Live Debate: Commons Chamber

Q6. Whether his Department has provided guidance on the potential impact of the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 (Alternative Dispute Resolution) (Fees) Regulations 2026 on small businesses providing arbitration services. (900764)

Alison Bennett. >> Question six Mr. Speaker. >> Minister. >> Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Department has not provided guidance on this matter. The fees relating to the accreditation and monitoring of the alternative dispute resolution providers have dispute resolution providers have not risen since 2015 and have been significantly eroded. Given the impact of rising costs in Stem. The intention of the new fee structure is to ensure that they are commensurate over time, with the costs of the Chartered Trading costs of the Chartered Trading Standards Authority.

Performing the relevant functions to standard required that these are predictable required that these are predictable for ADR providers and provide cost recovery for CTC.

09:57

Kate Dearden MP, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Halifax, Labour )

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Mr. speaker.

09:57

Alison Bennett MP (Mid Sussex, Liberal Democrat)

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I thank the Minister for her response. Caroline, from Linfield, owns a small business that provides owns a small business that provides arbitration services. Since the introduction of the one size fits all fee set down earlier this year, all fee set down earlier this year, her business model and that of so many other small ADR providers has become nigh on impossible to become nigh on impossible to sustain. Has the Minister considered the impact on the sector for these fee changes? Can she explain why no impact assessment has been done, and in particular, has she received feedback from trading standards since the legislation came into force? Thank you, Minister.

09:58

Kate Dearden MP, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Halifax, Labour )

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I thank the hon. Member for her >> I thank the hon. Member for her question and for raising this issue. A well functioning ADR system makes markets work more effectively and markets work more effectively and drive economic growth, and we are committed to ensuring that consumers and businesses are able to resolve disputes early. That to resolve disputes early. That helps to raise consumer confidence and higher compliance. We do recognise that there will be a period of adjustment as the new fee structure beds in, and will conduct a review in the autumn to assess whether the fee structure should be further amended.

We recognise the importance of ensuring charges are fair and proportional for all ADR

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providers and I, as a competent authority. Gagan Mohindra question, Mr.

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Speaker. Seven. It's perfectly fine, Mr. Speaker,

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It's perfectly fine, Mr. Speaker, because I am going to ask answer questions seven and seven and 16 questions seven and seven and 16 together. So and I can inform the hon. Member that we are investing £2.5 billion into tackling the

09:58

Rt Hon Peter Kyle MP, Secretary of State for Business and Trade (Hove and Portslade, Labour)

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£2.5 billion into tackling the issues surrounding youth unemployment over the next three years, and that will include new initiatives, including a further 19 technical excellent colleges to provide high quality training for jobs in key sectors.

09:59

Mr Gagan Mohindra MP (South West Hertfordshire, Conservative)

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Gagan Mohindra thank you, Mr. Speaker. an incredible charity based in Chorleywood, which offers supported internships for young people with internships for young people with Send. It was deeply concerning to hear that in England, only 6% of adults with learning disabilities adults with learning disabilities are in paid work. Will the Minister outline how he is working with other departments to ensure that the Youth Jobs Grant will not disincentivize employers from hiring people, from supporting internship backgrounds who are not claiming Universal Credit?

09:59

Rt Hon Peter Kyle MP, Secretary of State for Business and Trade (Hove and Portslade, Labour)

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I'm very grateful for his >> I'm very grateful for his question. He raises an incredibly important issue. It sounds like the work that the charity he references work that the charity he references is doing incredibly important work locally. We want to be supporting locally. We want to be supporting that work. It is a shame that in the years running up to coming into office, apprenticeship starts had fallen by 40%. We're trying to reinvent, re-invest in apprenticeships, apprenticeship starts and make sure that they are available to everyone from every background and every ability.

10:00

John Cooper MP (Dumfries and Galloway, Conservative)

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Thank you. >> Thank you, Mr. Speaker. While still at school, I played my part in the creative industries, playing in bands with names as louche as Street lethal and cheap sweeties. Street lethal and cheap sweeties. It was very lucrative. Mr Speaker and I got it in the modern era. and I got it in the modern era. However, that all important first job is increasingly hard to find because of things such as the Chancellor's jobs tax and the massive 330 page Employment Rights Bill.

Will the frontbench go to the new Northern Powerhouse Cabinet and press upon the Chancellor? The need

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to save our summer jobs and cut the burden on industry? Thank you. Good.

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Well, I'm grateful for his childhood experiences. I think in retirement we'll see him in Mamma retirement we'll see him in Mamma Mia! The Musical. I my first job was on a battery chicken farm collecting eggs. So I hope that I collecting eggs. So I hope that I can take a different path when I move away from the current. The current profession. But I can current profession. But I can assure him that we are investing not only the £2.5 billion, but we're also working across department, across departments to

10:01

Rt Hon Peter Kyle MP, Secretary of State for Business and Trade (Hove and Portslade, Labour)

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make sure that 400,000 students from disadvantaged schools will take up AI and tech skills through take up AI and tech skills through the Teach the Tech First programme. These are the kinds of initiatives that we are wrapping around young people, so they get the support in the age in which we are living. But I have to say, extending the hours I have to say, extending the hours for 13 year olds is not a serious solution to the challenges that we face. And that is the only answer that we've heard from this, this,

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that we've heard from this, this, those benches in recent times. Mr. speaker, SMEs are often the best place, often best place to kick start a young person's career. When I met a group of small business owners at the Crown pub in Granville last week, many told me that the front costs of training and supervision are often act as a barrier to taking young people on. So with the Secretary of State set out update the House and what out update the House and what support the government is taking to incentivise small and micro businesses and helping give businesses and helping give opportunities to young people.

10:02

Callum Anderson MP (Buckingham and Bletchley, Labour)

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I'm incredibly grateful for his point. He makes a really important point. We have created a specific fund to support SMEs and also young people to start up businesses. It is incredibly important that people from all backgrounds get to explore their entrepreneurial talents, and that's exactly what this government is doing to make it happen.

10:02

Rt Hon Peter Kyle MP, Secretary of State for Business and Trade (Hove and Portslade, Labour)

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Melanie Onn number eight, Mr.

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Speaker. Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker.

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Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. I'm very grateful to my hon. Friend for her question. We are investing for her question. We are investing £720 million in Greater Lincolnshire Investment Fund over the next 30 years. It's part of our the next 30 years. It's part of our devolved funding and our support for areas just like hers.

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I thank the Minister for that. Secretary of State for that answer. News of apprenticeship incentives, youth jobs grant and the Jobs Guarantee will provide a welcome boost for my brilliant young people in Great Grimsby and Cleethorpes, but they and other job seekers will want to know what permanent jobs they can move into. We have a huge opportunities and experience in new clean energy and the supply chain. clean energy and the supply chain. What action is he taking to expand existing businesses and attract new investment in this sector that will investment in this sector that will deliver jobs for my hard working constituents?

10:03

Melanie Onn MP (Great Grimsby and Cleethorpes, Labour)

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Thank you. She is right. Her constituents are hard working, and they deserve to have a government on their side. And in this government they are. We have invested £140 million into a pilot with the mayoral strategic

10:03

Rt Hon Peter Kyle MP, Secretary of State for Business and Trade (Hove and Portslade, Labour)

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authorities, which will benefit her area that will connect Neet 16 to 24 year olds to local 24 year olds to local apprenticeship opportunities in her area. We're also investing the £2.5 billion into the Youth Guarantee billion into the Youth Guarantee and the growth and skills levy over the next three years. NEETs rose the next three years. NEETs rose 250 000 under the Tories. We are doing everything we can get to get that down and that includes, in her

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area, specialist advice via the Business Lincolnshire Growth Hub. Christopher Vince, number.

10:04

Kate Dearden MP, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Halifax, Labour )

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Nine, Mr. Speaker. and I thank my hon. Friend for his question and for his continued advocacy for young carers and young adult carers. I've been honoured to adult carers. I've been honoured to visit carers Count Calderdale in my own constituency of Halifax, and know how important that vital know how important that vital support of incredible unpaid carers across the country are providing to their loved ones. We are now reviewing the employment rights available to them, including a public consultation which launched last month and is currently open for views.

We're considering the merits of additional support, including paid leave, improved guidance and a right to return, whilst remaining mindful of any potential impacts on businesses.

10:04

Chris Vince MP (Harlow, Labour )

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Crispin. >> I thank the Minister for her answer and her commitment to unpaid carers. I speak to unpaid carers across my constituency of Harlow all the time, and I want to all the time, and I want to personally thank them for all they do caring for loved ones and yeah, the the wider community as well. the the wider community as well. However, so many unpaid carers I speak to tell me they struggle to hold down a job and many of them had to give up really important careers.

So I absolutely welcome the government's commitment to review, which has the potential to be absolutely transformative. But does the Minister agree with me? We must continue to support unpaid carers, both in Harlow and beyond.

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Yeah, Minister. My hon. Friend is absolutely right to highlight the vital contribution unpaid carers make to contribution unpaid carers make to their loved ones and communities, and the experience of families in his constituency of Harlow reflect the challenges faced by unpaid carers across the country. We want to ensure that carers can remain in work and fulfil their potential. work and fulfil their potential. Through our review, we'll make sure we're backing our unpaid carers to balance work and care, as well as the employers who support them in

10:05

Kate Dearden MP, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Halifax, Labour )

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the employers who support them in the workplace. >> Andrew George Preston ten. >> Mr Speaker Minister.

10:05

Q10. What steps he is taking to support the hospitality sector. (900768)

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It was a pleasure to hear the hon. Member's contribution at the recent contribution at the recent Westminster Hall debate on seasonal hospitality businesses, including truancy. We are delivering permanently lower business rate permanently lower business rate multipliers for over 750,000 retail, hospitality and leisure properties,

10:05

Kate Dearden MP, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Halifax, Labour )

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backed by a £4.3 billion support package over three years, including transitional relief to protect businesses from large bill businesses from large bill increases. Following the revaluation, we've increased the Hospitality Support Fund to £10 million over three years, building million over three years, building on the previous scheme to support larger, longer term projects. I'm committed to working in partnership committed to working in partnership with industry and across government to support growth and resilience, including through targeted support measures and engagement, including

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measures and engagement, including through the hospitality sector Council. Andrew George Mr. Speaker. Welcome as that is, and I'm not crying wolf here, the hospitality sector faces the very high risk of substantial business failure within the next 12 months as a result of the the tax burdens which which they have to face simply for attempting to survive rather than shifting them to, to, to a tax burden for succeeding, in other words, from, from, from VAT and words, from, from, from VAT and business rates to corporation tax.

So will the Minister look again at So will the Minister look again at this before real catastrophe comes to the sector, to talk to Treasury to the sector, to talk to Treasury Ministers and find a way out of this extremely serious situation?

10:06

Andrew George MP (St Ives, Liberal Democrat)

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Yeah.

10:07

Kate Dearden MP, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Halifax, Labour )

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I thank the hon. Member for for raising his question, unfortunately, raising his question, unfortunately, in absolute dire situation from the party opposite. When they left office, they left deep economic office, they left deep economic scars on our economy from a decade of stagnant growth. And we know that hospitality thrives when our economy grows and wages rise and economy grows and wages rise and people have money to spend, which is why we're absolutely committed to supporting them and working closely with them. There's a wide range of factors.

He knows when government needs to consider introducing new tax reliefs, whether they support wider government objectives. And as he knows, government keeps all taxes under review as part of the policy making process, and the Chancellor

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will announce any changes to the tax system at fiscal events in the usual way. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Northampton based McManus pubs runs 18. Pubs employ 370 people. Speaker Tom McManus. Yesterday he told me Tom McManus. Yesterday he told me that successive governments have ignored hospitality over the last five years. Business costs have made it harder for him to turn a made it harder for him to turn a profit. Now Tom has asked me to lobby government for a cut on VAT to 10%.

What message does the

10:08

Mike Reader MP (Northampton South, Labour)

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to 10%. What message does the Minister have for family businesses like Tom's? >> I thank my hon. Friend for his question and for raising businesses and their preferences and what they've raised with him in his constituency, and thank him for his continued engagement on this issue and for his constituents. He knows there are recent announcements, the

10:08

Kate Dearden MP, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Halifax, Labour )

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Temporary Great British Summer reducing VAT from 20% to 5% on selected hospitality activities between June and September. And he knows that we keep all taxes under review. But he should say to his constituents and particularly his businesses and pubs, that we are absolutely committed to working absolutely committed to working with the industry and sector to support them to thrive. They are vital for our local communities, for people, for jobs. And I know he

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for people, for jobs. And I know he knows that too. Yeah, yeah. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Harry Kane's heroics last night means that many England fans are looking forward to an early morning or a late night, depending on one's perspective on Monday. And this is a good thing. But pubs risk missing out on a real opportunity to get more money into the till. If Ministers do not make a blanket extension for licensing hours, will Ministers consider that with their Ministers consider that with their colleagues in other departments so fans can enjoy the game in the pub?

10:09

Dr Kieran Mullan MP (Bexhill and Battle, Conservative)

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Hey.

10:09

Kate Dearden MP, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Halifax, Labour )

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I thank my hon. Friend for his question and want to pay tribute in this House to the incredible Harry Kane, our captain, for his Kane, our captain, for his performance last night. He absolutely calmed my blood pressure and will be champion and the boys and will be champion and the boys on on Sunday he will know that pubs can stay open for an extra 2 or 3 hours, depending on how late the hours, depending on how late the match starts, so pubs can still open as the game finishes regarding Sunday.

Unfortunately, that doesn't apply with the 1 a.m. start, but going forward we absolutely backing our pubs so people can watch and support our lads and it's coming home hopefully.

10:09

Gareth Snell MP (Stoke-on-Trent Central, Labour )

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Gareth Snell thank you, Mr. Speaker. Titanic brewery, based in Speaker. Titanic brewery, based in Stoke on Trent, make a fabulous pint. I would highly recommend the Plum Porter, but the Minister will Plum Porter, but the Minister will know that as an independent brewery, access to market is quite difficult because of the way that tied pubs will insist that landlords buy their products. So could the Minister make an announcement before the summer recess, on the on the access to market scheme and in particular, the guest beer arrangement that would allow 1500 SMEs access to market? It won't cost the government anything, as you may find that lots of people summer.

10:10

Kate Dearden MP, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Halifax, Labour )

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Yes, I sincerely thank my hon. Friend for his continued engagement, and I know how important this issue and I know how important this issue is to him for our breweries in terms of market access, I was delighted to meet with him and colleagues across this House colleagues across this House recently, and look forward to continue engaging and working with them. As a government considers the

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evidence ahead of any announcements. John Glen. Thank you. Question 11, Mr. Speaker.

10:10

Q11. What assessment he has made of trends in employment levels in the hospitality sector. (900771)

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The hospitality sector remains a major UK employer, supporting around 2.1 million jobs. Last year, around 6% million jobs. Last year, around 6% of total employment. Employment has grown by over 18% in the past decade, while growth has stabilised more recently. This follows a period of strong expansion, reflecting the sector's continued importance to local economies and youth employment. I know myself how vital the sector is for first jobs. I started my first job in a cafe I started my first job in a cafe and was provided and given that opportunity, that gave me the skills to go on and succeed in my career with supporting jobs through career with supporting jobs through skills investment, including new hospitality, apprenticeships, incentives for SMEs to recruit young people and sector based work young people and sector based work academy programmes to help people into work.

10:11

Kate Dearden MP, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Halifax, Labour )

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I thank the Minister for her answer and the positive news about the sector. Apprenticeships and hospitality is critical in Salisbury as we move to the celebration of 800 years next year. But last summer there was a 25% drop in temporary work in the sector and employer national insurance for part time workers in

10:11

Rt Hon John Glen MP (Salisbury, Conservative)

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the sector, 15 hours increased. The costs increased by 73%. So, respectfully, I say to the Minister, I recognise tough decisions have to be made in the Treasury. I was be made in the Treasury. I was there for seven years and was part of those decisions. But this sector is under real strain and part time jobs for youngest workers are not there at the moment. Something

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there at the moment. Something quite significant needs to change in the government's approach. I thank the right hon. Member for his question and for raising the important and vital sector of hospitality and providing those first jobs and opportunities for people. I work with hospitality businesses really closely, and I'm really keen to continue to listen and to understand the challenges that they're working through and face. I know he'll welcome our recent Youth Jobs grant that was launched this week, open for applications that was welcomed by the chief executive of UK hospitality.

And we want to keep working with them, and I thank them for their engagement so far and how we can continue to support them to we can continue to support them to crack on with the brilliant opportunities they provide community across the country.

10:12

Kate Dearden MP, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Halifax, Labour )

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Question 13 Mr.

10:12

Chris Bryant MP, Minister of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Rhondda and Ogmore, Labour)

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Mr. speaker, we regularly, determinedly fight for the farming sector and the wider food and beverage sector when it comes to international deals. Sometimes that means defending our UK farming and means defending our UK farming and food standards. But just as often we're able to secure significant advances. So, for instance, we've advances. So, for instance, we've managed to have increased access for British beef in the United States of America and for lamb and salmon in India, and for lamb and beef in the Gulf.

We will always fight for the British farming sector.

10:13

Joe Morris MP (Hexham, Labour)

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Joe Morris thank you, Mr. Speaker. I thank the Minister for his response. Farmers and food his response. Farmers and food standards are some of the most visible and felt impacts of trade policy, and obviously, domestic policy, and obviously, domestic agriculture is one of our most sensitive sectors to import shocks. Does Minister agree with me that transition periods are absolutely transition periods are absolutely vital when negotiating international trade agreements, and will he commit to making sure that the farming sector is properly consulted on on implementation periods and transition periods in any in any agreement made, particularly the SPS agreement on how we can work across government on that.

10:13

Chris Bryant MP, Minister of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Rhondda and Ogmore, Labour)

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Yes. hon. Friend. Since he's been in the House, I know he's raised lots of issues on behalf of the farming sector in his constituency, and some of these are issues that need to come directly to Ministers so that we can take action on them. And this is one of the areas where And this is one of the areas where we are very keen to make sure that the SPS agreement is negotiated in a way that really works for farmers in the UK, but I would apply that also to any free trade agreement that we were to sign up to.

I'm very keen to make sure that we get good deals for British farmers and as I say, we will always, always, always defend farming standards and food standards in the UK. Those are not negotiable when it comes to free trade agreements.

10:14

Kate Dearden MP, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Halifax, Labour )

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Connor Rand 14 Mr Speaker. Farm profitability in the UK is incredibly low. As we know, less than 1% is the profitability seen by many farms. Reports show that a poorly negotiated and poorly implemented SPS agreement could see a 10% hit to profitability of our arable farmers. This will have a trickle down impact across the whole agricultural supply chain, impacting many businesses UK wide. How is his department working with the Cabinet Office and Defra to ensure our arable farmers and the supply chain are not impacted?

10:14

Chris Bryant MP, Minister of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Rhondda and Ogmore, Labour)

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We have regular conversations and at every stage of the way, and at every stage of the way, we're trying to make sure that we get the best possible deal that works for UK farmers. I would just say very gently to her that I was a member in this House, a Welsh representing a Welsh seat with many Welsh farmers, both in my patch and Welsh farmers, both in my patch and elsewhere in Wales, who were absolutely furious about the deal that the previous government struck with Australia and New Zealand

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because it didn't seem to consider the needs of Welsh farmers for a single instance. Mr. speaker.

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Question number 14. Minister Mr. speaker, this government is determined to tackle the scourge of late payments, which the scourge of late payments, which closes down the equivalent of 38 businesses every day. The Commercial Payments Bill was Commercial Payments Bill was introduced to Parliament on 19th May and had its Second Reading in the House of Lords on 9th June. This legislation sets out stricter

10:15

Blair McDougall MP, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (East Renfrewshire, Labour)

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This legislation sets out stricter maximum payment terms, mandatory late interest on late payments and stronger powers for the Small Business Commissioner to ensure that small businesses are paid in time. This will give the UK the strongest legal framework on late payments in the G7.

10:15

Mr Connor Rand MP (Altrincham and Sale West, Labour)

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Connor Rand thank you. >> And Sale West. >> And when I meet them often alongside the Altrincham District Improvement Board, they tell me that one of the biggest problems they face is late payments. So can the Minister explain further how this government's action on this government's action on mandatory interest rates and forcing large firms to pay up within 60 days is a win for my high street?

10:16

Blair McDougall MP, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (East Renfrewshire, Labour)

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Yes. >> My friend always fights hard for small businesses in his patch. This bill will ensure that purchasers bill will ensure that purchasers pay suppliers within 60 days, and ensuring that mandatory interest is ensuring that mandatory interest is paid on late invoices. For too long, large businesses have used small businesses as a source of free credit. That will end under these plans, that will mean better cash flow for businesses in his constituency, more jobs, more economic growth and better high streets.

10:16

Kate Dearden MP, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Halifax, Labour )

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Joe Morris yes. >> Mr. >> Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The UK was the fastest growing G7 economy in the quarter one of this year, and we know that we will only achieve a thriving economy once people have a wage they can count people have a wage they can count on. And we want to grow our economy with people in insecure work. And that is why we're giving greater certainty to over half of the UK's workforce through our Employment Rights Act and putting more money in their pockets.

External analysis by world leading experts show that the act could increase employment, and our impact assessment shows it will benefit over 18 million workers all across the country.

10:17

Joy Morrissey MP (Beaconsfield, Conservative)

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Joy Morrissey thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Employment Rights Bill, minimum wage, the National Insurance contributions are all making it difficult for employers to keep taking on new employees or to keep taking on new employees or even keeping them at all. And what advice does the Minister have for small business owners in small business owners in Beaconsfield and Harlow having to make the difficult decisions to either cut jobs or close their businesses? Thanks to this government?

10:17

Kate Dearden MP, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Halifax, Labour )

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Yeah, yeah. on is fixing the current issues in our labour market that the party opposite neglected poor working conditions, insecure work conditions, insecure work inequalities, undercutting of employers, those good employers and brilliant SMEs, and the bad industrial relations that we industrial relations that we inherited. Since July, real wages have grown. We've got the third highest employment rate in the G7, and we're focussed on absolutely backing our brilliant SMEs. They are the backbone of the communities. I come across small business, family and it provided me that first job and opportunity, and that's why we want to get more people into work, work with our SMEs so that we can build that thriving economy where people have a wage that they can get on with.

10:18

Topical questions: Business and Trade

Gagan Mohindra on top of us. >> Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. I'm very grateful for the opportunity to say that one year ago we published our industrial ago we published our industrial Strategy. Since publication, work driven by the Industrial Strategy has secured around £360 billion of

10:18

Rt Hon Peter Kyle MP, Secretary of State for Business and Trade (Hove and Portslade, Labour)

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private investment into the industrial strategy sectors and £33 industrial strategy sectors and £33 billion worth of export announcements supporting up to 120,000 jobs. That is because we 120,000 jobs. That is because we are backing winners and giving our highest potential sectors everything that they need to everything that they need to succeed, and in year two we are going to go further. We will be cutting energy costs for about ten cutting energy costs for about ten 000 plus manufacturing firms, working with businesses to create jobs for the IS8 to secure the workforce of the future, and cutting regulatory burdens to unlock investment.

And in just under two weeks, on the 15th of July, our trade deal with India will enter into force. India has never implemented a deal of this size, which could boost UK GDP by £4.8 billion every year into the long run. Mr. speaker, this is just the start. We will continue to drive delivery, secure investment and good jobs, high paying jobs into year two and beyond.

10:19

Mr Gagan Mohindra MP (South West Hertfordshire, Conservative)

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Gagan Mohindra thank you, Mr. Speaker. Makerfield Hall is a great Speaker. Makerfield Hall is a great example of the small business that has survived Covid, only to be repeatedly hit by this Labour repeatedly hit by this Labour government. They have contacted me to say they are keen to borrow money for long term investment, but money for long term investment, but fearful of yet more taxes on business, what reassurances can the Minister give to those small businesses that want to invest for future growth? Light Makerfield Hall.

10:20

Rt Hon Peter Kyle MP, Secretary of State for Business and Trade (Hove and Portslade, Labour)

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It's good to see him again in the same session. I suggest he buys a lottery ticket tonight because he's certainly having a lot of he's certainly having a lot of success on the draw. Look, I can assure him that we are investing in SMEs. We have funding targeted at helping young people in particular start up their own businesses. But he listed some of the perceived challenges in the economy at the minute. Don't forget, youth unemployment went up 250,000 in the years leading up to the general election, without all of the things that they keep mentioning that we're doing in terms of giving rights and giving investment into the economy.

10:20

Ian Lavery MP (Blyth and Ashington, Labour)

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Mr. speaker. >> The small coach operator in my constituency of Blyth and Ashington has got local authority school contracts, and he's seen the price contracts, and he's seen the price he's paying for fuel increased by 38%, 38% per month without any additional support from the council. What assessment has the Minister made of extending schemes to support other fuel intensive businesses? To those tasked with getting our children to school?

10:21

Rt Hon Peter Kyle MP, Secretary of State for Business and Trade (Hove and Portslade, Labour)

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Can I pay tribute to the work of >> Can I pay tribute to the work of the business in his constituency that he gives real advocacy for that he gives real advocacy for businesses around the country are paying the price and having to adapt to the challenges posed by the Iran war. It is a good job we have a Prime Minister that kept us out of this war, unlike the benches opposite, that would have plunged us into it and made it even more difficult for businesses in his constituency and across the country.

But on the specific question he asks, I can tell him that we are engaging regularly with refiners, importers and distributors to ensure that any emerging risks are

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identified and managed properly. We come to them. Harriett

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Baldwin Shadow Minister. Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. And there's a bit of an end of term feel in the House at the moment. And I heard the Secretary of State And I heard the Secretary of State setting out his answer to his essay question, but I would point out

10:22

Dame Harriett Baldwin MP (West Worcestershire, Conservative)

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question, but I would point out that UK business confidence is actually at a four year low. Unemployment is up, millionaires are fleeing, and then the department's own figures show inward investment falling by 26% this year to the lowest level in over a decade. I would say that's a failing mark, Mr. Speaker. So what does the Secretary of State plan to

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do differently when the new head teacher arrives? Yeah. Thank you. I always look forward

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Thank you. I always look forward to her questions. The basics, the fundamentals of running our economy fundamentals of running our economy are going in the right direction. Growth is up, inflation is down. These are things that that party These are things that that party never achieved in opposition when they were in government. We have achieved it in two years. We have got more growth into our economy in

10:22

Rt Hon Peter Kyle MP, Secretary of State for Business and Trade (Hove and Portslade, Labour)

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got more growth into our economy in the last two years that they achieved for multiple years leading up to the election. >> Yeah, I.

10:23

Dame Harriett Baldwin MP (West Worcestershire, Conservative)

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Well, I don't know about you, Mr. Speaker, but I didn't hear a plan for improvement there in that plan for improvement there in that answer. And I'm afraid the mark is must do better. So let's turn to must do better. So let's turn to another bit of the Secretary of State's coursework in this failing State's coursework in this failing end of term report. Will he agree today to compensating all the horizon victims and getting Fujitsu to pay towards it by the end of the year?

10:23

Rt Hon Peter Kyle MP, Secretary of State for Business and Trade (Hove and Portslade, Labour)

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I can assure you that the the >> I can assure you that the the Minister has met with them regularly. We are accelerating the compensation and the justice from compensation and the justice from what we inherited, where it was going too slow to deliver the justice that people required. And when it comes to horizon, we will deliver the justice and compensation that people require. And when it comes to the plan, we have the industrial strategy crowding in £360 billion of private investment into those key sectors.

In our economy. We're lowering energy prices for manufacturers, plan after plan after plan, delivering the change that business is calling for and needs.

10:24

Martin Rhodes MP (Glasgow North, Labour)

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Martin Rhodes thank you, Mr. Speaker. How is the government working with trade unions to support workers in understanding support workers in understanding and claiming their new rights under the Employment Rights Act? >> Thank my hon. Friend for his question. We are working closely question. We are working closely with various stakeholders so that workers understand and claim their rights under the Employment Rights Act. I know how vital trade unions Act. I know how vital trade unions are not to not just organising, but educating workers on their rights at work, which I'm so proud.

They've been instrumental to the development and implementation, and we look forward to continuing working with them closely.

10:24

Kate Dearden MP, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Halifax, Labour )

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Mr. Speaker and Aberdeen South. from the oil and gas sector. So will the government ditch their damaging policies that is destroying the oil and gas industry South?

10:24

Douglas Lumsden MP (Aberdeen South, Conservative)

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Yeah. >> Yeah. >> This government is investing record amounts in the transition towards renewable energy. We need to break the dependence that our country has been forced into by that party on fossil fuels. We will do so by creating wealth, creating jobs and businesses in the meantime.

10:25

Rt Hon Peter Kyle MP, Secretary of State for Business and Trade (Hove and Portslade, Labour)

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Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In Stafford, East Wiltshire and the villages, 12.6% of the workforce, which is nearly 5000 people, work in logistics and contribute around 400 million to our national economy. But with over 85% of UK fulfilment warehouses expected to be automated by 2030, many of these jobs are going to face significant changes. Please, can the Minister tell me what assessment the government has what assessment the government has made of the impact of automation on working communities, and what support will be available to help communities like mine?

10:25

Leigh Ingham MP (Stafford, Labour)

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I'm extremely grateful for her really important question. As I've said throughout this session, we are investing in young people and people in work so that they can adapt to the changes that are happening in the economy because of the transition towards digital technology, in particular AI, we are providing flexible support through bursaries for younger through bursaries for younger learners and Learner Support funding for adults. And don't forget the work that we are doing jointly with DBT and the DSIT Secretary of State to make sure that people in the workplace are trained and have all the skills trained and have all the skills they need to thrive in the digital age.

10:26

Rt Hon Peter Kyle MP, Secretary of State for Business and Trade (Hove and Portslade, Labour)

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Don't Ellie Chowns. rural businesses in villages like Cambridge in my constituency tell me that the combination of high business and VAT rates and rising NI contributions mean they're facing a struggle for survival, and small rural businesses face greater pressure than their urban counterparts. Lower footfall, seasonal fluctuations in trade. So seasonal fluctuations in trade. So they operate with very tight margins. Does the Secretary of State recognise the additional State recognise the additional pressures faced by such businesses, and that existing support schemes simply aren't enough? And what more will he do to support businesses in constituencies like mine?

10:26

Dr Ellie Chowns MP (North Herefordshire, Green Party)

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Of course, we recognise that it's not just a tough time for small businesses, but it's been a tough decade. If you've run a small business, Mr. Speaker, that is exactly why our small business strategy is improving. Access to markets for small businesses, is improving access to finance for small businesses, and cutting the regulatory burden on small businesses. And we will, of course, keep doing more to make it easier keep doing more to make it easier and simpler and more profitable to run a small business.

10:27

Blair McDougall MP, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (East Renfrewshire, Labour)

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Paul Davies thank you.

10:27

Paul Davies MP (Colne Valley, Labour)

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Kirklees College provides training and qualifications to kick start a wide range of careers for start a wide range of careers for many young people in my constituency. However, all too often many from deprived often many from deprived backgrounds struggle to access such education. Will the Minister outline what steps their department outline what steps their department is taking to improve accessibility to further education for people

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from more deprived backgrounds? Yeah. I can provide all of the reassurances that he seeks. We are investing, of course, into the new technical colleges that I've outlined already this morning. We're investing into young people so they have the skills to transition from education into the workplace. We know there are challenges that young people face challenges that young people face in this era because of the legacy that was last left in the last government, but also the transition

10:28

Rt Hon Peter Kyle MP, Secretary of State for Business and Trade (Hove and Portslade, Labour)

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government, but also the transition towards an AI future, which is disrupting the workforce. We are training people, we are focussed on it, and we're working very closely with our Milburn Milburn, who brought consensus around the diagnosis of the challenges that young people face and now hopefully can bring consensus across the House to how we grab this issue once and for all.

10:28

Alicia Kearns MP (Rutland and Stamford, Conservative)

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Mr. Kim. 2025, Rutland police caught a local shop owner red handed with a car load of illegal fake cigarettes. Since then, I have reported this to Since then, I have reported this to HMRC, to the police, to trading standards and nothing has happened. So will the Minister please hall in trading standards? Because this trading standards? Because this individual runs two shops in my constituency. They're both still open, they're both still calling in children, encouraging the sale of

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vapes. And it is wrong. And they economy. It's infuriating when we see

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It's infuriating when we see bogus businesses forcing legitimate, valued independent retailers, in valued independent retailers, in particular out of our high streets, should be aware of operation, recognise where we have put significant resources into tackling significant resources into tackling the type of crime that she raises. That is becoming a permanent

10:29

Blair McDougall MP, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (East Renfrewshire, Labour)

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That is becoming a permanent approach under this government and from my part, I am constantly meeting with companies House and Insolvency Service to talk about how we can improve our enforcement efforts to force those bogus businesses out of our high street, to create the space for legitimate businesses.

10:29

Lloyd Hatton MP (South Dorset, Labour)

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Mr. speaker, at the. >> We already have a growing ecosystem of defence companies, including Battle Lab and the proposed Battle Factory, which are proposed Battle Factory, which are developing cutting edge drone technology. The opportunities here truly are immense. So will the truly are immense. So will the Minister commit to working Defence

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To help establish the park as a hub for these defence firms that are looking to develop the very

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are looking to develop the very next generation of drone technology. I'm already working with DSIT on these issues, but because of his informed question and the implication for me to do more, I will double down on it because he will double down on it because he gives real voice to an incredibly important part of the sector and

10:30

Rt Hon Peter Kyle MP, Secretary of State for Business and Trade (Hove and Portslade, Labour)

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defence technology, which we need to be fostering. The Defence Investment Plan does invest much more in in drone technology. We will be investing more than £5 billion in in drones over the over the next four years. And I know that his constituency will be playing a very key role in that.

10:30

Peter Swallow MP (Bracknell, Labour)

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Mr Speaker Bracknell residents. post offices in Crown Wood and in Bracknell town centre are both at risk of closure because of the travails of their host stores. travails of their host stores. Morrisons Daily and T G Jones. This follows the recent closure of a post office in East Hampstead. Could the Minister please set out Could the Minister please set out what work the government is doing to protect these vital local services?

10:30

Blair McDougall MP, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (East Renfrewshire, Labour)

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Well, he raises a really important issue. I know across the country, with the issues with Morrisons D.G. Jones, lots of Morrisons D.G. Jones, lots of people are worried about the future of their local post offices. I should say that under the decision that we made to maintain the current size of the Post Office current size of the Post Office network, I have been talking to the post Office and they are clear that they want this to where there is a risk of disruption, that it does not mean the service disappearing.

And around the country, where there is the potential for a closure. They are advertising for alternative subpostmasters to take over the business.

10:31

Rt Hon John Glen MP (Salisbury, Conservative)

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Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I welcome the appointment of Parminder Kohli as the chief executive of the office for executive of the office for investment. He's a personal friend of mine. He'll bring 30 years of experience in the oil industry. But experience in the oil industry. But could the Secretary of State set out what measures of success will out what measures of success will Parminder face so that we can judge what impact the office for investment makes and what role he will play?

10:31

Rt Hon Peter Kyle MP, Secretary of State for Business and Trade (Hove and Portslade, Labour)

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I'm really grateful for his informed question. I celebrate the appointment. It's a really important appointment. The Office of Investment is doing great work. of Investment is doing great work. Now, the criteria for success that I see is how Britain can get more scale up investment into those companies, so they don't have to go elsewhere around the world to find the capital they need to grow. That more people start build scale right here in the UK. I often ask myself why the continent of Europe doesn't have a single trillion dollar company.

I think the Office of Investment working with this government can start answering that question. Speaker.

10:32

John Slinger MP (Rugby, Labour)

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When I visited MDT Equipment >> When I visited MDT Equipment Limited in my constituency of Rugby, the director, Dan Lenton, showed me the director, Dan Lenton, showed me the ultrasonic test calibration blocks and reference pieces that they use, and they supply to manufacturers in a wide range of manufacturers in a wide range of sectors in the UK and abroad. This steel is not manufactured in the UK, it's imported, it's high grade. I know Ministers are being flexible and talking to hon. Members.

Would he please consider the grade of steel that that company uses, which I believe is EN3B, and exempt it from the tariffs?

10:33

Chris Bryant MP, Minister of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Rhondda and Ogmore, Labour)

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We've already laid out our steel trade measures, which are there to trade measures, which are there to make sure that we have a steel industry in the UK. This is vital for our economic future. And I want for our economic future. And I want to make clear that 73% of all steel imports into the UK are not covered in scope of the measure. Of course, I'll look at the specific issue, and if he wants to have a meeting with me and officials, we can make sure that that happens.

10:33

Mr Will Forster MP (Woking, Liberal Democrat)

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Will Forster Mr. Speaker, last night this House debated EPR, which is seeing breweries, pubs and other businesses pay twice to recycle glass glass bottles. What meetings glass glass bottles. What meetings has the Department for Business and Trade had with Defra to raise the economically damaging nature of

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economically damaging nature of this tax? And if they haven't raised concerns, will they? I'm grateful for his question. I can assure him that we are having conversations with Defra over these issues. We want to make sure that regulation has got right. We do need to incentivise the right behaviour and also the circular economy, but we need to do so in a responsible way and we are always engaged with the sectors that are that are impacted, not just because of regulatory measures, but also because of external measures that are facing our economy.

10:33

Rt Hon Peter Kyle MP, Secretary of State for Business and Trade (Hove and Portslade, Labour)

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Jayne Kirkham Mr. Speaker, this government's critical minerals strategy was a fantastic achievement with clear targets, and it will kick start a nascent industry to take the next step to get the sector up on its feet and to a more competitive place. Will the Minister support a government price certainty mechanism for lithium?

10:34

Jayne Kirkham MP (Truro and Falmouth, Labour )

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Yeah. just in the UK, but we need to look at with our international allies because we've got ourselves into a ludicrous position where critical minerals are available all over the world, but 85% of them are only processed in one country. We need to make sure that we have resilience in this, and this is precisely the kind of issue that we precisely the kind of issue that we need to look at to protect jobs in her constituency.

10:34

Chris Bryant MP, Minister of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Rhondda and Ogmore, Labour)

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Tom Gordon Mr. Speaker, I.

10:34

Tom Gordon MP (Harrogate and Knaresborough, Liberal Democrat)

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Supplier of sustainable ventilation products just outside Harrogate. They were recently awarded as part of the Sunday Times Best Places to Work 2026, and they recently produced a 3,000,000th recently produced a 3,000,000th unit of ventilation fan. So will the Minister join me in congratulating them on these achievements, and perhaps come and visit and see the fantastic work

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visit and see the fantastic work they do for the people of Harrogate and North Yorkshire? Well, I certainly join with him in celebrating the success of his business and every business across the country that is doing such great work for the people who work in them and our economy overall. I would certainly like to hear more about it and if I get the opportunity, of course, visiting would be a pleasure.

10:35

Rt Hon Peter Kyle MP, Secretary of State for Business and Trade (Hove and Portslade, Labour)

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Business Secretary will join me in wishing the United States a very happy 250th birthday on Saturday. It was, of course, John Pym and members of this House two four centuries ago who helped found the American economy. And I know the whole House will wish the young

10:35

Rt Hon Liam Byrne MP (Birmingham Hodge Hill and Solihull North, Labour)

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Republic well on Saturday, but it's actually the Republic of France that I want to ask him about. I'm publishing today correspondence between the Committee and the Port of Dover, warning that we will have, of Dover, warning that we will have, without doubt a critical incident at the border unless France is at the border unless France is persuaded to suspend the entry and exit system. The modelling has been done. We know the chaos that will done. We know the chaos that will follow.

What will the Secretary of State do to ensure we avoid this peril? I'm very.

10:36

Rt Hon Peter Kyle MP, Secretary of State for Business and Trade (Hove and Portslade, Labour)

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Grateful for my right hon. Friend, for his advocacy for his question. And also I share in his question. And also I share in his birthday message to the people of the United States of America. When it comes to the issue at hand, the it comes to the issue at hand, the Port of Dover. I know that the Department for transport is engaged Department for transport is engaged in this. And also the relations that we have with the EU, thanks to being functional, thanks to being productive.

These are issues which we are working with them on to make sure that the scenario that he outlines is worst case does not come to pass.

10:36

Max Wilkinson MP (Cheltenham, Liberal Democrat)

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Max Wilkinson Mr. Speaker, the Secretary of State is aware of the. security industry, which is a. >> Key part of this nation's defence efforts. I have good news for the Secretary of State. We're for the Secretary of State. We're about to break ground on the Golden Valley development, bringing 12,000 jobs in cyber and tech to my town jobs in cyber and tech to my town and also bringing much needed new homes as well. Would the Secretary of State and colleagues like to come and visit this success story in due course? Not for the ground breaking next week, but further on in the future.

It'll be really popular with the incoming Prime Minister.

10:37

Rt Hon Peter Kyle MP, Secretary of State for Business and Trade (Hove and Portslade, Labour)

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His enthusiasm is infectious, >> His enthusiasm is infectious, and of course, he came to meet with me when I was a DSIT Secretary of State to talk about the Golden Valley, and we spoke about our shared ambition in that area for the kind of clustering of expertise the kind of clustering of expertise that having Gchq and others brings to his community, the community he represents here. I share the celebration that he brings to this House, and of course, I hope I can get to visit at some point soon.

10:37

Ms Julie Minns MP (Carlisle, Labour)

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Final question Julie Minns. Sorry, everyone. that while explaining to a customer that he would not service the illegally modified e-bike that had been brought into his shop, the been brought into his shop, the bike shot across the shop of its own accord. When will the

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government regulate to ban the sale of these dodgy, illegal, unsafe e-bikes and the kits that. Create this?

10:38

Kate Dearden MP, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Halifax, Labour )

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I thank my hon. Friend for her constant campaigning on this. I know how important it is and really, really value working closely with her businesses. Producing or supplying these products must ensure the products are safe before ensure the products are safe before they place on the market, including online marketplaces. They should not supply products they know or should know are unsafe. She knows that that action includes regulatory action, and we work alongside other government departments. Our recent consultation has looked at how we can go even further to make sure products are safe.

To business questions. Shadow Leader of the House Jesse Norman.

10:38

Rt Hon Jesse Norman MP (Hereford and South Herefordshire, Conservative)

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Thank you, Mr. Speaker. >> The real golden valleys in Herefordshire will the Leader of the House give us the forthcoming business leader? Mr. speaker, the business leader? Mr. speaker, the business for the week commencing the 6th of July will include Monday the 6th of July consideration of the 6th of July consideration of Lords amendments to the National Security State Threats Bill, followed by a motion to approve the draft environmental permitting, waste, controlling or transporting and relevant functions of Primary authorities.

Amendment to England Regulations 2026, followed by

10:39

Rt Hon Sir Alan Campbell MP, Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Tynemouth, Labour)

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motion to approve the Draft Infected Blood Compensation Scheme Amendment Regulations 2026, Amendment Regulations 2026, followed by a motion to approve the Draft Industrial Training Levy engineering Construction Industry engineering Construction Industry Training Board Order 2026. Tuesday, the 7th of July opposition motion. The second today debate on a motion in the name of the official Opposition subjects yet to be Opposition subjects yet to be announced Wednesday, the 8th of July, a debate on a motion on UK rearmament and war fighting readiness, followed by a general debate on corridor care in the NHS.

The subject for these debates, determined by the backbench Business Committee. Thursday the 9th of July, a general debate on a ban on trade with illegal Israeli settlements, followed by a debate on a motion on the impact of strategic lawsuits against public participation. The subject for these debates, determined by the backbench Business Committee and on Friday the 10th of July, the House will not be sitting the provisional business for the week commencing the 13th of July includes Monday the 13th of July.

Second Reading of the Immigration and Asylum Bill. Tuesday, the 14th of July. Remaining stages of the representation of the people's Bill, followed by, if necessary, consideration of Lords amendments to the Steel Industry Nationalisation Bill. Wednesday, the 15th of July Opposition day, the third allotted day debate on a motion in the name of the official Opposition subjects yet to be announced Thursday the 16th of July. Mr. David Amos, summer adjournment debate the subject for this debate being determined by the backbench Business Committee and the House will rise for the summer recess at the conclusion of business on Thursday 16th of July and return on Tuesday, the 1st of September.

I thank the leader very much.

10:41

Rt Hon Jesse Norman MP (Hereford and South Herefordshire, Conservative)

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For the business. House will want to join me in congratulating the England football team on their win last night. I team on their win last night. I must say I'm not sure we should be thanking them for the trauma and thanking them for the trauma and heart stopping cardiovascular workout that I at least experienced right to the end. The Prime Minister was quite punishing about the Liberal Democrats at Prime Minister's Questions yesterday for their sanctimoniousness. And let's be clear, I think we can all agree he was spot on.

But Sanctimoniousness is not exactly something that the Prime Minister has been immune from himself. He was extremely rude about the state of the public finances before. After the general election. He promised tough decisions, I quote, to fix the foundations, the imaginary £22 billion black hole he inherited needed, he said. Candour, discipline and hard choices. These tests should apply here too. Now with the Defence Investment Plan, that plan commits £15 billion in additional defence spending over four years, of which 4.7 billion will be confirmed at Budget 2026.

In other words, the plan, which comes 394 days after the Strategic Defence Review and on the eve of a NATO summit, is partly unfunded from the moment it was published. This is not what candour looks like, Mr. Speaker, or discipline, or hard choices and irony of ironies. The further £10 billion reportedly needed for the dip is itself precisely the kind of unfunded bequest to the next government that the Prime Minister himself claims to condemn. And, of course, the plan is too small.

The government says 3% of its ambition for the next Parliament getting to 3.5% the UK's core NATO commitment by 2035 requires about £25 billion a year more in today's terms. The government's offered no funded pathway to either figure. Little wonder the plan has been so roundly criticised by defence experts across the board. I know the leader will feel tempted to make comparisons with 2010. Perhaps I may remind him that the UK was reeling from the global financial crisis. At that time.

A very different US president was in the White House. Ukraine was not at war and Russia was not threatening members of NATO directly. But of course, cost escalation in defence is just part of a wider British problem with major national problems. The project HS2 is the starkest warning as far as I'm aware, and I spent two years at the Treasury trying and failing to stop it. HS2 is still constructing a gigantic so-called bat protector at a cost of more than £100 million, in order to protect 20 or so bears pairs of endangered bats.

There is little or no evidence that such a bat protector will do so, or indeed, to think that a few nets with some bells on them would not be at least as effective. In other words, Edward Lear himself could not make this nonsense up. Now we have Northern Powerhouse Rail. This week, the Public Accounts Committee reported that the government still lacks a convincing plan to manage, spend or prioritise benefits within the £45 billion rail Budget. Unclear scope. Optimistic costing, weak governance, late trade offs that is how large projects get into serious difficulty.

Other nations have shown they can do it better. Norway built the world's longest and deepest subsea tunnel for about £450 million at the time of completion. We should be asking why we cannot do the same. We've got a great model nearby of our own in the Buckingham Palace Reservicing programme, which cost £369 million over ten years. But this is the lesson for restoration and renewal of the House of Commons, the House of Lords and the Palace of Westminster, the cost of which is currently estimated at up to astonishing 12 to £19 billion.

No one doubts that the Palace of Westminster badly needs restoration, and it needs a decision on that soon. No one disputes these points. The fire risk, asbestos, failing electrical and mechanical systems are real, but Parliament cannot ask parliamentarians and through them, the poor, long suffering taxpayer to support a project of this scale without demonstrating the same disciplines it requires of others. Cost forecasts, not merely but a stated and effective governance, a capped Budget, independent challenge and proper named accountability.

So I ask the leader, if we can have at least two debates in this House on restoration and renewal, one, to discuss the issues in detail, and then another in relation to an authorising motion.

10:45

Rt Hon Sir Alan Campbell MP, Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Tynemouth, Labour)

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Later. >> Thank you. >> Mr. Speaker. Let me join the right hon. Gentleman in sending our right hon. Gentleman in sending our congratulations to the England football team, and we all look forward to the early hours of forward to the early hours of Monday morning. Mr. speaker, before I respond to the right hon. Gentleman, let me for a personal tribute to my predecessor, Sir Neville Trotter, who was the conservative MP for Tynemouth for more than 20 years and who unfortunately passed away at the weekend.

We, of course, Mr. Speaker, had our political differences, but he was a much respected politician who dedicated his life to public service. And my thoughts and I'm sure the whole House, his thoughts are with his family and friends. I also want to congratulate Mr. Speaker, the new Clerk of the House, Eve Sampson, on her appointment as the 53rd Clerk of the House. Eve has worked in the House for almost 40 years. She brings a wealth of experience into the role and will be a distinguished successor to Tom Goldsmith and Mr.

Speaker. She will also make history as the first woman Clerk of the House this week. Mr. speaker, the Youth Jobs grant was launched. Businesses who take on jobless youngsters will be offered thousands of pounds in the latest boost youth employment support. It's a practical step that helps in young people while giving them the confidence, the skills, the experience and the support that they need to embark on their careers. And also, Mr. Speaker, this week, the Outdated and Harmful Vagrancy Act has been repealed, bringing an end to nearly two decades of legislation that has criminalised rough sleeping and begging.

Repealing the act is a vital step to ending a system which has failed to address the causes of rough sleeping and shifting. It shifts the focus towards prevention and long term solutions. Many members have raised this with me in this forum, including the chair of the backbench Business Committee, and I know that they will be pleased to see the act has finally been repealed. I want to now turn to the remarks of the right hon. Gentleman and remind him that since 2024, tough decisions have been taken, which is why inflation is lower, interest rates have fallen, and at the same time, we've invested more in public services.

However, we accept that the security situation has deteriorated. The challenges are there, which is why the government has brought forward the Defence Investment Plan and plans on how we're going to fund it. He reminds the House that the situation in 2010 internationally was different. Of course it was. And he says that then in 2010, the then government was reeling from the global economic crisis. Well, let me remind him that in 2024, this government was reeling from the country, was reeling from 14 years of Tory mismanagement.

Let me return now to the the key issue of defence expenditure. The government has already delivered the biggest sustained boost to defence spending since the Cold War and surpassed the promises that we made in our manifesto. The plan that we brought forward provides funding to strengthen military readiness, accelerate drone transformation, boost future fighter jets and strengthen our nuclear deterrent. And at the same time, Mr. Speaker, we will create nearly 6000 extra UK industry jobs by the end of this decade.

We inherited a situation where £54 billion a year was being spent on defence, and this under this government, that figure has rises to almost £80 billion a year by 2029. And of course, any plan will have its critics. But I note that the NATO chief, Mark Rutte, as well as the chief of defence staff, have backed our plan and we are on track to increase defence spending to 3% of GDP in the next Parliament. The vast majority of this package has already been funded through the right and tough decisions to prioritise departmental spending, but this will give the MoD the certainty that it needs to get on with it.

And the remaining £1 billion a year over four years will be confined, confirmed in the usual

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way in the Budget. With regard to R&R, the Right Hon. Gentleman is absolutely right about the need for any major right about the need for any major project to be managed properly and to make sure that where taxpayers money is concerned, that we get money is concerned, that we get value for money. And in that regard, I hope to bring forward a motion I hope to bring forward a motion shortly to allow the House a long overdue debate on the next steps, overdue debate on the next steps, because the right hon.

Gentleman is absolutely right. There is broadly a consensus in this House about the need to get on with restoration and renewal, and that is the message which comes in the recent poll from the public. Three out of four people want to see us get on and take the action, which is necessary to restore this place. But there is not a consensus about how we actually do it. And what I am very keen to do is to build that consensus as far as we can, to make sure that the safeguards that the right hon.

Gentleman and others who are perhaps critical of some of the report which has been produced, that we can build that consensus, which is why I am very grateful to the NIO for their recent report and very grateful indeed to the Public Accounts Committee, and I look forward to their investigation so that they can bring forward recommendations. And I hope at the end of it all, the House can come

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together and we can get on with this because it is long overdue. Hear, hear. Can I just help everybody? We

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Can I just help everybody? We need to end this by around 1145, so let's help each other. Good example.

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Siobhain McDonagh Mr Speaker. Saint Helier Hospital has the fourth best performing maternity unit in the country. The only exclusively NHS consisted assisted conception unit in south west conception unit in south west London and a specialist gynaecology ward, where nurses are highly trained in counselling. Yet all this is set to close next May because of the need for emergency because of the need for emergency repairs. Could the leader find the time for debate on the on these vital services, and that they be temporarily relocated on the Saint Helier site itself and return to Helier site itself and return to the current building on completion?

10:52

Dame Siobhain McDonagh MP (Mitcham and Morden, Labour)

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Thank you.

10:52

Rt Hon Sir Alan Campbell MP, Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Tynemouth, Labour)

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Mr. Speaker. My hon. Friend is a strong defender of the interests of her constituents, and I listen very carefully to her concerns about carefully to her concerns about that. She will know that the government is committed to improving maternity across the improving maternity across the country, which is why we have set up a national maternity and neonatal task force, and we're very keen to get on with that. On the specifics of my hon. Friend's constituency if she wishes to apply for an adjournment debate and he directly from a Minister about those, how those concerns might be addressed, I am sure that she could do that.

But also if she seeks a meeting with Ministers to make that case, I'll help her to arrange one.

10:53

Bobby Dean MP (Carshalton and Wallington, Liberal Democrat)

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Bobby Dean Liberal Democrats. congratulating the England team and in particular, Tottenham Hotspur Academy product Harry Kane for his heroics last night. And I'm also heroics last night. And I'm also grateful for the conservative benches for the electron sanctimony, although I note that self-awareness although I note that self-awareness was never their strongest trait. spe was rocked by the bakery, a family run business that's been operating in the local area for 89 years, is going to close its doors for the last time, and I just want to read out a bit of their statement from their announcement.

They say that this is so devastating as March was a fantastic month as was last year with our growth and the new store openings. But as soon as April's new government rules kicked in on National Insurance wages and rates, it instantly hit the high street. Now, I think this shows that this is government policy, directly killing long term run family businesses. And we warned about this before it happened. And when we warned about it, we were told from the benches opposite that we couldn't do we couldn't fund public services without these rises in business taxes.

But let me make it clear, you will no longer receive any tax income from this local business any more. And I fear that the revenue loss will continue to grow over the course of this year. So will the government organise a statement from the relevant departments explaining what they're going to do about small businesses

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in distress, outlining how many are at risk and how many have already closed since April. Hey.

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Hey. Mr. Speaker, I'm concerned, obviously, to hear of a business, particularly one which has been particularly one which has been around for such a long time and has served the community when it closes. And I'm genuinely sorry to hear of And I'm genuinely sorry to hear of that, because small businesses are at the heart of our local communities and economies, and we

10:54

Rt Hon Sir Alan Campbell MP, Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Tynemouth, Labour)

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communities and economies, and we are committed as a government to support them in every way that we can, which is why our small business plan will save businesses time and money, boost access to finance and create new opportunities. But I do understand that for some businesses, there is an alternative scenario. We're also supporting businesses. Mr. speaker, through a £4.3 billion business rate package, which will help a large number of businesses. But I would also gently remind him that I understand the point he's making about National Insurance.

It was done in order to spend more and invest in our public services. And you can't have it both ways. Liberal Democrats constantly talk about the need for more spending on all sorts of things. And yet when when it comes to a difficult decision about voting for the money, they vote the wrong way.

10:55

Paul Waugh MP (Rochdale, Labour )

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Paul Waugh thank you, Mr. Speaker. >> Was the. >> Ringleader of a disgusting Rochdale grooming gang convicted of Rochdale grooming gang convicted of serial rapes against young white girls, but also repeated rapes of young Asian girl. Today, Shabbir young Asian girl. Today, Shabbir Ahmed is being released from prison with a restriction that he shouldn't enter Rochdale or Oldham boroughs. But Shabbir Ahmed is a joint UK Pakistani national and he should be deported to Pakistan. Does the Leader of the House agree with me that the Home Office and the Foreign Office should do everything possible within their power to make sure people like Ahmed are deported, and that their victims never, ever get to face them again.

10:56

Rt Hon Sir Alan Campbell MP, Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Tynemouth, Labour)

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The leader. the victims of these appalling crimes and the perpetrators of grooming gangs, gangs or sexual grooming gangs, gangs or sexual abuse must must face the full force of the law, whoever they are and wherever they come from. Let me be wherever they come from. Let me be absolutely clear about that. The individual that we're talking about, if he breaches the very strict conditions which have been placed upon him, then he will be locked up again immediately. So I, I hope that he pays a heed to that.

But I also know that the government is

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exploring every option in this case. Martin Vickers acting chair of

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Martin Vickers acting chair of the Backbench Committee. Thank you. Mr. Speaker. The chairman sends his apologies.

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The chairman sends his apologies. In addition to the business that the leader has announced, the the leader has announced, the committee have agreed to Select Committee statements one next Thursday from the Science and

10:57

Martin Vickers MP (Brigg and Immingham, Conservative)

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Technology Committee and the following Thursday from the Work and Pensions Committee. In addition, there will, in Westminster Hall next week be debates on UK aid policy in the context of global funding trends and the humanitarian impact of conflicts on older people. And on Thursday, government support for the Lobular moonshot project. The following week, isolation and deprivation in coastal communities, and the impact of the National Planning Policy Framework changes and capital funding for changing places. I would urge members to take part in the Sir David Amess debate, which the leader refers to.

It's an opportunity to raise any constituency matters and perhaps avoid having to come to the backbench Business Committee and finding more time for those debates. In addition, Mr. Speaker, if the leader could give the committee early notice of debating time in September, particularly if it's going to be on the first day back, moving on to my own question. Mr. speaker, the leader will be aware, I'm sure, of the long running campaign by the National Association of Retired Police Officers in respect of the injustice that widows and widowers can be deprived of their pension if they remarry.

I have raised this in the House previously. If the leader could arrange for the Minister to come and outline what the government plans are, I know it would please many of my

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constituents and others across the country. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Let me

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Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Let me thank the hon. Gentleman for giving an update on what the committee is planning, and thank the committee planning, and thank the committee for their work. We were able to provide more time in response to provide more time in response to the chairman's request last time, I think, and it's good to see that coastal communities are getting a

10:59

Rt Hon Sir Alan Campbell MP, Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Tynemouth, Labour)

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coastal communities are getting a hearing. I also am pleased to confirm, as I did in my statement, that the Sir David Amess debate is taking place. I echo the words of the hon. Gentleman that it is a good opportunity for colleagues to raise any concern, really. With that, I'll give early notice where I can, of what the plans are for September when we return. In terms of the police pension campaign, the hon. Gentleman has been an assiduous campaigner on this matter, and the 1987 Police Pension Scheme is now a closed scheme superseded by the 2015 scheme.

There are no further plans. Plans for further improvements to the benefits accrued under it. However, I will make sure that Ministers have heard his concerns and should he wish to make it personally in a meeting to them, I'll help him to arrange that.

11:00

Rt Hon John McDonnell MP (Hayes and Harlington, Labour)

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To Mike Dolman. trade union group in Parliament itself, the Leader of the House, and many members will know that since the payment of civil service since the payment of civil service pensions has been outsourced, there's been near chaos, with many civil servants unable to retire because they've not received because they've not received information about their pensions. Other civil servants who have retired, not even receiving their pensions. The Minister and ministerial statement said yesterday that there will be an update to Parliament shortly, and that government will not hesitate to take firm action for continued underperformance with regard to capita.

Could I ask my friend to convey to the Cabinet Office Minister that in that statement there should be a commitment now to return the administration of civil service pensions to public public control? And that means insourcing.

11:01

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. campaigning on this matter, and indeed, it's been raised very often with me in this session. I had hoped that there will be an update to the House. I am still of that to the House. I am still of that hope, and I hope that it happens very, very soon indeed. What the Minister says at that point is, of course, a matter for the Minister. I don't want to pre-empt that, but I think we should expect that

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update when my right hon. Friend and others can raise concerns directly with the Minister. Andrew Lewin.

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Andrew Lewin. May we have a statement from a

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May we have a statement from a DWP. Minister on the lack of availability of routes for Honourable and right hon. Members to contact the Department on behalf

11:01

Rt Hon Sir Julian Lewis MP (New Forest East, Conservative)

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to contact the Department on behalf of particular constituents who, as in the case of one chronically ill lady whom I represent, have lost Universal Credit, who wish to challenge this and who, in her case has been struggling for more than a year, whereas we have only been struggling for the last six months to get an answer out of the department. When he sends on this request, as he always assiduously does. May I include a summary sheet

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for him to include with his letter to the Minister about this particular case? Thank you, Mr. Speaker. He may

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Thank you, Mr. Speaker. He may indeed include that, and I will take that up with the Minister, because I know that his frustrations are shared by many members of the House. So if he lets me have that information, I'll get on with it.

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on with it. Melanie Onn thank you very. Much. Mr. Speaker. Will the Leader of the House join me in

11:02

Rt Hon Sir Alan Campbell MP, Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Tynemouth, Labour)

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congratulating Sir Erdogan and his team for the successful opening of Cafe Victoria? He's taken on a long, empty shop in Grimsby town centre, and I think this really shows a great confidence in the local economy of Great Grimsby and Cleethorpes. The government launched community auctions for launched community auctions for empty shops and I wonder if you could help me get a government auctions.

11:03

Melanie Onn MP (Great Grimsby and Cleethorpes, Labour)

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Thank you.

11:03

Rt Hon Sir Alan Campbell MP, Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Tynemouth, Labour)

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Mr. Speaker. Let me join my hon. Friend in congratulating everyone involved with the opening of Cafe involved with the opening of Cafe Victoria. I know the trials and tribulations of coastal communities, and I know the important role that cafes and hospitality play. If my cafes and hospitality play. If my hon. Friend wants to make the case directly to Minister and get that update, then I'll help her to achieve that.

11:03

Daisy Cooper MP (St Albans, Liberal Democrat)

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Daisy Cooper thank you, Mr. Speaker. >> The hon. Member. For Makerfield. >> And Prime Minister in waiting has said that his approach to devolution would be one of urgency, and yet we understand that there and yet we understand that there might be conversations going on about delaying announcements on local government reorganisation and local government reorganisation and devolution of powers in order that the new Prime Minister has the glamour of announcing them. So could I ask the Leader of the House, will he please put those rumours to bed and confirm that announcements on the creation of unitary authorities in Hertfordshire and elsewhere will be made in this House before the summer recess, so that members of this House can ask the government questions, and so that local authorities have certainty to go ahead with local government reorganisation without

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further disruption to vital services like SEN and social care. Thank you.

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Mr. Speaker. And let me just think about what the hon. Lady has said there, and and find out from said there, and and find out from the Department what their plans are. But in terms of what might or might not happen in the future, let me not happen in the future, let me just reassure her in the House that there will be continuity of government. Of course, if if

11:04

Rt Hon Sir Alan Campbell MP, Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Tynemouth, Labour)

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there's a new incoming administration, then it's not unreasonable for that administration to look at plans, but they will be absolutely aware of the need for local areas and local government to plan for the future. So let me think about the first bit, and let me reassure her that whatever happens in the future, I would expect the next administration to want to get on with it.

11:05

Nick Smith MP (Blaenau Gwent and Rhymney, Labour)

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But. frustrated. frustrated. >> By delays to the Royal Mail postal deliveries. My constituent, postal deliveries. My constituent, Anthony Barnes, was removed from a treatment waiting list on three occasions because hospital occasions because hospital communications didn't arrive in time. Now, I've encouraged local health care providers to use Royal Mail's NHS specific barcode, which prioritises delivery for health board correspondence. So can I ask the Leader of the House for a ministerial update on Royal Mail's performance, including uptake of the NHS specific barcode? This will

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be important to many of our constituents across the UK. Yeah. Leader. Thank you very much indeed, Mr.

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Thank you very much indeed, Mr. Speaker. The consequences that Anthony faced due to Royal Mail delivery are simply unacceptable. delivery are simply unacceptable. My hon. Friend is right that this is an issue that affects constituents right across the constituents right across the country. I am pleased to say that the Business and Trade Committee are continuing to look at Royal

11:06

Rt Hon Sir Alan Campbell MP, Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Tynemouth, Labour)

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Mail's performance, but I will raise this matter with the Department on my hon. Friend's behalf. >> No more.

11:06

Robbie Moore MP (Keighley and Ilkley, Conservative)

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Mr. Speaker. Back in 2022, the Keighley Cougars were awarded over £2 million to replace the Danny Jones stand, which is in dire need of repair. But Bradford Council have still not yet made a decision have still not yet made a decision on this money being released, despite it going to the Keighley despite it going to the Keighley Cougars in 2022. So can we have a debate in this place about how we unlock money that had previously been allocated through the Keighley Town's fund, so we can get these projects underway for the benefit of my residents in Keighley.

11:06

Rt Hon Sir Alan Campbell MP, Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Tynemouth, Labour)

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Mr. speaker, and let me wish the Keighley Cougars well in their endeavours, but also I hope that Bradford Council have heard the hon. Gentleman's concerns, and I hon. Gentleman's concerns, and I hope that they can get on and get the positive response that he seeks. If that isn't forthcoming, perhaps If that isn't forthcoming, perhaps he would seek an adjournment debate. He directly from the Minister, who I'm sure will confirm the importance that this government gives to local sport.

11:07

Perran Moon MP (Camborne and Redruth, Labour)

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Mr. speaker. my constituency, was a security guard in the Twin Towers on nine over 11 and is widely credited with over 11 and is widely credited with saving 2700 lives while sacrificing his own. Decorated in his career in his own. Decorated in his career in both the British and US armies, Rick was truly a national hero. Ahead of the 21st anniversary of nine over 11, with the Leader of the House granted a debate in government time on the heroes of nine over 11.

And would he also help me secure British and US Army representation? At a ceremony in Hayle on nine over 11?

11:07

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, Mr. Speaker. I thank my hon. Friend for raising this matter to the House. He's absolutely right to highlight the bravery shown that day by Rick. It bravery shown that day by Rick. It is an absolutely remarkable story and what was a very dark day indeed and what was a very dark day indeed as we approach the anniversary. Mr. speaker, I hope that my hon. Friend might consider applying for an adjournment debate to start what I think will be a build up to a prolonged and important celebration or commemoration, rather, of those dreadful events in terms of making sure that there are service men or women there, then I hope that the

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MoD has heard that. If not, then I'll point it out to them. Robert Jenrick On. Tuesday. We learned that the only two

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We learned that the only two major road projects in the East Midlands, the A46 in Newark and the Midlands, the A46 in Newark and the A38 in Derby were to be scrapped. So many questions remain how are So many questions remain how are these projects chosen? Why are the only projects being scrapped in the whole country? Those in the East

11:08

Rt Hon Robert Jenrick MP (Newark, Reform UK)

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whole country? Those in the East Midlands who, if anyone, was consulted, the Labour mayor of the East Midlands was not. How much money has been wasted over the last ten years? Getting to the point that we are today? Does the Department for transport even support this decision, given that the only communication that we've had, by which I mean myself, the Member of Parliament for Lincoln and the Labour mayor of the East Midlands has come weirdly from a special adviser in number ten, not from the Secretary of State for transport.

It really is a mess. Can the Leader of the House ask the Secretary of State for transport to be in touch with those of us who are interested in this matter and come to Parliament to answer questions on it?

11:09

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, Mr. Speaker. Yes. In short, I will ask the Secretary of State to ensure that MPs from that area, including the hon. Gentleman, area, including the hon. Gentleman, do get the information that they seek. These are very tough decisions indeed, Mr. Speaker, decisions indeed, Mr. Speaker, because on the one hand, it's quite right that members on the other side, indeed on our side, are calling for greater expenditure on defence, which is why every department has been asked to look at its spending commitments, including transport.

These are tough decisions. I do understand that they are frustrating and can have a big effect on local areas, but I will seek a meeting for the right hon. Gentleman and local MPs so that they can make their case to the relevant Minister.

11:10

Leigh Ingham MP (Stafford, Labour)

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Leigh Ingham thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Leader of the House will know that I never miss an will know that I never miss an opportunity to raise the state of Staffordshire's roads, but I appreciate they may not have heard appreciate they may not have heard this variant before. Residents and Church Eaton have reported a sinkhole on their high street. I've seen it. It is a sinkhole that seen it. It is a sinkhole that nobody seems to be able to get filled in. It's on a main road.

It's close to a local primary school and has become something of a legend amongst local residents. To the extent that one constituent wrote a poem about it. Could the leader please grant a debate on the condition of rural roads, so we can get to the bottom of why repairs

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like this keep falling through the cracks? Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My hon.

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Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My hon. Friend, my hon. Friend has been a doughty campaigner for her constituents and the issue of local constituents and the issue of local roads, and I pay tribute to her for that. Her constituents are rightly that. Her constituents are rightly angry about this issue and I expect better. Perhaps I don't expect better, but we ought to expect

11:11

Rt Hon Sir Alan Campbell MP, Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Tynemouth, Labour)

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better, but we ought to expect better from a Reform County Council. I hope that the Council has heard my hon. Friend this morning. We are doubling investment in local road maintenance, providing an extra seven point, sorry, a record £7.3 billion boost for councils over the next four years. And my advice to the council is that the money is there. Get on and use it.

11:11

Rt Hon John Glen MP (Salisbury, Conservative)

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John Glen thank you, Mr. Speaker. >> John Glen thank you, Mr. Speaker. In Salisbury, we welcome the zero-emission buses and the previous conservative administration worked with the zebra scheme to deliver 13 new buses. But when I met with Ed Wils, the new managing director of Salisbury Brent East, last week, we discussed a number of matters around acoustic measures to mitigate some of the noise from those buses. But the challenge is that Chinese manufactured buses are currently cheaper and offer greater battery range.

The government needs to make a decision about the next round of the zebra bus schemes. Please, could the Leader of the House ensure that we have a statement on this so that local authorities around the country,

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including those in Wiltshire, can determine the best way forward to expand provision? Let me draw that to the

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Let me draw that to the attention of the relevant Minister, because not only does this government put great store by the importance of buses and indeed the environment, but of course we are encouraging councils and businesses wherever they can to buy British as

11:12

Rt Hon Sir Alan Campbell MP, Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Tynemouth, Labour)

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wherever they can to buy British as well. So I will raise that directly with the Minister and see if we can get the update that the right hon. Gentleman is looking for.

11:12

Jon Trickett MP (Normanton and Hemsworth, Labour)

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Jon Trickett thank. >> First, just. A refer to a matter which I had the opportunity. >> To do. >> So far, which is the granting of a knighthood to Kevin Sinfield, a a knighthood to Kevin Sinfield, a great human being, a brilliant sports player, and I suppose above sports player, and I suppose above all a humanitarian. But the distinguishing character of him is his modesty. But modesty cannot be attributed to the new boss at Royal Mail, who is driving that company into the ground.

In spite of the efforts of the pollsters. Can we have a debate? And he's paid himself £7 million salary in a single year. Can we have a debate about corporate failure and executive reimbursement in due course? If the leader can help us with that, it would allow us to

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express our frustration on what's happening in the country. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Let me join him in once again paying tribute to Sir Kevin Sinfield and what was a a well deserved honour what was a a well deserved honour on the issue of Royal Mail. It is the subject of inquiry that will be reported back to the House, and reported back to the House, and there will be an opportunity at that point to debate that. If we

11:13

Rt Hon Sir Alan Campbell MP, Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Tynemouth, Labour)

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need further time to debate it, I will give consideration to that. >> Alison Bennett thank you, Mr. Speaker. Cellnex estimate that Mid Sussex is ranked 499 out of 650 constituencies for the quality of mobile signal strength. Current obligations on mobile operators are clearly failing to provide the coverage that my constituents deserve. In villages like Cuckfield and Fulking. Will the leader make time for a debate about the merits time for a debate about the merits of changing these mobile obligations, so that we can have the coverage that we so badly need?

11:14

Alison Bennett MP (Mid Sussex, Liberal Democrat)

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Leader.

11:14

Rt Hon Sir Alan Campbell MP, Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Tynemouth, Labour)

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Mr. speaker, this is a concern for government, because we do want to make sure that every area has the services that they need, and we're very keen to get that roll out. I would encourage the hon. out. I would encourage the hon. Lady to look towards an adjournment debate, or perhaps a Westminster Hall debate, in order to make her case, because she'll hear directly

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case, because she'll hear directly from the Minister about what more we can do. Speaker. The government has shown a clear commitment to addressing many of the issues facing leaseholders, but can I ask the government to go further? And I say this because many of my constituents, leaseholders in a particular

11:14

Janet Daby MP (Lewisham East, Labour)

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building under 11m and facing a bill of £70,000. In fact, the bill of £70,000. In fact, the management agent is asking for £3,000 per month and this is due to £3,000 per month and this is due to no fault of their own. So can I ask the Leader of the House to ask the relevant department to release an relevant department to release an oral or written statement on the support available to leaseholders

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support available to leaseholders in buildings under 11m? Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My hon. Friend raises an important matter. The government is working hard to strengthen leaseholders protection within the Leasehold and Freehold Reform Act of 2024, and our forthcoming leaseholder and Commonhold reform Bill, but I certainly will seek the update for her that she seeks. But remind the House that later today there will House that later today there will be a backbench business debate on leasehold reform, where my hon.

Friend and other members may want to raise these issues and hear directly from the Minister. directly from the Minister.

11:15

Rt Hon Sir Alan Campbell MP, Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Tynemouth, Labour)

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Bradley Thomas thank you, Mr. Speaker. The House will be delighted to learn that 17 year old Leo, who I previously mentioned in this house, is now cancer free after being matched with a stem cell donor. This is excellent news and Leo is up for an award. The BBC Make a Difference Young Hero of the year award. That's coming up. Will the whole house join me in wishing Leo the best of luck? And perhaps Leo the best of luck? And perhaps the Leader of the House will also meet Leo on to go and win.

11:16

Bradley Thomas MP (Bromsgrove, Conservative)

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Thank you very much indeed. I certainly send my best wishes to Leo in two regards that his full recovery takes place. A remarkable story I'm delighted to hear, because I do recall the hon. Gentleman raising this, but also all the very best with that award. There are some remarkable young people, and I hope that Leo's story is recognised as part of that.

11:16

Rt Hon Sir Alan Campbell MP, Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Tynemouth, Labour)

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Gilbert. Welsh are backing the community led bid for Leith to become the first ever UK Town of Culture. Can my right hon. Friend put in a word for Leith with DCMS Ministers, and will he make arrangements for a written statement to provide an update on the timescales of the UK Town of the timescales of the UK Town of Culture 2020 competition?

11:17

Tracy Gilbert MP (Edinburgh North and Leith, Labour)

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Hey. Speaker, and I'm sure this is a perfectly lovely town and a fine contender for Town of Culture. However, my hon. Friend invites me down a route that I simply can't go because North Shields in my constituency has also put in a very strong bid. And I just I Chorley and I just remind the House that

11:17

Rt Hon Sir Alan Campbell MP, Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Tynemouth, Labour)

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that I do have to return to my constituency. So I need to be careful about what I say. But I wish all the towns, including Leith, wish all the towns, including Leith, all the very best in their attempts to be crowned the first town of Culture. It's a great scheme Culture. It's a great scheme whether you win or not. I think it's a great way of highlighting the importance of our towns and of the communities that live there, the communities that live there, and I will ask the relevant Minister to bring an update to the House on the process as soon as possible.

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possible. Ann Davies Mr. Tavares. On the 23rd of. December 24, my constituent, Aaron Jones, was killed in a hit and run whilst walking his dog. The perpetrator was sentenced to four and a half years in prison. Two weeks ago, his widow, Lisa,

11:18

Ann Davies MP (Caerfyrddin, Plaid Cymru)

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received a letter from the Ministry of Justice informing her of sentence changes under the sentence changes under the Sentencing Act of 2026, but she'll have to wait until the end of August to know whether the man who took her husband's life will be released earlier than expected. Does the Leader of the House agree Does the Leader of the House agree that this uncertainty only brings further distress to victims families, and will grant a debate families, and will grant a debate in government time to ensure that the act is implemented? With the required sensitivity and the safety forefront.

11:19

Rt Hon Sir Alan Campbell MP, Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Tynemouth, Labour)

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Mr. speaker, I understand the sensitivity of this and the distress that not only the death of Mr. Jones, but also what has happened since must bring to the family. These are difficult decisions, but I understand the

11:19

Justin Madders MP (Ellesmere Port and Bromborough, Labour)

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point about assurances as far as they can be given to families. I hope that the Ministry of Justice hope that the Ministry of Justice has heard this, and I will raise it directly with them. If the hon. Lady seeks an adjournment debate to hear from the Minister how else this can be strengthened. I think that would be appropriate. But let

11:20

Rt Hon Sir Alan Campbell MP, Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Tynemouth, Labour)

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us be clear. This needs to be a part of every process, not just individual cases. It needs to be a

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cultural shift in how we deal with these matters. Justin Madders thank you. Mr. Speaker. On the 15th of June, a vehicle crashed through the fence at Sunny Days Nursery in Bell Road, Ellesmere Port, injuring a number of children. Thankfully, it doesn't look like there's been any long term damage, and I know the parents want to praise the staff at the nursery and indeed all the local residents and businesses who came to the Children's Aid, but it has raised some questions about the security and safety standards at nurseries, which is something I understand the Department for Education are looking at, but I wonder if we could have a statement from the Department about this issue, please.

Mr. speaker, my hon. Friend is absolutely right that the Department of Education takes this very seriously indeed and is looking at these matters, and I'm sure when they've reached some conclusions, they'll want to bring them to the House. But also let me pay tribute, as he has done, not pay tribute, as he has done, not just to the staff of the nursery, but it sounds as if the whole community rallied on this community rallied on this unfortunate and terrible situation.

And let us hope that what comes And let us hope that what comes forward makes it a much less likely that something like this would happen again in the future.

11:22

Phil Brickell MP (Bolton West, Labour)

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Alicia Kearns thank you, Mr. Speaker. In 2023, I secured funds from the last government to conserve and bring home our ten

11:22

Rt Hon Sir Alan Campbell MP, Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Tynemouth, Labour)

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foot sea dragon to Rutland. Unfortunately, the local council, Rutland, has now overrun on another Rutland, has now overrun on another project and decided not to bring the ichthyosaur back to Rutland, which will cost our local economy in terms of future prosperity. The in terms of future prosperity. The local conservator has said he will reduce the cost of conserving this national specimen of a national national specimen of a national importance, but they're saying they can't accept a reduced cost and they can't retender for it because

11:23

Ben Maguire MP (North Cornwall, Liberal Democrat)

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they can't retender for it because of national government rules. Does this not seem preposterous and absolutely flies in the face of the idea of best value for taxpayer money?

11:23

Rt Hon Sir Alan Campbell MP, Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Tynemouth, Labour)

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It sounds slightly odd, Mr. Speaker, and I share the hon. Lady's concern about this. Let me take that away. If she provides me with the details after this, let me with the details after this, let me take that away and look at it. Get the department to look at it, to see whether or not how the council

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has interpreted this actually is the reality. But I hope that the Council has heard her remarks. Phil Brickell thank.

11:24

Navendu Mishra MP (Stockport, Labour)

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You, Mr. Speaker. May I declare an interest as the chair of the Anti-Corruption and Responsible Tax APPG now, this week, the Member for APPG now, this week, the Member for Clacton declared he's earning an extraordinary 22,500 pounds an hour extraordinary 22,500 pounds an hour working for a gold bullion dealer. Questions have also emerged about his lobbying for the Bank of England, the crypto friendly policies having himself invested 250.

11:25

Rt Hon Sir Alan Campbell MP, Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Tynemouth, Labour)

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Have you informed the member >> Have you informed the member that you're going to raise it? But current. >> Questions have also emerged about his lobbying the Bank of England for crypto friendly policies, having himself invested £215,000 into Bitcoin company stack £215,000 into Bitcoin company stack BTC alongside former conservative Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng. Does the leader agree with me that members of this House are public servants, and that we should always be putting our constituents first before any private interests? And will he use his good offices as the chair of the modernisation committee to deliver much needed reforms to roles, rules around members outside employment? The new leader.

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Mr. Speaker, I do share the hon. Gentleman's view on the importance Gentleman's view on the importance of the primary job of of MPs. There was a debate on this in in Westminster Hall yesterday, and Westminster Hall yesterday, and this was raised on a number of occasions. And the Minister set out the current government's response. the current government's response. The government believes that an MPs primary job is to represent their constituents, which is why we've constituents, which is why we've made we've already made some important changes following the general election to tightening the rules relating to MPs second jobs, but we accept that there is a great deal more to do, and I will work deal more to do, and I will work continue to work closely with the Committee on Standards who are looking at this, and I hope we'll bring forward the recommendations bring forward the recommendations that will satisfy my hon.

Friend.

11:27

Ian Lavery MP (Blyth and Ashington, Labour)

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Ben Maguire thank you, Mr. Speaker, and I must declare.

11:27

Rt Hon Sir Alan Campbell MP, Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Tynemouth, Labour)

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Chair of. group. I welcome the government's farming roadmap explicitly, explicitly designating food production as an issue of national security. However, I'm deeply concerned by the government's Water White Paper, which proposes a blanket extension of environmental permitting from poultry and pig farms to the dairy sector, despite the former being kept mostly indoors and cattle mostly outdoors. My North Cornwall constituents and My North Cornwall constituents and NFU delegates estimate this could cost around £10,000 per farm and cost around £10,000 per farm and much more paperwork, rather than deterring our farmers from actually farming, can we please have a farming, can we please have a debate in government time on supporting farmers to produce food for this country?

11:29

Andrew Rosindell MP (Romford, Reform UK)

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Yes.

11:29

Rt Hon Sir Alan Campbell MP, Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Tynemouth, Labour)

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Mr. Speaker, the government chairs the hon. Gentleman's view that it is important that we support farmers and the importance of food security and food production as we go forward. But as he has alluded to there, sometimes what is happening in one area of farming and in the other case, what our plans might be going forward on water, need to make sure that we're joined up because we need to get this right. And in order to get an answer from a Minister, I would encourage him to apply for an adjournment debate so that he can hear directly from the Minister.

Speaker.

11:30

Lee Barron MP (Corby and East Northamptonshire, Labour)

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Established in 1924, Vernon >> Established in 1924, Vernon Building Society offers financial services to people in Stockport and across Greater Manchester. They are truly a mutual owned by members, not shareholders. However, as the building society sector grows, there are concerns about meaningful democratic engagement for members, in particular nationwide, which is the largest building society in the world. There are concerns raised around virtual only AGM, lack of member nominated directors and the quick vote mechanism system. When members are owners, they must have a meaningful voice in how the organisation is run and governed.

As such, can I ask the Leader of the House for a debate in government time on the Building government time on the Building Societies Act of 1986 and meaningful democratic voice for the membership. membership.

11:31

Tom Gordon MP (Harrogate and Knaresborough, Liberal Democrat)

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Mr. speaker, my hon. Friend raises some interesting concerns, particularly around transparency, and he rightly points out that building societies are a vital, growing part of our economy. But I would suggest that he perhaps seeks an adjournment debate or a Westminster Hall debate so that he can hear directly from the Minister about how his concerns might be addressed.

11:32

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. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have just announced jobs being lost at the Sullom Voe Oil Terminal, and this is the latest blow to the oil and gas sector. So would the Leader of the House allocate time for a full debate in government time on the future of the oil and gas sector before it is too late?

11:33

Mary Kelly Foy MP (City of Durham, Labour)

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Yes. hon. Gentleman to his place in terms of the oil and gas sector. And I know that in the by election

11:33

Rt Hon Sir Alan Campbell MP, Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Tynemouth, Labour)

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it was a very big issue indeed. And the government takes this very seriously indeed. I gently remind seriously indeed. I gently remind him that the loss of jobs, and I regret the loss of jobs that he's talked about there. Very much so. But it's not a new phenomenon. There's 70,000 jobs lost in the

11:34

Jim Shannon MP (Strangford, Democratic Unionist Party)

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There's 70,000 jobs lost in the last decade, but oil and gas is continuing to come out of the North continuing to come out of the North Sea 24 hours a day, every day. And will continue to do so as, however we move to, we've got a mixed economy as we make sure that the green jobs are coming through as well, because the sector needs to change. I can't offer him the opportunity of a debate opportunity of a debate specifically on that at the moment, but the government is very cognisant of that.

And should we get the opportunity to do that or get the opportunity to do that or the backbench business, get the opportunity to do that, then I'm debate.

11:35

Rt Hon Sir Alan Campbell MP, Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Tynemouth, Labour)

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In Lebanon.

11:35

Elaine Stewart MP (Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock, Labour)

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Thank you, Mr. Speaker. between accessing accommodation and keeping the pets that provide them with companionship, emotional support, stability and a sense of safety. Safety. Street paws is a

11:35

Rt Hon Sir Alan Campbell MP, Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Tynemouth, Labour)

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leading campaigner to to remove this preventable barrier, Pet inclusive approaches have also been introduced successfully in a number introduced successfully in a number of areas, including Greater Manchester, demonstrating that such policies can be implemented safely

11:36

Ruth Jones MP (Newport West and Islwyn, Labour)

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policies can be implemented safely and effectively. Will the Leader of the House make time for a debate on the House make time for a debate on the need to expand this support and ensure that no one is denied accommodation, simply because they refuse to abandon a beloved pet?

11:36

Rt Hon Sir Alan Campbell MP, Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Tynemouth, Labour)

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Mr. speaker, my hon. Friend >> Mr. speaker, my hon. Friend raises a very important point indeed, which I know is of concern to many of our constituents. The Homelessness Code of Guidance sets out the framework in which local authorities must follow, carrying out their homelessness duties. It is not always possible, Mr. Speaker, but the Secretary of State does recommend that authorities give careful consideration to those who rely on pets for companionship when rely on pets for companionship when making provision for them, and I will make sure that Ministers have heard my hon.

Friend's concerns, and if they've got further proposals to bring forward, I'm sure they will. sure they will. Andrew Rosindell Mr. of the Isle of Man this weekend as they prepare to celebrate Tynwald Day on Monday. And thank you, Mr. Speaker, for hosting the Tinwald day reception in speaker's House last night with the Chief Minister,

11:38

Callum Anderson MP (Buckingham and Bletchley, Labour)

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the president of Tinwald, and the speaker of the House of keys. Now, Mr. Speaker, for several years I Mr. Speaker, for several years I have received correspondence from former constituents who have moved former constituents who have moved from countries like Australia and Canada. After a lifetime of paying

11:39

Rt Hon Sir Alan Campbell MP, Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Tynemouth, Labour)

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Canada. After a lifetime of paying tax in the UK, nearly half a million British pensioners abroad have their state pensions frozen, have their state pensions frozen, while those in the EU and the United States receive annual increases. This is even the case

11:39

Sureena Brackenridge MP (Wolverhampton North East, Labour)

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for those who retire to the British overseas territories of Anguilla, Cayman Islands, the Falkland Islands, Saint Helena, Montserrat and Turks and Caicos. How can it be right that British nationals should be treated differently depending on

11:40

Rt Hon Sir Alan Campbell MP, Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Tynemouth, Labour)

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be treated differently depending on where they live? So will the Leader of the House make time for a debate

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of the House make time for a debate on this long standing injustice? Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and let

11:40

me join the hon. Gentleman in congratulating the Isle of Man on Tynwald Day and wish them every success going forward. On the issue of frozen state pensions. I can't of frozen state pensions. I can't respond in any detail now because it's a pretty complex area and I may well get it wrong, but I'll

11:41

Rt Hon Sir Alan Campbell MP, Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Tynemouth, Labour)

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may well get it wrong, but I'll raise his concerns with the relevant Ministers and see if we can get an update on where we are can get an update on where we are and what proposals there might be going forward. But if the hon. Gentleman seeks a debate about this, because it won't just be his constituents. But although he does take a particular interest in take a particular interest in overseas territories, then that debate may well get an opportunity to put those concerns directly to the relevant Minister.

Lee Barron thank you, Mr. Speaker. Harshita Barela was murdered in.

11:42

Warinder Juss (Wolverhampton West, Labour)

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Corby. >> And her body was found in the boot of a car. We're aware that there's an ongoing police investigation, and none of us wants to do anything to prejudice that. But her family feel isolated. Recently, they flew over from India to get an update. When they hear nothing. They feel as though nothing is happening. So would the Leader of the House work with Home Office and Foreign Office colleagues to ensure that the family receive monthly updates on the progress of securing justice for Harshita?

11:43

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, Mr. Speaker. >> Thank you, Mr. Speaker. >> I thank my hon. Friend for raising this important case and share his horror at this horrific attack. And our thoughts remain with her friends and family. And I do understand the strength of feeling in this case. As my hon. Friend points out, there is an Friend points out, there is an ongoing investigation, but I do understand that the Home Office will be writing to him soon to will be writing to him soon to address his concerns, and should he want a further meeting with them, I'm sure there will be happy to arrange it.

Thank you. House, alongside Ukrainian counterparts, wrote to the Secretary of State for culture, Media and Sport about Masha and the bear, a Russian cartoon character

11:44

Graeme Downie MP (Dunfermline and Dollar, Labour)

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which sees the militarisation of children and a distinct lack of regard for boundaries as key themes. regard for boundaries as key themes. It's currently streamed to British children on Netflix and ITV, produced by Russian studio paying tax to the Russian state, and has been labelled an instrument of Russian soft power by the Ukrainian Centre for Countering

11:45

Rt Hon Sir Alan Campbell MP, Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Tynemouth, Labour)

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Centre for Countering Disinformation. Does the Leader of the House agree with me that British children should not be an audience for content with these audience for content with these propaganda concerns? And will the Leader of the House ask the Secretary of State for DCMs to bring forward a statement on what it?

11:45

Maureen Burke MP (Glasgow North East, Labour)

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Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I do share concerns if children are being bombarded with propaganda, because it would be highly inappropriate. The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right to raise these concerns here. I will take it up with the Secretary of State for DCMS and get an update on what the government intends to do and can do in this matter.

11:46

Rt Hon Sir Alan Campbell MP, Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Tynemouth, Labour)

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Mary Kelly Foy thank you. >> Mr. Speaker. It's been more than two years since the devastating explosion at Coronation Terrace in Wellington, and while the immediate emergency has long since passed, the impact on local residents continues. Families have had to live alongside an unsightly, derelict and potentially dangerous

11:46

Mr Jonathan Brash MP (Hartlepool, Labour)

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site, with prolonged delays in resolving insurance claims involving numerous parties leaving involving numerous parties leaving the community in limbo. And as usual, discussions take place behind closed doors. But my behind closed doors. But my constituents deserve to see all those involved working together to bring this matter to a conclusion.

11:47

Rt Hon Sir Alan Campbell MP, Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Tynemouth, Labour)

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bring this matter to a conclusion. So will the Leader of the House advise on the best way to expedite action in cases such as these, action in cases such as these, where complex insurance insurance processes appear to have stalled

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progress for far too long. Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and I thank my hon. Friend for raising this matter. She is an assiduous this matter. She is an assiduous campaigner for her wonderful constituency. It is important, Mr. constituency. It is important, Mr. Speaker, that work is done, that it is transparent and that it is timely. I would encourage the local timely. I would encourage the local council to engage with this matter and to work with my hon. Friend to resolve this issue. It is their

11:48

Rt Hon Sir Keir Starmer MP, The Prime Minister (Holborn and St Pancras, Labour)

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12:01

Alex Burghart MP (Brentwood and Ongar, Conservative)

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Yeah. absolutely right to champion the good work of the Scouts, and I join her in congratulating the second her in congratulating the second Wednesfield Group in its upcoming centenary. Remarkable achievement. I also join her in thanking the voluntary service of Steve Rogers and indeed, all the scouts and Girl Guide leaders who generously give

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their time in support of young people. Speaker. On Sunday, I.

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On Sunday, I. Was delighted to. Attend the Tea Time event with the Fulford Community Choir. It was an uplifting and joyous event and I congratulate Gail Sullivan, Wendy Godfrey, Anne Hollinghurst, Rowena Godfrey, Anne Hollinghurst, Rowena Davis and all the volunteers and musicians who helped organise the event. Will the Leader of the House agree with me that choirs in agree with me that choirs in community events such as this and Fulford Village Hall do so much to improve mental health, tackle

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loneliness and strengthen our Fulford. Mr. speaker. Certainly my hon. Friend, in

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Certainly my hon. Friend, in agreeing that choirs and local events can do so much to support and bring together our local and bring together our local communities, including helping with mental health and combating loneliness. Volunteers who help to organise events like the Fulford Community Choir are providing an

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invaluable service to their local community. And my hon. Friend is absolutely right to recognise them this morning. Rachael Maskell thank.

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You, Mr. Speaker. Heat related mortality has taken 10,000 lives mortality has taken 10,000 lives over the last five years in England and exacerbated risk of ill health from asthma to stroke with climate from asthma to stroke with climate degradation. Things are only going to get worse. So what steps are the government taking in order to government taking in order to address this and ensure there's proper facilities in workplaces and homes, as well as communities, to

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homes, as well as communities, to future proof our society against extreme heat? Mr. speaker, my friend is right to raise this, and we know that extreme weather events are getting more common and these issues will not go away. We're working across government to respond to the severe heat waves and mobilising support, particularly to the most vulnerable who are, of course, at greatest risk of harm. As the hon. Lady will know, the government is taking action to combat climate change, and I will make sure that the points that she raises are shared with the relevant Minister.

12:05

Rt Hon Sir Keir Starmer MP, The Prime Minister (Holborn and St Pancras, Labour)

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Brendan O'Hara thank you, Mr. Speaker. >> Wolverhampton Community. >> Radio 101.8 WCR FM. In my constituency of Wolverhampton West, provides a vital service to people provides a vital service to people across the city, giving a platform to local voices, community groups, charities and volunteers, and charities and volunteers, and keeping residents informed about the issues that matter to them most. I have been on the radio talking about knife crime and the Pride in Place programme, at a time when we have had reductions in local radio services following commercial radio mergers.

Will the Leader of the House please agree to a debate in government time to recognise the invaluable contribution of community radio stations such as Wolverhampton Community Radio, and Wolverhampton Community Radio, and the importance of providing sustainable, long term funding for country. country.

12:06

Helen Hayes MP (Dulwich and West Norwood, Labour)

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Mr. speaker, my hon. Friend makes a powerful case for local radio and the role that it plays in giving a platform to local voices and communities. That's why we've launched our local media strategy. With an increase in community radio funding to £1 million per year. And I suggest that my hon. Friend perhaps applies for a Westminster Hall debate to discuss the role that radio plays in our local

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communities, because, of course, every constituency will be affected. Adam Thompson Mr. Speaker.

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Speaker. Recently I did the school run in Ilkeston, with Bebe Newton experiencing it the way that she does in a wheelchair. We navigated broken pavements, uneven crossings and all kinds of poorly placed street furniture really showed me street furniture really showed me the barriers that disabled people face every day of their lives. It was so difficult, mentally and was so difficult, mentally and physically exhausting and at times dangerous. With the Leader of the House, consider a debate, then, to properly examine the experiences of disabled people and the barriers they face in everyday life.

12:08

Rt Hon Sir Keir Starmer MP, The Prime Minister (Holborn and St Pancras, Labour)

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Mr. speaker, as ever, my hon. >> Mr. speaker, as ever, my hon. Friend is a champion for the rights of his constituents, and I pay tribute to him for that. We are tribute to him for that. We are committed to ensuring that streets and transport networks are accessible for everyone, including accessible for everyone, including disabled people, and the overall responsibility, however, lies for the management of pavement crossings and street furniture does lie with the local highway authority and I hope that they have heard his powerful representation

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this morning on behalf of his constituents. Speaker. After holding a series of

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After holding a series of stakeholder events with local businesses and charities and an online survey attracting more than 1000 responses, I have recently 1000 responses, I have recently published the results of a city centre survey for Dunfermline. That survey highlighted that people are very proud to live in Scotland's newest city and ancient capital, but that improvements are needed in the city centre itself to improve the city centre itself to improve aesthetics and to attract new businesses. Does Leader of the House of the House agree with me that the people of Dunfermline

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deserve to see improvements in their city centre, and will they constituents? Mr. speaker, I thank my hon.

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Mr. speaker, I thank my hon. Friend for raising this matter. Scotland has so many brilliant places to visit and he's right to promote his city of Dunfermline. We are committed to backing Britain's are committed to backing Britain's tourism industry, supporting over 1.3 million jobs and £64.3 billion 1.3 million jobs and £64.3 billion in gross value added to the economy. I would recommend that my hon. Friend perhaps applies for what would be a very popular Westminster Hall debate.

12:11

Munira Wilson MP (Twickenham, Liberal Democrat)

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Remember.

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In the most deprived areas reach a good level of development by the time they start primary school, compared to 79% in the least deprived areas. Baby zone is a deprived areas. Baby zone is a charity set up to level the playing field, providing free to access community hubs which offer services to support children's development. I recently had the privilege of I recently had the privilege of opening Baby Zone's first Scottish hub in Easterhouse. Know I know it will make a real difference to local families.

Will the Leader of the House join me in recognising Baby Zone's work? And will he consider allocating parliamentary time to debate how we close the development gap between affluent and poorer neighbourhoods, so that every child gets a fair start in

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life? Mr. speaker, my friend is absolutely right to praise charities like Baby Zone who who deliver a truly positive impact on local communities. Improving local communities. Improving outcomes for pupils in deprived areas is an essential part of this government's wider mission to government's wider mission to ensure that every child, whatever their background, can succeed. And I'd certainly encourage my hon. I'd certainly encourage my hon. Friend to apply for a debate on these matters so that Ministers can not just praise the success of organisations like Baby Zone, but can actually outline plans about can actually outline plans about what further measures we intend to take.

12:14

Rt Hon Sir Keir Starmer MP, The Prime Minister (Holborn and St Pancras, Labour)

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Jonathan Brash. Hartlepool has been named as one of the top ten schools in the world for overcoming adversity on behalf of their pupils. In the words of the award organisers, it is a school where leaders refuse to let circumstance define what a child can become. So will the Leader of the House join me in congratulating pupils, families, governors and especially the extraordinary school staff at Ward Jackson on this brilliant achievement in Leaving No Child Behind, which shows Child Behind, which shows Hartlepool once again leading on the world stage.

12:15

Tracy Gilbert MP (Edinburgh North and Leith, Labour)

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Yeah. to giving every child the best start in life. And I will join with my hon. Friend in congratulating Ward Jackson Primary School for being named one of the top ten schools in the world for overcoming adversity, and I'm sure that this achievement would not have been possible without the support of the brilliant staff, the pupils hard families.

12:16

Rt Hon Sir Keir Starmer MP, The Prime Minister (Holborn and St Pancras, Labour)

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That completes business We

12:17

Rt Hon Sir Edward Leigh MP (Gainsborough, Conservative)

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Have come to the statement. Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer.

12:17

Rt Hon Sir Keir Starmer MP, The Prime Minister (Holborn and St Pancras, Labour)

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Thank you, Mr. Speaker. >> This morning in Downing Street, I met some of the mothers and adult adoptees harmed by historic adoption practices in England. They are here with us in the gallery today. And I had the chance to talk with them privately. They are the most remarkable women, and I know the whole House will want to join me in paying tribute to the me in paying tribute to the extraordinary courage with which they have shared their harrowing testimonies and fought for the testimonies and fought for the truth time and time again.

12:19

Debbie Abrahams MP (Oldham East and Saddleworth, Labour)

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Yeah. them this morning, I found it hard to read the testimonies and to hear their stories. I find it particularly hard as a dad, how much harder it must have been for

12:19

Rt Hon Sir Keir Starmer MP, The Prime Minister (Holborn and St Pancras, Labour)

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them to go through that, to set out their testimonies and tell their their testimonies and tell their stories over and over again. As they said to me this morning, something which is so intensely something which is so intensely private, having to be public, and the courage and resilience they have shown and others alongside

12:20

Rt Hon Sir Julian Smith MP (Skipton and Ripon, Conservative)

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have shown and others alongside them is absolutely incredible. And I want to mark that Mr Speaker what I want to mark that Mr Speaker what happened to them and to tens of thousands of mothers, children and families should never have happened. It is a stain on our history. Mothers, many young, vulnerable and without support were coerced, bullied or misled into feeling that they had no choice but to have

12:21

Rt Hon Sir Keir Starmer MP, The Prime Minister (Holborn and St Pancras, Labour)

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their children taken away from them. What a thing to do. And, Mr. What a thing to do. And, Mr. Speaker, these were not isolated or accidental acts. They were practices embedded within systems, practices embedded within systems, across local authorities, across voluntary and faith based voluntary and faith based institutions, and in health and social care services, including social care services, including parts of what is now the NHS. All institutions that operated with power over people's lives. Yet they did so without compassion, without consent, and without dignity or proper safeguards.

Mr. speaker, these practices were particularly

12:22

Sureena Brackenridge MP (Wolverhampton North East, Labour)

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prevalent between 1949 and 1976, but also extended beyond those but also extended beyond those years. In some cases, women, including those placed in mother including those placed in mother and baby homes and other institutional settings, were cut off from their families, relationships, education and employment, and subjected to harsh employment, and subjected to harsh and isolated conditions. Some experienced treatment that amounted to exploitation and abuse. Mr. speaker, many were made to feel

12:23

Rt Hon Sir Keir Starmer MP, The Prime Minister (Holborn and St Pancras, Labour)

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ashamed, and that came through very, very powerfully in the discussions very powerfully in the discussions I had this morning. Silenced and unworthy of care or dignity.

12:23

Manuela Perteghella MP (Stratford-on-Avon, Liberal Democrat)

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Children grew up believing that they were unwanted. Young mothers were told that they were immoral were told that they were immoral and that their babies would be better off without them. And again, better off without them. And again, as they told me this morning, that lasts a lifetime and has a huge impact. Ann Lloyd Keen here in the gallery and of course, formerly of this House, described to the Education Committee how she was stitched without anaesthetic and,

12:24

Rt Hon Sir Keir Starmer MP, The Prime Minister (Holborn and St Pancras, Labour)

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and said, and I quote that she was told, you will remember the pain told, you will remember the pain because you've been a bad girl. Mr. speaker, many of those harmed in speaker, many of those harmed in this way feel a gut wrenching sense of shame, and Anne and others have

12:25

Rachael Maskell MP (York Central, Labour )

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of shame, and Anne and others have said that stayed with her and that she still feels it today. And I know that this apology will not be know that this apology will not be able to lift that completely. It will help a little, I hope, but it will not lift it completely. And today I say to Anne, to everyone here in the gallery with us, to all those impacted and affected, wherever they are in the country. There are many, many thousands of them, including some who still have

12:26

Rt Hon Sir Keir Starmer MP, The Prime Minister (Holborn and St Pancras, Labour)

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not been able to speak about what happened to them to this day. And I hope that this statement, this hope that this statement, this apology, perhaps gives some of them the confidence to speak about what happened to them, because it will happened to them, because it will help in a small way. But I say this help in a small way. But I say this the shame is not yours. The shame

12:27

Alicia Kearns MP (Rutland and Stamford, Conservative)

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the shame is not yours. The shame was never yours. The shame is ours. And I say that on behalf of the whole country. I say it to every single person impacted. We are deeply and profoundly sorry to the mothers who were told they were unfit, who were prevented from caring for the children. They desperately wanted to help and to keep, and who have carried this

12:28

Rt Hon Sir Keir Starmer MP, The Prime Minister (Holborn and St Pancras, Labour)

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loss for decades. To those who were not given the information they needed to provide informed consent, needed to provide informed consent, who faced pressure or coercion, and to experience practices that were

12:28

Dame Chi Onwurah MP (Newcastle upon Tyne Central and West, Labour)

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to experience practices that were unethical to the sons and daughters. The children who are now adults, who, through pressure and coercion who, through pressure and coercion within these systems, were taken from their families, denied their from their families, denied their identity, their history, and sometimes their safety. To those who grew up believing that they were unwanted, some of whom were even told directly that they were second class. To those who carried a burden of loss, confusion, and stigma, or who experienced neglect and abuse without the protection or oversight that should have been their right.

To those who have experienced lifelong uncertainty,

12:29

Rt Hon Sir Keir Starmer MP, The Prime Minister (Holborn and St Pancras, Labour)

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loss, or questions about identity and belonging, or whose mental and and belonging, or whose mental and physical health, relationships and sense of self across their lives sense of self across their lives has been affected. To the fathers who are denied a voice, excluded from decisions, or separated from their children, to the siblings, grandparents, partners and extended

12:30

Tom Gordon MP (Harrogate and Knaresborough, Liberal Democrat)

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grandparents, partners and extended family and future generations who have lived with the consequences of these practices. To those who experienced harm from these practices, even while being brought up in loving homes by their adoptive parents. To those who are

12:31

Rt Hon Sir Keir Starmer MP, The Prime Minister (Holborn and St Pancras, Labour)

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adopted across borders or cultures who lost connections to their heritage, racial and personal heritage, racial and personal identity, and to those from ethnic minority backgrounds who

12:31

Florence Eshalomi MP (Vauxhall and Camberwell Green, Labour )

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experienced racism or were treated differently within these systems, and who, as a group, were less and who, as a group, were less likely to be adopted or to grow up in stable family homes. Mr. speaker, in stable family homes. Mr. speaker, I am struck by the words of Debbie Erumely, who I met this morning. She says she was raised with racist views towards her own biological family. Mr. speaker, how do you even begin to comprehend that to each and every one of those affected, we say a deep and heartfelt sorry.

Mr. speaker, let me be clear and unequivocal. These harms were compounded by the actions and failures of the state

12:32

Rt Hon Sir Keir Starmer MP, The Prime Minister (Holborn and St Pancras, Labour)

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governments funded, enabled and relied on systems that were not consistently or effectively consistently or effectively overseen. The state did not prevent harm from continuing. The state harm from continuing. The state bears responsibility for the systems it funded and legitimised, which enabled these practices to which enabled these practices to occur. The state did not do enough to protect mothers, children and to protect mothers, children and families from harm and for the systemic failure. I am truly sorry. Mr. Speaker.

Many of those affected have suffered a further injustice. They have had to fight for the basic human right to know their own

12:34

Sarah Pochin MP (Runcorn and Helsby, Reform UK)

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story. As Sally Els has put it. We are treated as if the information are treated as if the information about our own lives does not belong to us. Debbie was told her Bath her to us. Debbie was told her Bath her birth mother's life would be in danger if she tried to search for danger if she tried to search for her. Barriers put in place at every twist and turn. Records have in twist and turn. Records have in some cases been lost, altered or not made fully accessible to those seeking answers.

And the whole process is painfully slow, traumatic and dehumanising all over again. Mr. speaker, we do say sorry and we mean it, but sorry is not enough. This must also be the start of real change, working with those affected and their families to improve access to records and to provide the care and support that people need. So today, I can tell people need. So today, I can tell the House we will fund the development of a national online resource, creating a single access resource, creating a single access point to locate records wherever they may be held across the country.

12:36

Janet Daby MP (Lewisham East, Labour)

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Yeah.

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We will consult on requiring existing records to be retained for 100 years. So they work, so they 100 years. So they work, so they will remain available across the lifetime of those affected. And my right hon. Friend the Education right hon. Friend the Education Secretary is today writing to local authorities, regional adoption agencies and voluntary adoption agencies and voluntary adoption agencies, setting out the expectation that requests for records should be responded to records should be responded to swiftly and with compassion and consistency, and we will expand access to funded intermediary services with particular focus on pre 1976 cases where access to support is currently most limited.

12:37

Rt Hon Sir Keir Starmer MP, The Prime Minister (Holborn and St Pancras, Labour)

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We will establish national virtual peer led support groups for mothers and adopted adults to improve and adopted adults to improve access to ongoing trauma informed support across the country, and we will work with NHS England to will work with NHS England to ensure those affected are taken seriously when they seek help. This

12:38

Rt Hon Sir Julian Lewis MP (New Forest East, Conservative)

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seriously when they seek help. This includes new support for clinicians to better understand the impact of forced adoption and respond forced adoption and respond appropriately in their care. The NHS England will also explore how those who wish to do so can have their experience of forced adoption, appropriately recorded in their health record. And finally, to further recognise those affected and ensure we learn the lessons of the past, we will commission a testimonials project to capture the stories of those with experience of historic forced adoption practices.

Through all of this and more. We will continue to meet regularly with those with lived experience,

12:39

Rt Hon Sir Keir Starmer MP, The Prime Minister (Holborn and St Pancras, Labour)

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guided by them to get this support right, to learn from our past and ensure that nothing like this can ensure that nothing like this can ever happen in this country again. Finally, Mr. Speaker, this national apology reflects and builds on the approaches taken by Scotland and approaches taken by Scotland and Wales, whose devolved governments have also issued apologies for these practices, which we fully these practices, which we fully endorse, and I welcome the process under way in Northern Ireland to establish a statutory public

12:40

Olivia Blake MP (Sheffield Hallam, Labour)

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inquiry into mother and baby institutions, Magdalene laundries and workhouses. I also want to thank the Joint Committee on Human thank the Joint Committee on Human Rights and the Education Select Committee for all they have done to shine a light on this injustice. But most of all, I want to thank those who have campaigned for so long to have the truth recognised, including those who are no longer with us, to hear this apology that

12:41

Rt Hon Sir Keir Starmer MP, The Prime Minister (Holborn and St Pancras, Labour)

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with us, to hear this apology that they fought for. It should never have happened, and you should not have had to fight so hard for this day to come. But today, finally, I do say, on behalf of the state and on behalf of the nation as a whole, we see you, we hear you, and we are we see you, we hear you, and we are truly sorry. I commend this statement to the House. Mr. speaker. statement to the House. Mr.

speaker.

12:42

Alison Bennett MP (Mid Sussex, Liberal Democrat)

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Shadow Secretary of State Alex Burghart thank you.

12:42

Rt Hon Sir Keir Starmer MP, The Prime Minister (Holborn and St Pancras, Labour)

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Mr. Speaker, and I'd like to thank the Prime Minister for advanced sight of his statement and also for coming to the House to also for coming to the House to deliver the statement himself on behalf of His Majesty's opposition. We welcome very much what he has said and agree that whenever the state makes grave errors, it has a state makes grave errors, it has a deep responsibility to apologise for what it did to those that it is wrong. 185,000 children grew up in Britain without their mothers because of bad decisions and

12:43

Cat Eccles MP (Stourbridge, Labour)

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fundamentally flawed beliefs that treated young mothers, unmarried mothers, with shame and stigma that mothers, with shame and stigma that today is mercifully alien to us. But those decisions and those But those decisions and those beliefs have left a permanent mark on each and every one of those lives. On children separated from lives. On children separated from their mothers, and on the mothers whose children were taken away. As the Prime Minister said, this is a stain on our history. Bonds between mothers and children are the foundation of security and identity.

Indeed, perhaps the foundation of all we have. And whilst I know from very much experience that the act of adopting a child is amongst the greatest kindness one person can show another, and that many of those children will have gone on to

12:44

Rt Hon Sir Keir Starmer MP, The Prime Minister (Holborn and St Pancras, Labour)

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be raised by loving families. There can be no doubt that they will also have carried a great grief across have carried a great grief across many years. One cannot help but be moved by the very powerful testimonies that some have given. I

12:45

Bradley Thomas MP (Bromsgrove, Conservative)

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testimonies that some have given. I remember just one. The journey back from the hospital was the longest I from the hospital was the longest I held my daughter. It was two hours and it was like everything suddenly and it was like everything suddenly made sense. I just felt like this was absolutely right and I wouldn't let go of her. A woman appeared and said, it's time, and she was taken from my arms and handed over and the baby howled. I assume I did, and the following week they sent me back to school.

Thousands upon thousands of such experiences

12:46

Rt Hon Sir Keir Starmer MP, The Prime Minister (Holborn and St Pancras, Labour)

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happening every day in every corner of our country over many years.

12:46

Uma Kumaran MP (Stratford and Bow, Labour)

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of our country over many years. Thankfully, in the years since, a huge amount has been done to ensure that such things cannot happen that such things cannot happen again in our country, change in adoption law and modern courts and legislation make a repeated these injustices very much less likely. So we welcome the steps that the Prime Minister has outlined today. I very much welcome the fact that the Education Secretary is writing to local authorities and agencies, setting the expectation that requests for records should be swiftly responded to, and glad that that builds on the steps the last government tried to take to improve access to adoption records, offer post adoption counselling and

12:47

Rt Hon Sir Keir Starmer MP, The Prime Minister (Holborn and St Pancras, Labour)

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improve the complaints procedure for agencies. All of these steps,

12:47

Dr Al Pinkerton MP (Surrey Heath, Liberal Democrat)

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for agencies. All of these steps, we hope, will make a difference to some of those experiences, some of those whose experiences lie in the those whose experiences lie in the past, and many in the future. Well the state. I would like to ask the the state. I would like to ask the Prime Minister, if I may, just a small number of questions. The Education Select Committee called Education Select Committee called for an assessment of international redress schemes. Can the Prime Minister confirm whether the government is considering this? I very much welcome the Prime Minister's announcement of support groups for mothers and adopted adults.

Could he tell us who will be responsible for establishing this service and and what Budget will be set aside for it? But I thank the Prime Minister very much for his statement and repeat what he has said to those affected. The shame was never yours.

12:49

Rt Hon Sir Keir Starmer MP, The Prime Minister (Holborn and St Pancras, Labour)

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Well.

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Can I thank him for the tone of his response and for the welcome for what the government set out for what the government set out today, and thank him for the care and attention that he has shown to this issue and linked issues this issue and linked issues personally. And can I say to him in the whole House that I genuinely the whole House that I genuinely believe it is so important that we speak with one voice in this House today, so that those affected know today, so that those affected know this is an apology from all of us in equal measure, and that it is a

12:50

Warinder Juss (Wolverhampton West, Labour)

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united House on an issue like this, and thank him for leading in that and thank him for leading in that way because it impacts not us in this chamber. It impacts all those who have been affected by this, to who have been affected by this, to know that this whole House supports the apology that's given today, and the way it's been given is really the way it's been given is really important to them, and I do thank him for that in relation to his him for that in relation to his questions.

The we are looking at schemes. We are being guided by those affected as the support that they think is most important to them, and we'll continue to be guided in that way. And as for responsibility, he asks. That will be the Department for Education, but I'm very happy to provide him but I'm very happy to provide him with further information as these things develop. Thank you. things develop. Thank you.

12:52

Douglas Lumsden MP (Aberdeen South, Conservative)

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Chair of the Select Committee Helen Hayes. Education.

12:52

Rt Hon Sir Keir Starmer MP, The Prime Minister (Holborn and St Pancras, Labour)

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Heard from mothers and adult adoptees was utterly devastating. I adoptees was utterly devastating. I want to thank Diana Dumfries and Lloyd Keen, Sally Els and Debbie Lloyd Keen, Sally Els and Debbie Ayromlooi for courageously reliving their trauma so that we could shine a light on the extent of the injustice they suffered and the urgency of the need for a meaningful response. They should

12:53

James Naish MP (Rushcliffe, Labour)

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not have had to work so hard for so long just to be heard, and to have long just to be heard, and to have their experiences recognised. I also want to thank the academics who gave evidence, and especially who gave evidence, and especially Professor Harold Gordon and Doctor Michael Lambert, whose painstaking and rigorous research helped to and rigorous research helped to prove what mothers and adult adoptees have long known that the

12:53

Rt Hon Sir Keir Starmer MP, The Prime Minister (Holborn and St Pancras, Labour)

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adoptees have long known that the state was culpable for the wrongs they suffered by presiding over

12:54

Richard Foord MP (Honiton and Sidmouth, Liberal Democrat)

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funding and facilitating a system that systematically dehumanised unmarried pregnant women and their unmarried pregnant women and their babies, and horrific inflicted horrific cruelty upon them. I thank horrific cruelty upon them. I thank the Prime Minister for this apology today. It is long overdue and much today. It is long overdue and much needed. I thank him for the breadth of the apology and for the work the government has done with survivors

12:54

Rt Hon Sir Keir Starmer MP, The Prime Minister (Holborn and St Pancras, Labour)

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government has done with survivors to get to this point. Women whose babies were forcibly adopted and who endured cruelty and humiliation in mother and baby homes and in the NHS, should know today that the shame of this period in our history rests on the government and on religious and community and healthcare organisations who presided over, facilitated and sustained this system. It is not theirs to carry and it never was theirs to carry.

12:55

Mr Alex Barros-Curtis MP (Cardiff West, Labour)

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Yeah.

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This apology, Madam Deputy Speaker, is a watershed, but it must be only the beginning of putting right the disgraceful wrongs of this shameful period of our history. So can I ask the Prime our history. So can I ask the Prime Minister to set out how progress on delivering the support that he has delivering the support that he has announced today will be monitored, and how survivors will continue to and how survivors will continue to be involved in it? And can I ask him to make sure, as the government progresses this work, that

12:56

Rt Hon Sir Keir Starmer MP, The Prime Minister (Holborn and St Pancras, Labour)

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information on how to access this support is made widely available because, Madam Deputy Speaker, so many families have a story. There are so many stories that are still are so many stories that are still untold, so many who still feel ashamed to speak about this period ashamed to speak about this period in their lives and the lifelong impact of it. And they must no longer feel ashamed. They must feel

12:57

Jim Shannon MP (Strangford, Democratic Unionist Party)

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longer feel ashamed. They must feel that they can come forward and access the help and support that they need.

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Yeah. Well. Can I thank her for all the work

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Can I thank her for all the work that she has done on this and that she has led through the Education Committee and all the members of Committee and all the members of that committee? I heard about the testimony to the committee and how testimony to the committee and how difficult and harrowing it was for all concerned, and she's absolutely

12:58

Rt Hon Sir Keir Starmer MP, The Prime Minister (Holborn and St Pancras, Labour)

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all concerned, and she's absolutely right to thank those who gave their testimony to the committee and those who supported the work of the committee. She used the word dehumanised, and that is the right word, although it hardly feels strong enough to me to break the

12:59

Perran Moon MP (Camborne and Redruth, Labour)

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bond between a mother and a child is nothing less than dehumanising. It goes to an intense feeling that It goes to an intense feeling that we all have as human beings, and to break that bond is indescribably painful even to describe, let alone to have gone through so dehumanising is the right word, and not just the initial act and all

12:59

Rt Hon Sir Keir Starmer MP, The Prime Minister (Holborn and St Pancras, Labour)

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the pain and anguish. But then, as I discussed with those in the gallery this morning, the everyday reminders. Do you have children? What a difficult and awful question to answer. Over and over again. They've all come to terms with how they'll answer that question. The

13:00

Chris Vince MP (Harlow, Labour )

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question we all here will pose on a daily or weekly basis just really daily or weekly basis just really struck me this morning as such a simple, everyday thing, but such a painful thing. And there will be so painful thing. And there will be so many thousands of those across all of the testimonies and all of the stories in relation to her questions. The monitoring will be by the Department of Education. We will, of course, involve survivors will, of course, involve survivors as we go forward, and I've no doubt the committee will want to monitor

13:01

Rt Hon Sir Keir Starmer MP, The Prime Minister (Holborn and St Pancras, Labour)

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that itself and to be updated regularly. And the point she makes about making the support widely about making the support widely known is so important, because there are many thousands who need the support, and they need to know it's available. And I'm acutely conscious, as I said during the statement, that there are some who statement, that there are some who have still not been able to speak about this to this day, and I hope that by making it widely available

13:02

that by making it widely available and widely known, the support that may help some of them to feel that they can come forward and get the

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support they need. Thank you. Liberal Democrat spokesperson Munira Wilson. Thank you very. Much. Madam Deputy Speaker,

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Much. Madam Deputy Speaker, could I thank the Prime Minister for advance sight of his statement? And on behalf of the Liberal And on behalf of the Liberal Democrats, I'd like to welcome the Prime Minister's apology, and we associate ourselves fully with all associate ourselves fully with all of his remarks, including those about being united as one House in

13:03

Rt Hon Sir Keir Starmer MP, The Prime Minister (Holborn and St Pancras, Labour)

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about being united as one House in this apology. And could I pay tribute to all the mothers and children who have campaigned for so long, so bravely, for this apology? Speaking as a mother, I cannot begin to imagine the trauma, the agony and the shame they experienced and have had to live

13:03

Sarah Edwards MP (Tamworth, Labour)

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with the testimony they gave to the Education Select Committee this year is some of the most powerful and harrowing ever heard in this Parliament. The mothers who gave birth denied pain relief as punishment. Then, given just a few hours or days with their newborn hours or days with their newborn babies before they were stolen away, and the children only finding out

13:04

Rt Hon Sir Keir Starmer MP, The Prime Minister (Holborn and St Pancras, Labour)

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and the children only finding out years or decades later what had happened to them, discovering that they were victims of this appalling scandal and this evil has been compounded by the long wait for an apology. It should have come long before now. It is a tragedy that Veronica Smith, whose daughter was taken from her 60 years ago and who founded the movement for adoption apology 16 years ago, sadly passed away before she could see her campaign succeed. This apology is a tribute to her and all who have fought alongside her, and I hope it gives them some sense of closure.

I hope it helps them know that the

13:05

Peter Swallow MP (Bracknell, Labour)

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blame does not lie with them. It never did, but with those who did never did, but with those who did this to them and those who allowed it to happen. And that includes the it to happen. And that includes the Church of England, the Catholic Church, charities, and of course, Church, charities, and of course, the state. But as the Select Committee heard, an apology in words alone isn't enough. It has to words alone isn't enough. It has to mean action to help heal the trauma this scandal has caused.

So I very much welcome the steps the Prime Minister has announced today on adoption records, on trauma informed support and the

13:06

Rt Hon Sir Keir Starmer MP, The Prime Minister (Holborn and St Pancras, Labour)

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testimonials project. Could he tell her? Could he tell us? Will that support include a specialist mental health pathway for all those who need it? And will he commit to a need it? And will he commit to a continuing dialogue? As the chair of the Education Select Committee has requested a continuing dialogue

13:07

Jayne Kirkham MP (Truro and Falmouth, Labour )

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has requested a continuing dialogue with the survivors on any further support and or redress they want to see. Because today's apology is not the end. It must be the beginning of a better, more caring approach to these mothers and their children. Thank you.

13:08

Rt Hon Sir Keir Starmer MP, The Prime Minister (Holborn and St Pancras, Labour)

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Can I thank her for welcoming this apology and repeat just how important that is that we are united across this House? Speaking with one voice. I do thank her for that. And she mentioned the long that. And she mentioned the long wait for an apology, a long wait for justice. And that's the double injustice. Not just what happened, but then the fight. As is often the

13:08

Points of Order

case for acknowledgement of what went wrong. And we've got this

13:09

Rt Hon Jeremy Corbyn MP (Islington North, Your Party)

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went wrong. And we've got this wrong as a state. So often we circle the wagons and protect the decision makers and the wrongdoers. decision makers and the wrongdoers. Instead of asking ourselves the question, where's the injustice here? And how do we put it right? here? And how do we put it right? That has to change because it's happened in this case and it's happened in other cases. So I thank

13:09

Judith Cummins MP (Bradford South, Labour)

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happened in other cases. So I thank her for drawing attention to that. We are looking at mental health pathways. I think they're vitally important and how they need to be tailored as well. Trauma informed and developed. And yes, of course, we'll continue the dialogue with all of those affected and with the Education Committee and with the House. Thank you. House. Thank you.

13:10

Joe Robertson MP (Isle of Wight East, Conservative)

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Tracy Gilbert Deputy Speaker As an adopted person born in 1972, I welcome today's statement from the Prime Minister. I have no idea if my birth mother felt forced to have me adopted, but I do know that prior to the birth, she was in a

13:10

Judith Cummins MP (Bradford South, Labour)

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Church of Scotland mother and baby home. My adopted parents have since died, but I am sure they would not want to have adopted any child who had been forcibly removed from their mother. Does the Prime

13:11

Florence Eshalomi MP (Vauxhall and Camberwell Green, Labour )

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their mother. Does the Prime Minister agree with me that mothers should be supported by the state to look after their children, and not look after their children, and not forced to give them up?

13:11

Judith Cummins MP (Bradford South, Labour)

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forced to give them up? >> Can I thank her for sharing her personal experience? And it is obvious how hard that is. Things that are intensely personal and private, full of pain and grief, being said out loud in a chamber

13:12

Presentation of Bills

like this is really difficult. It's hard for some of us to comprehend hard for some of us to comprehend just how difficult that must be, and so I salute her courage and

13:12

Motion: Debate on a Motion relating to the National Audit Office

resilience and all those that have spoken out to have to speak out about something which is so about something which is so intensely difficult, so over and over again is incredibly,

13:12

Rt Hon Sir Keir Starmer MP, The Prime Minister (Holborn and St Pancras, Labour)

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13:14

Prime Minister. >> Prime Minister. >> Can I thank her for her work on the APPG and for her campaigning on this and acknowledge what she has done? As for the number, whether it's 185 000 or not, which is a shocking number, I worry it may be more than that because I worry there are cases that we still don't know about, where the records aren't available and where, as I say, some people have felt that they still can't talk about it.

So

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that rapid access to therapeutic support is hugely important. She's right to highlight it. Alicia Kearns Madam Deputy

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Alicia Kearns Madam Deputy Speaker to all the mothers and your stolen children who have wrongly carried grief and shame for so long. You were denied the love that you deserved and tortured by a state. And the silence only revictimized you. And we are sorry, but it is shameful that Barnardos and the shameful that Barnardos and the Salvation Army have yet to apologise and face up to the role that they played in this. My father was haunted by the way in which bananas played a role, and he would tell me of his horror of seeing the laundries as he walked around the streets of Dublin that he carried for life.

But in addition to those who were cruelly and forcibly adopted, hundreds of babies died or frankly, were killed as their mothers were tortured and they were buried in unmarked graves, so will the Prime Minister as he continues with his important work on this, put in place an effort to find those graves and to force the opening up of those records so that the mothers who were denied a lifetime of memories with their children can at least now bury them

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and have time at those graves with them. I can give that undertaking. Can

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I can give that undertaking. Can I thank her for raising aspect? And with each question, with each issue, with each question, with each issue, we can begin to understand the very many ways in which the injustice many ways in which the injustice across a number of different fields, a number of different strands, played its part. But for those who lost their babies altogether, that work on graves is really important. And on records. Thank you.

13:15

Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown MP (North Cotswolds, Conservative)

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Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. And can I echo the Prime Minister's And can I echo the Prime Minister's powerful tribute to the to the women, to the to the mothers and families who suffered and struggled for so long for this apology and who suffer still, the the the legacy of such state failure and indeed state cruelty which shames us, but never them. The moral outrage targeted against unmarried mothers is largely passed, but the.

The Prime Minister spoke about the lack of compassion which enabled the state cruelty and we do see today in increasingly in bureaucratic processes, in increasingly in technology, in underresourced state capability still often too often a lack of compassion and understanding. What can the Prime Minister say to reassure us that action can be taken to ensure humanity and compassion in the state?

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Well, can I thank her for her question and the way in which she drew attention to the suffering? drew attention to the suffering? And we absolutely have to make sure that compassion is there in everything the state does, and we everything the state does, and we can change rules, we can change processes. But it's a culture. It's processes. But it's a culture. It's about recognising that human dignity matters. Whoever you are, dignity matters. Whoever you are, wherever you are.

And if that was inserted into everything the government does and the state does, what a difference it would make. Human dignity is one of the most important things to me and my politics, and that's what's been lacking here. And we'll do everything we can to turn that

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around. Tom Gordon thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, and I'd like to thank the Prime Minister for this thank the Prime Minister for this long overdue apology and his statement today. Nothing can undo the horrific harm and trauma that the horrific harm and trauma that has been caused, a number of steps that is outlined in this statement. Talk about developing a national Talk about developing a national online resource and a national virtual peer led support groups. And I wonder if I might press the Prime Minister on what steps will be taken to ensure those who might struggle to access digital services and might be digitally excluded, what support they can expect, and if he might consider setting up a national hotline so everyone can get justice, no matter if they can

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use technology or not. We are setting up a national advice line because it is important that it is national, that it is available, and that it comes in different forms, because digital will work for most people, but not will work for most people, but not necessarily everyone. And this is where we need to make sure that everybody affected and everybody everybody affected and everybody who hasn't come forward yet finds a way to get that support in the appropriate way. And we'll take

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those steps. Florence Eshalomi thank. You, Madam. Deputy Speaker and I also want to thank the Prime Minister for this important statement and to pay a tribute to the courage of the women who came forward, including my constituent, Anne Keane, shortly after I was elected in 2019, I met Anne. We first met online, and what I sensed from Anne was someone who who was not going to give up until her voice and the voices of many women who suffered this injustice had been that wrong, had been right.

And Anne has worked tirelessly with many other campaigners. And in that spirit of cross-party, I want to pay tribute to the late Sir David Amos, who also led on this and the letter that he delivered to the then Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, in May 2021. I still remember that. I still have that text message on my phone from Anne telling me what more I could do. I also served on the Joint Committee on Human Rights when we launched our report in July 2022 under the chairmanship of the noble Baroness Harman.

And it is right that this apology has come. But as everyone has mentioned, this apology is not enough. I want to ask the Prime Minister what more can be done and to ensure that the voices of women are taken seriously. We had the maternity statement the other day, and a running theme in all of these injustices is women not being believed, women have been silenced, and women have been told that they are the problem. What more can we do to ensure that

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women's voices are front and centre when it comes to matters concerning them? Today?

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Can I thank her for drawing attention to the anguish that the attention to the anguish that the mothers must have felt and that mothers must have felt and that constant sense of shame that was inflicted, but also to the adult adoptees, as they described him adoptees, as they described him this morning, this. Message of being unwanted is really hard. And as I as they said to me this morning, it's not something you can just offload. It's not something that changes.

And again, as we discussed this morning, even where parents and children have been reunited, that's not been easy. It isn't walking off into the sunset, as we'd all like to believe. It is extremely difficult. Next chapter of a journey. And so I thank her for raising that and for reminding us of the work of Sir David Amess on this. And she's absolutely right. The voices of women have not been heard in the way that they should. And this is not an isolated incident.

This is a pattern of behaviour. And we have to do better than this as we go forward.

13:16

Backbench Business: Commonhold and leasehold reform and the regulation of property managing agents

13:19

Florence Eshalomi MP (Vauxhall and Camberwell Green, Labour )

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apology on behalf of the state? And can I also acknowledge the visitors that we have in the gallery today and the extraordinary testimonies

13:19

Backbench Business: Commonhold and leasehold reform and the regulation of property managing agents

of members across this House? So often this chamber is divided along the lines of party politics. But on

13:19

Florence Eshalomi MP (Vauxhall and Camberwell Green, Labour )

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13:39

Robbie Moore MP (Keighley and Ilkley, Conservative)

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working with the Clevedon Owners Group in my constituency, who have experienced real life examples of how current leasehold framework governing the integrated retirement sector falls well short of the standard that should be expected. The Cleveland Owners Group is made up of a group of leaseholders at the Audley Cleveland Retirement the Audley Cleveland Retirement Village in Ben Rhydding. They have experienced repeated failures by their landlord to fulfil some of their landlord to fulfil some of the most fundamental obligations contained within their leases, while they continue to collect substantial service charges.

Madam Deputy Speaker, this group have estimated that the Audley Group collects approximately £30 million worth of annual service charges per year across their whole estate, with 3.5 million of deferred service charges. And yet their residences are falling into disrepair and the freehold owner is not updating their commitments and indeed undertaking their responsibilities. They have highlighted to me that their biggest concern is around the legal definition of the service charge. Crucially, whether they maintain mandatory payments in retirement leases fall within the statutory definition of the service charge under the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985.

The experiences of the residents in the Orderly retirement Village demonstrates exactly why this seemingly technical issue has profound and real consequences. Leaseholders have paid substantial monthly management charges and deferred management charges on the understanding that these funds would maintain their homes, safeguard communal facilities and ensure the long term sustainability of their residential community. But it is clear Madam Deputy Speaker from the meetings that I have had with my constituents, that that just simply is not the case. Instead, their properties have and have gone unserviced, which represents serious questions about how the annual service charge and those funds are being used.

Following years of expansion, heavily borrowing and financial difficulties, maintenance across the orderly Clevedon villages reportedly declined significantly, despite leaseholders continuing to pay the increased levels of service provision. That needs to change and I respect some of the recommendations that have been put in the report on this point. So I would like to say to the Minister and ask the Minister whether he has any intention of on commissioning an independent forensic audit of major retirement community operators that would examine corporate governance, financial arrangements, service charge accounting, deferred management charges and compliance with lease obligations.

I would also like to ask the Minister whether he would confirm that leaseholders in retirement housing, including integrated retirement communities, will not be excluded from the protections of the Leasehold and Freehold Reform Act. The current legal framework has failed to keep pace with increasingly complex corporate structures. If confidence in retirement housing is to be restored, residents must be given the protection, transparency and accountability that they rightly expect.

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Andrew Cooper thank. You, Madam Deputy Speaker. Trust in politics is at an all time low, in politics is at an all time low, and I believe part of the reason for this is that our society is littered with examples of structural and fairness, of structural and fairness, of injustice, and of ordinary people being ever so slightly fleeced. And the housing market of recent years the housing market of recent years is a strong case in point. Multiplying ground rents, abuse of the forfeiture system, opaque the forfeiture system, opaque service charges, management companies that can't be changed, overpriced maintenance performed by

13:43

Andrew Cooper MP (Mid Cheshire, Labour)

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firms connected to the management company. No adoption of common assets. Short leases, exorbitant assets. Short leases, exorbitant lease extension fees Madam Deputy Speaker the list goes on. It has been a privilege to have played my been a privilege to have played my part in scrutinising the draft bill, because it represents an opportunity to put a significant dent into some of these practices dent into some of these practices and to demonstrate that politics and politicians can deliver for people and can change lives for the better.

As my hon. Friend has set out, the committee took evidence from an extensive array of witnesses on the measures in this bill, and I would like to place on record my thanks to them for their contributions. There are a few points from our report that I would like to draw out specifically. Firstly, the reinvigoration of common commonhold that this Bill will deliver has rightly, in my view, been described not just as an alternative to leasehold, but a radical improvement on it for it to be implemented successfully.

Considerable work needs to be undertaken at the Land Registry to make sure that they are ready to respond, not just to the on the ground rent cap, and it's fair to say that this is where the committee spent quite a lot of our time attempting to get to the flat cap of £250, rather than as a percentage of property value. However, I've struggled to understand the rationale behind waiting 40 years before converting to a peppercorn rent. I can understand the desire to give certainty predictability to investors, and I can understand an argument that investors need time persuasive evidence that it was commercially necessary or that consumers received anything in return.

It should not be a surprise to anyone that the days of ground rent were numbered, and I cannot think of a single other example their rationale. The final point I wanted to make was on the absence of regulation of property management agents from this bill. Now, everyone in this House knows that this is a change that is long overdue. And we have Lord best in the public gallery today. We have alongside the work undertaken by my hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip on his private member's bill.

Now, I understand the concern about the size of the Common Holding Leasehold reform Bill as it is, and that adding these measures will create further delay. All I would say in response is that we have both the opportunity and the responsibility to act. No time has been set aside in the King's Speech for a separate Regulation of property Agents Bill, so I hope that the Minister will seize the opportunity in front of him and chip away at another practice that blights the lives of our constituents and undermines trust in institutions to deliver for them.

Thank you.

13:46

Mr Will Forster MP (Woking, Liberal Democrat)

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Will Forster thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. Leasehold is a com. Deputy Speaker. Leasehold is a com. We are one of the few countries in England that still has residential, leasehold and because of that, leasehold and because of that, people are being sold a lie on home ownership as Wokingham MP. I hear countless stories of about it and I countless stories of about it and I won't use my time to go through every single one of them, but I impress on the government this. We need to regulate these bureaucratic con artists.

People have been scammed out of home ownership in place of leasehold. It's fleece. Old dreams of home ownership have stayed dreams far out of reach and fast becoming a nightmare. We hear far too often of leaseholders who have been distressed by a poor service. These bad actors lie behind paperwork and avoid responsibility. Major firms such as Firstport have for far too long been allowed to deliver appalling levels of service without consequence. The new Leasehold Reform Bill must put in place a regulator with the teeth to sanction these rogue agents with meaningful penalties.

When this happens, MPs can end the wild West of property management agents. If we want to look at why lease leasehold reform is so urgent, we only need to look at managing agents like Firstport and how they treat leaseholders. I had a situation of a retirement development in Woking, where this area should be a lovely place to live. It should be a peace of mind for these vulnerable elderly residents. But people fell over. The safety systems that Firstport put in place didn't work.

Elderly residents were left lying on the floor having called for help. Firstport should have fixed it and they didn't. Sometimes people have been left in those distressing situations and because of that lack of regulation, we can't hold those responsible accountable. First port also managed the clocktower building in Maybury. They have spent years causing misery to leaseholders misery through a failure to deliver a minimum levels of service and people are trapped. People are absolutely trapped, which is why I've written to the Minister on numerous occasions about that case.

Leaseholders have little rights and are not able to sell their homes or have the control of what they're able to manage. The leaseholders of Bramwell Place another development in Woking know this all too well and are trapped in their homes due to frequent stalling and lack of communication. The developer completed the necessary fire safety investigations a year ago, but refused to release critical reports, burying them in an internal review. Now, the lenders have denied the people in those homes mortgages. Buyers are walking away and innocent residents are left struggling.

I sit on the housing, Communities and Local Government Select Committee, and I've been proud to work on this report that pushes the government to go further and faster than what they are doing. And I want to thank the hon. Lady for Vauxhall and Camberwell Green for her leadership and the excellent support of our committee clerks. I do hope the government listens to our cross-party calls today. We recommended significant changes to the leasehold Bill. It's a step in the right direction but it doesn't deliver what we want.

It's mind boggling that the bill doesn't deliver on the promises in the Labour manifesto. That's why we recommended the bill delivers that independent regulator to end that that wild west of property management agents. If we do this first port and others will not get away with that appalling treatment that my constituents and others face. To conclude, Madam Deputy Speaker, it's heartbreaking that so many people in Woking and across the country have worked hard to get on the property ladder, but have seen their home ownership dream turn into a nightmare.

Successive governments have failed to tackle this. Whether it's on ground rents, leasehold reform and we want to put homeowners in control of the management of their buildings. So I urge the Minister today to agree to implement the full Select Committee report in full. And let's leave a lasting legacy on leasehold reform. Thank you.

13:50

Rt Hon John McDonnell MP (Hayes and Harlington, Labour)

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John McDonnell. >> Thank you. >> Mr. Deputy Speaker. Just briefly, I want to get on the record what's I want to get on the record what's happened in my constituency, because I explained to my constituents I would very, very briefly, what's happened is the expansion of Heathrow Airport. Land prices have gone up. Manufacturers have moved out into cheaper areas, often with grants, and we've had the manufacturing areas replaced with large numbers of flats. I'd normally welcome that, but actually the prices of those flats are prohibitive in terms of local people.

But large numbers of young people, bless them, have done everything they possibly can to raise the 300,000 or 350,000 to buy one of those smaller flats, and they've welcomed it. The new home and be welcomed into the community. And then, like many others, we're now getting a flood of constituents coming to see us because the increase in service charges has pushed them over. Push them over the edge. And if we look at the surveys that have gone on and explained to in heartfelt terms, some young people have said we've not had a family because we can't afford a family.

And then some of them have tried to sell on, but some of them have had grants to get their flats and they have to pay it back. So we're in there caught in a catch 22 situation, and then they come to me and say, here the service charges and this is what we get. And the service levels are appalling, absolutely appalling. And we've had numerous examples. And I understand the call for regulations and regulator and I agree, but I think the best form of regulation is to give ownership properly to those people who are living in those properties.

And that's why I want a simple message from me is to the government is please deliver what we've said it. Please deliver. The Law Commission's remaining recommendations on the. And Enfranchising manage one of the issues as well that has come up time and time again, has been campaigning on this since the early 2000. And it's about developmental value, which actually, I think is a ludicrous proposition that somehow you have to pay up front for development value, that a development that might never happen and be concocted by the freeholder.

And again, it's preventing the opportunity for people to either buy or sell on. And again, I think it's a key recommendation that's come out from the Law Commission time and time again. I urge the government to do it. Can I also say the issue that my hon. Friend has raised about the three the threshold for participation set at 50% in other areas. That doesn't apply on tenant management organisations at 20% in the in the employment rights legislation, we're now removing those onerous criteria because it prevents participation.

And in areas like mine, a lot of those properties are owned by often overseas landlords as well, and it's very difficult getting them to participate in any form of anything. So the request to move the threshold of 35%, I think is reasonable and is manageable in that sense. And I have to say, I agree with my hon. Friend. 40 years on ground. Come on. We don't we know we'd have the WASPI women banging at our door soon, won't we? There's no area I've known where 40 years has been a notification period.

The recommendation is to get it down to 20, 20 years. I'd get rid of them now, I really would, because I think it is wealth extraction for no service whatsoever whatsoever. Finally, I just say in terms of the the government's proposals about ensuring that the we can ensure lease extensions and freehold acquisitions are cheaper. Overall, I think there's one the I think ultimately will benefit a large number of our constituents, but need to be implemented as rapidly as possible. That's why I welcome this bill and I.

I hope that with the the new regime that's brought. That way, we can get this legislation through as fast as possible.

13:54

Dr Al Pinkerton MP (Surrey Heath, Liberal Democrat)

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Scott Arthur Al Pinkerton. Committee Chair, for securing this important debate today. I want to use the brief time I have just to share two examples from my constituency of systemic mismanagement in in managed mismanagement in in managed property. The first example that I want to cite is a first port managed property. We've heard their name mentioned already. It's called Bentley Court in Camberley's town centre. And on the 19th of March this year, the building's only lift broke down. And for most of us, that would be a frustration.

But for the retirement community who live in that building, it has been life changing. These are older people, very often with significant mobility issues. That lift isn't just a convenience, it's their access point to and from their property. It is their independence. Residents tell me that they haven't been able to go shopping. They've missed hospital appointments. Some can't take their rubbish out. Others have become trapped in their homes for days at a time. Which brings me to the case of Audrey West, one of my constituents.

She has lived at Bentley Court for more than 26 years. She suffers from heart failure, COPD, chronic bronchitis and has serious mobility problems. She became a prisoner in her own home weeks ago when that lift broke down. Her health and wellbeing have deteriorated when she attempted to tackle the stairs. The physical exertion caused enormous strain on her body, leaving her breathless and exhausted. That's only been compounded by the recent heatwave. In order to secure their mother's safety, her family concluded that the only thing they could do was to remove her from her home of 26 years.

And then, on the 28th of June, just days after leaving her home, Audrey's family contacted Firstport again, copying in my office to inform them and me that Audrey had died. Now, I'm not here to claim that a broken lift has directly caused Audrey's death, but I am willing to say this, that no vulnerable resident should ever be left feeling abandoned and entrapped in their own home. And that lift remains unrepaired. Unrepairable with no end date in sight as of now.

My second example is Mytchett Heath, a not for profit retirement community managed by Cognatum Estates. This is an issue that I know affects residents who have members of Parliament from across this House. Older residents again feeling completely ignored and now maligned by the company, he should be looking after them. Residents who have invested their life savings in homes but have no voice in how those properties are managed now. And last month I met a group of Cognatum residents here in Parliament.

One described Cognatum as the worst commercial organisation I have dealt with in a long professional career, and nobody in the room looked surprised at that. Residents described soaring service charges, complaints that went nowhere. A regulator, the A h m that they don't believe is independent, a tribunal process that is so expensive and where lease terms can allow the managing company to recover legal costs from residents, and they simply give up trying to engage in that process. This book about residents, forums, disappearing, residents having to renegotiate electricity contracts on behalf of the management company because they're so incapable of doing it themselves.

And I think the most extraordinary thing that we heard was that Cognatum refusing to allow defibrillators to be located in a retirement community, because they are fearful that members of the public might seek to access those defibrillators from outside of the state altogether. Can I simply conclude, Madam Deputy Speaker, if you will allow me just Minister?

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Oh, no. There is a very strict time limit. Sarah Russell thank.

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Sarah Russell thank. You, Madam. Deputy Speaker, and I want to thank my right hon. Friend for thank my right hon. Friend for Vauxhall and Camberwell for this debate and all the work that she debate and all the work that she has done on it. And also, I can see that Lord best is in the gallery, and I know that he, amongst many others, have been campaigning on others, have been campaigning on these issues for years. I rise really to raise the draw attention

13:59

Sarah Russell MP (Congleton, Labour)

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to the experiences of some of the leaseholders in my constituency. I have spoken at length before about Unadopted estates in this chamber, so I'm not going to dwell on that today because it doesn't touch on today because it doesn't touch on the Select Committee report, but I would like to just draw this to the minister's attention, again, as a major issue in my constituency major issue in my constituency relating to this. But to turn to the specific problems that we have, the draft legislation, as it stands, the draft legislation, as it stands, is fantastic, and the proposal to cap ground rents will be absolutely life changing for people in my constituency who have contacted me and talked about ground rents that are going up to double about the difficulties that they are having, you know, consistently with the fact that there appears to be no real ability to hold managing agent to account at all whatsoever.

The specifics that I wanted to talk about today, though, is a case that I've been working with the homeowners or the leaseholders for some time, where first brought yet again, are the managing agents, where they're having finally managed to dislodge Firstport as the managing agents. The residents have been told by the new managing agent that the 400 £0 reserve that they believed was available to them. There's none. There is nothing. First port have not explained where that money has gone, what it has been spent on, and this has now been the outstanding position for well over six months.

£40,000 is a lot of money to just vanish, and you would think that an organisation would be able to point to what it had been spent on pretty readily, if they were keeping accounts in any normal fashion. This has been part of a succession of difficulties that these leaseholders have had with Firstport, and this has been going on for years and years and years. I understand that the government has concerns that the draft legislation, as it is, is already exceptionally long, and as a lawyer, I have a huge amount of sympathy for that.

But I completely agree with my right hon. Friend for Vauxhall and Camberwell Green and her Select Committee and the members thereof, that we absolutely have to do something in line with Lord Best's previous recommendations about the regulation of managing agents. We have been talking about this topic in this House for as long as I've been an MP, and clearly significantly longer than that. If these organisations were capable of self-regulation and if educating people who worked within them was sufficient to solve this problem, it would have been solved a long time ago.

No one wants regulation for the sake of it, but the only way that there will be accountability for vast amounts of individuals, money that appears to simply vanish into the aether is if we put regulation in place. Thank you very much, Madam Deputy Speaker. Thank you, Minister. OK.

14:01

Lewis Cocking MP (Broxbourne, Conservative)

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Thank you. Member for Vauxhall and Camberwell Green for securing this important debate and for her continued strong and effective leadership of the housing, Communities and Local Government Select Committee. I've spoken several times in this House about the problems with the current about the problems with the current leasehold and property management system, more recently from the opposition front bench. Like so many of my constituents and people across the country, I am a leaseholder and I know firsthand the horrific situation that they face.

But in today's debate, I'd like to focus on property management companies who are bringing misery to the lives of both leaseholders and those living on freehold estates in so-called leasehold properties. Apart from the law as it currently stands, it is poor performance and, quite frankly, total incompetence of companies such as RMG and Firstport that are, quite frankly, at the root of so many issues facing leaseholders across the country. Since my election, I have not come across one property management company that residents are happy with, whether it's highly Anna Dixon academia, Robina Road or Watery Lane in Stamford, Oldham Avenue or Mongolia Way in Flamstead End or Elinor House in Waltham Cross.

It's hard to think of one part of Broxbourne not affected by this. The Minister, who I get on well with, has promised to strengthen the regulation of managing agents. But how much longer will my constituents have to wait? His department has already held a consultation on measures to help leaseholders challenge unfair fees and charges, and introduce qualifications for managing agents. In fact, the consultation opened nearly exactly one year ago and closed in September 2025, and the government are still analysing the feedback and this is what the people out there get fed up with.

The Leasehold and Freehold Act 2024 is on the statute book. The present government clearly wants stronger regulation on managing agents, as that is what they've told this House. So why the delay? We need to get this sorted. So I welcome the fact that the government have brought forward a Commonhold and leasehold Bill and the fact that allowed the committee that I am on to scrutinise it in its draft form. That is a positive sign that the government wants to get the right legislation in place for our constituents, but I feel the government should commit to giving more powers to the department so that Ministers can hold managing agents to account with specifically enforcement powers.

Managing agents that break the rules should be fined and ultimately stripped of their licence to operate. This would mean that management companies that actually have to start to care about the interests of the residents they're supposed to look out for. In my constituency of Broxbourne, we have had to put up with poor service charges and increasing bills for years. Residents have nowhere to turn. When something goes wrong, they feel like the managing agents have all of the power. I know the Minister wants to change that, and I hope he will reflect carefully on what has been said across the House today, and I urge the government to get a move on and solve this issue

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for millions of people across the United Kingdom. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thank

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Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thank you to my friend Vauxhall and Canterbury for her excellent work and her committee members. Excellent work led to scrutiny, Excellent work led to scrutiny, which we've heard about today since becoming an MP. One of the most common issues I hear from my common issues I hear from my constituents is the poor quality of service provided by managing agents to local leaseholders. When the boilers broke at Walsham Court and

14:05

Danny Beales MP (Uxbridge and South Ruislip, Labour)

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boilers broke at Walsham Court and Hines Court last November, residents tried to contact anthem to no avail and were left without water for four weeks and Middlesex House residents were left without water for days, without extra support and supplies until my office intervened. Armstrong House Firstport has let the quality of communal areas deteriorate to a shockingly poor extent. I could go on for hours but have yet three minutes to go. But as members have said, there are countless examples of service failure from managing agents.

I welcome the minister's actions today, and the proposals in the draft bill to cap exploitative ground rents, which will save thousands of pounds over the lifetime of leases. Pushing for service charge reform and transparency, and pushing towards commonhold as the default form of tenure. Long overdue due changes. But having seen these cases firsthand, I know more is needed. And my ten minute rule bill in the last session proposed to establish an independent regulator of managing agents, modelled off the excellent recommendation recommendations of Lord Best's 2019 report.

I understand the government are willing to move on mandatory qualifications for managing agents, which, again, is welcome. But I'm concerned that without an independent regulator to enforce codes of conduct and ensure these qualifications reap the benefits, it will be of little benefit to many leaseholders. Furthermore, without a dedicated regulator, the burden of enforcement would continue to fall upon individual leaseholders and in future, common holders to take up lengthy and expensive legal action to hold their managing agents to account.

I think there's also three key benefits of why a managing agent regulator is also desirable. Firstly, good regulation is good for markets. I think this will help growth, not hinder it. There are significant costs and financial waste in the current system, and the leasehold product has been exceptionally damaged by the poor behaviour of managing agents, and the regulator has the chance to restore confidence in leasehold and commonhold in future. Second, introducing a regulator managing agents would help ensure the success of the Commonhold tenure.

The need for managing agents will not go away with the introduction of Commonhold. Thirdly, introducing a regulator for managing agents is something strongly supported by those in the system both customer, the leaseholder and also the provider of services themselves. As the chair of the Select Committee has mentioned, leaseholders responded overwhelmingly that they want to see this change as part of their survey and the tbe Rics and even managing directors of Firstport and Random Britain are all supportive of the need for more effective regulation and a regulator of managing agents.

Those in the industry understand there is nothing to gain by the poor behaviour of some, undermining the good behaviour of many more. Yes, we need to take forward the existing important proposals in the draft Bill, but the time for regulation of managing agents is now in this Bill. It is vital that something is done and is clearly seen to be done before the next election. For existing leaseholders struggling day in, day out with rogue managing agents, the establishment of a regulator would be a clear signal to existing leaseholders that we are serious about protecting them, as well as a signal to the property and construction sectors.

This government is focussed on restoring stability to the housing market and, crucially, a signal calling time on the poor practice of rogue managing agents, which are far too common in our system. Finally, fulfilling the promise of ending leasehold for good.

14:08

Siân Berry MP (Brighton Pavilion, Green Party)

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Sian Berry thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I want to thank the Deputy Speaker. I want to thank the chair of the Select Committee to support her motion and welcome her report and its recommendations for the Bill. Thorough and fair the Bill. Thorough and fair leasehold reform is long overdue. My inbox as MP for Brighton Pavilion is littered with horror Pavilion is littered with horror stories from constituents about their experiences as leaseholders forced to fork out extortionate service charges with no value for money, poor maintenance and no transparency on how that money is spent, as well as awful communications.

And my leaseholders continue to suffer from lack of agency in solving the building safety scandal, to which has left Brighton's many high rise and mid-rise blocks. Too many leaseholders in which are stuck in unsafe homes. Some of my constituents tell me they believe freeholders are still trying to cut corners and do this work on the cheap. And just last month, I was contacted by multiple constituents about developer Barrett. Red Rose plans to remediate eight their blocks in one part of my constituency, built in the early 2000 to a B1 standard rather than a two standard, as they had understood would happen.

This type of dispute is commonplace nine years on from the avoidable Grenfell disaster, and it's so worrying for too many of my constituents. But I do also want to talk about property management agents. A large number of leaseholders in Brighton and Hove are in a nightmare situation right now of not being able to access money paid into accounts managed by just one large property management accounts, but it is not yet in force. Its lack of enactment does seem to leave wide open the potential for management agents to hold leaseholder money in a way that leaseholders are left exposed to risk in this way.

To conclude, there is no doubt that the feudal leasehold system is broken and it must be abolished in favour of commonhold, and that regulation of management agents and to end their exploitation is very, very urgent. Promises made when the current government were in opposition to end this system within the first 100 days, were missed long ago. But we need full reform to ensure that situations which result in leaseholders being ripped off, living in unsafe homes or exposed to avoidable financial risk and

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losses now end without delay. Thank you. Leigh Ingham thank. You, Madam.

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You, Madam. Speaker. And I congratulate my friend, the hon. Member for Vauxhall and Camberwell Green on securing this Camberwell Green on securing this incredibly important debate. This issue is actually the reason I got into politics. My first community into politics. My first community activism was with my fellow neighbours against unscrupulous

14:12

Leigh Ingham MP (Stafford, Labour)

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neighbours against unscrupulous developer up in Newcastle. So what I learned from that is when people are trapped in their own homes by systems which have been designed to extract money from them rather than serve them. They need a government that's on their side. And for too long, leaseholders haven't had this at all. I am so glad that this government has taken strong steps already on commonhold and leasehold. There's so much that does need to change. And as many of you have spoken about today, in the past, leasehold has been used as a system that's allowed developers to treat homeowners as a revenue stream, escalating service charges with no breakdown, poor maintenance resulting in unsafe parks, and then problems with footpaths, dying trees.

And to make matters even worse and more insulting, really poor communication from managing agents, which makes it really difficult to get your voice heard or your complaint addressed. So I've been working with residents locally on estates like Marsden Ground, Marsden Grange, Sunset Grange, Sheridan Grange to help them register and build residents associations to raise their cases with managing agents so they can get better maintenance and working together. We've genuinely had some great results, but for residents on new build estates, it shouldn't be how active or vocal your local MP is.

It should be written into law, and I'm urging the government to make sure property managing agents are sufficiently regulated. I'm going to give you a couple of quick examples of cases in my constituency. First, a case from Gateway Avenue in Baldwins Gate, raised at my coffee morning last week at their AGM, the residents wanted to form a housing association, a management company, but they were blocked and one is being imposed on them against their wishes. Saint George's Estate in Stafford residents have reported that it genuinely feels like the managing agent is stealing money from us to the tune of 600 to £1000 per leaseholder, and they've been trebled of those charges, and they now have to pay 2500 to change the rent review period on their lease to be able to remortgage or sell.

It's just deeply unfair as a system. And it means Park court, a retirement complex. I know others have spoken about this. Residents in their own flats describe management charges as extortionate. The company just refuses to engage meaningfully, and Adlington Brooklands House in Stafford, a constituent grounds rent is written year on year, now stands at almost £2,000, which is nearly six times the national average. I could go on, I could go on and on, to be honest, Madam Deputy Speaker, but I think I've made my point quite clear.

The government has taken bold and decisive steps already in capping ground rent and abolishing forfeiture, making commonhold the default for new flats. And these are really significant reforms. But the HCLG committee has called for the absence of independent regulation of property managing agents, a significant shortcoming. And every one of my constituents and I would agree with that. Lord Best has recommended an independent regulator with the powers to fine agents and revoke revoke licences as far back as 2019. It's now 2026.

I think the case has been made consistently and delivering it would be a tremendous contribution of this Labour government.

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My hon. Friend, give way. Of course. Yes. Would she agree with me that it would also give some comfort to my would also give some comfort to my poor residents, both on Ribblesdale Avenue and Accrington, also in Linden Park Estate in Great Harwood, Linden Park Estate in Great Harwood, when they're currently faced with the impending truth that Firstport will be their managing agent will be their managing agent shortly, and they are rightfully terrified of actually what this might mean to them, and the expense might mean to them, and the expense that having a house might be added to them, as well as the failure of these organisations to manage local parks, etc.

and and so taking these steps, she says, will help give confidence to my residents that they will have the protection they deserve.

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I thank my hon. Friend for giving way. I wholeheartedly agree with what she says. I think the with what she says. I think the first port piece, particularly given the amount of times they've been they've been to Parliament, you know, they've come to speak you know, they've come to speak before HCLG Committee, but also the Labour leaseholders group that have worked really hard. I think I think worked really hard. I think I think it's an abomination. They're still getting contracts, to be honest, given, given their record as someone who used to award contracts someone who used to award contracts in my previous career.

I think it's mad when previous behaviour isn't taken into account. When we're giving these contracts out and they are a case in point of absolutely atrocious behaviour. But just just going back to my own experience and learning from them, I'm helping constituents on my estates across the constituency right now, as I'm sure many of you are, to form residents associations to fight back. But I just think we're beyond that. We shouldn't need to be fighting back anymore. We should have the regulation in place to

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protect us. Peter Lamb Madam Deputy Speaker, I very much welcome, as I'm sure I very much welcome, as I'm sure most of my colleagues on these benches, the government's actions so far on commonhold and leasehold, so far on commonhold and leasehold, and I look forward to further steps emerging today. I'd like to speak to the issue of property management agents and in particularly in the context of Unadopted estates. As with so many issues, fundamentally

14:17

Peter Lamb MP (Crawley, Labour)

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with so many issues, fundamentally the issue is the lack of housing. Despite the enormous actions taken by this government and by past actions to try and get the housing market moving. The reality is that housing delivery in this country collapsed in the wake of the 1984 Housing Act. Anyone who looks at a graph of housing delivery since that point can see the mass exit of the state from direct delivery of housing has never come close to being replaced by the private sector, which is one of the reasons why I was very excited this week to see comments by the Secretary of State talking about the potential mass re-entry of this government into housing delivery.

It is one of the very few things that can resolve this, because what we fundamentally have here is a broken market. People are forced to accept unreasonable conditions on their housing because they have no choice. And until we resolve the broken market, we're going to continue to have various forms of this forms of exploitation coming forward. The reality is developers and there are good developers and bad developers, but they overwhelmingly will seek to minimise their costs as far as possible, whatever the impact upon the communities they are creating, and if we allow poor practices to be possible within the law, then we will see poor practices being delivered by these people.

We need to be mindful, of course, that regulation has an impact. As someone who has delivered local plans, I can tell you I was always very mindful of the requirements that I was putting on developers because I knew every single requirement I put on was an affordable house being taken out of the system. And with legislators sometimes I think have been a bit careless in some of the additional requirements we've put on. Without them being fundamentally necessary, we have to make sure that regulation is proportionate, but in this case, it very much is.

I've been dealing with the issue of Unadopted estates for the better part of two decades now, and no worse example exists in my experience than that of Forgewood, a neighbourhood which, despite being part of a new town which has all the services in the neighbourhood principle, would deliver for for a neighbourhood, unlike my other neighbourhoods in Forgewood, they're all having to pay for it effectively a second time, once through their council tax, the second time through their unadopted or through their management agency, at a fee that effectively rivals the exact same level of council tax as the district authority.

They're paying more for less services. There are questions over the nature of the contracts and the contractors brought in, and if you look at any of these property management agencies and you see the company secretaries listed, they're registered for hundreds, if not thousands of these companies, how effective can you be when you're registered for 1000? It's very little more than just fee farming, frankly, for my residents, for no actual benefit. If you go through the articles of association, as I have done, to try and find ways for residents to wrest control back the complexities in their effectively mean these people are completely unaccountable.

It's masquerading as ownership by those communities while delivering an unaccountable system. So what do we do? Well, I think the existing proposals put forward by the government are an improvement, and I very much welcome the select committee's recommendation of the independent regulator, which should come into effect. But on the issue of Unadopted states, ultimately we now have to turn off the tap. We need to establish fixed conditions and fees. So these are all adopted at the point in which they are completed and handed over to local authorities.

We also need to establish a pathway for existing unadopted estates to be taken on by the state, with a need for local authorities to be able to plan out the way in which they can bring these in. I very much believe it is possible within the existing system and with these distinct financial constraints, to adopt these. But you cannot do that when sending up. At the moment we run up a flag to tell every developer in the country to ditch their responsibility to get these adopted.

So I'm very pleased by the recommendations before today. I'm very pleased with the recommendations, but further action is needed on an independent regulator and on turning off the tap on Unadopted Estates. Thank you.

14:21

Abtisam Mohamed MP (Sheffield Central, Labour)

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Abtisam Mohamed Madam Deputy Speaker. The exploitation in the leasehold system are endless unfair service charges, ground rents, marriage value buybacks, hidden costs and utilities, inflated insurance. The list goes on and on, as do the ways that freeholders line their pockets while ordinary homeowners bear the costs. We saw this acutely in Sheffield, with disgraced solicitor Andrew Milne buying up hundreds of freeholds at £250 and then shamefully charging homeowners extortionate prices to buy them back. He has rightfully faced consequences with the SRA and the police for blackmail, but it was only a few months ago that residents in Walkley, in my constituency, were also receiving letters, legal letters saying that their lease or their leases would be soon up for sale, leaving them worried about whether they too would be subjected to extortion.

No one should be living with that kind of fear. Across developments of Columbia Place, Milson's, Riverside House, Anchor Point and Little Callum in my constituency, residents speak with one voice. The problems in their homes are overwhelming the responsibility to chase managing agencies, taking up their time and they are being charged extortionate amounts for work that never seems to happen properly or at all. Two weeks ago, I met with over 40 members from Little Kelham. Their stories told one horror after another.

I heard from a family with a six year old child living in a home with a broken window, who was told by the managing agent that there wasn't enough money to fix. Another family were told to move out from their home for repairs for six weeks. It ended up being 14 months, and then when they moved back to the property, the repairs were incomplete. Another told me that her service charge went up by 250%, and when she challenged this, so opaque were the figures and how they were calculated that they were then dropped.

Many others complained who tried to take over the the management of their properties that when they request finalised accounts, these never materialised. The lack of financial transparency is staggering. It shows that not only are these isolated failures, but symptoms of wider structural problems. There are two things that my constituents are calling for. Above everything else, transparency in their arrangements and accountability when things go sadly wrong. Today's motion rightly says that the absence of statutory regulation for property management agents represents a major weakness in our plans for reform.

The committee makes clear, as do the as does the evidence in Lord best review that voluntary self-regulation has not delivered the standards that leaseholders deserve, nor will it deliver the accountability they want. Where management agents repeatedly fail residents. I'm afraid that simply issuing guidance is just not enough. The regulator should be able to impose meaningful financial penalties and, where appropriate, remove licences altogether. Leaseholders deserve far greater transparency over their service charges. They deserve stronger rights to challenge unreasonable costs and easier routes to replace managing agents who fail to deliver.

So we've got to seize the opportunity that we have now, and we must ensure that managing agents are properly

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regulated. That is The action that my leaseholders leaseholders deserve, and that is leaseholders deserve, and that is the action that I hope the Minister will carry out in following through the recommendations of the Select

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Committee. Rachel Hopkins Madam Deputy Speaker. I'm very glad to be able to contribute to this debate today, to contribute to this debate today, to give voice to a number of my constituents who've been suffering as a result of the feudal leasehold as a result of the feudal leasehold system for far too long. And may I thank my hon. Friend the chair of the Housing Community and Local Government Select Committee for

14:24

Rachel Hopkins MP (Luton South and South Bedfordshire, Labour)

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setting out so many of the issues that so many of our constituents face. The measures outlined in the draft Commonhold and Leasehold draft Commonhold and Leasehold Reform Bill mark a significant step towards a fairer and more balanced system of home ownership. So I system of home ownership. So I thank the Minister for all his work on this. I know he is very alive to the many issues, and he's working the many issues, and he's working hard to deliver on the many pledges that we were elected along, elected on in our manifesto.

For generations, the leasehold system has left many homeowners paying substantial service charges, ground rents and administration fees, while having little control over the management of the buildings they live in. Too often, leaseholders have found themselves trapped in a system that is expensive, complex and heavily weighted in favour of freeholders, and these issues do not dominate on discriminate on size, be them small blocks or larger developments in Luton South and South Bedfordshire. I have constituents living in a small block of 12 flats, Howard and Court, of which Hastoe housing are the freeholders who've raised a number of issues with me in recent years relating to management of the block.

This includes significant communication issues and substantial bills presented to leaseholders, with little to no explanation of why they are expected to pay these charges. Most recently, my constituents were notified by Hastoe of significant service charge increases over the next two financial years 26, 27, 27, 28 to fund fire safety and external wall remediation works, tenant service charge and sinking fund contributions to cover these costs will now rise from around £250 to £900 per month. This is unaffordable increase that has caused considerable shock, stress and anxiety.

Residents are also concerned about a lack of transparency, as Hastoe has not provided estimated total costs, explained how charges are distributed to residents, or evidenced any competitive procurement process for carrying out these works. Not only this, but such remediation work should be the responsibility of the building developer, and it's extremely unfair these costs are being passed on to residents. This is just one example of leaseholders being failed. I have a number of constituents living in Stockwood Gardens, a larger development of 11 blocks managed by NCR homes, who are facing a similar reality, paying increased service charges year upon year with little to no explanation as to why and basic maintenance services they were promised, including grass cutting and building maintenance provided at a subpar standard or not at all.

Many have also reported basic faults within their blocks, such as lights in hallways not working, or regular leaks which have been reported and not fixed, with no clear timetable for repair. It's clear from these examples alone there is a significant power imbalance in the current leasehold system, and companies managing these properties essentially have free rein to overcharge residents and under-deliver on services with little to no transparency or accountability. So I note that the HCLG Select Committee has done extensive scrutiny work on the draft bill, and their report recommends.

The final bill includes provisions to establish a new independent public body as a regulator for property managing agents with enforcement powers, including the ability to issue fines or revoke licences of managing agents who breach a statutory code of practice. I support this recommendation and believe this is an opportunity to prevent bad practice and drive cultural change within the industry, whilst affording leaseholders greater protections. I welcome the legislation coming forward, but it cannot be the end of the conversation. The voices and concerns of leaseholders must continue to be heard if we are to fully address the problems within the leasehold system and ensure our

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constituents feel the benefit of these reforms once and for all. Justin Madders Madam Deputy

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Justin Madders Madam Deputy Speaker, can I just start by referring the chamber to my chairmanship of the Leasehold chairmanship of the Leasehold Reform APPG? I work closely with organisations such as the Leasehold Knowledge Partnership and the Knowledge Partnership and the National Leasehold Campaign, who I pay tribute to. As we've heard, complaints from constituents dealing with management companies dealing with management companies and the exorbitant fees they charge are something that we're all dealing with now on a weekly basis.

14:28

Justin Madders MP (Ellesmere Port and Bromborough, Labour)

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This is not a new phenomenon, of course. This is something I raised in the House five years ago, because I could see this becoming because I could see this becoming the next big scandal. And sadly, it has come to pass. Homeowners who buy their homes in good faith buy their homes in good faith understandably expect to live in a functioning estate where responsibilities are clear and responsibilities are clear and where necessary, charges are fair. All too often, as we've heard, the opposite is the case.

Homeowners opposite is the case. Homeowners are left in a pernicious situation where they pay for services once in their council tax bill, and once again, an extortionate service charges, and often these poor services, exacerbated by there being no accountability for it. Residents are forced to persistently Cannock Chase matters while frequently being passed from one organisation to another without resolution. But as soon as they fall behind with the payment, these companies leap into action, often using aggressive debt collection tactics.

Adding insult to injury, the financial structure of these estates are all too frequently opaque. Governance structures like transparency companies are labelled as dormant for accounting purposes, and the dodgy practice where freeholders, management companies and debt recovery companies operate in an interconnected web allows them to rack up eye watering fees. One very recent example from my constituency is a constituent who was owed some service charges to RMG, who I think we all are familiar with. Looking at the bill, the constituent has been charged on top of the service charges and instruction fee and a client fee, adding another £600 to the bill.

Yet somehow, RMG managed to inflate the 1100 owed in service charges to £3,300 by the time court papers have been issued. There is no world where a tripling of the sum can be justified, and it just shows what a scam the system is. I see time and again people raising problems from a range of new build developments in my constituency, including legend, Garden Village, Mersey View and Jas Athwal Estates, where homeowners face a range of challenges. In legend, Garden village residents are facing combined service charges, fees running into hundreds of thousands of pounds, for which only a fraction of the spending can be accounted for.

That just adds salt into the wound. They don't actually have any idea how this money is being spent, if it's being spent on the estate at all, they don't know if the companies are getting best value for money, how reserves are used or how costs are allocated over different phases of the development. There are persistent maintenance issues, inconsistent grounds, maintenance and safety concerns. Because of poor traffic management, people buy their homes in good faith deserve better. Known as the Jackson Estate in Ellesmere Port and the Mersey View Estate in Bromborough, where the adoption process is effectively stalled, leaving residents in limbo.

And I know that the regulation and managing agency is clearly something that this House would like to see, but there are some other suggestions I would like to make. To add to that, we could introduce standard cross costs across the country for estate management fees, so there would be a baseline from which to judge these companies. Residents could be given a far greater say over who manages their estate. We could have three yearly ballots in law about whether they wish to carry on on the same management agents.

This could end the put up or shut up approach that a lot of these companies actually adopt, and an immediate step the government could make, which I think we've already heard suggested in today's debate, is that it could now be made a condition of any planning permission moving forward, that the developers have to hand over the whole estate adoption to the local authority and pay some for it, and then that revenue stream entirely. And for estates that have been built by developers in abandoned

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local authorities. I will give way. Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. On the point about estate adoption, On the point about estate adoption, I wonder if he agrees with me that we need to get on implement section 42 of the Flood Water Management 42 of the Flood Water Management Act. That would require sewerage to

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Act. That would require sewerage to be adopted as part of the public sewer as soon as possible. Yes, indeed. That brings me to

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Yes, indeed. That brings me to the the Mersey View estate, where we've actually. No, it's a different estate. It's one in Easton where the residents have been paying for a sewer that they can't actually locate. And it just shows that there's too much ambiguity in what these charges are going for. And one final thing that local authorities could be, could be required to do is actually be given powers to actually use their resources to bring estates up to adoptable level, and then charge the developers for it retrospectively, because the developers don't want to do it.

We need to find a way of breaking that logjam. I think those are just some of the measures that would actually improve the lives of hundreds of thousands of people. Alongside, of

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course, the many reforms which I welcome from this government. Julie Minns thank you, Madam.

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Julie Minns thank you, Madam. Deputy Speaker, and I would like to thank my hon. Friend for securing this very important debate, which I this very important debate, which I know will be of interest to some of my Carlisle constituents who find themselves victims of leasehold across the country. Too many people are now buying homes on freehold estates and then finding themselves

14:33

Ms Julie Minns MP (Carlisle, Labour)

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estates and then finding themselves let down by the developers and the estate management companies that fail to deliver the services, they promise. Developers build these estates, sell the homes and then, despite levying management charges, often fail to maintain the essential infrastructure that residents rely on every day, whether it's roads, drainage systems, as we just heard, or shared green spaces. And I've seen this firsthand in the experience of residents of Moorside Drive, which is a development by Gleeson Homes. My constituent Daniel, first contacted me in July last year after purchasing his home in October 2024.

He'd been assured that the outstanding work would be completed by March 2025. That deadline slipped to the spring, then to the summer, and as things stand, residents have yet to receive any meaningful communication about when the work will finally be completed. The problems they face are significant. The road serving the estate has deteriorated and remains unfinished. The shared green spaces that were promised as part of the development have still not been delivered, and commitments to enhance and protect biodiversity have yet to be fulfilled.

Communication with residents has also fallen well below an acceptable standard. Daniel tells me he was given no notice before work began directly outside his family home, and I've heard that traffic management measures were not properly put in place during other works, creating unnecessary disruption and safety concerns. Landscaping, meanwhile, cannot be completed until the roads are finished and unresolved drainage issues continue to affect a number of residents on the estate. This is not like being sold a faulty item in a shop that can simply be returned.

These are people's homes, the places where they expect to build their lives, raise their families and feel secure. When developers and management companies fail to honour their commitments, it's residents who are left with living with the consequences. That's why reform and regulation is so important. Homeowners deserve transparency, accountability and effective regulation of the companies responsible for managing their estates. They should not, and we've heard it already this afternoon, have to fight for basic standards of maintenance or chase endlessly for information about works that should have been completed months earlier.

I very much welcome the work of this Labour government to strengthen the rights of people living on managed estates. These reforms have the potential to deliver greater fairness, improve accountability and ensure that homeowners receive the standards of service they have paid for. People who invest in a home deserve confidence that those responsible for maintaining their communities will fulfil their obligations. It's only right that we continue to strengthen protections for homeowners and ensure that managing agents and developers are held to account.

14:37

John Slinger MP (Rugby, Labour)

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John Slinger thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I want to thank my Deputy Speaker. I want to thank my hon. Friend the Member for Vauxhall and Camberwell Green for the assiduous work that she has done assiduous work that she has done with the Select Committee. It's inspiring when we, as backbenchers can have genuine influence by bringing the concerns of our constituents to this House of Commons and directly into the minds of Ministers, and when there are improvements that result in that. And I can recall my hon.

Friend the Housing Minister, who I believe, used his mobile phone to instruct officials to call in the CEO of Firstport from a debate because he was hearing so many complaints from hon. Members. I'd like to touch on a couple of examples from my constituency. One constituent, who is a customer of Firstport, had their service charge increased from £980 in 2023 to 3820 26, causing financial hardship because they took out a loan to pay the previous bill. And now they say that their property is unsellable.

There was a clear lack of transparency when repeated requests for service charge accounts were allegedly ignored. Another constituent, Madam Deputy Speaker, reported significant concerns about first court property management, highlighting that service charges increase from around 1000 in 1000 pounds in 2021 to 3420 26 for broadly unchanged services. They again allege lack of transparency and more residents ultimately exercise their right to manage and appointed a new managing agent, which estimates comparable services at around £1,600 per year, suggesting that first ports charges were unduly high.

I want to pay tribute to the work of the Labour for leaseholders, and particularly the hon. Member. My hon. Friend the Member for Cities of London and Westminster and for Hendon, and we held a mini inquiry and we gave evidence to that inquiry. And it's pretty clear, I think it was clear to all hon. Members that there is a captive market and that private companies and others are exploiting people within the law. Perhaps, but we've seen the behaviour of these companies and we are calling it out, and one has to ask why and whose interests are being served.

And I will merely leave that question there. I want to, if I can, in the remaining time, Madam Deputy Speaker, move on to something that started as a negative and ended up more as a positive. That is when residents of Eastfield House, a block of flats in Halton in my constituency managed by Clarion Housing, repeatedly contacted me about problems. I went out to see them. I went to one of the flats. I saw the various problems with maintenance, lack of transparency, frankly, the usual story.

It was deeply concerning. I saw the anguish and the stress and the upset of these people who are having their dignity disrespected and damaged. I then contacted Clarion, who very generously, then attended a meeting I held with residents a few weeks later and they are taking action. They have already given a payment to those residents. They have a single point of contact. They are. They have an action plan. They are doing what they can to improve the situation. I really want to pay tribute to them.

It shows that things can improve. Madam Deputy Speaker, The Leasehold and Freehold Reform Act 2024 was a very good start, and I know that the government is consulting further. This government is intervening in failing markets because without this, the market, the participants in this market will continue to do the bare

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minimum or worse, to exploit people. Of course, I'll give way. I thank him. Very much for giving way on that

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Very much for giving way on that point. Does he agree with me that far from being anti-growth, a proper regulator for the property management sector would be a pro-growth measure, bringing transparency and good functioning transparency and good functioning to these incredibly opaque markets which exploit leaseholders and renters.

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renters. I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. I do agree entirely with that. As I was saying, the market is failing and many of the participants in this market will continue to do the bare minimum or at worst, exploit people. Some of the companies and individuals, as we've heard from hon. Members, will continue to push the limits of decency and possibly legality because there is no accountability. So let's make it as hard as we possibly can for them.

Let's protect and empower the people who really count, who are the leaseholders. So in the remaining seconds that I have, I would ask the Minister to touch on the points raised by my right hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington earlier, that the right to manage process be looked at, and I would suggest that the right to manage threshold be reduced to 30%, or that a deemed consent process is brought in so that our residents can take control of poor estate management.

We owe it to them. They deserve dignity in the housing that they have purchased.

14:42

Barry Gardiner MP (Brent West, Labour)

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Barry Gardiner thank you, Madam >> Barry Gardiner thank you, Madam Speaker. For 28 of the 29 years that I've been in Parliament, I that I've been in Parliament, I have campaigned for leasehold reform. I was instrumental in the reform. I was instrumental in the 2002 act. I was on the Bill Committee for the 2024 act, and I welcome the Select committee's report. And I pay tribute to the chair of the committee for her remarks this afternoon. I have 11,000 individual leaseholders in contact with my office, and I want to pay tribute to Jackie George, who is in daily contact with hundreds of them.

She is my office manager and most of what she does with leaseholders is actually in her spare time. Leasehold reform is about control. It's about passing power and control from the moneyed interests to the people whose homes they affect. And to do this, we have to enact the remaining Law Commission recommendations on enfranchisement and right to manage. For enfranchisement. That means restricting development value. It was promised to Parliament by the last government in 2021, and it was meant to be in the 24 act.

It's just wrong that leaseholders can be held to ransom by hypothetical development value, claiming that developers claiming that they could build in the garden or on top of the building and demand huge extra sums to stop leaseholders from affording the freehold purchase. Nicola Muir, a barrister at Tanfield Chambers, has wryly observed that it's amazing what development landlords believe is possible and the profits they claim they will generate. She cited one instance the landlord initially claimed £34 million for the alleged potential to build a skyscraper in the front garden of a block.

Sure, today the right to manage is a shadow of what the Labour government legislated for in the 2002 act. Freeholders can punish leaseholders who have taken back control of their blocks with the right to manage. Because of the Supreme Court decision in 2022, the Settlers Court decision, which went against the intention of Parliament by allowing freeholders to retain control of estate charges. We need to revert to the pre Settlers Court position and the Law Commission's remaining right to manage recommendations would help to achieve this.

An entire legal industry has emerged in torpedoing right to manage claims for freeholders, where tiny procedural details can see leaseholders spending literally a fortune to defend their right to manage in tribunal and the courts, only to lose the claim. The tribunal has no power to waive errors made over the procedural traps. And yet the reforms to change this, the remaining Law Commission right to manage recommendations that would end frivolous lawfare of freeholders and make right to manage a universal scheme, had been omitted from the Bill.

Despite previous promises unconscious, the scale of the leasehold crisis has become much worse since the Law Commission issued its final report six years ago, and there are quick win policies that could still be added to the bill, such as reducing the arbitrary 50% trigger for right to manage claims, as many members have already said, to 30 or 35%. Imagine, just imagine Madam Deputy Speaker. If we had a law that said a bad government could only be removed if 50% of all citizens with franchise, not just those who actually voted in an election, had to support the proposition.

That is the situation with lethal. If the right to manage is a no fault, right.

14:46

Bell Ribeiro-Addy MP (Clapham and Brixton Hill, Labour)

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Bell Ribeiro-Addy thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, and I thank my hon. Friend and constituency neighbour for bringing forward this important debate. Because leasehold has become the ultimate con now, has become the ultimate con now, with the sheer quantity of leasehold issues and the behaviour of property managing agents that I and my team come across weekly, you and my team come across weekly, you would think we were experts in this area, but no two cases are the same and each one is as complicated as

14:46

Barry Gardiner MP (Brent West, Labour)

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the last, if not more so. So my first point is that the system of leasehold is far too complicated.

14:46

Bell Ribeiro-Addy MP (Clapham and Brixton Hill, Labour)

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leasehold is far too complicated. Whether we are looking at EWS1 forms cladding, major works, service charge transparency. It involves a number of different involves a number of different parties, each with their own interests, and the vast majority end with all avenues being exhausted and the constituent exhausted and the constituent having to seek legal advice. But not everyone has the time to go back and forth with their MP to raise internal complaints through raise internal complaints through every mechanism, and then go on to complain to the Ombudsman.

Not everyone has the time and resources to seek legal support for their case. There are thousands of leaseholders encountering these issues and are completely locked out of accessing support and passed legislation to improve leaseholders rights seems to have added an extra layer of complexity, so any new legislation must simplify the system, not further complicate matters. I just want to put on record my specific concern for leaseholders in housing association buildings. Whilst recent legislation has improved leaseholders rights and privately owned blocks, Housing association freeholders have often fallen outside the scope of these reforms, so housing associations must be specifically addressed in future legislation.

Now on to the unregulated headache that are management agents. There absolutely needs to be a mechanism of oversight and enforcement. So I welcome the recommendation from an independent regulator. But the regulator needs not just teeth, but claws. They need to be able to find them, remove their licences and prosecute those repeat offenders. We know that our gaming, the system. Madam Deputy Speaker, I cannot tell you how many cases I deal with where the constituent is just trying to get a response from their property management agent.

Frustrated leaseholders are paying for their service through their ever increasing service charges, and it's simply not right that they are struggling to even get a basic response. Charges climb year on year, but transparency does not climb with them. My constituents ask for a proper breakdown of what they're actually paying for, and too often they get vague figures, unanswered emails or silence, broken lifts, unsafe stairwells, communal areas that never get cleaned. And still the bill remains, arrives unchanged and unexplained, and leaseholders have no real power to challenge what they're being charged for.

And heaven forbid they actually refuse to pay their service charge because the communication they once begged for comes swiftly in the form of threatening letters to claim the debt. I would like the House to reflect on the fact that this would not be tolerated anywhere else. Ofgem, which isn't even always that great, ordered E on energy to pay £5 million after customers were left waiting on hold for 18 minutes on average, half their calls never even getting through it, was able to find Max and power £1.65 million for poor communication and mishandled accounts.

Just this January, a landlord in Harrow was prosecuted and fined £9,000 for failing to provide a fire and electrical safety certificates, and a landlord who fails to carry out an annual gas safety check faces an unlimited fine of up to six months in prison. And in every single one of those cases, Parliament decided that taking someone's money and failing to deliver a bad service carries real consequences. Yet management agents can take thousands of pounds a year from leaseholders, deliver next to nothing and walk away with a strongly worded letter.

We do not accept that anywhere else in housing law. We cannot keep accepting it here. So an independent regulator must do what what they have not been able to do in the past, and that is remove the licences, find them and as I said, prosecute them where necessary, because what these organisations have been doing is absolutely criminal.

14:50

Matt Rodda MP (Reading Central, Labour)

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Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker >> Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker and could I thank my hon. Friend the chair of the Select Committee for her work and indeed the whole committee and the experts who committee and the experts who testified as well. I'd like to speak in favour of the government's proposals and briefly describe the proposals and briefly describe the situation in my constituency of Central Reading. The. As my hon. Friend pointed out earlier, the Wild West of management agents, my residents.

Too many and Madam Deputy Speaker face deep frustration, even anger, because of the actions of these. These companies. In many cases, people have worked extremely hard to get a foot on the housing ladder. They bought an attractive flat in what they thought was a nice development, only to be let down extremely badly by these companies who treat them in an appalling way, offer very poor service and high costs. I'd like to mention two particular case studies. The first one is of an attractive development in West Reading, where Remus is the managing agent.

This is near to a large Tesco. There are parks nearby. Attractive redevelopment of a former hospital site with low and medium rise brick buildings that fit the built environment. Many young families living there. It's a pleasant or. It should be a pleasant place to live. However, there are some problems with anti-social behaviour and Remus have persistently failed to respond to very reasonable inquiries and requests by residents, for example, failing for months to repair shutters that provide the entrance to a car park and allowing anti-social behaviour to creep into a car park and the residents properties.

Failing to to restore hot water, which was unavailable in some of the flats. A whole series of other problems, including expecting residents to pay for the upkeep and and the closure of a park where there's some anti-social behaviour problems related issues with, I believe other management companies involve nearby parking problems where roads have have issues with parking and this is all causing extreme problems and stress for residents in this area. I had a public meeting with a number of residents recently, and this was explained very clearly to me.

And rightly, residents are outraged by the behaviour of these companies and the potential for reform, as my hon. Friend rightly pointed out earlier and other colleagues have as well, is very, very clear. In one of the blocks in this area, the residents have gone through the extremely lengthy process of getting commonhold, and that has led to around a 50% reduction in the fees that the residents have to pay, which I think is a very clear indication of both the necessity reform of reform and the difficulties that some face in achieving it.

Madam Deputy Speaker, I realise time is pressing, so I will just try to pull together several other case studies in and around Reading town centre and indeed in other parts of our town. These relate to failures by firstport Moorland estates and other other management companies, and they include issues like allowing anti-social behaviour to take place in stairwells, leaving residents intimidated. Poor response to fire remediation. Some years after the Grenfell disaster and a series of other difficult problems again and again, residents being put under pressure and in one case, a resident used the 1985 Landlord and Tenant Act, quite rightly, to demand a breakdown of the payments.

They were due to be charged only for the for the management managing agent not to respond to the statutory deadline. That is the level of poor service that some of my residents and other colleagues residents are facing. Madam Deputy Speaker So I would urge the Minister to continue with

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the important action on this matter. Thank you very much, Madam Deputy Speaker. Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. I just want to firstly congratulate I just want to firstly congratulate my hon. Friend the chair of the Select Committee for securing this important debate. The issues raised important debate. The issues raised in her committee's recent report speak strongly to the experiences of thousands of my constituents in Poplar and Limehouse, where we have the highest percentage of leaseholds as a number of homes in any constituency in the country.

Like many members of the committee, I'm not just alarmed. I'm in fact very angry about what many constituents have to go through in order to get even basic repairs and maintenance done. Far too many of them have to deal with uncommunicative, sometimes even rude or dismissive managing agents who can offer no clarity on maintenance works and delay necessary repairs again and again. And just to illustrate this using a recent example in the heat waves, constituents living in rural captain caught in my constituency have endured the most horrible of conditions, with the lifts forced into fire safety mode because of the extreme heat in the air conditioned tower.

One resident fainted in the staircase and dozens of others suffered in the temperatures. Residents have said that until the BBC reported on the case that they received no replies from the managing agent sanctuary about how, when, or if repairs will even be done. This is a common situation in my constituency, Madam Deputy Speaker, the issue of lift breakdowns and the issue will only occur more and more and more against the backdrop of the climate change intensifying. On top of this, Madam Deputy Speaker, as we all know, service charges and fees are going through the roof.

One constituent recently contacted me to say that they have been they have seen service charges rise 12%, 12% in the last year after they'd already doubled in the decade. Up to that point. Residents of Aberfeldy Village in my constituency are reporting to me that service charges increased by over £600,000 by firstport, and residents of Wapping Lane Development report to me that their service charges increased from £7,000 in 2014 to £17,000 this year by Ballymore. Now they. Across the board, these residents constituents tell me that they're receiving no transparency about the accounts, and we know that they cannot easily or fairly challenge these increases in court.

The government have been consulting on the implementation of the section 56 of the 2024 act. Provisions around service charge transparency, which many of my constituents need to see implemented swiftly. But the regulation of managing agents themselves must be brought forward. I cannot simply accept the massive discrepancies in costs. The service charge increases the lack of communications and the lack of basic decency. In Poplar and Limehouse. Many of the leasehold bills we have are huge. They are incredibly tall, over 20 floors in many cases, and that would make it very difficult for leaseholders to

14:56

Apsana Begum MP (Poplar and Limehouse, Labour)

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take over and run themselves, their buildings under right to manage a system that itself needs system that itself needs desperately simplifying. So there are some changes that are being brought forward in the leasehold brought forward in the leasehold Bill. But for thousands in my constituency, they will continue to suffer under runaway service suffer under runaway service charges and rogue managing agents. And in absence of abolishing leasehold, I think it's only right, leasehold, I think it's only right, therefore, that the government accepts the recommendations of the Housing Committee and Lord best and introduces an independent regulator for managing agents into the Leasehold Reform Bill, and today I urge the government to do so.

14:57

Olivia Blake MP (Sheffield Hallam, Labour)

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Hey, Blake. >> Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Firstly, I should declare an interest as a leasehold homeowner, which is very common in Sheffield. And I would common in Sheffield. And I would like to thank my friend, the hon. Member for Vauxhall and Camberwell Green for securing this important debate, and I agree wholeheartedly with the recommendations by her committee and Lord best around regulator. Madam Deputy Speaker, I welcome that this government has begun to take a deep look at the injustices embedded in the leasehold system.

This structure treats leaseholders not as full homeowners, but as a revenue stream for distant freeholders and managing agents. The draft Commonhold and Leasehold Reform Bill is an important step forward to correcting the imbalance, and I believe it will help address many of the structural problems that leaseholders have endured in my constituency. The consequences of the system are painfully clear. As has been mentioned by my constituency neighbour, my constituents have been experiencing not only threats of forfeiture, but being asked to pay thousands of pounds for their leaseholds for minor breaches of their leases and the ability of the freeholder to strip someone of their home is an extraordinary concentration of power, and I'm pleased that the government's Commonhold and Leasehold Reform Bill proposes to abolish forfeiture entirely.

But, Madam Deputy Speaker, abolishing portraiture alone does not resolve the fundamental injustice. Leaseholders remain trapped in a system that, at its core is a feudal relic, a structure designed not to empower people but to extract value from them. It is a system where people who have bought homes still find themselves paying escalating service charges, opaque administration fees and arbitrary costs imposed by freeholders. A significant number of my constituents own leasehold houses, where their lease is required for them to ask permission from their freeholders for things like loft conversions, extensions and even for selling their homes on.

These permissions are demanded in return for ground rents of little worth, often £10 a year. Yet they give freeholders extraordinary control over the lives of these leaseholders. This is not a fair housing system, and my constituents have a clear ask from me, which is that they have rightly suggested that leaseholders of houses should be given the statutory right for first refusal when their leaseholders are sold. At present, leaseholders do not have this right, while flats do. If a freeholder decides to sell the freehold of a house, the leaseholder has no guaranteed opportunity to buy it.

They may only learn of the sale once it has occurred several months later. And if we are serious about empowering leaseholders, then first right of refusal must be extended and it should be included in in the bill. It isn't just freeholders who cause cause problems. We've heard about managing agents, subjecting many residents to problems, including in my own constituency, where leaseholders were made to find £22,000 within five months for major works. This was following an inept management company leaving balconies and walls to crumble, and the eventual repairs to become more expensive.

Now a two bedroom flat on that estate advertised for sale with an annual service charge of £5,067. That's £422 a month, which in Sheffield is a staggering amount of money given out relatively low housing costs. Unsurprisingly, some of my constituents have struggled to sell their flats and they're trapped in that catch 22 that we've heard from others, and it is time that we end that, and we need to make sure that we have all the powers enacted in this bill, but we also should be looking at ways to make sure that this is future proofed as well.

And I think that the regulator really does root that in fairness. So thank you.

15:01

Mr Jonathan Brash MP (Hartlepool, Labour)

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Jonathan Brash thank. I was elected in Hartlepool my inbox, my surgeries, my public meetings have been filled with people telling me remarkably people telling me remarkably similar and shocking stories about their estate management companies on which I wish to focus my remarks. The tale is very similar terrible communication, risible explanations, no accountability, but ever rising bills. I asked my constituents ahead of this debate to send me examples, and I was overwhelmed by the sheer number that I received. And so obviously I cannot go through them all today.

The stories came from Marine Point, Long Branch Estate, Wynyard Mews, Saint Mary's Court and other estates across the town. One of my constituents, Andrew, highlighted the fundamental unfairness between estates adopted by the council and those left in private management. People can live just streets apart, pay the same council tax, yet receive completely different levels of service. Derek asked me a simple question why should we pay both Hartlepool Borough Council and Cellar Management when the council cannot carry out the work because it's not adopted? The estate and the management company appears unwilling to carry it out either? It is an entirely fair question.

Take Ray and Janice. They wish to put their property into a living trust, a property they own outright, yet they were delayed from doing so because cellar management must first consent. They describe this as medieval behaviour. Jordan told me he was threatened over alleged unpaid invoices that he never received. The first meaningful communication was not an explanation. It was a demand. That is no way to treat people, Elena was told when she bought her Long Branch home that as more families move on to the estate, costs would fall because they would be shared more widely.

The number of households has more than doubled. Her charges have not fallen. They have risen by more than £200. Kim described waiting months for basic repairs, only for residents to feel that the work that was eventually carried out was of poor quality. Others have shown me photographs of unfinished drains, damaged kerbs, maintenance left incomplete. These are not legal technicalities. They are the everyday experiences of ordinary families, people paying real money for work they cannot see, cannot verify and simply do not believe has been carried out properly.

My constituent Christine, whose property is managed by Kingston, told me residents were collectively charged around £24,000 to repaint a block of flats on the headland. Within three months, the the paint was already peeling. Residents.

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Order, order. Due to a fire evacuation of the palace. The sergeant on duty is requesting a sergeant on duty is requesting a suspension of the sitting. The sitting is suspended. I've been advised by the Sergeant at arms that the chamber and Gallery should be evacuated using the nearest be evacuated using the nearest available exits. Please proceed in an orderly manner and follow the directions of doorkeepers or

15:04

SITTING SUSPENDED - FIRE ALERT

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All

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All All the All the sitting All the sitting is All the sitting is resumed before I call upon Jonathan Brash before I call upon Jonathan Brash to conclude his speech. The remaining members will have a time Brash.

15:45

HOUSE RESUMED

Brash. >> Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. As I was saying, I welcome the

15:45

Mr Jonathan Brash MP (Hartlepool, Labour)

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As I was saying, I welcome the government's commitment to leasehold reform. But Ministers must ensure that estate management companies are not treated as an afterthought. The Leasehold and Free Home Reform Act 2024 provides important powers that have not yet been brought into force. So I do urge Ministers to do that. But I would conclude by saying estates do need to be managed, but we should go back to how they were managed by local authorities. This is the way to truly fix the system, ensure that every estate is adopted by every council, and drive these estate management companies into the dust where they belong.

Thank

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you, Madam Deputy Speaker. Yuan Yang thank you, Madam. Deputy Speaker. I'll start by Deputy Speaker. I'll start by thanking the Housing Minister for all of his work on these landmark Commonhold reforms. His work has Commonhold reforms. His work has been tireless. I only hope that he finds my constant lobbying not too tiresome. And I also thank the Member for Vauxhall and Camberwell Member for Vauxhall and Camberwell for her leadership on this issue. And I also do want to mention my parents and grandparents who are in

15:46

Yuan Yang MP (Earley and Woodley, Labour)

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parents and grandparents who are in the gallery today, and I thank my thank them for making sure that throughout my childhood we had a roof over my head. Thanks to their efforts, I have enjoyed the childhood tour around all the various property tenures under possible under English law, from council to private rental to leasehold to freehold, and a brief interlude as lodgers in a community Christian church. And when my parents moved to Earley, they bought a freehold house that was built in the 1960s.

It came with no strings attached. If they had bought the same house built in the last two decades in a new build estate, it would have likely come with estate charges, with some charges for some, and often with low quality roads and communal infrastructure that will never have any route to adoption by the local council. They would have had to pay a contract. They would have had a contract to pay these fees to a property manager, someone they didn't choose, and who they almost certainly cannot leave.

5 million leaseholders as well, face similar fees from ground rent, property management charges that are very difficult to change. Now, what has happened over those few decades to make things so much worse for young families moving into new builds today than it was for those young families moving into new builds in the 1960s, the negotiations and the relationships between developers and local authorities, as other members have pointed out, have taken a turn for the worse. And as a result, over a thousand constituents have been in touch with me, seeking advice for taking control of property management and breaking free of the monopoly that is held over them.

The the problems are not just about charges. In 2024, the average annual service charge bill rose 11% to 23 £2,300, four times the rate of inflation over the same period. And that means the average service charge now exceeds the average cost of all other utilities combined. In Shinfield. My constituents have been impacted beyond just this. They also pay a suitable alternative natural greenspace charge following negotiations instigated by myself between the landowners and the residents, they are still waiting for final agreed position and they face a lack of transparency.

The residents of First Port in Woodley, for example, have negotiated through me an A service charge freeze with their managing agents, but they still have lack of transparency about underlying charges. That's why. Yes.

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I think the hon. Gentleman might heed the fact that members are on a very tight time limit, and he has very tight time limit, and he has not been present for any of the debate until this point.

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debate until this point. Yuan Yang thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I want to quote from one final resident in the first in a first port estate called June. I'm afraid that all the years of bullying, alternating with being ignored by first port on all levels, ignored by first port on all levels, have finally taken their toll on my mental health, she says. And regulation.

15:49

Cat Eccles MP (Stourbridge, Labour)

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Yes. as a local councillor, I've dealt with so many issues relating to leasehold property management and unadopted estates. A notable example is the Dalton Brook estate in my Stourbridge constituency, a mixed freehold and leasehold estate with houses and apartments built just over a decade ago by Taylor Wimpey and managed by Trinity Estates. Residents have been dogged by issues from day one, with a lack of transparency around estate management charges and decision making, inheriting responsibility for communal land and infrastructure, and an associated public open space linked to the estate.

With no clear management and future transfer plan. Can I just pay tribute to Alan Watts, the lead resident of the Dalton Brook action Group, and all the residents who have worked closely with me to hold the developer and the managing agent to account and unpick the multitude of issues that exist on mixed estates like this. I work with the residents, the council, the managing agent and the developer to get the estate up to an adoptable standard. And this was not a quick process with pushback every step of the way.

Developers should not be allowed to leave estates in unadoptable condition, and especially not to use it to generate more money from residents. So I hope the Minister can look at how we can facilitate retrospective action for existing estate estates suffering with the Fleet Hole system, as well as new ones, and as part of the Labour leasehold group of MPs. We challenge challenge chair, Trinity Estates CEO directly on poor practice and it was clear there was a total lack of oversight from head office as to what happened out on the ground.

They promised they would do better, but Alan and the other Dalton Brook residents have seen nothing change. I also just want to raise concerns about the use of leasehold in retirement departments such as Webb Court and Stourbridge, managed by Firstport. Residents seeking to enjoy their retirement are left stressed and frustrated by poor communication, lack of accountability and with an agent who seems to see the residents as a hindrance rather than customers to serve. Recently first took the decision to upgrade the alarm call system.

Not a problem, but the way this was done meant elderly residents faced a sudden demand for lump sum of £1,100 to be paid immediately, and following my intervention, this magically reduced to £300 and we further negotiated a payment plan. But this was despite nearly £100,000 sitting in the reserve fund. I've also supported with other issues in other retirement complexes with other managing agents, such as lifts left unfixed, as we've heard today, and residents harassed for payments that they have already made.

So I hope the Minister could consider the impact on our older generation in such situations. They

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are treated with the respect and brings. Us to the front bench.

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Us to the front bench. Gideon Amos thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. Can I also thank the hon. Member for Vauxhall and the hon. Member for Vauxhall and Camberwell Green and her Select Committee colleagues, colleagues for securing their excellent report and for securing this important debate. Hon. Members have made important points from all sides of the House, including my hon. Friends for Woking and Surrey Heath, who resolutely spoke up for their residents. Liberal Democrats welcome the introduction of a commonhold framework, the abolition of leasehold for new build flats

15:52

Gideon Amos MP (Taunton and Wellington, Liberal Democrat)

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and the end of forfeiture. They are clear steps in the right direction, but they don't go nearly far enough. but they don't go nearly far enough. Liberals and Liberal Democrats have been campaigning for an end to unfair residential leasehold since the Liberal government's 1909 people's Budget, and over 100 years on, progress has been woeful. on, progress has been woeful. Nearly 5 million households in England are living under this feudal system today. The Housing feudal system today. The Housing secretary himself has called ground rents money for nothing.

So why pay £250 for nothing for the next 40 years? And for any of the 5 million leaseholders living under the system right now, the draft bill does very little to help them gain enfranchisement, fix service charges or take control of how their buildings run. The government has said it is committed to bringing the feudal leasehold system to an end. Where are the goals and milestones that will mean it will happen? A target date is needed by which all leaseholders have had an affordable, affordable opportunity to convert to commonhold and for the right to manage across the sector.

As a first step to achieving these targets, government should enact all the remaining Law Commission recommendations on enfranchisement, including, for example, cutting out the swindle of development values recommendations which came out six years ago but for some reason remain unimplemented. The government inherited that delay, but then promised in the 2024 King's speech to enact them. Let me give the House a specific example of what delay in following through those recommendations means in practice. One constituent in Taunton and Wellington went through the right to manage process.

As it stands, it took him four years and he told me it felt like a full time job, and the delay meant he kept paying an overpriced service charge, adding up to an extra £5,000. Residents were forced to set up two separate right to manage companies, duplicating costs simply to manage two buildings in one estate, and once they finally won the right to manage, they found no legal way to recover even basic costs of the right to manage company because the costs were outside the leases, as defined in their current form.

And there was a similar story when we went to amend their leases. And what links all three of these problems is the fact they were all recommended to be fixed by the Law Commission back in 2020, so why not implement them in the forthcoming bill? Right to manage should not be a niche arrangement that only a determined minority can manage to navigate their way into. Landlords and freeholders who hold all the information on resources, should be required to offer right to manage through a ballot of their residents with a presumption in favour, unless more than half of residents vote against it.

On leaseholders being enfranchised into owning their own home, as well as setting a target for that to happen, the Minister should bring back his own amendment from when in opposition on properly setting deferment and capitalisation rates. So far, that does not appear to be in the bill either. Before I close, I want to say a word on leasehold as it affects freehold. As Madam Deputy Speaker. They face exactly the same issues of having moved in. They hadn't have no control over the fees they are forced to pay.

Homeowners should be given the right to manage the estates. They are contracted into responsibility for. I understand the government has asked the Law Commission to look at this, but that is welcome. However, the track record on Law Commission advice being taken forward is concerning. On the 27th of January, the Minister promised my hon. Friend for Thornbury and Yate that these residents would get protection. This Parliament, since that protection is not in the draft Bill, when will it be? In the meantime, Council should be given greater powers to adopt estates.

And finally, we need a property management regulator with real teeth of the kind Lord best recommended. And it should have the power to crack down on and cap the most exploitative service, service and estate management charges. It's been six years since the Law Commission recommendations. Madam Deputy Speaker, seven years since the Lordships report, and there will be 42 years before leaseholders are free of the scourge of ground rent. And we still have no goal from the government on how long it will take from the majority.

For the majority of leaseholders to enfranchise or gain rights, to manage, or for freehold estates to be sorted out. So in closing, Madam Speaker, I ask the Minister for three things enact the remaining Law Commission recommendations so leaseholders get the support they need, create a regulator as a matter of urgency, and give it teeth to end rip off charges and set a clear timetable for enfranchisement and right to manage becoming the norm so people win control over their home. Let us free people from the leasehold trap Liberal Democrats to do that without delay.

15:57

Gareth Bacon MP (Orpington, Conservative)

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16:07

Matthew Pennycook MP, Minister of State (Housing, Communities and Local Government) (Greenwich and Woolwich, Labour)

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regulation of property agents are issues of the utmost importance to millions of homeowners across the country, and I commend her and the backbench Business Committee for giving the House an opportunity to debate them in detail. I also want to briefly put on record, once to briefly put on record, once again, my sincere thanks to my hon. Friend, the other members of the committee and its clerks for the committee and its clerks for the huge amount of work undertaken in support of scrutiny of the draft Commonhold and Leasehold Reform Bill.

This has been an excellent debate, Madam Deputy Speaker, with many informed and passionate contributions, and I thank all hon. Members who have participated. Collectively, those contributions have served to reinforce both the complexities and the challenges of leasehold reform and the strength of feeling that exists across the country in respect of the need to act boldly and urgently to provide relief to the millions of leaseholders and residential freeholders currently suffering as a result of unfair and unreasonable practices. And make no mistake, Madam Deputy Speaker, they are suffering.

We've heard some particularly egregious cases in the debate today. What may seem like prosaic matters to many service charges ground rents, consent fees are the source of acute financial hardship and misery for huge numbers of those living in one of the approximately dwellings in Engla Wales. So let me be as clear as I can from this detox. Leaseholders are being routinely gouged by freeholders and managing agents acting on their behalf, and they're being gouged as a result of a system that denies leaseholders control over the homes they live in and have paid for, and subjects them to extractive extraction in the form of punitive, escalating ground rents, unreasonable or extortionate charges, unjustified permissions and administration fees, and onerous conditions often imposed with little or no consultation.

I've said it many times before. I'll say it again today. This is not what home ownership should entail. Leasehold is blighting lives. Leasehold is a barrier to a fair and efficient modern residential property market. Leasehold is an anachronism in the 21st century, and the aim of this government by the end of this Parliament is nothing short of dismantling it and the corresponding emancipation of leaseholders. Now I'll heed your strictures, Madam Deputy Speaker, I don't have time, therefore, to respond to all the specific points that have been raised about freehold estates, service charges, development value, the retirement sector these are all well made points.

I'm more than happy as ever to speak to hon. Members outside of the chamber, but I can assure the House none of those issues are an afterthought. Where there are provisions in the 2024 act, we are working at pace to take them forward where there are issues outside of the draft bill, like freehold estates. As my friend from Hartlepool knows, we have consultations where we're analysing feedback, just to say briefly on the draft bill. Madam Deputy Speaker, we made a clear and unambiguous commitment in our manifesto to act where previous governments had failed and finally bring the leasehold system to an end.

That forthcoming Commonhold and Leasehold Reform Bill is not the end of that story, but it is integral to honouring that manifesto commitment and, as the committee's report rightly recognises, the draft legislation represents a significant step towards ending the leasehold system for good, delivering greater fairness for leaseholders while laying the foundations for a reinvigorated commonhold model. I'm immensely grateful to the committee for its detailed and thoughtful scrutiny of the draft bill. The report provides a valuable set of recommendations as we continue the process of augmenting, strengthening and refining the bill for introduction.

As my hon. Friend of the. My hon. Friend the chair of the Committee knows, we're considering each of those recommendations carefully. I hope that we can report back in the not too distant future. I want to make some very brief remarks about Commonhold and ground rent before I do. Madam Deputy Speaker, let me address the main issue that has been subject to the debate today, and that is the issue of property managing agents and the committee's recommendation that we establish a new independent public body as a regulator for them with enforcement powers.

Now, I agree with my hon. Friends for Brent West, for Luton South and South Bedfordshire and others who have mentioned the importance of control, I continue to believe that giving leaseholders control over the buildings they live in is our overriding priority, and that that will help tackle the majority of abuses. But I want to reassure hon. Members I have listened and heard the serious concerns raised on both sides of the House in respect of the performance of managing agents, both on freehold estates and leasehold blocks.

I know from my own caseload how serious these problems are. Managing agents do play a key role in the maintenance of multi-occupancy buildings and freeholder sites. As the shadow Minister said, their importance will only grow as we transition towards a common future. And that's precisely why we've committed to strengthen the regulation of managing agents. Now, as hon. Members know, it's been mentioned several times. The previous government committed to regulate the property agent sector. In 2018, they asked a working group chaired by Lord best, who I'm very pleased to see in the gallery to advise them how to do it.

Yet over multiple years they failed to act on its findings. We have already progressed work on a number of the recommendations made in that report. Mandatory professional qualifications were mentioned and others. But I will state candidly, in taking forward others, we have a choice about how we do so. Those and other measures designed to strengthen the regulation of managing agents. And we face those choices in the context of a substantive bill, which is already around 260 clauses and 20 schedules, and could grow further.

And the fact that we have made very clear, and I stress this point again to hon. Members, this is not the only piece of legislation required to meet our manifesto commitments. Other pieces of primary legislation required not least to enact remaining Law Commission recommendations on enfranchisement and the right to manage. But I want to make clear, I take very seriously the committee's recommendation for a new independent regulator. I'm certainly not going to stand here and rule one out. Indeed, I am personally extremely sympathetic to it, but we will set out our overarching position on the regulation of estate letting and managing agents in due course, and I can assure hon.

Members that in finalising that position, we will continue to consider all aspects of Lords. Best report briefly, Madam Deputy Speaker. On ground rents, I can feel your eyes upon me. So I'm going to skirt over Commonhold. I'm more than happy to speak to any hon. Members who've got particular concerns about common ground rent in particular, I just want to touch on the decision the government made in the draft bill we committed in our manifesto to tackle unregulated and unaffordable ground rent charges.

We are delivering on that commitment through the bill, the draft bill. As hon. Members know, will cap ground rates at £250 a year, initially changing to a peppercorn after 40 years, and this will deliver immediate relief for hundreds of thousands of leaseholders during this parliament. Over the lifetime of that policy position, it will save leaseholders between 10 and £12.7 billion. This is a significant intervention. After 40 years old, ground rents will change to a peppercorn, ensuring that ground rents are brought to an end in their entirety.

But it is our view that a 40 year transitional period is necessary to avoid the unintended consequences and ensure stability for leaseholders and the wider property market. This is a balanced and fair solution to the problems caused by unaffordable, unregulated ground rents. I agree with my hon. Friend the chair of the Committee. The cap must be introduced as soon as possible so that leaseholders can benefit from reduced costs and more easily access mortgage financing when looking to move home. Subject to parliamentary timings, we're seeking to introduce the ground rent cap by 2028 at the latest.

That's not the end of 2028. It's a point in time in 2028 at the latest. But I do want to stress at the latest, is that this House to ensure that pieces of legislation press more quickly just before concluding, Madam Deputy Speaker, the shadow Minister, put a very specific question to him, and I can helpfully clarify there's no ambiguity on the fixes that need to be made to the 2024 act. There's really unfortunate. We have to make fixes to that act. We shouldn't be repairing primary legislation through new primary legislation, but we confirmed in the King's Speech on the 13th of May that fixes to those flaws will be included in the forthcoming substantive Commonhold and Leasehold Reform Bill.

To conclude, Madam Deputy Speaker, can I once again thank my hon. Friend for applying for this debate, the Backbench Business Committee for granting it, and all those hon. Members who have participated in it for sharing their concerns, insights and case studies. I look forward to providing the committee with a formal response to its report as quickly as we possibly can, notwithstanding current constraints and to continued engagement with it as our substantive Commonhold and Leasehold Reform Bill progresses and we continue to implement those reforms to the leasehold system that are already in statute.

16:15

Florence Eshalomi MP (Vauxhall and Camberwell Green, Labour )

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Florence Eshalomi to wind up. and again, I will be mindful of time just to thank the 24 backbench contributions, and I hope that the Minister and will see that there is cross-party support. We want to keep this on the agenda. We will continue to keep this on the agenda, because it's only right that this Parliament does what the Labour manifesto committed to in bringing an end to the feudal leasehold system.

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The question is, as on the order papers, may that opinion say, I, as papers, may that opinion say, I, as an opinion, say aye. Of the contrary, no. the ayes have it, the ayes have it. I'll give the front benches a moment to shuffle over. Well done. Thank you. Thank gosh. If people could exit swiftly. We do If people could exit swiftly. We do need to start the next debate. We now come to the backbench debate on access to further education, and I call Sarah Pochin, who will speak up to 15 minutes Sarah Pochin.

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker.

16:16

Backbench Business: Access to further education

I beg to move.

16:16

Sarah Pochin MP (Runcorn and Helsby, Reform UK)

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The motion on the Order Paper in my name, and I thank the backbench Business Committee and all the hon. Business Committee and all the hon. Members who supported bringing this debate, this important debate, into Parliament today. I want to raise an issue that goes to the heart of opportunity, aspiration and economic productivity in my constituency of Runcorn and Helsby, and that is Post-16 education. Too often we speak about equality of opportunity as though it can be achieved through slogans, white papers or ministerial announcements.

But for a young person leaving school at 16, opportunity is far more practical than that. It is about whether there is a good college course nearby. It is about whether they can afford to enrol on an apprenticeship without spending hours getting there, and how they find the money for travel. It is about whether they can see a clear route from the classroom into a skilled, well paid job, and it is about whether they believe they can build a successful life in the town where they grew up.

For too many young people in Runcorn, those routes are not clear enough for two. The existing provision is limited. Riverside College in Widnes does important work across Halton, but it is on the other side of the Mersey and for young people in Runcorn, that means a daily bridge crossing in order to access courses and facilities. Crossing the bridge into Widnes means paying the toll and facing additional travel time and cost. The sole local sixth form in Runcorn at the Ormiston Bolingbroke Academy, only has 350 places, enough for less than 20% of the more than 2016 to 18 year olds.

In Runcorn, provision is fragmented, options are limited and too many still face the prospect of travelling elsewhere. For the courses, specialist facilities or technical opportunities they need. That is not good enough for a town with the industrial strength, scientific expertise and economic potential of Runcorn. Runcorn is home to major manufacturing, logistics, pharmaceutical and life science employers. We have DHL, Ineos, Innovin, Ncyc, ESA, Simex to name but a few at the Sci Tech Salisbury Park. There are opportunities in engineering, software, laboratory science, project management, advanced manufacturing and technology.

These are not theoretical jobs of the future. They are real opportunities on our doorstep. Yet too many young people do not see a direct bridge between their school and those careers. That is why I believe Runcorn needs a dedicated post-16 skills and apprenticeship hub. A serious local offer built around the needs of local employers and the ambitions of local young people. This should not simply be another institution with another layer of bureaucracy offering courses that do not lead to good jobs or simply rack up student debt.

It should be a practical partnership between Riverside College local schools, Halton Borough Council, major employers and the government. It could provide specialist technical education in engineering, construction, health and social care, digital skills, laboratory science, logistics and advanced manufacturing. It could offer high quality T levels, apprenticeships, traineeships and routes into higher education. It could give young people access to work placements, mentoring and guaranteed interviews with local employers, and it could give businesses a strong local pipeline of skilled young people who are ready to work, ready to learn and ready to contribute.

Having spoken directly to many local employers, I know there is a strong appetite to support this kind of initiative and to play an active role in shaping and delivering it. That is how we should think about Post-16 education, not as a separate part of the education system, but as completing the education journey, which should not finish until 18. We do not need to import talent while overlooking the talent growing up in our own communities. Indeed, local talent should be our priority.

Halton faces serious challenges. Too many children grow up in low income households. Too many pupils face disadvantage. Too many young adults leave education without the qualifications. That would have opened up doors for them. In a constituency where many families have seen opportunity opportunities disappear over generations, Post-16 education must be part of rebuilding hope. That includes confronting difficult truths. The evidence shows that disadvantaged white British pupils, particularly boys, continue to experience poor educational outcomes in many parts of the country and in communities such as mine, where the population is overwhelmingly white and where deprivation is entrenched, that cannot be treated as an awkward subject to be avoided.

But neither should we ignore a generation of working class children who feel that the education system does not understand them, does not speak to them, does not offer them a route to a secure future. When a young person cannot see the point of school, cannot see a realistic job at the end of it, and cannot access training close to home, disengagement becomes more likely and the consequences are severe. Fewer qualifications, weaker employment prospects, lower wages, a greater risk of being left behind with nothing to show for years at school and no prospect of employment.

That is bad for those young people. It is bad for their families and it is bad for the community. Towns like Runcorn cannot thrive, cannot grow, cannot prosper without a high standard of education and decent job prospects for its young people. The answer is not to lower expectations, it is to give young people something real, to aspire to. A young person in Runcorn should be able to leave school knowing that they can gain, that. They can train for a career in engineering, become a laboratory technician, enter digital work, learn a skilled trade, join a manufacturer or progress towards university.

I therefore ask the Minister to work with local education providers, Halton Borough Council and employers to examine how a dedicated post-16 skills and apprenticeship hub for Runcorn can be delivered. That work should include a proper assessment of local of the local skills gap. The courses employers need, the facilities required and the opportunities for a satellite campus or specialist centre in Runcorn itself. It should also include a clear expectation that major local employers pay their part, play their part through apprenticeships, placements, career advice and direct partnerships with schools and providers.

Runcorn has the businesses, it has the people. It has the potential. What it needs is a more ambitious local settlement between education, industry and government. The young people of Runcorn, Frodsham and Helsby are every bit as capable, ambitious and hard working as young people anywhere in Britain. They do not need pity, they need opportunity, and they deserve the chance to gain the skills, qualifications and confidence to build successful lives in the communities they call home.

For Runcorn, for our local economy and for the next generation, we must do better. Thank you. The question is, as on the Order Paper, this debate has to conclude at five for me to accommodate all the backbenchers speaking limits of two minutes. Leigh Ingham thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. Investment into our colleges is essential to this country's future and to our manufacturing sector, our housebuilding targets and to our NHS. Now, in Stafford, it is clear we have no shortage of ambitious

16:25

Leigh Ingham MP (Stafford, Labour)

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young people. I know this, I meet with them weekly, but we must invest in their futures in our invest in their futures in our colleges to make sure their future is all it can be. I am proud of what this government investment has delivered so far. Our advanced manufacturing tech is going to change the landscape in Stafford, and that work done in combination and that work done in combination with our local employers hand in glove, shows exactly what can be achieved by an ambitious Labour achieved by an ambitious Labour government.

But I also want to take this opportunity to raise something that has been put to me directly by my local college and by make UK, because it gets to the heart of a problem of how we fund our manufacturing and technical education. Right now, the payment per pupil is the same regardless of whatever course is being delivered. So an A-level student doing three A-levels in a classroom attracts the same funding as a student on a technical engineering apprenticeship. Despite the fact the equipment, the facilities, the staffing, the delivery costs are so much different.

At a place like Stafford College, which genuinely excels in exactly these kind of high cost, high value technical provision, it's really unfair in a direct disincentive to deliver the courses that matter most. So if we're serious about making technical education genuinely world class, we have to fund it as though we mean it. So why? I am so pleased that I talk about it all the time. Having the best college in the country in my constituency is such an honour, and I'm very pleased.

It's widely accepted, widely accepted to be the best college in the country, and the government has taken substantial steps to invest in further education and vocational courses. I would like to ask the Minister what further what further investment is planned in our college estate and how this funding imbalance on courses can be addressed to ensure we have the best facilities, the best staff and create the best possible opportunities. Hannah Spencer Thank.

16:27

Hannah Spencer MP (Gorton and Denton, Green Party)

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You, Madam Deputy Speaker. >> You, Madam Deputy Speaker. >> Now, too often the voices of people who come through routes like apprenticeships, working people, tradespeople are often missing from these debates. But I'm really proud of my education and of my route through as an apprentice. Now, at the moment on apprenticeships, we're asking too many people, small, medium sized businesses, to carry the responsibility of training up the next generations of people without the funding and recognition that they deserve. And I've met with small businesses across my constituency who want to take on apprentices, but tell me it's too expensive and too complicated, and it's not a lack of lack of willingness.

It is a lack of support. We have to make it easier for small businesses to recruit apprentices by simplifying levy transfers, reducing administrative burdens wherever possible, and providing long term funding certainty for their rising costs. Apprenticeships need to be made easier for young people and families to understand, and access to be recognised and respected as the meaningful route into essential skilled work that they are, with support for apprenticeship wages that better reflect local labour markets and the removal of unfair practical barriers.

So we want free bus fares for under 22 so that no young person is held back from getting to their apprenticeship. We want equal access to funded childcare and scrapping disincentives such as those within the benefit system. And finally, we need economic policy that focuses on spreading opportunity and investment more fairly across the country so that young people in places like Gorton and Denton are no longer left behind because places like Gorton, Denton Abbey, hey, Burnage, Longsight, all the places within my constituency are young people have never lacked talent or drive.

But we must stop wasting it, give them a chance and properly back further education and apprenticeships as the national assets that they are. Thank you.

16:29

Perran Moon MP (Camborne and Redruth, Labour)

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Madam Deputy Speaker. education in remote coastal communities like mine in Camborne and Redruth and Hayle in Cornwall. Despite the talent, ambition and resilience of our young people, parts of my constituency continue to experience persistent deprivation, with nine neighbourhoods ranking amongst the most deprived in the entire country. But amidst this deprivation, our local Fe sector is helping to change lives and create opportunity. Cornwall College with the which is Ofsted outstanding rating of outstanding, is a shining example. It's a vital cog in driving our economic engine, equipping young people with the skills they need to

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succeed, and providing employers with the workforce required to unleash the Cornish Celtic tiger. Cornwall.

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Cornwall. Is on its way to an industrial. Yes I was. I asked the hon. Member to give

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I asked the hon. Member to give way because there's another Fe College in Cornwall, which is Truro College. I wanted to ask the hon. Member if he agreed that transport Member if he agreed that transport is one of the major issues in getting children in rural and

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getting children in rural and coastal areas to those colleges and to their work placements. I thank my hon. Friend for.

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Raising this. We know in Cornwall we've had significant issues with with bus services to our colleges, and it's something our colleges, and it's something that we that we really do need to ask the government for help with. But Cornwall is on its way to an industrial renaissance as a strategically significant economic frontier. We are seeing exciting developments in critical minerals, developments in critical minerals, including tin, lithium and tungsten, as well as geothermal energy offshore wind sectors that are offshore wind sectors that are essential in the creation of good jobs in sectors vital for the national interest, and to help us transition away from a fossil fuel based economy.

And with that in mind, I warmly welcome the launch this September of the new Engine Engineering Mining Academy, a partnership between Cornwall College and Cornish Metals, which will bring together two of Cornwall's crown jewels to train the next generation of engineers and mining professionals, ensuring that young people can benefit directly from the from from the return of mining industry to Cornwall. This is exactly the kind of collaboration we need if we are to seize the opportunities to deliver growth in every corner of the country.

However, we cannot let staffing challenges nor cuts to dedicated, as my hon. Friend has just said, nor cuts to dedicated student bus services threaten these opportunities. Recruitment and retention are especially difficult in remote coastal areas, with profound housing and transport pressures. Unless we address workforce shortages, we risk undermining the EFRA institutions which are providing the skills on which our future economy depends. Cornwall's Fe colleges are doing their part, but we now need the government to step up and provide the funding settlement that our Fe colleges deserve.

16:32

Tom Gordon MP (Harrogate and Knaresborough, Liberal Democrat)

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Tom Gordon thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. Quite often when I come to this place, it's usually to moan and groan and gripe about something that's gone wrong. But today I want to highlight a really positive story, which is that off the back of the general election, where the first campaigns that I ran was to get and secure the extension to the funding of the Fe Capital Transformation Fund for the rebuild of Harrogate College. That's really exciting. I've been to Harrogate College a number of times and seen the fantastic work they do with people from across the local area.

The new building will have some really exciting features like a replica hospital, wing, renewable engineering kit, and it's a real good success story about how we can upskill future generations to meet the skills gap that we've got. I visited them earlier this year, which was a For colleges week where the theme was skills for all. And I would just press the Minister in terms of what more are we doing to make sure we get a diversity of people from all backgrounds into apprenticeships and Fe colleges in that route? I used to be a on the board of governors at Selby College, where I did my A levels.

And one of the great things that we saw there were the partnerships of industries and experts who really supported Fe colleges going above and beyond when it came to Kit in those classrooms. One of the issues that when I meet with the principal at Harrogate College, he tells me, is that there has been a real terms cut to the devolved adult skills funding, which is placing pressure upon them. So gently ask the Minister if that is something that can be looked at going forward to help us build effective pathways for adult learners to progress into those areas where we see skill shortages.

Harrow West College is well placed to help address the Neet issue. And one last issue I'd like to press Minister on as well is that funding cliff edge and the issue we see when it comes to children with SEND and home school transport issues, one of the things that the principal of Harrogate College has said to me repeatedly is we've seen an increase in children with SEND going through into Harrogate College and the transport to get them there is a massive barrier and issue, so I'd like to hear what the Minister will do to ensure that people can get to instance.

16:34

Gareth Snell MP (Stoke-on-Trent Central, Labour )

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Now, thank you very. >> Now, thank you very. >> Much, Madam Deputy Speaker. I draw the House's attention to my declaration of interest as a governor of the City of Stoke on Trent Sixth Form College and the Abbey Hill Special College, and as chair of the APPG for sixth forms. I wanted to congratulate the lady for securing this debate on what is a genuinely important subject and also my hon. Friend from Stafford for rightly pointing out that the best college in the country is in fact in our county.

Where she was wrong is it's actually ten miles north in my constituency, not hers. But that's a different matter. I wonder if I can just push the Minister on if time to. But if not, three things. One is around the introduction of the V levels, which. I'm very grateful that the government recognised that the scrapping of BTECs would leave a gap in the market for young people to go to college to study qualifications. The first three are due to be rolled out in September 2027, but the qualification guidelines are not going to be released until spring 2027, meaning many colleges are unable to even work out what they're going to have to teach in order to be able to make sure those young people get that qualification.

As prospectuses are being printed now, knowing what those are would be a big help. So is there any chance the Minister could bring forward that announcement? I know colleges would be grateful. There's also the issue of standalone sixth form colleges who fall between the cracks of Fe and sixth forms in maths over capital funding. They don't qualify for the schools conditional allocations, such as those in maths, nor do they qualify for the Fe Capital Transformation Fund. And that is a genuine problem because in places that we've all mentioned, those those standalone sixth form colleges are a real engine for social mobility and without the ability to borrow, that was taken away from them and with the fact that they're funded at 29% less than schools, accessing capital becomes a real issue for the growing number of young people that want to go there.

And then finally, if I could just push the Minister on those things that make colleges available. So the transport infrastructure. Can we get the Department of Transport to think about colleges as being somewhere that bus routes ought to run to? Because in too many places, young people can't rely on parents to get them there. And those buses unlock the opportunity for education and progression.

16:36

Andrew Cooper MP (Mid Cheshire, Labour)

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Andrew Cooper thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I, too, thank the Deputy Speaker. I, too, thank the hon. Member for securing this important debate. I will spare hon. Members the parts of my speech about the importance of Fe. I'm about the importance of Fe. I'm sure we all agree it's very important. And instead, I'd just like to talk to the Minister a little bit about the lasting impact on further education in my constituency, caused by his department's 2016 review into Post-16 education in Cheshire.

That review has had deeply damaging consequences across Mid Cheshire that continue to be felt by children in Northwich, Windsor, Middlewich. We know that there's a clear and well established link between the distance student has to travel for further education and their likelihood of both remaining engaged and successfully completing their course. And in Mid Cheshire, we've been caught in a bit of a perfect storm. Colleges around Cheshire that have been under pressure from financial instability, from quality concerns, have responded through mergers and gradual withdrawal, of withdrawal of provision in communities like mine.

So where once there was a large Fe campus in Northwich and a smaller one in Winsford, there is now just a small one in Winsford, and just this year it has ceased offering courses for 16 to 19 year olds at all. It is now just post 19 only. Winsford, incidentally, has Neet levels five percentage points higher than the borough wide average for Cheshire West and Chester. So this situation is as unacceptable today as when it first emerged. Even though this all started ten years ago, it's still repeatedly raised by my constituents as an example of a deep injustice that they feel.

So can I strongly urge the Minister to revisit this issue with some urgency? Commission a fresh, comprehensive review that doesn't just look at the current landscape, but actively seeks to repair the damage that was caused. It must prioritise accessibility, local provision and fairness, ensuring that further education once again serves all communities rather than leaving some behind. Thank you.

16:38

Ian Sollom MP (St Neots and Mid Cambridgeshire, Liberal Democrat)

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I call the Liberal Democrats spokesperson, Ian Sollom. spokesperson, Ian Sollom. >> Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, and I congratulate the Member for Runcorn and Helsby for securing this important debate. Madam Deputy Speaker, access to further education is access to opportunity for most young people and for many adults, it's the route to a job or a route back into learning. And when that access works, it changes lives. When it doesn't, we don't just fail an individual. We fail their family, their local community, the economy.

And over a lifetime, the public purse. And yet we don't make it as easy as it should be. To access further education, I'd like to focus on, if I may, on two particular barriers funding and transport, where I would suggest the government is neither going far enough nor fast enough. Last year, in the Skills White Paper, the Education Secretary promised real terms increases in per pupil funding for 16 to 19 providers instead, per head. Funding this year is going up by just 0.55%.

That is a real terms cut. Overall, funding for 16 to 19 education now stands at around 4.7 billion 30%, below its inflation adjusted high of 6.8 billion in 2003 2004. Now, Cambridge Regional College sits just over the border of my constituency of St Neots and Mid Cambridgeshire. Its principal, Mark Robertson, has been clear with me about the cost. A pay gap of around 12,500 pounds between school and Fe teachers at a time when they need enough maths and English teachers to deliver resits for about 1300 young people in each subject, teachers who could earn thousands more teaching exactly the same subject in a school down the road, less visible but just as damaging colleges are funding on the previous year's intake, not this year's.

So when demand rises and it is rising, colleges have to enrol and teach students now and wait, often a full academic year to be funded for them. Nationally, colleges took on around 32,000 additional 16 to 19 students in 2526 to meet that rising demand, and were left to absorb the costs themselves. That's not a funding system that supports improving access, and I would just suggest two changes that might help. As the Minister will know, colleges, unlike schools, cannot reclaim VAT.

That amounts to a tax on further education worth around £210 million per year. The Liberal Democrats would end that anomaly, and we would also extend the pupil premium to post-16 learners, including those in Fe, so that it supports so that support for disadvantaged young people doesn't simply stop the day they turn 16. Now, of course, funding cannot reach college. That isn't there. Again, an example from my own constituency. Saint Neots is the largest town in Cambridgeshire and it has no further education college of its own.

And despite some innovative efforts to provide some provision in the town, many of our young people must travel to reach the courses that could change their lives. And suddenly it is far from being the only further education college in the country, of course, which is that second barrier transport. Madam Deputy Speaker, the law requires every young person to remain in education or training until 18, but it does not require any local authority to help them get there. Once a young person turns 16, transport support becomes discretionary rather than statutory.

A cliff edge that arrives at exactly the point the law starts asking more of them, not less. The Association of Colleges tells us that some students face journeys of up to three hours a day to reach their course, and colleges are increasingly subsidising transport themselves out of budgets meant for teaching and learning. Now, the Liberal Democrats have urged the government to fully restore the £2 bus fare cap, a change that hits rural passengers particularly hard and exactly where too many of our young people are trying to reach college.

And perhaps the Minister could also explain, in the context of this debate, why a more direct measure, a concessionary bus pass for under 22, is recommended by the Transport Select Committee, was rejected by the government as unaffordable. Madam Deputy Speaker, I'll just conclude it is worth highlighting what it costs when access fails. The Milburn Review puts a number on it an average of £29,000 a year for every person who is not in education, employment or training, rising to a lifetime cost of 240 zero zero £0, we spend £7,900 a year on a further education student.

That's not a close call. It is a false economy on a national scale and there is a missed opportunity sitting on our own doorstep to prove it doesn't have to be this way. So I hope the Minister will tell us how the government plans to address those barriers to access. Thank you.

16:43

Bradley Thomas MP (Bromsgrove, Conservative)

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And I'll call the. Shadow >> And I'll call the. Shadow Minister. Bradley Thomas. I believe it's the shadow is the first time. Thomas. >> I congratulate the hon. Member for securing this debate. Whatever our political differences, I welcome the opportunity to discuss an issue that should unite members from across this House, ensuring that every young person, wherever they live, has the opportunity to develop the skills they need to succeed. After the previous Labour government badly neglected apprenticeships, the Conservative Party prioritised them, delivering around 5.8 million apprenticeships between 2010 and 2024 and creating apprenticeship routes into 70% of occupations.

On this side of the House. We are clear that further education is a great driver of social mobility. That's why I'm proud that the previous conservative government introduced t-levels degree level apprenticeships, the apprenticeship levy, and put English and maths at the heart of all vocational qualifications, helping people to climb up the ladder of opportunity and fortify their careers with the in-demand skills that businesses need. Access to apprenticeships is not simply about education policy, it is about opportunity, it's about social mobility, and it is about ensuring that the next generation can harness their unique talents to build rewarding careers, support their families, and contribute to the prosperity of our country.

Apprenticeships should enjoy parity of esteem with academic routes. University is the right choice for many, but it is not the only route to success. We also now know that higher level apprenticeships are outearning the average degree. According to the centre for Social Justice, the right qualification at the right time can alter the trajectory of an entire family for generations. But we must also be honest. Warm words alone will not create a single apprenticeship place and with level two, apprenticeship starts hitting the lowest level in four years.

Last year, the time for action is now. Ministers wax lyrical about growth, about skills and about opportunity. Yet employers continue to raise concerns about complexity, uncertainty and a system that is still failing too many young people. Young people, however, cannot build careers on announcements alone. The hon. Member for Makerfield spoke passionately this week about placing technical education at the heart of economic renewal. This aspiration is welcome, but aspiration without delivery does little for young people looking for an apprenticeship today, or for the small business that is struggling to recruit today and tomorrow.

His Majesty's most loyal opposition has put forward a clear alternative through our New Deal for young people, one that places apprenticeships and technical education at the heart of economic opportunity. We will expand high quality apprenticeships, remove barriers that prevent employers from taking on young people, and ensure that skills funding follows the needs of local economies, rather than the priorities of Whitehall, and we believe that employers should find it easier, not harder, to invest in the next generation. We believe that colleges should have the flexibility to respond to local labour market demand, and above all, we believe that every young person deserves a pathway into skilled employment, whether that's through university, an apprenticeship or another technical route.

And if the government genuinely believes that apprenticeships are central to growth, then they and the hon. Member for Runcorn's party, who need to see what properly considered policy looks like, should accept our fully funded New Deal for young people, which will scrap real interest rates on plan two student loans so that balances can no longer rise faster than inflation, saving graduates tens of thousands of pounds over the course of their careers. Create 100,000 more apprenticeships for 18 to 21 year olds by lifting funding caps and supporting employers with up to £5,000 for every British apprentice they hire and introduce a £5,000 first job bonus, allowing young people to keep the first £5,000 of national insurance they would have paid by placing it into a savings account for a first home or future security.

The proposal for an apprenticeship hub in the hon. Member's constituency deserves to be examined on its merits if it can demonstrate value for money, genuine local demand and strong employer engagement and I hope that Ministers will engage constructively. But this debate, as we've heard from contributions across the House, is about more than one constituency. It's about whether a young person leaving school believes that hard work and determination will be rewarded. It's about whether employers have confidence that Britain is developing the skilled workforce that it needs, and it's about whether this government will match their words with action.

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And I call the Minister Minister Josh MacAlister. Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I'm grateful to the honourable.

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I'm grateful to the honourable. Member for Runcorn and. Helsby for securing this timely and important debate, and I've not had important debate, and I've not had the chance to speak to her since her very powerful and moving contribution earlier in the in the day. Fe colleges are engines of economic growth, Madam Deputy economic growth, Madam Deputy Speaker, and also social justice. They are anchor institutions, bridging talent with opportunities

16:48

Josh MacAlister MP, The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Whitehaven and Workington, Labour)

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16:57

Sarah Pochin MP (Runcorn and Helsby, Reform UK)

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Sarah Pochin to wind up, and I will close the debate at five Sarah Pochin. Thank you very much, Madam Pochin. Thank you very much, Madam Deputy Speaker. I'd like to thank the contributions from everybody in the House this afternoon. This should actually not be a political issue. This should absolutely be addressed by all parties with the interests of young people at our hearts, because I know in places like Runcorn, we are actually failing the young people in my constituency.

And whilst I listened with some amusement about who's got the best colleges, I are very envious because I don't have a further education college. And that is exactly what I'm looking for. So I welcome the news of the increase in funding. I hope it is a great chunk of it is directed towards Runcorn. Thank you. The question is, as on the Order Paper, as many opinions say, I. And on the contrary, no. The ayes have it. The ayes have it. That concludes that debate.

I'll give the front benches a moment or two to shuffle over. This House. Do now adjourn. The question is that this House do now adjourn, and I call Richard Tice on foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office contracts awarded to Siren Associates Limited. Richard Tice.

16:59

Adjournment: Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office contracts awarded to Siren Associates Ltd Richard Tice MP (Boston and Skegness, Reform UK)

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17:15

Mr Hamish Falconer MP, Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office) (Lincoln, Labour)

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Thank you. Minister Hamish Falconer. >> Madam Speaker, I am grateful to the hon. Member for Boston and Skegness for securing this debate and for providing me an opportunity to talk about the Lincolnshire Police, which is where he started and so where I shall as well. He will be pleased to know that since what is. After years and years of underfunding for Lincolnshire Police, that we've secured £12 million further a year in the first multi-year Lincolnshire Police funding arrangement starting in January, I know he will share my gladness in that arrangement.

The hon. Member refers to a range of issues which I won't pass comment on, including in a Madam Deputy Speaker wishes to instruct me otherwise the conduct of other hon. Members in this House, and indeed what sounds like a private law dispute with the company in question. But let me turn to some of the substantive questions he raises in relation to this contract. I was pleased to see the hon. Member briefly earlier today, and I'm very happy to discuss some of these questions in person, which may be easier.

I very much agree, however, with the hon. Member that of course, the government must spend money diligently in support of UK interests and in a way that delivers value for taxpayers. I disagree with his assertion that the award of this contract being discussed today does not align with those principles. So I will say a little bit about the contract itself, a little bit about Lebanon, and then I will seek to wind up. The Foreign Office currently has one contract with Siren Associates, and it's subject to formal commercial oversight.

It is, as he says, part of the overall ESF programme. As the hon. Member knows, it's to deliver the internal security assistance programme in Lebanon that is, to support Lebanon's internal security forces to help them become more trusted, professional and better able to address Lebanon's internal security challenges. I have seen some of our work in Lebanon. It is precisely aimed at the issue he alluded to. We must see in Lebanon the security forces of Lebanon in control of the whole of the country, not Lebanese Hezbollah, a group which he rightly identifies as a proscribed terrorist group in this country.

The programme supports better planning, stronger police operations, improved coordination with the Lebanese armed forces, including in the South Litani sector, which he will know is the area which has been the subject of so much discussion in recent months. It is part of Britain's wider efforts to promote stability in a highly volatile region, something I believe is firmly in the UK's interests. I've seen for myself in the south of Tarnow sector. The difference this support is making and, as the House is aware, as the hon.

Member alluded to, Lebanon faces an extremely challenging security situation. The actions of Hezbollah have dragged Lebanon once again into a conflict that neither its people nor its government has sought. We have been clear that Hezbollah's reprehensible attacks on communities in northern Israel must cease. But the disproportionate Israeli military action in Lebanon has displaced over a million people and caused significant loss of life. It is in this context that we seek to act. For all of these reasons, it is vital that Lebanon's legitimate security institutions are able to exercise state sovereignty across the country and provide security to Lebanese citizens.

Since 2009, the UK has been a close partner of the Lebanese armed forces and internal security forces. We have provided training, equipment and advice to build their capability. That is important support to address key threats to its security. But turning now to the contract currently underway with Siren, the Foreign Office's procurement processes are designed to ensure that all programmes are subject to robust due diligence, that they deliver value for money and that they are aligned both with UK priorities and the interests of taxpayers, both in Boston and Skegness and indeed in Lincoln.

The contract with Siren Associates was awarded under the Conflict, Stability and Security Fund Framework Agreement, now known as the Esaf Framework Agreement. It followed a competitive tender process. It was open to around 80 suppliers, a mixture of not for profit and commercial organisations. We received three tenders from interested suppliers. Each tender was checked for compliance with published instructions. Technical proposals were assessed against published criteria by a panel of subject matter experts, with scores moderated and agreed through a clear and documented process.

Commercial submissions were evaluated separately using the published methodology with pricing Test against tested against affordability, framework limits, eligible cost rules and value for money considerations. Due diligence was a core part of that procurement process that included conflict of interest checks, financial health reviews, sanction screening and an assessment of delivery and commercial risks. The competitive process was also scrutinised by a commercial governance board, which approved the outcome before the contract was awarded. As I as I set out in my letter of January to the hon.

Member, the review of Siren Associates did not identify any areas to prevent awarding the contract. The contract is currently valued at £17.2 million over three years, so rather less than the increase to Lincolnshire Police over the next three years. I'm sure the hon. Member will be pleased to note it began, as he says in September 25th. It runs until March 28th and it can be extended until March 2030. Any further changes to the contract would be subject to a further rigorous assessment to ensure continued value for money.

The hon. Member raises concerns about the size of payments to Siren Associates directors reported in the company's Fylde accounts. I have checked this question with the department. The Foreign Office's understanding is that, other than the fees for services rendered, there are no other payments to Siren Associates directors in their published accounts. The Foreign Office manages and monitors payments to Siren Associates for work conducted for the Foreign Office. We do not, however, have oversight of transactions that do not relate to Foreign Office work.

I want to be clear with the House, Madam Deputy Speaker, that all relevant due diligence checks have been completed and deemed satisfactory. We will continue to keep this programme under close review, as we do with all Foreign Office programmes, to ensure it delivers in full. We remain committed to supporting the Government of Lebanon and addressing threats to its security. Our long standing work with the Lebanese Armed forces and their internal security forces are a core part of that. That capability is central to maintaining security in Lebanon and preventing threats to the country, to the region, and ultimately to the United Kingdom.

I'd like to conclude, Madam Deputy Speaker, with three clear points. Firstly, supporting Lebanon security is firmly in the UK's national interest. Secondly, the programme delivered by Siren Associates is, we believe, a practical and important part of that effort. And thirdly, the contract was awarded to Siren Associates through a rigorous and

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proper process. The question is this House do now adjourn. Is that opinion? Say aye. The ayes have it. The ayes

09:00

Oral questions: Business and Trade

This debate has concluded

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