rt Hon Esther McVey MP (Tatton, Conservative)
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Diolch yn fawr Esther McVey. Stratford upon Avon for bringing forward this debate today and to the Backbench Business Committee for granting it. There is no doubt that the hardship affecting families, businesses and communities as a result of Covid 19 policies is ongoing and the depth of suffering is, frankly, hard to read about. People pushed to their limits mentally and financially, having to endure indignity and injustice through no fault of their own. I do hope we can now all agree that it should never have happened, and it is something that we never want to see happen again.

The various government financial support schemes that were set up did help many people, but for the forgotten businesses and individuals for whom one bureaucratic, bureaucratic reason or another were deemed ineligible, the situation was patently unfair and unjust. That's 3.8 million UK taxpayers who are excluded from support, while the rest of the working population were paid to stay at home. And why were they excluded? The reasons were arbitrary. Financial support was not forthcoming. If a person was newly self-employed or a Paye freelancer, or a director paid in dividends, or someone starting a new job, the list went on.

The rules were random, confusing and pushed so many into desperate situations. Sadly, we shouldn't have been surprised that this happened. While some marvelled at the speedy rollout of the government's schemes, the reality was that the schemes were patchy, poorly thought out and full of gaps. Of course they were. How could we ever expect to shut down our society and our economy and be able to cover the gigantic financial cost of that, while making sure every person was properly looked after? It was unrealistic, and it was an unprecedented state intervention that was doomed to fail.

I totally agree with those here today pushing for assurances that this will never happen again. But if we can't look back with honesty and clarity on what was done, then we are doomed to make the same mistakes again. Lockdown was the mistake from which all these unjust injustices and suffering flowed. It was an unknown and unevidenced imposition that should never have been inflicted upon the British people. Many experts predicted from the start that they would cause untold misery and horrifically cost hundreds of thousands of lives through the unintended but very real collateral damage.

It was a policy I will indeed give way.

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I thank my hon. Friend for giving. Way and for her powerful speech.

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Way and for her powerful speech. Would she agree with me? So we may differ on the opinion about lockdown, but would she agree with lockdown, but would she agree with me that had we not gone into lockdown, many more thousands of

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people would have lost their lives? I don't believe the evidence proves that. I think we can look to proves that. I think we can look to other parts of the world and that wasn't the case. It was a policy that had unwavering and enthusiastic support from all sides of the House. With just a few of us, too few of us in this House raising valid concerns, but were shut down. It should be obvious that some people can't be damaged in the name of protecting others, with interventions such as lockdowns that we don't know, even if they work.

The moral mathematics never added up, and now we must live with the consequences of what we did. We spent the region of 400 billion on Covid 19 response, a vast sum that will be clawed back through increased taxation and hardship for generations to come. And of course, the Conservative Party had to put up taxes, but it was voted by every member pretty much in the House here. So taxes went up to pay for that £400 billion. And for me, such a statist intervention, such a socialist intervention would never work.

And so it's proving to be so for those businesses who did manage to survive after everything that was thrown at them in the name of Covid. Well, now they're having to face more gloom and doom from this socialist government in charge of our country that is pushing up taxes with two tax busting budgets and also removing without understanding it business rates so far.

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Order. The subject of the debate is financial support specifically for Covid, and the hon. Lady might

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for Covid, and the hon. Lady might want to make sure that she stays within scope of that. Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker.

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Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. That was a sentence I was adding on, because I felt it was very relevant that those who did manage to that those who did manage to survive now aren't because of the extra taxes that are being put upon extra taxes that are being put upon them. Plus, as business relief, which was part of Covid, is now being removed, and it seemed that the Chancellor didn't even know how that worked. So actually, they are suffering twofold because only some of that Covid benefit is now being removed.

No wonder Labour MPs are being banned from pubs at the moment, as we see mass closures of pubs going forward. So, in conclusion, I will simply ask that we examine the bigger picture. Those 3.8 million people who were excluded from financial support and suffered a terrible injustice, but so too did those that received support because lockdown took from everyone. Children denied education, mothers forced to give birth alone, people suffering heart attacks, strokes, sepsis but too frightened to burden the NHS.

Bereaved families unable to mourn the dead. The list of injustices go on and on. None of it should ever have happened. The costs were always to be going to be too high and worse. There appears to be no evidence that lockdown prevented those infections, and the Covid inquiry recently made two incredible assertions. One was that lockdowns were harmful but should have started earlier, and the other was that the modelling should not have been used to justify major policy, but simultaneously proved the 23,000 lives could have been saved.

So finally, lockdown was, as Professor Sinatra Gupta from the

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University of Oxford said. Order, order! The debate is not

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Order, order! The debate is not about lockdown. It is about financial support. I hope the hon.

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financial support. I hope the hon. Lady is concluding her remarks. I am concluding my report remarks and I am pleased to have been able to speak today of one of a handful out of 650 MPs who stood by the Forgotten Limited, who stood by many of our constituents whose businesses went out of business as I was one of the few in the House. Like I said, a handful who stood up for those people and the forgotten limited. So finally, as Professor Sunetra Gupta said, this was like taking a hammer to a fly on a pane of glass.

And this is a quote. You might or might not kill the fly, but you definitely shatter the window. It will take us a long time to pick up all those pieces next time we face a similar crisis. Let's not panic and reach for the hammer.
15:58
Jayne Kirkham Portrait Jayne Kirkham MP (Truro and Falmouth, Labour )
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Jayne Kirkham. >> Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, and thank you to the Member for Stratford upon Avon for securing a debate on this really important subject. For many people, the Covid 19 pandemic was an incredibly difficult time. Healthcare and other key workers who serve their communities courageously, people who contracted the virus and their loved ones, children and young people who missed out on education and social interaction. And for anyone who had to isolate alone. It was also an immensely stressful time for people who lost their incomes but couldn't get financial support.

As we've heard from other members, this include. This group included many different types of people I would like to share with the house examples of two of my constituents who faced financial repercussions as a result of the Covid 19 pandemic. One of my constituents was a journalist and table tennis coach. When the UK went into lockdown in March 2020, she was unable to do either of those jobs but receive no government support as she was deemed a fraud risk because her earned income was less than her combined state pension and work pension.

She feels she was abandoned by those who should have had some empathy for the small business entrepreneurs whose lives were so badly affected by lockdown. Another of my constituents is a business owner who entered insolvency due to the pandemic through no fault of his own. My constituent had to close his worldwide travel risk management business during the pandemic due to the restrictions in place at the time. Despite having run a viable business before Covid. He now finds himself subject to extremely high interest rates, up to 32% on loans he's trying to secure to set himself back up in business.

He's concerned he's being penalised as though his insolvency was the result of mismanagement or poor creditworthiness, rather than extraordinary and unforeseeable external circumstances. This not only hinders recovery efforts, but may also discourage future entrepreneurship. I would be grateful if the Minister would address the experiences of both my constituents, and how the government can recognise the financial hardship that many taxpayers across the UK suffered during the Covid 19 lockdowns, and ensure this would never happen in the future.

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Charlotte Cane. Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I congratulate my hon. Friend, the Member for hon. Friend, the Member for Stratford on Avon, for bringing this debate, and I thank the backbench Committee for making time backbench Committee for making time for it. As we approach the six year anniversary of the very first lockdown, I am sure many colleagues lockdown, I am sure many colleagues will agree the time of face masks, social distancing and self-isolation feels so very long ago. However, for millions of individuals and countless businesses, it has been an even more arduous six years.

Research now suggests, as we have heard, that about 3.8 million UK taxpayers were excluded from any support and
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Charlotte Cane Portrait Charlotte Cane MP (Ely and East Cambridgeshire, Liberal Democrat)
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they did not enjoy the security that so many of the rest of us did. that so many of the rest of us did. As we reflect on the ongoing fallout of the pandemic, it is vital that we take on the lessons learnt. But the matter of groups excluded from financial support during the pandemic is not one we during the pandemic is not one we have only learnt in retrospect. There are issues which were raised at the time in real time, and the failure to listen and act is one which any government must recognise and make efforts to rectify.

We all understand why the initial schemes were targeted to support the majority of people, employees and established self-employed, but we waited in vain for the then conservative government to provide support schemes for the other 3.8 million people. One outstanding issue, as we have heard, was the unnecessarily rigid criteria for the Self-employed Income Support Scheme. The glaring issue here was the exclusion of the self-employed, as you had to have a tax return for the year 20 1819. This, combined with the 50% rule, which people have talked about, prevented many people from getting any help as well.

And we have heard too, about the women who may have kept their businesses ticking over for a few years while they were on a maternity break or caring for someone, and they found their support based on a low income year, rather than the more representative years. Similarly, many small businesses were forced to take out Bounce Back Loans. The government has already estimated that many of these loans will not be recoverable because many businesses were forced to close. Yet those that have clung on are still working to pay the loans off, all whilst working in an environment of spiralling energy costs and a business rate system which still does not work properly.

I visited one such business in my constituency only last week to manage their current costs. They have reduced staff and taken on more of the work themselves. They run through the figures for next year and the expected rise in business rates, plus their Covid loan repayments, means they are having to consider selling up or

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closing the business. Sorry. Oh yes, I will.

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Oh yes, I will. Thank the hon. Lady. For giving me my. Whilst there were many small businesses in my constituency that businesses in my constituency that were actually grateful for the support they received. Their main concern, which many of them kept repeating to me actually was repeating to me actually was regarding the abrupt end to the support measures. Almost overnight, small businesses found themselves small businesses found themselves having to repay loans, cover staff wages and all these other expenses even though the economy hadn't bounced back and they're still there.

Sales haven't returned to pre-COVID levels. Does the hon. Lady agree with me that we need to ensure that in the event of a future crisis, as well as not excluding those that need it, we have to support measures that make sure that that anything, anything that's given to people to help them through this period of time doesn't end with a cliff edge, but is tapered to allow to adjust for a

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post crisis system. Charlotte Cane. I thank the hon. Member. I do agree it's really important that agree it's really important that when we set up something to deal with the initial crisis, we don't with the initial crisis, we don't take it away too quickly when the crisis itself is over. But the economy, as you say, still hasn't economy, as you say, still hasn't bounced back. After facing the turmoil of the pandemic, small businesses, many of whose directors businesses, many of whose directors were also unable to claim financial support, have been afforded little in the way of meaningful relief, all while barely affording to cover their costs.

But these small businesses contribute so much to our local economies and also to our communities as much valued hubs. And I see this time and again in the times, towns and villages across my constituency. I want to talk about one of my constituents who suffered particularly badly. He ran a specialist travel business, which inevitably the income collapsed during Covid. He got no support. He was actually told by a local conservative that they saw, quote, no point in supporting those whose jobs won't exist.

He had hoped that because Labour in opposition criticised the conservatives lack of support for the 3.8 million. But now he feels, in his own words, disheartened and abandoned in what he describes as the tumbleweed. Since Labour came to power through determination and hard work, he has rebuilt his business. But he wants to ensure that future self-employed generations don't suffer what he calls the same nightmare. Mr. Madam Deputy Speaker, the pandemic has done deep and lasting damage, but we must recognise that simply learning a lesson doesn't go far enough.

It's not too late for the government to fill the gaps in the pandemic. Financial support, relieve businesses of their burdens and provide meaningful support to those often financially vulnerable people who missed out unnecessarily. Will the Minister now recognise that Covid 19 financial relief failed to provide fair and even support, and take steps to ease the ongoing burdens faced as a result? Yes, but.
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Andrew Cooper Portrait Andrew Cooper MP (Mid Cheshire, Labour)
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Deputy Speaker, and I'd like to thank my hon. The hon. Member for thank my hon. The hon. Member for Stratford upon Avon for securing this really important debate. When the Covid 19 pandemic unfolded, it the Covid 19 pandemic unfolded, it tested every part of our society. It pushed our health system, our communities and our economy to the brink. And in that moment of crisis, emergency financial support was rightly created at unprecedented speed. These measures protected millions. But despite the scale of that effort, far too many people were left behind.

The excluded UK campaign emerged because an estimated 3.8 million individuals fell through the gaps in pandemic financial support. These were freelancers, newly self-employed people. Small business owners pay, short term contractors and others whose circumstances simply didn't fit the rigid eligibility rules they were contributing. Members of society who paid taxes, built businesses and supported local economies. Yet at the at the moment, they needed help most. Many found none. These included constituents in Mid Cheshire, many of whom have contacted me ahead of this debate.

People who've done everything asked of them, built livelihoods, paid their taxes, and still found themselves excluded from support when the pandemic hit. People who saw their livelihoods disappear overnight. People forced to drain life savings, sell belongings or take on unsustainable debt just to survive. People who felt unheard, unseen and unvalued by the systems meant to protect them. And tragically for some, the emotional and financial devastation became unbearable. Each of those lives lost is a reminder that policy decisions are not abstract.

They reach deeply into homes, families and futures. But we must not only recognise and acknowledge the impact that exclusion had on these individuals, but also showed renewed determination to ensure that such gaps never re-emerge. The pandemic has taught us something essential. Economic resilience is public health resilience. There can be no effective emergency response if large groups of people are left without support. A society is only as strong as its most vulnerable moment. And as the UK continues to develop its preparedness planning for future pandemics and national emergencies, it is vital that support systems are designed with the flexibility to meet people where they actually are, not where policy assumes them to be.

And that means ensuring that any future emergency financial support schemes are properly stress tested in advance against real world employment patterns so that they reflect the diversity of modern working lives before they are ever deployed. No one contributing to the economy should face a crisis without a lifeline, and mental health impacts must be treated as a central component of emergency planning, not an afterthought. Just as importantly, the voices of those previously excluded should be included in future policy discussions so that lived experience shapes the solutions of tomorrow.

Preparedness must mean more than storing equipment or writing contingency documents. It must mean designing a compassionate, comprehensive safety net, one that recognises the full spectrum of working lives in the UK and ensures that the mistakes of the past are not repeated.

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On that point will give way. I thank, I thank my hon. Friend for giving way. Covid 19 clearly had an giving way. Covid 19 clearly had an enormous impact on the economy of the world and the UK, and in terms of preparing ourselves for any of preparing ourselves for any future threat under those circumstances. Would he agree with me that the fraud and corruption me that the fraud and corruption that was facilitated by the previous government was an absolute disgrace, and that it is up to this

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disgrace, and that it is up to this Labour government to get our money back and solve those problems. Thank you.

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Thank you. I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. I think the Chancellor of the Exchequer has done exactly the right thing by setting up the Covid Corruption Commissioner. There were those who, during the pandemic, didn't see it as a moment of national emergency, where we should national emergency, where we should all get together. They saw it as an opportunity to line their own pockets. The Chancellor is doing exactly the right thing by trying exactly the right thing by trying to root out those people and make sure that they suffer the consequences.

I thank him for his intervention. We can't change what intervention. We can't change what happened, but we can choose what happens next. Let us learn the lessons from past schemes that left too many people excluded. Let us move forward by building systems that protect everyone, and let us ensure that in any future crisis, we never again leave millions to face hardship alone. Therefore, I ask the Minister, what specific steps will the government take to ensure that any future emergency financial support schemes are designed with the flexibility, fairness and real world applicability needed to prevent millions from ever again being excluded in their moment of

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greatest need. Thank you. And now, with a formal four minute time limit Paul Kohler.

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minute time limit Paul Kohler. Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I congratulate the Member for Stratford on Avon for securing this important debate during the pandemic. The state quite rightly intervened on an unprecedented scale. Hospitality businesses scale. Hospitality businesses received grants. Employees were furloughed and billions were distributed through schemes that were fast, generous and non-repayable. Yet alongside that, there exists a shadow group that did not fit into neat categories. New starters, new businesses pay freelancers and directors of
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Paul Kohler Portrait Mr Paul Kohler MP (Wimbledon, Liberal Democrat)
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limited companies and numerous other groups, as we've heard. Millions of people saw their work Millions of people saw their work vanish overnight. Their income collapsed and were told bluntly when they applied for help. The when they applied for help. The computer says no. Meanwhile, the conservative government's handling of PPE contracts left taxpayers out of PPE contracts left taxpayers out of pocket to the tune of billions. An interim government report found that defective PPE contracts cost that defective PPE contracts cost the British taxpayer at least £1.4 billion.

VIP lanes and fast track deals with Tory friends and supporters led to waste, inefficiency and fraud. This was money that could have kept millions of small businesses and self-employed people afloat, yet was instead mismanaged at the hands of well-connected insiders. The vast majority of those excluded earned under £50,000 per year for the pandemic working in trades, retail, education, the creative industries, hospitality and events. They were economically active, often running micro-businesses and supported local jobs, sustained vital supply chains.

As we've heard, 3.8 million people excluded roughly 1 in 10 of the UK workforce, while their neighbours received thousands of pounds to stay afloat. They were left with nothing. As a cabaret bar owner, I saw myself what that meant in practice. My freelance artists, the musicians, the singers, the burlesque dancers, the drag queens, the self-employed performers received no help from the state. And years later, many still living with the debts that did not end when the lockdowns did. For those who excluded, be they freelancers, sole traders or small businesses, survival often meant borrowing through bounce back loans, credit cards, overdrafts and personal loans.

Many are still repaying those loans today, the time when rising energy prices, inflation, supply chain pressures and the cost of living crisis makes every repayment a struggle. And what makes this hard to accept is that the exclusion was not inevitable. Treasury ready solutions existed. Excluded. UK analysis shows the fully costed, low full proposals based on HMRC data could have reached the vast majority of those excluded. These solutions had backing from across political spectrum, supported by business groups and experts. Yet Ministers in the conservative government chose not to act.

Unlike the Northern Ireland Executive, who worked with HMRC to deliver targeted grants to newly self-employed people and limited company directors who excluded from UK wide schemes. So if it could be done in Northern Ireland, why not in the rest of the UK? The government is rightly pursuing the fraudsters where money was wrongly paid out. But it cannot ignore the money that was wrongly withheld. The recently published final report by the Covid Full commissioner makes clear that weakness in preparedness, data sharing and oversight has was the very reason millions were excluded.

To comment upon this House. To acknowledge that those who were excluded were wronged is a serious policy failure with lasting consequences. Furthermore, we must address the legacy that means looking seriously at debt relief or redress for those forced into borrowing to survive. It means learning from what worked in Northern Ireland. It means ensuring that any future crisis support is inclusive by default, so that no group of taxpayers ever again told the computer says no

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thank you. Speaker. In the early days of the

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In the early days of the pandemic, the country came together in the worst of times, making unprecedented sacrifices to all of our lives that we could our lives that we could collectively fight the pandemic and save lives. It also put the structure of governance in our public finances under extreme public finances under extreme strain. They were undoubtedly difficult, sometimes impossible, choices that had been made, such as the responsibility of government.
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Euan Stainbank Portrait Euan Stainbank MP (Falkirk, Labour)
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the responsibility of government. But as the Covid inquiry and many of our constituents have told us, there were people who were failed financially, individuals and small businesses in my constituency. And as we have heard powerfully across the country, found themselves excluded from support as their lives did not map cleanly onto the fantasy of seamless transition from workplace to workplace, from business to business. They were told their circumstances meant they did not qualify. New businesses, the newly self-employed freelancers, those on parental leave and have heard from company directors as several members have mentioned, from small businesses who receive their income from dividends and the salary, to name just a few.

As has been powerfully put, especially from my hon. Member, from hon. Friend from Montgomeryshire and Glyndwr, those also in the most precarious employment were hit the hardest, with job opportunities limited, and we saw youth unemployment spike during the pandemic from 12.4% immediately before the lockdown to 15.2% only four months later. Many of whom were made unemployed because of the high turnover and insecure nature of their workplaces. And they were not on the payroll when it came around to the 19th of March 2020, just before the first lockdown, I, alongside many students, were working on zero hours contracts seasonally in the hospitality sector, taking time off during March and February to complete the honours levels of our degrees.

We expected to return that summer to work alongside pursuing our careers, but we were not given any support during that pandemic. Founder, Employment Opportunities Limited and no furlough available. There was no restitution for the loss of income and opportunity. Many young people faced during the pandemic, the impact felt by the generation most likely to be employed in these casualised, or ad hoc employments, were set back. Plans to move out of home, pay off their student loans, begin a career. The proof points of a successful journey through our economy were delayed, and many for many, survival became the predominant need to desperately pay their bills, feed their kids, or survive through any means possible.

Although the pandemic was hopefully a once in a lifetime event, this government must be prepared for any such eventuality and it is a good reminder of the harm of balancing the labour market in one direction. One constituent who got in touch with me regarding this was a company director that paid was paid within dividends and a small salary received no support because of this gap. They pointed out that not only was the lack of support hugely challenging, but colleagues and competitors with a clear, clearer definition of self-employment within the same industry did receive support and were provided with a significant competitive advantage which continues to this day.

This is harmful to the economy. It is an injustice to my constituent and limited company directors like him. People years later feel as if they are still trying to tread water with a wet chained to their ankle, as they maintain businesses paying back extensive loans to bridge the pandemic's severe impact on their businesses. I commend the very good work the government have done to identify the clear waste and instances of fraud that occurred during Covid. The Covid Corruption Commissioner identified £10.9 billion in losses due to weak accountability, bad quality data and poor contracting from the previous government.

But we can go further and I would welcome an acknowledgement from the Minister that better design from the schemes from the previous government could have averted those losses, and that should and could have been spent on deploying support that would unchain many people, including my constituents, from the extensive, consequential and at the time impacts they went through. This should be recognised also through a clear and unambiguous statement of support for those impacted by delivering an apology on behalf of the British state.

I commend the campaigners at excluded UK and their supporters, who have been relentless and advocating six years on from almost six years on from the start of the pandemic, fighting every day chained financially for

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their circumstances caused by the pandemic. But in. Order Iqbal Mohamed.

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Order Iqbal Mohamed. Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I refer members to my register of interest. I thank my hon. Friend, interest. I thank my hon. Friend, the Member for Stratford on Avon, for securing this important debate. The Covid pandemic was an unprecedented crisis that placed immense strain on ruling parties worldwide. Few, if any, could dispute that rapid, decisive intervention was necessary to
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Abtisam Mohamed Portrait Abtisam Mohamed MP (Sheffield Central, Labour)
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prevent an utterly catastrophic, catastrophic collapse in the British economy. But acknowledging British economy. But acknowledging the scale of the challenge is not absorbed. The government of responsibility for how that money was spent, or how its support was spent, or how its support schemes were designed and implemented, or how recklessly public funds were safeguarded. public funds were safeguarded. While some degree of waste and fraud is inevitable in a crisis, the scale of loss during the the scale of loss during the pandemic was not inevitable, but the result of systemic failure within the UK government, a failure that remains unchecked under the current Labour administration.

The office for Budget Responsibility estimates that Covid support measures total somewhere between 100 and 60 9 to £192 billion, and this included a variety of schemes, from furloughing individuals to protect them from unemployment to grants and loans intended to help businesses stay solvent. Yet for nearly 3.8 million freelancers and self-employed workers are support system simply did not work. Many were excluded altogether from financial assistance through rigid eligibility criteria, outdated data, or blunt distinction between drawn between modern forms of work.

That said, much of the Covid 19 spent spending to those whom it was available to did undoubtedly save jobs and prevent mass insolvency. Government departments and public bodies were forced into reactive policy making, scrambling to design schemes in real time, often without effective oversight or proper safeguards against abuse. Nowhere was this more evident than in the scale of fraud committed against the government. Support schemes. According to the Independent Covid Counter-fraud Commissioner's final report published last month.

£10.9 billion of taxpayer money was lost to fraud and error across Covid support schemes. Of that sum, only 1.8 billion so far has been recovered. The remainder, as the report makes clear, is likely, is likely beyond recovery, with fraud prevention efforts identified as falling short across government. The causes of this failure are well documented in the aforementioned report. But one particular point that stuck out to me was that banks were instructed to suspend their usual due diligence, despite voicing explicit warnings about heightened risks of fraud, better design was possible.

Britain appears to stand alone in the G7 with respect to the scale of fraud experienced during Covid. Other countries managed to move quickly while still embedding stronger checks. The lesson is not that speed and scrutiny are incompatible, but that the government of the time chose not to prioritise the latter. That so few consequences have followed these failures only deepens public cynicism, with democratic political processes.

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Keir Starmer was selected on elected on a. We don't refer to the Prime

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We don't refer to the Prime Minister by his name, but as the Prime Minister, Iqbal Mohamed. Madam Deputy Speaker, the Prime

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Madam Deputy Speaker, the Prime Minister, was elected on a platform that pledged to clean up politics and crack down on those who defraud and crack down on those who defraud the public purse. And yet, introducing stiffer penalties for individuals and corporations that are illegally profiteering from a crisis. That government is spearheading punitive legislation on alleged welfare fraud checks and criminalising innocent benefit claimants. In conclusion, Madam Deputy Speaker, what unites all of what I've spoken about and and members across the House? Fraud, waste, cronyism is a failure of governance, a failure to adequately plan and properly design systems to protect the public purse.

If we are

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serious about restoring. Order. Olly Glover.

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Order. Olly Glover. and. Can I thank my hon. Friend, the Member for Stratford on Avon, for a Member for Stratford on Avon, for a very passionate speech and for moving this topic and to the Backbench Business Committee for Backbench Business Committee for giving time to this topic. And as many, many hon. Members have said, many, many hon. Members have said, Covid feels like a distant memory to so many of us, but continues to have severe, long lasting effects, including those we are discussing today.

And I would like to talk about a couple of constituents who have been affected by the Covid 19 financial support exclusion issue. Fiona and her husband, Bill, ran a training and consultancy business called Fundraising Training Business from their bedroom, which helped charities both here and abroad to raise money by running training courses. And they were affected by the issue of no financial support given to business owners whose income principally derived from dividends. Whilst they eventually received £2,000 from South Oxfordshire District Council, they went through tremendous stress and financial struggles and in their words, nobody has understood what happened and the mental anguish it caused so many of us who had paid taxes and did not have business premises.

Now for them, face to face training has never recovered from the pandemic and bills had to put suddenly put everything online, which ultimately has been good for them as they have learnt to adapt in our new, increasingly online lives. But that is an effect that we have seen in many other smaller businesses. Now, Rob is a limited company director who felt that he and other limited company directors were badly treated as it was deemed too hard for HMRC to check where dividends came from, and also limited companies were limited.

Company employees were denied the right to earn income from other sources. Now, in terms of where we go from here, I think firstly, it would be interesting to hear from the Minister what redress he thinks should be considered, given the campaign that excluded UK has been mounted. Secondly, it is important we learn for the future. Now, of course, we all hope that scientists are wrong, but many scientists fear that another pandemic is only a matter of time for a variety of factors.

And indeed, there may be other forms of economic hardship, which means we all need to consider these matters again and come up with better processes in future. But I think it also points to a wider point that perhaps government and politics in this country has been more focussed on larger companies, rather than those who run their own businesses and are self-employed. And that's something that in this House, I think we should all think about. And that's why the concerns that small businesses have been raising with me in more recent times, many of whom also suffered during the pandemic, are a big concern in terms of the impact on them of current decisions on business rates or alcohol duty and other taxation policies like that.

I'm proud that the Liberal Democrats were one of the first parties to call for support for self-employed people during the pandemic, and we secured an urgent question on this topic in on the 24th of March, 2025. Madam Deputy Speaker, it is so important that we recognise the contributions that small businesses and the self-employed make to our economy. So as well as learning the lessons from the pandemic, we really need to think how we support them so that they are better prepared in case of a future economic disaster, such as the one that we all live through in 2020 to 2022.
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Susan Murray Portrait Susan Murray MP (Mid Dunbartonshire, Liberal Democrat)
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Susan Murray. Thank you, Madam >> Susan Murray. Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, and thank you to my hon. Friend from Stratford-on-Avon for bringing this important debate. The Covid 19 pandemic is undoubtedly one of the most impactful and damaging events to unfold in our lifetime. Being told unfold in our lifetime. Being told to stay inside and able to see loved ones and uncertain about the future was incredibly difficult for everyone. Thankfully for most, this is now a time that is just a memory, one that we would rather forget, but something that we can put behind us and move forward.

Sadly, as we're hearing through though, for many people this is something that they can't move past. Across the country, there are people who have lost businesses, lost homes and in the worst cases, lost loved ones to the financial stress that the pandemic caused. To add to this distress, the hard working British people who fell through the gaps have had to watch on as numerous instances of fraud and PPE procurement mismanagement have come to light. Billions of pounds wasted and lost, which have managed properly, could have saved people's livelihoods.

Within my own constituency of Mid Dunbartonshire, we have seen local businesses close. One constituent who still feels the impact in particular, has told me that a complete lack of support forced his takeaway business, which he had built up from scratch, to shut. Yet when he tried to move on, they found that they were at a disadvantage and despite holding a personal taxi driver's licence, they were having to rent a taxi plate at a cost of more than £400 a week.

The absence of meaningful support during Covid didn't just cost them their business at the time, it continues to have a direct and measurable impact on their ability to rebuild their livelihood today. But my constituents is just one of the nearly 4 million people impacted by this. These people deserve support. They deserve acknowledgement of the loss they suffered and they deserve an apology. Beyond this, though, we need to listen to the voices of those who have been affected and learn from their experience so that we can find the gaps in our system that people have fallen through and plug them as the world becomes more unstable.

We need to make sure that at home, people and businesses have security. If we are serious about building resilience as a country, we cannot simply move on and hope that those who were left behind will do the same. We must recognise the harm that has been done. We must be honest about the failures that allowed people to fall through the cracks, and we must take steps to fix them in future. Thank you.
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Sarah Olney Portrait Sarah Olney MP (Richmond Park, Liberal Democrat)
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Which brings us to the front bench contributions, Sarah Olney. >> Madam Deputy Speaker, can I begin by thanking my hon. Friend, the Member for Stratford upon Avon, for her work in securing this debate, for her excellent opening speech, and, of course, to the Backbench Business Committee for giving us time to debate this important topic. Small businesses and self-employed people played a vital role in sustaining communities throughout the challenges of the Covid 19 pandemic, often at significant personal and financial cost.

The pandemic placed unprecedented pressure on people, affecting the livelihoods of millions from all walks of life. There were additional concerns for those self-employed people and small business owners who faced an even greater level of uncertainty experienced by the lack of support from the then Tory government. The Liberal Democrats have stood by them from the get go. We were the first party to call for support for self-employed people during the pandemic, and we helped to secure that self-employed support scheme. The Covid pandemic had a devastating impact on people across the country.

Tens of thousands of people lost their lives and we must never forget the tragedies of that pandemic. People lost mothers, fathers, grandparents, siblings, friends, husbands, wives. People were left isolated, unable to see others for weeks on end and unable to visit sick relatives, attend the wedding of a loved one, or hug their families at funerals, and as a possibly as a measure of how much time has passed since that time and how much has changed. I think, where only a minority of those of us in the chamber today who are actually members of Parliament during that pandemic, of which I think I'm the only Liberal Democrat.

But like many who were sitting MPs during that pandemic, I received such heartbreaking correspondence from my constituents. And their struggles will stay with me, and I will remember their suffering for as long as I continue to represent my constituency. So I reflect with gratitude on the bravery of doctors, nurses and carers who did everything they could, often working incredible hours to save lives and support those around them, often putting themselves at risk to do so. And the thousands of people who selflessly helped their communities, whether it was as vaccinators, picking up prescriptions, shopping for elderly and vulnerable neighbours, and we mustn't forget those who suffered and those who made sacrifices to ensure that suffering was limited as much as possible.

The strong sense of public service and neighbourliness shown by people across the country was not reflected by the government of the day, the Covid inquiry has confirmed there was systematic and political failings which worsened people's suffering. A lack of scrutiny, a lack of accountability led to the wrong decisions, often with catastrophic results from the lack of preparedness for a pandemic to the failure to protect those in care homes. The cruelty and inflexibility of the isolation that people endured in the most desperate circumstances, including on their deathbeds and, most shockingly of all, Partygate.

And we must ensure that there can never again be such suffering or such lack of preparedness. I think it's particularly important that the government continues to recognise the contribution made by small businesses and the self-employed during the Covid pandemic, and the government should ensure that it has learned the lessons of that period and keep under review its long term impacts, and ensuring that people and businesses can leave behind that series of economic challenges that began with the pandemic, including the energy crisis, the rising cost of living, the growing tax burden and remain resilient is essential to our long term economic and social wellbeing.

The government needs to do more to recognise the value of the self-employed, contractors, small businesses to our economy and there's so much more that they could be doing now to support them and to show the value that they contribute. The flexible working, the specialist expertise and the range of ways that having a contractor, self-employed and small businesses can help to support the broader economy. And we need to do much more now to recognise that value. Liberal Democrats are calling for greater transparency and support for the self-employed in making tax digital.

For example, originally intended to simplify the tax system but has created new burdens, costs and confusion. We must make sure that the self-employed are properly informed and supported through this particular reform. The Liberal Democrats have strongly supported the expansion of workers rights during the passage of the Employment Rights Bill. We have pushed for some of those benefits to be extended to self order. I appreciate that the hon. Lady is referring to a self-employed and small businesses who were impacted by Covid 19 financial support, but I'm not convinced that making Tax digital and the Employment Rights Bill fall within the scope of this debate.

Sarah Olney, thank you very much, Madam Deputy Speaker. I wanted to reflect the value of the self-employed to our economy now and merely to reflect on the fact that as we learn the lessons from Covid, we think about how that group of workers can be supported more broadly. And I think it is a pressing issue for now, but I accept that we are debating what happened six years ago, the extremely challenging period that small businesses and self-employed people went through just a few years ago makes it even more important that the government address the major challenges they're experiencing here and now.

For many of them, of course, that includes repaying the loans that they took out at that time to maintain their businesses, which, while they are facing the the increased cost challenges of today continues to be a huge burden. So I sincerely hope that the government will listen both to my hon. Friend, the Member for Stratford upon Avon, and her impassioned speech at the opening of this debate, but also think about how they can do more in the current time to support self-employed people, contractors, small businesses who contribute so much to our economy.

Thank you.

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Harlow Minister James Wild. Thank you. Very much. Madam Deputy Speaker, I join in. Congratulating the hon. I join in. Congratulating the hon. Member for Stratford on Avon for securing this important debate and I thank hon. Members. I think more I thank hon. Members. I think more than ten people have spoken in this debate on behalf of their constituents and the suffering that constituents and the suffering that they have experienced and continue to experience, and they set out very powerful examples. It's now very powerful examples.

It's now almost six years since the first cases of Covid were recorded in the UK, from two Chinese nationals who had travelled from Wuhan. These were, as has been said, some of the
16:36
James Wild Portrait James Wild MP (North West Norfolk, Conservative)
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most challenging times for our nation. 230,000 people tragically died and is a very powerful died and is a very powerful memorial just across the river from this place that we see every day to remind us. And lockdowns and restrictions were imposed and choices were made that no government would want to have to government would want to have to make. And as a newly elected MP, I was faced with voting and supporting measures which I wasn't supporting measures which I wasn't expecting to to have to do when I came into this place to restrict people's freedom.

And clearly not every decision that was taken was got right. Mistakes were obviously made. They would be in a pandemic situation. But overall, this unprecedented challenge was met with unprecedented action. And on the economy. The subject of this debate, the actions taken by the then conservative government protected millions of jobs and supported businesses and those most in need. When the pandemic struck, the government acted swiftly. The Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme, the furlough scheme which protected 11 million jobs at a cost of £70 billion, was announced on the 20th of March.

That came shortly after the shortly afterwards. The first lockdown was then announced and at its peak nearly 9 million people were on furlough, preventing widespread unemployment for the self-employed, a topic that's been covered in most contributions. The Self-Employment Income Support Scheme was set up and delivered nearly £30 billion across five rounds of grants to nearly 3 million individuals. These schemes provided a lifeline to those whose livelihoods were threatened through no fault of their own, and beyond the employment support schemes, eight grant schemes saw £23 billion paid to small businesses administered by local authorities, and I want to pay tribute to the work that they did to put in place the systems and the mechanisms to process those payments rapidly, to get the support to people who needed it.

Through three loan schemes, nearly £80 billion worth of loans were approved and the Bounce Back loan scheme supported 1.5 million businesses with nearly £50 billion worth of funding. It was not only loans that provided crucial support. £10 billion was made available in business rate relief to nearly 370,000 premises in the retail, hospitality and leisure sector. And we're seeing some of the consequences of unwinding the support that was put in place for them, and VAT for the hospitality sector was cut to 5%.

A campaign that I and many members across the House supported to help the hospitality sector, which was particularly affected by the restrictions and some of the rules that were put in place. And this unprecedented package supported jobs and livelihoods across the UK. The government also acted to help certain groups who faced particular challenges. A £20 a week uplift was put in place for people on Universal Credit to help those on the lowest incomes. Rules about eligibility for benefits was relaxed, and additional support for jobseekers through the Kickstart and Restart schemes were also rolled out.

But of course, as the hon. Lady has said and hon. Members have focussed on the support did not reach everyone. Excluded UK was established in May 2020 to represent individuals and small business owners who fell outside the main financial support schemes. As has been set out, the group estimates around 3.8 million people were unable to access full financial support despite losing their income. Those individuals included the newly self-employed company directors paid in dividends, or those who self-employment income was below half of their overall earnings.

And I know from my time in this House in raising these issues with Ministers, the genuine hardship that my constituents in that situation faced and many hon. Members across the House at the time will attest to the many constant teams and meetings that were with Ministers putting the position of these people. The debates that were held in this House, the reports by the Treasury Select Committee and others drawing attention to it, and the response that was consistently provided was around challenges to provide workable solutions from HMRC systems, saying it was unable.

For example, as the hon. Member for Didcot and Wantage referred to identifying where dividends from an individual's company came from or from other sources, and the cut off points. The £50,000 threshold for self-employed also led to real difficulties and unfairness. The fraud risk has been referred to by a number of hon. Members, and that was one of the reasons given by the then Permanent Secretary to the Treasury as to why schemes put by the Federation of Small Businesses were cited as not being possible.

There were changes through those five series of grants through the self-employed schemes, but frankly, the restrictions created the impacts for the people who hon. Members have been referring to and the ongoing concerns raised by the campaign merit serious consideration, and that will be provided by the Covid inquiry. In the module referred to by the hon. Member for Stratford-on-Avon. Looking to the future, we should ensure that if when the next pandemic strikes, we have better data and systems to put in place support if needed, and making tax digital may actually help in that regard, and making sure that rules do not exclude people unfairly.

Equally, we must learn the lessons from the pandemic, particularly around the damaging impact of lockdowns. As my right hon. Friend for Tatton has set out in order, that such huge financial firepower is not needed because we do not put in place such restrictions in the pandemic, the pressure for action to help people and businesses was incredibly intense. That involved trade offs in terms of time and checks that could be implemented in support schemes. I recall vividly the clamour for support for small businesses.

For example, I was part of it and that led to the bounce back loan scheme with limited checks and with the consequences of that has had for fraud, but that enabled lots of businesses to survive that wouldn't otherwise be here today. And the government could have spent months designing the perfect scheme while businesses collapsed and families struggled. Instead, it acted to protect the lives and livelihoods. £410 billion was spent on the Covid measures, an extraordinary sum which added greatly to our debt.

But predictions by the Bank of England that unemployment would reach 9% were prevented and unemployment peaked at 5.2% before falling back to 3.7% two years after the first lockdown. However, clearly a lot of people did miss out on full financial support and while they will continue to be a debate about the specific decisions and lessons to be learned, I think is undoubtedly the case that our country would be in a far worse place today, were it not for the decisions taken at the time.

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker.
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James Murray Portrait Rt Hon James Murray MP (Ealing North, Labour )
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Minister James Murray. and I'd like to begin by congratulating, as others have done, the hon. Member for Stratford on Avon for securing this debate today. Avon for securing this debate today. And I'd like to thank members from across the House for their powerful contributions. And whilst much of contributions. And whilst much of the debate has rightly focussed on the detail, the financial support made available by the then government during the pandemic. We've also heard many deeply personal stories about businesses and individuals who were directly affected.

Madam Deputy Speaker, in two months time, the country will come together to mark what will be the sixth anniversary since the start of the pandemic. It will be an opportunity for us all to remember, to reflect and to pay tribute to all those who died and whose losses are still so keenly felt in all of our constituencies. The pandemic cost over 227,000 lives in our country, and I know that the loss and grief is still felt by families whose lost ones were were lost during this difficult period.

Reflecting on the pandemic is, of course, as the Liberal Democrat spokesperson said also a moment to once again express our gratitude towards all of those who work throughout the pandemic to provide vital and in many cases, life saving services to all of us across the country. And of course, reflecting on the pandemic is a moment to recommit to learning the lessons of what happened during that time so that we are better prepared for future crises. And this government is committed to learning those lessons and to doing all that we can to protect businesses and individuals across Britain in the future.

Madam Deputy Speaker, as well as having a huge impact on the lives of people across the country and their families. As we've heard about today, the pandemic was, of course, a huge economic shock. GDP fell by a record 19.4% and thousands of businesses face closure. It was therefore necessary to support to support businesses and individuals who were affected, and we supported measures being put in place which the shadow Minister mentioned, including the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme, the Self-Employment Income Support Scheme and various business grants and government backed loan guarantees.

But it is right that as a country, we now reflect on how those schemes were implemented by the government of the day. Madam Deputy Speaker, as we've heard from many hon. Members today, a number of people experienced genuine hardship and distress because they were excluded from the schemes that were available. Many of those experiences have been told powerfully throughout today's debate, including by the hon. Member for Stratford on Avon in her opening speech, and by my hon. Friend, the Member for Montgomeryshire.

We also heard a number of other stories about individuals and businesses from constituencies across the country. My hon. Friend for Truro, the hon. Member for Ely and East Cambridgeshire, my hon. Friend for Mid Cheshire, who also spoke about the importance of economic resilience and preparedness for the future. An important topic which I'll return to in just a moment. The hon. Member for Wimbledon, the hon. Member for Dewsbury and Batley. My hon. Friend for Falkirk, who also spoke about the impact, particularly on young people of the pandemic, which I think has had a particularly lasting effect that we're all keenly aware of.

The hon. Member for Didcot and Wantage and the hon. Member for Mid Dunbartonshire spoke as well about their constituents and businesses who have been affected. And one of the themes that came up Madam Deputy Speaker in many people's contributions was about what we as a country are doing to prepare for the future, to make sure that should a similar crisis happen again, we will be better prepared. And as a government, we are considering how we might better target and reach excluded groups in the future, including through better real time data collection.

As hon. Members will know, the official Covid 19 public inquiry is considering how future emergency schemes could be better tailored to modern labour markets. The inquiry recently held public hearings focussed on economic support for people and businesses during the pandemic, and will publish its final report in due course. The government, including the Treasury, fully participated in the hearings and provided a substantial amount of evidence. We will carefully study and consider any recommendations, mindful of our responsibility toward vulnerable groups and our commitment to value for money.

Madam Speaker, as members in this debate have also made clear no assessment of the previous government's record during the pandemic can ignore the fact that billions of pounds of taxpayers money was lost to fraud. It was a failure of monumental proportions and we are all continuing to pay the price. And that is why, upon taking office, we took action to recoup the money owed, including by appointing Tom Hayhoe as the Covid counter-fraud commissioner. In December, he published his report and the findings are shocking.

According to the commissioner, Covid fraud cost the taxpayer a staggering £10.9 billion. That is enough to fund daily free school meals for the UK's 2.7 million eligible children for eight years. Madam Deputy Speaker, of course, on this side of the House, we recognise that our predecessors were responding to a crisis, the nature of which demanded acting at speed but cynical exploitation of pandemic support was foreseeable. Last year, an arrest was made following an HMRC investigation into a company, Lux Lifestyle, which was awarded a £25 million PPE contract.

Having been referred into the procurement VIP lane by a conservative Minister and the party chairman. It won that contract despite having no employees, no assets, no turnover and £9,000 of debt. Whilst Lux Lifestyle did end up supplying some items. They were all inadequate and unusable and that is just one example. It doesn't begin to scratch the surface of Covid fraud yet. We have heard no apology today from the party opposite. We have had no apology to this House and no apology to the British people who have been left to pick up the bill.

And we will not allow that to happen again. That is why the government has introduced tougher sanction powers through the Public Authorities Fraud, Error and Recovery Act to help recover stolen funds, and why we have rolled out specialist fraud recovery teams to track down suspected fraudsters and recover taxpayer cash. Since coming to office, the government has recouped almost £400 million paid in error or that was obtained illegally through Covid fraud. But as the Chancellor has made clear, this fraud is a fraud against the British people and we will leave no stone unturned, leave no question unanswered, and leave no fraudster unchallenged until we have cleared up the mess that we inherited.

And so, Madam Deputy Speaker, whilst we work to fix those problems, we are also turning toward the future, making sure our country is well prepared to face future crises. Much has been learned already from the Covid 19 pandemic, but the scale of the economic emergency facing the country nearly six years ago underlines the need to continue embedding these learnings into governments, systems and processes. As I've already set out, we have taken tough action to track down the fraudsters who profited under the previous government's watch.

We are improving and enhancing the government's analytical and modelling capabilities to ensure that we can better target support schemes in the future. We have launched the National Situation Centre, enabling us to identify and plan for a range of risks and improve our crisis response. We have conducted through Exercise Pegasus, the largest cross-government pandemic simulation in British history, helping to make sure that we are better prepared than before, that our plans for battle tested and that we are ready to adapt. And as the official Covid 19 inquiry draws to a close, we stand ready to study any recommendations and take action where needed.

Madam Deputy Speaker, the economic implications of the Covid 19 pandemic for this country were profound. In response to this unprecedented crisis, it was, of course, necessary to act quickly for our economy and for our communities. But we know that mistakes were made and the British people were defrauded to the tune of over £10 billion. That is money that should have been spent on schools and hospitals, and which has instead gone into the pockets of fraudsters and criminals. There will also undoubtedly be wider lessons to draw from the design of support schemes, and the impact these schemes had on groups across the economy.

As a government, we will continue to enhance our resilience to future shocks. We have set to work on that since the election, and our work will intensify after the official Covid 19 inquiry publishes its final report. We will do whatever is necessary to build a safer, more secure country for the future. And I earned again by thanking all hon. Members for sharing their businesses and individual constituents experiences in today's debate.
16:52
Manuela Perteghella Portrait Manuela Perteghella MP (Stratford-on-Avon, Liberal Democrat)
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Manuela Perteghella to wind up. Members here for taking the time to come and support their constituents today. The people we are talking about today were not asking for special treatment. They were asking for fair and equitable treatment. They paid in. They follow the rules. And when crisis came, they were left behind with heartbreaking consequences. And I hope that the Minister will meet with the Appg in the near future. In conclusion, Madam Deputy Speaker, if you're serious about learning the lessons of the pandemic, then recognition, redress, accountability and change must follow.

Otherwise, the next time a crisis strikes, we risk repeating the same injustice. Thank

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you. The question is, as on the Order

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The question is, as on the Order Paper, as many are as of that opinion, say I of the contrary. No, opinion, say I of the contrary. No, I think the ayes have it. The ayes

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have it. Motion number two on move. I beg to move.

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I beg to move. The question is, as on the Order Paper, as many as of that opinion say aye. Of the contrary, no. I think the ayes have it. The ayes

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have it. Petition Chris Bloore. Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, I rise to present this petition I rise to present this petition about postal delivery services in the village of Inkberrow and thank the hundreds of constituents who have also showed their support by signing online. A reliable and regular postal service should be a basic expectation. Yet my constituents are missing vital communications regarding healthcare and business business related work
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16:56
None Portrait Adjournment: Protection and management of young trees
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saying that they're great, tremendous indeed. So much so that my mum and dad got me an I-Spy trees book for Christmas, which I think is going to become somewhat more easy to complete over the spring and summer months. Trees are woven into the very fabric of our nation, our culture, our heritage. The apple tree that sparked Newton's revolutionary thinking on gravity. The Tolpuddle Martyrs tree, a symbol of solidarity and the birth of the trade union movement. Sherwood Forest immortalised by Robin Hood, or the famous 100 acres, home to Winnie the Pooh, Tigger and Co.

Trees are placemakers. I was recently visiting a new development called Linmere, where trees are quite literally used to sell the place, with marketing material suggesting residents stroll through tree lined avenues and take in the nature around you. And everyone moving in gets their own new tree in their garden. Trees improve our lives. They improve our health both physically and mentally. Urban trees, shrubs and hedges reduce exposure to air pollution by dispersing and capturing pollutants like particulate matter and ozone.

Collectively, urban woods in the UK do a brilliant job of removing removing an estimated 7.5 kilotonnes of pollutants every single year, and trees can also be life savers. Research suggests increasing green space by just 1% in the most deprived urban neighbourhoods in England is linked to 37% fewer preventable deaths. Trees reduce flooding. I was struck when I visited a local school on a soggy day last year, and when many homes in the local area and businesses had experienced flooding, and I asked the headteacher that I met, had the school had any problems and they hadn't, and she pointed to the trees on the playing fields that surrounded us, that had intercepted that rainfall and absorbed so much water.

Forest research estimates trees deliver over £400 million a year in flood protection, and those same trees in the summer offer vital shade. And, crucially, our trees lock away carbon for decades or even centuries. UK woodlands store around a billion tonnes of carbon. And yet, despite all these brilliant benefits, we as a nation are undertreated well below the European average. And that also makes us the second largest importer of timber in the world. So I am absolutely delighted that this government has pledged to plant three new national forests.

The first, in the West of England, is underway, and next, the Ox-cam Growth corridor is going to see growth of a different kind, from seed to sapling to forest. £1 billion of investment in tree planting and forestry support over this Parliament. Tree planting at its highest rate in over 20 years. 10,000 football pitches worth planted last year. And plant, plant, plant is a really good mantra. But Madam Deputy Speaker, I think we also need to think about something that's perhaps a little less catchy.

Establish, establish, establish. Because the first 3 to 5 years of a tree's life are absolutely critical. This is when trees are most vulnerable to drought, damage, disease, and death. Of course, tree and woodland creation will always involve some risk. There will be years when the weather means more trees don't make it, even when best practice is followed. But what we are seeing goes far beyond an avoidable loss to the planet and to the public purse. University of Sheffield research found that only 61% of trees meant to be present on new developments were there.
16:59
Alex Mayer Portrait Alex Mayer MP (Dunstable and Leighton Buzzard, Labour)
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Order. now do adjourn. >> The question is that this House do now adjourn. Alex Mayer. >> Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker.

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Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. So that University of Sheffield research found that 39% of trees research found that 39% of trees were missing or dead along the A14. National highways planted over 860,000 trees in 2020, but the failure rate was 45%. More detailed evidence comes from the evaluation of urban tree planting across four cities Bristol, Birmingham, Nottingham and Leeds, covering trees planted between 2012 and 2022. The team say that just finding out what was planted and where it was, was far harder than it should have been.

Record keeping isn't good. Even freedom of information requests didn't yield data. Does it exist? They kept on asking of the 820 expected trees. They discovered only 687 were actually planted. So 23% of funded or acquired trees were never planted at all of those that were planted, only 42% were in good condition. Around 1 in 5 had died or been removed. I think you might call it a tragedy, and nearly a third were in poor condition, showing stress, damage or inadequate growth.

Very few were growing as we would want them to. The National Audit Office reported £48 million of government investment into the Urban Tree Challenge Fund. If these outcomes are representative, then around £10 million of that investment may already have been lost. Literally dead wood. This, then, is not just a marginal issue, it is a systemic value for money problem. So why are these young trees dying? The research consistently points to similar causes. The wrong tree in the wrong place.

I'm struck by how often, especially in new builds. The trees are the responsibility of landscape gardeners, and then there can be a tendency to over prioritise aesthetics, or even a rightful desire to create a sense of place over choosing trees that will survive and thrive. We need better species selection, the right tree in the right place for the right reason, with climate resilience built in. But even if it is in the right place, research shows that young trees are prone to damage from poorly managed stakes and ties, strimmer damage, soil compaction and sadly, also vandalism.

Staking particularly is an issue. It should be a temporary support, not a permanent restraint. But there are too many examples of trees literally being strangled. Ties that are far too tight and so restrict the natural expansion of the trunk. So as the tree grows, the ties cut into the bark, disrupting the flow of water and nutrients. Sometimes it simply isn't anyone's job to remove the stake and ties after a year or so. We see on new developments, landscaping and management fees often don't translate into tree care at all, and in some cases actually actively contribute to tree loss.

Another cause of early tree death is insufficient water, because young trees are really thirsty. Newly planted trees need to be watered 2 to 3 times a week. They knock back 50 to 100 pints every time. They need deep and regular soaking. And then establishing trees needs need water once a week in dry weather. Watering in the first 1 to 2 years is one of the most important factors in whether a tree struggles long term or goes on to thrive. So what needs to change? I know this government is committed to early years, so do we perhaps need a best start tree hub as well, where everybody learns about watering and mulching and formative pruning.

As I have outlined, data is patchy. How do we do better as a nation? Does the Minister support mandated record keeping, minimum 3 to 5 year aftercare plans and reporting requirements tied to planning permission, grants and public contracts in housing development? Should tree planting and aftercare contracts always be bundled together so responsibility cannot be passed away? How do we better implement those planning conditions related to aftercare? Now, I expect the Minister may not be able to give me answers to all of this and direct me to some other departments, and that is an important issue too.

As trees are not just for DEFRA, they're also about housing, communities and transport and health and more. Yet, for example, MHCLG currently lacks an in-house tree expert. It has been over a decade since the department had an arboricultural role, who previously provided expertise on urban trees, including tree planting and tree preservation order regulations. And that's a gap that the sector say they feel keenly. So will the Minister reassure me that the Welcome England Tree Action Plan will have Cross-departmental buy in? Will it contain best practice, including clear schedules for watering, mulching, pruning and monitoring? Much of this, of course, already exists, for example from the Arboricultural Association, who I know stand ready to support the government and Highways England who learnt from their A14 debacle and survival rates for trees on their 3 million trees project, now stands at 85%.

Maybe there could also be a section on performance related tree payments bonds, with sums released only when trees are established. So the reward comes not for planting, but for trees that thrive so that aftercare can no longer be treated as an afterthought for the government's ambitions to flourish. We will need thriving tree nurseries. The excellent report Strong Roots has many recommendations to nurture the sector and increase the number of British grown trees to better align tree supply with planting grounds, to give nurseries confidence to invest.

So we avoid situations like when the Scottish Government cut its forestry grant scheme Budget by 41% back in 2024 to boost training, apprenticeships and skills development and tree action. And one thing that stood out particularly to me, they suggest introducing a British grown tree certification logo to strengthen market identity. And I can very much imagine seeing the Minister launching the Great British Trees logo. So I really love her comments on that. Madam Deputy Speaker, tree planting without establishment is not climate action.

It is waste. But with simple policy changes we can ensure that young trees survive, thrive and deliver the economic, environmental and social benefits we all know they promise.
17:06
Mary Creagh Portrait Mary Creagh MP (Coventry East, Labour)
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Minister Mary Creagh. >> Very much indeed, Madam Deputy Speaker. What a pleasure it is to stand in this glorious room stand in this glorious room panelled with English oak, cut down in the wake of World War Two, to refurbish this great chamber of democracy, to stand at this Dispatch Box crafted from New Zealand puriri wood, a native species and a the gift of New Zealand. As I see at every time I stand here, and to passionately agree with my hon.

Friends opening speech, I'm so grateful to her for bringing this topic to the House today, because across England, trees and woodlands are more than just part of our landscape. They are intimately woven into our national identity. They call our air our cities and shelter our wildlife. And whether it's a walk through an ancient forest or a moment between beneath a single tree in a city park, trees have a remarkable ability to restore us. They help us with anxiety, with grief, and with loneliness.

They give us space to breathe, and they are woven into our shared national culture. They have stood as symbols of endurance, wisdom and renewal, and they are centuries old sentinels, witnesses to our history. Growing up in Coventry, I played every weekend in Coventry's War Memorial Park, a great city's act of remembrance for those that we lost in World War One. For every tree a plaque beneath remembering the people that had died. A living memorial to remember the lost.

Our woodlands are places where those childhood memories are made and where Christmas strolls and New Year's Day walks become traditions where children climb and occasionally fall, where dens are made and where dogs are walked, hopefully on a leash. And as Forestry Minister, I have the privilege of regularly seeing the majesty and benefits of our woodlands up close. And I would like to reassure my hon. Friend that we are taking the steps we need to ensure that we have woodlands and trees for the future.

Just last year, I opened Forestry England's Delamere Seed Processing Centre, named after long serving Forestry England team member Vernon Stockton. It will process up to four tonnes of high quality tree seeds, which is providing the starting point for the forests of the future. I've stood beneath the the spruce and pine of Kielder Forest with the people who manage it. Or can I just say about the tree, the seed processing centre? It was, of course, a net zero building and it was of course made from timber.

I've stood in Kielder Forest with the people who manage it. I've visited the community forests, who sent me home with two Scots pine and two hornbeams. And I can say that three of those trees have survived three London droughts. And of course, back in 2011, I led the fight against the party. Opposite's proposal to sell off the public forest estate. So I am passionate about trees and she is right to list the benefit of trees, because tree planting in England is at its highest recorded rate for 20 years, 7000 hectares last year.

And we will boost this further through our manifesto commitment to create three new national forests. And what a privilege it was to plant a tree as part of that establishment. We will plant 20 million trees over the next 25 years to create that new western forest. And on Monday, we opened the expression of interest process for the planned forest in the Oxford Cambridge Growth Corridor. And we will launch the competition for a new national forest in the North or the Midlands by July this year.

These new forests will bring peace, shade and joy to millions of people around the country and that forest will bring forestry much, much closer to her constituents. But, as she says, without maintenance in the early years to help the establishment, the investment can be reduced, which is why we fund establishment and provide the expertise and advice to keep trees alive. All government funded woodland creation must be designed and planted to the UK Forestry Standard, a world leading technical standard for sustainable forest creation and management, agreed between all four UK nations.

At its root, is planning and design. Good planning, grows strong woodlands and gives our trees the best start in life. So paying for planning isn't a cost, it's an investment in resilience. That is why we offer the Woodland Creation Planning Grant thousands of pounds to fund the groundwork before the first sapling goes in. But of course, once in the ground, young trees are vulnerable and need maintenance to establish this. Maintenance means checking young trees for disease, replacing dead trees, and sometimes even watering during periods of drought.

And that's why we also fund ongoing maintenance through the England Woodland Creation offer capital payments, cover the planting essentials followed by £400 per hectare per year for 15 years to support maintenance tasks to give the trees the best possible chance of survival. We don't rely on planting alone. We also back nature's own hand. Funding for natural colonisation lets woodlands expand naturally and organically, allowing species to establish where the conditions suit them best. It may appear tatty and scruffy to some people, but nature thrives in the mess and in the wild, and it thrives best when we let it go.

It is unrealistic to expect 100% survival rates because that doesn't happen in nature. As we've seen through the recent storms. Last autumn, we witnessed a great spectacle of nature a mast year where the overproduction of seeds and acorns blanketed woodland floors, and after woodland species have gorged themselves ready for winter. And I can tell you, the squirrels in my garden are absolutely fat as butter. There is still more than enough intact material to produce the next generation of trees.

Nature knows not every seed is going to make it. We mirror that approach. The schemes that we fund as government dictate that trees are planted at a higher density than would be seen in mature woodland, to take into account the natural level of tree mortality. Some trees do die and some of them are lost to tree disease, a risk to both established and newly planted trees and woodlands. And we've seen what can happen with ash dieback, and also now with our spruces and IPS typographus, which is the six I can't even say the six toothed tree spruce beetle.

I think I've got it vaguely right. I hope I haven't misled the house, but it's quite a mouthful. Government has a robust regulatory regime in place which minimises biosecurity risks from imported material, whilst meeting World Trade Organisation standards. Recipients of many government grants are required to source trees from suppliers that meet the plant health management standard. Healthy saplings stay healthy because we prevent pathways for harm. And she got her trees book for Christmas. I am the lucky owner of a brand new almond tree for my birthday, so it's going to do battle with the olive and the bay tree.

And let's see, let's see what happens. Report back I shall next year. Species choice is ever more important in a changing climate. Today's species and the trees of the past may not thrive in the near future. And I've been told, for example, that cherry trees, as we have hotter, drier summers, warmer, wetter winters are going to be a species that may not be climate resilient going forward into the future. Forestry England has published a list of 30 priority tree species selected for ability to withstand extreme weather and resist pests and diseases, and it's crucially important that those who want to plant trees and create woodlands do so with an eye on the future.

Now, I said at the beginning that I agreed with most of what my hon. Friend says, and I'm. I too am furious when I see parched trees lining motorways or streets or new developments where the trees have been left to die. So can I encourage local people who care about their trees to water them, particularly in the early days and particularly during hot summers? My hon. Friend mentioned the Urban Tree Challenge Fund, like our Woodland Creation Grants, that fund doesn't simply fund planting. It provided multi-year establishment costs alongside the up the upfront capital costs, and in our urban tree planting grants, we require evidence of good establishment rates and we withhold payments where this has not been met.

This is not always the case for planting that is not funded by government. For example, on the new housing estate, she talks about where, despite planning conditions, the same effort towards tree survival is not always made. Developers must do better. Those trees are not decorations. They are an investment that will bring future residents. The benefits we have talked about today and aesthetics cannot take priority over survival. Now there is a wealth of guidance provided by organisations inside and outside of government on on what the right tree for the right place is.

And I do urge people to use it. We are improving that guidance. Our Trees outside Woodland project compared the survival rates of different establishment approaches, and concluded last year. That project concluded last year and the findings are feeding into our grant designs for setting up new tree establishments. We have investigated over £150,000 to investigate in greater detail the causes of mortality in recently planted trees, and that work is ongoing. And of course, we have globally leading scientists science down at Kew Gardens.

And I had the pleasure of an hour with Kevin, who is their head of trees down there who had been going over to Central Asia, to Kazakhstan to collect tree seeds, to do this research, to work out which trees are going to work in the future. The upcoming Tree Action Plan is being developed in partnership across government and with the sector, and will emphasise the importance of using best practice. And of course, last year, as part of our procurement changes, we have also recognised the Grown in Britain timber standard.

Madam Deputy Speaker, we fund tree establishment because it's good government, it's climate security, it is local pride, it is economic sense. And we know that great people are working in our community forests through the forest with Impact programme that is working with prisoners up at Her Majesty's Prison in Havoc in Cumbria, 250,000 seeds being produced there to create the forests of the future. Working with those prisoners to make sure that social justice reparations for their crime also offers them a route out of crime when they leave prison and and hope for their future, those young trees will grow into the woodlands we promised into greener towns, resilient farms and thriving forests.

So I want to conclude by thanking everyone who loved trees. Thank you for believing in the power of trees and into in the potential of people. And thank you for your commitment to a greener, fairer Britain. This government will work with you and we look forward to creating an amplifying

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the impact that you make. The question is that this House do now adjourn. As many as that opinion say I. I.

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I.
09:00
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