English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill (Second sitting)

David Simmonds Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 16th September 2025 Public Bill Committees

[The Chair]

We will now hear oral evidence from Tracy Brabin, chair of UK Mayors and Mayor of West Yorkshire; Lord Houchen, Metro Mayor of the Tees Valley; and Donna Jones, Hampshire police and crime commissioner and mayoral candidate. We have until 2.40 pm for this panel.

[David Simmonds (Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner) (Con)]

Q37 Welcome to our witnesses—all of you are known to most Members here. From your experience running devolved authorities, what are the potential benefits and challenges of the Bill?

Tracy Brabin: Thank you very much for inviting me to give evidence. It is a real pleasure to be here. I am very excited about the way that mayors can help you as you take the Bill through Parliament. When I was a Member of Parliament, I sat on Bill Committees going through Bills line by line, as you are. It is great that we can have our voices heard.

The opportunities for the Bill are exceptional. It gives us a statutory footing for mayoral strategic authorities and clarity around the framework for devolution. We have seen from the leadership of the Government that devolution by default is the theme. One challenge when we have not had clarity is that some Departments have bought into that memo and some have not. The Bill gives us the statutory framework so that mayors who are new and are coming on to devolution understand the three tiers.

The Bill gives us that great opportunity for clarity, but also elements such as the right to request. You will know that a number of established mayors and mayoral strategic authorities across the country are further along than newer mayoral strategic authorities, have certain powers and are already delivering faster growth than the rest of the country. The Bill gives them the opportunity to request further powers, freedoms and flexibilities. For example, as UK Mayors, we have a consensus on 16-to-19 skills, on careers, and on a visitor levy that would give us the opportunity to have an income stream—£20 million for London and potentially £1 million to £2 million for my own region—that we could reinvest in our regions.

The challenges are always about potentially not being brave enough and pulling back from devolution. We have a country that is so centralised. If we continue to do what we have always done we will get the same results. I think this is a revolution of devolution, and I am really pleased to see the enthusiasm and determination of so many Ministers and Members of Parliament to get it over the line.

We are also here to help you go further. This is only part of the process. As we say among the mayors, this Bill is the floor, not the ceiling; it will be iterative as we go forward over the years. We are here to support your thinking and help with understanding.

Donna Jones: Thank you very much for the question. I have only got positive things to say. This was started by the previous Government and has been continued with gusto by the Labour Government, and I am very grateful for it and welcome it. When the new mayoral combined authority in my area, Hampshire and the Isle of Wight—two counties; 2.2 million people—is created in May next year, it will be one of the largest in the country straightaway.

We should have had a devolution deal 10 years ago. I remember negotiating, when I was the leader of a city council, with Greg Clark, the then Secretary of State. We had the deal on the table from the Treasury and it covered about 50% of the geographical area that I currently represent as police and crime commissioner. We lost out. The Secretary of State was shuffled into another Department and it fell by the wayside. That was a great pity, particularly for the health inequalities that we have across my sub-region of the country, and for the businesses that I believe have lost out on inward investment and opportunity—the opportunity cost really is the biggest thing. When you look at the most recent pot of money that the Government announced, in March this year, the roads infrastructure fund— £15.7 billion—I have calculated that my area probably would have got over £2 billion of that money for roads, and we desperately need that.

We need a seat around the table that Tracy is chairing and at the Council of Nations and Regions meeting as well. We need a mayor to be championing and spearheading my sub-region. The final positive thing for me is the opportunity in Hampshire and the Isle of Wight, two of the largest parts of the south-east of England. Over the last decade, on average, our gross value added has been about £800 per head under that of the rest of the south-east. We have opportunity, but we do need some investment and we need someone to be spearheading.

I do not really want to be negative, but I am going to identify one challenge. I think it will dissipate over time, but to start with, for whoever becomes the mayor of Hampshire and the Solent, it is going to be a bit of a sales job, because the public are saying, “It’s another layer of government.” On the whole, there is a lot of misunderstanding around the opportunity that is coming. However, over time, when you are able to demonstrate the programmes you have delivered, the investment you can secure and the positive things that can come out of working closer with the Government, I think the public will very quickly come around to the fact that they really do desperately need a mayor for Hampshire and the Solent.

Ben Houchen: I will pick out a few points. First, to directly answer the question, I think the planning powers coming through the Bill are going to be hugely helpful. Giving mayors a strategic role in that, including in setting the spatial framework—I appreciate that we used to have spatial frameworks and we are coming full circle back to them—and having democratic oversight invested in a single individual, or what people see as a single individual, anyway, is really important. Obviously, we will have to get the permission of the majority of the councils within the combined authority area, but having that focal point is really important.

The drawback of the planning powers is that they are going to be very slow to arrive. The current indication from the Department is that by the time the legislation has passed and all of statutory instruments have gone through, we will not get the powers until maybe July, potentially September, next year. That is a long time to wait for powers that I think we can all agree are going to help with our growth and progress as a country.

The other thing that is still to be clarified is how we will be able to exercise those powers. There is still some grey around what types of planning permissions we will be able to instigate ourselves, through mayoral development orders, and what we will be able to do to call in. In effect, we are getting similar powers to the Mayor of London, but at what threshold? In my area, Teesside, being able to call in maybe 10, 20 or 30 houses would be significant to drive through development and growth, but we are not sure whether the threshold is going to be set at 20 or 30 houses or at 100, 200 or 300 houses. Some clarity on that is going to be really helpful. The reason we need the clarity is that we are all in the process of having to set up the teams within the organisations, and recruit the planners and the experts. That really needs to start now, and without that clarity it is quite difficult to take that step forward. But planning is substantially the best power within the Bill to date.

I personally think—as a mayor, I would say this; I am sure Tracy would agree with me—that more mayoral powers give us directly elected mayors more democratic oversight and accountability with the public. The other side of that coin is that there is a rebalancing of powers at the combined authority, slightly away from the collective of the councils that we have in our combined authority cabinet, and towards investing direct powers in mayors. I absolutely do come down on that side, not just because I am mayor, but because there is a way in which you can make quicker progress by investing more mayoral powers, whether in the establishment of development corporations, in some of the planning powers or in various other things in the Bill. We saw it a little bit at the end of the previous Government, but we are seeing with this Government an acceleration of those powers. Again, it really depends which side of the fence you sit on whether that is a positive or a negative.

Single pot has been parroted as a huge success. I think it is a good success and a good step forward, but I am mindful that we should not over-celebrate something that is not the success that it is sometimes portrayed to be. There are still a lot of restrictions on how you can move the money around. Sometimes it is communicated as, “We’ll have a pot of money and it will be for us to decide how to move those pots of money around.” Actually, within the rules, there is a percentage of money that can be moved from one pot to another. Even within that, sometimes, there are so-called retained projects; in particular, for example, with transport money, the Department for Transport keeps its claws in by saying, “Okay, it’s your money, but we’re going to keep oversight of this project,” and if it is not happy, in effect it has a veto on taking it to the next stage.

It is a good step, but it feels, throughout the Bill, that we have taken half a step from where we want to be. That is not a criticism—the Government have done really well in getting the Bill to where it is. This goes to the point about the right to request. Nobody wants to have taken the strategic decision about what devolution should be, so the Bill is a bit of a halfway house to move devolution on a bit. I think we need, as a collective, and as a UK Government, to decide on the future destination of devolution. The Government have only been allowed to get to where they are because that question has not been answered and, to be frank, it was not answered for three or four years under the previous Government either.

The Bill is a good step forward, but there are lots of things to be cautious about. I make those points because if we want to go as quickly as the Government have said—and I completely agree with their rhetoric around growth—it could have gone a little bit further, a little bit more quickly.

Tracy Brabin: Not every mayor has the potential for the integrated settlement at the speed at which they feel they are ready. That is a challenge. For Members’ understanding, the organisation is funded from top-slicing of projects, so there is a real desire from mayors to have dedicated funding to run the organisation—for example, your legal or HR departments. Everything is top-sliced from projects. That is not necessarily the most sustainable or strategic way to fund an organisation.

[David Simmonds]

Q A fairly straightforward question: what is your view on whether mayoral precepts should be limited? Should there be any constraints on their use to cover some of the debts currently held by some of the authorities that may be merged into what eventually emerge from this process as mayoral combined authorities?

[The Chair]

Pithy answers, please.

Tracy Brabin: The mayoral precept is democratically held by the mayor for the public. It would be for transport projects; it would be allocated to something specific. For example, the Mayor of Greater Manchester, Andy Burnham, uses it for young people’s travel. The Bill widens the opportunity to use the precept, but none of the public would be happy if you were paying off debts. It is fundamentally for betterment of and investment in communities, in the way that the police and crime commissioner precept is held to deliver better outcomes, whether that is more police community support officers on the street or initiatives around violence against women and girls. It is democratically held by the mayor. We have not introduced it as yet in West Yorkshire, but others have.

Donna Jones: I will be very brief because I am conscious that there are lots of Members on the Committee. The referendum limit is the prohibitor. Essentially, a mayor, like a police and crime commissioner and a council, can precept to the level that they want, but you have to have a referendum if you are going over that limit. Although the Government are right to want some checks and balances, so that you do not get areas that are really out of kilter with others, a referendum is prohibitive: it becomes very political, and it is very costly to do. Therefore, I think there should be a simpler mechanism if a mayor wants to precept above the Secretary of State’s agreed level. Perhaps that could be with written consent from the Secretary of State, as opposed to a referendum.

Ben Houchen: I am not a fan of mayoral precepts generally. I have not raised one, and have promised ever since I was elected not to raise one. Some transparency could be brought to the legislation. You have mayoral precepts, you have transport levies, and there is lobbying from a number of mayors around tourism taxes and so on. From a constituent point of view, forgetting the rights and wrongs of it, all that could be consolidated into a single precept, rather than having a separate transport levy, which can be quite opaque, particularly where you have new combined authorities. Some of those taxations are merged into combined authorities, and who has actually raised the levy can be quite lost. It ultimately all comes into the combined authority once it is established, but the Committee could take away the question of how that could be consolidated to streamline the precept. From the public’s point of view, the mayor has the ability to raise a mayoral precept; there is no reason to have a transport levy as well. For transparency’s sake, that should be clarified as a single levy, if you are going to have one.

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[Miatta Fahnbulleh]

Q To follow up on the point that you made around local growth, which is a big driver of everything that we are doing, what things should we think about in the context of local government and powers and resources in order to deal with the huge challenge that we have around reviving our high streets?

Andrew Goodacre: We touched on good examples, and we should look to learn from them. On local engagement, you need local leadership, but they need help sometimes. That help could be internally from the next level of authority up, or it could be from an external body. One body that I thought was beneficial to high street regeneration at a local authority level was the high streets taskforce that was set up as part of the Institute of Place Management for Manchester Metropolitan University. It has now ended as a body, although in name it carries on because stakeholders—we were one of those stakeholders—would meet on a quarterly basis to discuss opportunities, challenges, good news and bad news on high streets and high street regeneration. We would share those ideas and share them back with the high streets taskforce, and they would help that local decision making.

Quite often what you find is that people know what they want to do. They just do not quite always know how to do it. A think-tank independently managed and run could help them with that “how” and the implementation of their ideas. If you do not bring it back as it was, something similar would really help that local decision making, because sometimes the pride is there, the passion is there; they just do not always have the nous to make it work in the way they hoped for.

With regard to high streets, I see it from a retail point of view, but I recognise the fact that high streets are increasingly dominated by experiential elements—cultural, leisure, more hospitality driven—and I have no issue with that. It does mean that we need better change of use of some of the retail sites that become empty. I know planning is part of this whole issue, so speeding up the planning process is important.

Ideally, I would like to bring homes back into high streets where the possibility exists. There are some large, empty buildings. I live quite near Stratford-upon-Avon and I still go past a VHS store that closed in 2016. It is still empty. I find it remarkable that a landlord can let a big place like that stay empty for so long. We have not looked at the opportunity of what more we could do with that, or what we could do differently with that. If we can bring homes and people back into high streets as places where people want to live, preferably with affordable properties for younger people, I think you would start to create local economies that would drive some of those high streets as well.

Allen Simpson: The question is what level you devolve at. Clearly, we are all nimbys. Nimby is an irregular verb—you are a nimby; I am concerned about my local environment. There are circumstances in which we need to find ways of treating high streets like strategic infrastructure. There will be asymmetric benefits and costs if you live close to a high street or, as people used to, above shops—that is less common than it was—versus being in the surrounding community. Sometimes local politicians do need help. We have seen an approach to that in London that the Committee will have views on.

I am very much in favour of hospitality zones, which have specific licensing approaches, where there is some form of recognition that you get to a “yes” more quickly. There is a specific question around Andrew’s point about bringing people back into former high street or commercial areas, in the City of London or elsewhere, around agents of change. I am very in favour of placing a burden on developers to fit the development around hospitality, rather than buying a flat next door to a pub and then being annoyed that there is a beer garden, for which I have zero sympathy.

[David Simmonds]

Q At what level, or by what mechanism, do you think the views of local businesses, particularly smaller businesses, should be captured and used to influence the decision making of the new authorities that will come into being? I was very conscious listening to your descriptions that you very ably depicted some issues that those businesses might face. How do you make sure that the mayors, and the decision makers feeding into those mayors understand what the impact of those decisions will be, and take those views into account?

Andrew Goodacre: That is a good question. What works well at the moment is the business improvement district model. Where it falls down slightly again depends on the people involved. A good BID represents the voice of local businesses, which are paying through business rates, because the levy is on the business rate, as we know. What I saw in Enniskillen at that time was a BID that really listened to its stakeholders, shared ideas with them and took back the feedback. One of the things introduced there was an Enniskillen gift card that could be used in any shop in that area—ideal for the tourist market that it is trying to appeal to.

We should establish BIDs; the problem with them is that they can be very indifferent, in terms of their make-up and the quality of them. Again, the funding often becomes a point of contention because you are adding to business rates, which is already a massive point of contention for most business owners. In a way, I would like to see BIDs funded in different ways, through the devolution White Paper. Their performance would therefore be a bit more targeted. Part of their performance metrics should be the ability for them to show that they have engaged, understood and taken forward what local business people want, in my case, within their high street.

Allen Simpson: An observation: if you are looking to drive growth, by definition you are looking to bring in businesses that are not there or do not exist, so to some extent your problem is how you consult businesses that do not currently exist. To some degree, it is less about having consultation with specific businesses and more about having an approach that is pro the foundation of businesses in a given area. Clearly, there will be examples where licensing rules could be better consulted on so that existing businesses can expand, but I wonder whether it is less about consultation and more about taking a proactive approach to growth.

[Maya Ellis (Ribble Valley) (Lab)]

Q Both the industries that you represent rely on tourism. One of the things that has come up in discussions that I have had about local government reorganisation is the branding of an area. I just wondered about your thoughts—you have touched on bids and hospitality zones. By way of an example, my area of Ribble Valley is known for food and drink and for weddings. Ribble Valley borough council will disappear in local government reorganisation. One of the biggest fears about that seems to be about the branding of it. We have looked at things such as the English riviera in Torquay, and how they have created a bid to brand that. What are your thoughts on that? Do we have enough mechanisms to protect those brands within the UK, which may disappear as borough council areas, but your industries will still need?

Andrew Goodacre: I think it would be a shame if we lost some of those brands that people have worked hard to create. I think the visitor economy is so important. The most successful independent retailers are in those visitor economies, because people often visit looking for something different that you do not see in a chain store of a large retailer. Creating that identity is something that I hear all the time from successful places. They feel as if they are part of an identity—they have something around them that says, “Yes, we can buy into this.” The riviera example is a good one. It would be a shame if that local effort—that local sense—was lost. I think Falmouth is another good example. Falmouth has created its own essence of Cornwall within that place. You should not lose that. They are so important. It seems counterintuitive that a push for devolution to create more power at a local level means that you would lose local identities. That would be counterintuitive, so we need to make sure that does not happen. Actually, those should be reinforced with better funding.

Allen Simpson: I ran Visit London for five years, so I worked on this a lot. My observation is that the money is not there. Unless you are London, Edinburgh or, to a certain degree, Manchester, which has a very high-quality marketing agency of its own, the money just is not there to do it. Visit Kent has just gone bust. The ability to market a region—sometimes, we devolve the responsibility but not the money with it, and I think that is an example. Equally, not everywhere can be branded. I am not going to pick on anywhere in particular or have one of my regular digs at Essex, but where there is a solid local brand, at the moment, we do not have sensible ways of doing that—just mechanisms to do it. Visit Britain works quite hard internationally to disperse people’s awareness of the UK outside of Edinburgh, York, Lincoln and London, but towards a domestic market, which I think is largely what you are talking about, the exam question is, “What is the pot of money handed down to local communities to do it?” because it is incredibly expensive doing marketing.

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[Miatta Fahnbulleh]

Q Thank you, Mr Davies and Mr Butler, for setting out the gravity of the situation, the urgency and need to reform, and how the Local Audit Office is an important step. You both candidly made the point that it is necessary, but not sufficient. I am interested in what key building blocks are needed in addition. Obviously, we need to deal with the backlog—that is a given—but, alongside creating this institution, what are the top three things that the Committee should have in mind in order to deal with the problem we have today?

Gareth Davies: The first would be skills and capacity. This sector has suffered from a loss of skilled expertise. Public audit is not interchangeable with company audit; it is a specialist field—you are auditing political institutions and reporting in the public interest. It is a different skillset, with some common areas with the rest of the auditing profession, and it attracts people who are interested in how public bodies become successful and how they achieve value for money, and so on. The pool of experts in that area has reduced sharply, so the system faces the challenge of building up that body of expertise and skills.

It is not just the auditors. In the past, the auditors did a lot of the training, and people then went on to careers in local government, the rest of the public sector and other sectors. It was a breeding ground for the finance function of local authorities. Individual local authorities cannot typically sustain large training programmes of accountants on their own, so having a regime that supports the development of that skillset is vital.

The other essential is getting hold of local government financial reporting and radically simplifying it, streamlining it in a way that can still be incorporated into the whole of Government accounts. That is always the caveat, and the reason for some of the complexity, but I do not believe that it is an impossible task. At the moment, the accounts are too easily dismissed as only of interest to the auditor because they are long, complex and quite difficult to follow in many places. There is no reason why we should put up with that. I know the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy and the wider profession have started work on what professionals think would represent a high-quality, meaningful financial statement that would clearly explain to taxpayers how we have used their resources.

There is a danger that everyone focuses only on the council budget and ignores the accounts. That is dangerous, because the balance sheet matters as well as annual expenditure.

Bill Butler: I can save quite a lot of time by saying that I agree with all of that. This may happen on a number of occasions, and we have not shared briefs. If you start with those who prepare the accounts, that needs to be revitalised. It is moribund, and people are looking at the scale of this task and finding it difficult. Some of this can be the support that Members and Ministers can bring to bear in terms of its importance, because—again, echoing Gareth—it is not considered to be interesting and it is too easily put aside, but that is not going to get any better. There is a real risk that it will get worse unless preparers are properly supported, and unless it is clear what revisions are possible to make the accounts simpler and deliverable.

There are issues around how we encourage colleagues who work in the audit firms. That is a broader issue, because they are bound by the technical standards imposed across the firms by their relationship with the Financial Reporting Council. However, at the moment, that seems occasionally to act as a block to overcoming that risk. We need to be honest about the fact that that risk assessment is there and about what we can do around it.

As Gareth said, we have been looking, with CIPFA, at reforming local government accounts for some considerable time. The clock has now ticked down, I think. One of the things I hope for is that the commitment shown to reform so far carries on across these broader areas, not of all of which are susceptible to legislation, but all of which would be, I hope, susceptible to encouragement.

Gareth Davies: I would like to add one other thing, because an important bit of the full picture is governance arrangements in local authorities. I know that the Bill includes provisions on audit committees, but it is important that local authorities have robust audit committee-type arrangements. I am not prescriptive about exactly what form they should take, but meaningful engagement with internal and external audit and a connection to the governance of the authority as a whole through its political leadership are essential to good governance. That means having somewhere where difficult questions can be asked and answers gained.

In quite a few of the disasters we have seen in local government finance in recent years, it is the governance arrangements that are primarily at fault in not picking up on excessive risk-taking and lack of understanding of the nature of the risk being taken on, and so on. It is another example of where a more robust audit system will not, on its own, solve everything—although it will definitely help, because it will bring those questions to the audit committee table—but the audit committee itself needs to be a functioning, robust and effective part of the governance of the authority.

Bill Butler: If I may say so, these are not things that can wait for the Local Audit Office, which has a massive task to perform anyway. If we wait, these problems become intractable, and the organisation’s chances of succeeding, if it has any at all, are very low,. They are issues that need to be addressed now, while we have the opportunity and—I hope everybody agrees—a pressing need.

[David Simmonds]

Q I would like to ask you some questions about the risks you outlined in broad terms, and how they play out in the context of the devolution and reorganisation envisaged in the Bill. For the record, I was involved in launching public sector audit appointments some years ago.

In a local authority, there is the collection fund, which essentially covers all the income that it is due to collect, then there are pension schemes, the dedicated schools grant, the housing revenue account and the parking revenue account, where there are slightly variable legal ringfences. All of those pose risks and many of them are impacted by elements of the devolution proposals affecting who will be responsible for decision making and what that revenue might underpin in terms of borrowing or day-to-day expenditure. Will you give us a sense, from your experience, of what the risks are, what the potential opportunities are and where changes are needed to, for example, the ringfences, and your views on the inclusion of the dedicated schools grant in the annual, legal council tax-fixing process, which might help or hinder the proper management of some of those financial risks.

Gareth Davies: Do you want to go first, Bill?

Bill Butler: Yes, then you can agree with me.

[The Chair]

We heard that!

Bill Butler: I think the nature of those statutory balances is actually one of the significant things in how we handle the disclaimers, because they are a part of the mechanism that is different from a balance sheet outside of local government. Of course, because they are statutory, that does mean that they are amenable to change.

On how they will affect the broader issues, it depends on where you are, because there are still quite a lot of places where there are no problems and where you can deal with it. The problem arises, as I alluded to earlier, when there is a bad apple in the barrel. We have seen in previous reorganisations that bringing on board a set of accounts and an organisation that is not on top of those things—where there is no assurance about where those boundaries have been set—poisons the water across the whole thing.

If you have one district coming into a newly constituted authority or organisation, the whole of the account will cause problems. That problem tends to be long standing in nature; the people who might have been able to help you resolve it have gone, and the attention is focused elsewhere. It is impossible to say, other than on a case-by-case basis, how that would impact things, but my view—our view, I think—would be that if those issues can be addressed and clarified now, that will lead to a better situation. If you have places with four years’ worth of disclaimers, finding a way through the statutory balances is will be fundamental to avoiding problems down the line.

Gareth Davies: All I would add is that, in a way, that is a good example of the accreted layers of complexity that now represent local government accounts. There was a strong argument for each ringfence when it was created, but when you stand back, the total picture is now very messy and complex. This is an opportunity to take stock and say, “Which bits of this actually serve our purpose now? Is there an opportunity here for simplification?”

As Bill says, some of these are statutory balances, which can be determined by Government, and that may be one way of accelerating the restoration of proper audit opinions, for example. Rather than the auditor agonising over questions like, “Where do I get the assurance over this statutory balance? It’s not been signed off for many years,” using the statutory process for determination of the balances might be part of the solution. Of course, there are all sorts of downsides with that kind of thing, but it is important that we are clear about how long it will take to get to a properly constituted set of accounts for a new organisation.

Bill Butler: Striving for something that is good, rather than pursuing excellence and achieving nothing, is fundamentally important.

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[David Simmonds]

Q I have two questions that follow from that. On that last point, I know that CIPFA has argued that a much higher degree of consistency is needed in the way statutory balances are accounted for, and I am conscious that that can make millions of pounds of difference at an individual local authority level. I am interested in your views about how the new arrangement should or should not seek to constrain decision making in order to improve consistency.

Secondly, in respect of specific funds, in debates around devolution, it is often argued that, for example, there should be freedom to spend the proceeds of the parking revenue account beyond the current constraints—that the revenue, for example, should be used to prop up social care, or whatever it may be, in a way that it simply cannot within the current legal framework. Do you have any views about decisions or tweaks that the Bill should make to those arrangements, based on the risk and assurance issues you have outlined?

Bill Butler: Not from where I sit. It is a policy area that I would avoid, although I understand why you would ask the question.

Gareth Davies: Yes, I am required to avoid it. The reason I am here today is to discuss public audits, essentially, rather than policy decisions on those kinds of financial matters. Clearly, there is a point at which the two things meet, which is really where we are talking now, but it is not for me to give a view on what should or should not be in a ringfence.

[David Simmonds]

Q What about the CIPFA guidance point? Can you address that?

Bill Butler: There is a standard basis for it standardisation and simplification so that you can move between sets of accounts. It seems hugely sensible. Interestingly, I can remember having similar discussions in the early 1980s, when I first qualified, with the then Department of the Environment’s technical advisers. We have made some progress. Yes, the inconsistency is odd. As Gareth said, it causes problems for auditors as well, because they move between places. It does not help the underlying problem that we have been discussing.

[Vikki Slade]

Q You have talked about policy issues, the lack of trust and the suspicion around transparency. I am sure we have all heard assumptions that things are going on in councils. What is your assessment of the possibly complementary role of local public accounts committees sitting alongside the Local Audit Office? Fundamentally, councils, health authorities and education are all intermingled—they are all spending public money. Do you have a view on whether this might be the time to go for that?

Gareth Davies: I work with the current Public Accounts Committee in Parliament. In that set-up, it is an essential part of the effectiveness of the accountability system. I have seen how the Committee works, and it works extremely well on a non-partisan basis. It has a hugely dedicated membership pursuing accountability across government, so it is a very effective model in the House of Commons. Such a body is normally positive in local government in the context of combined authorities—that is where I have seen it mentioned most. As I said earlier, having an audit committee in every local authority is an essential part of good governance. Questions like, “Are we managing the risks to the organisation effectively? Are the controls that we think we have in place operating as intended?” are the meat and drink of an audit committee agenda.

Where a local public accounts committee might have an effect would be in looking across the public service landscape—say, at a combined authority or sub-regional scale, in Greater Manchester, in the west midlands or wherever. I think there is a gap there at the moment. One of my last roles before I stopped auditing local government was auditing the Greater Manchester combined authority; it was ramping up in scale at the time, and it was getting to be very significant, including some health spending and so on. As we know, it is the most developed of the devolved set-ups at the moment. I can see how, in that arena, a local public accounts committee would add real value by looking beyond the institution, which an individual audit committee cannot do, and by looking at value for money in the sub-region. If that is what we are talking about, it would be a body that we in the National Audit Office could engage with in order to follow the public pound from national policy making, through to sub-regional infrastructure and so on, and through to council delivery. All parts of that are important, including right at the individual local authority level.

Bill Butler: I have nothing to add.

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[Miatta Fahnbulleh]

Q I have a final question, if I may, Chair. We heard very clearly from the last panel that the reforms that were put in place are necessary but not sufficient, and that we need to think about how we build on things such as skills and capacity. From the perspective of someone at the coalface, what are the things that we need to get right? What should we reflect on as we take through these reforms in the Bill?

Mark Stocks: It is still fragile. I thought Gareth and Bill were accurate in what they said. We need to have more capacity so that we are not reliant on just a few suppliers. For that, there has to be consistency in terms of message. We need to get to grips with local authority accounts. If I went and did a set of NHS accounts, they are perhaps 100 pages long. The average local government accounts are 200 to 250 pages long, so the work involved is immense. That is why it takes longer, so we have to get that right.

We need to start to deal with some of the risks in local government, to be candid. It is quite difficult to deal with the breadth of what local government does. If you add on top of that the financial issues that they face and the issues that are asked of them in terms of policy, that layers on quite a scope for auditors, which means that we have to bring in specialists to do some of the work. I do not think that will get any easier under the current landscape.

[David Simmonds]

Q The previous panel addressed some of the complexities of the local government finance landscape, with the different accounts and so on. I am interested in your perspective as someone from the audit sector that receives many of these contracts, first on the challenges involved in skilling up the sector with the necessary knowledge and training. I am also interested in your perspective on the standardisation question. I think we all understand that audit is sometimes more of an art than a science—sometimes the other way round. How do you end up with something where everybody understands what is expected of them, in the context of a high degree of transparency that often is not really there in the commercial sector? How do decisions to deviate from that standard impact on the wider perception of the state of that organisation?

Mark Stocks: Local government accounts are complex. These are highly complex sorts of businesses, if I can use that phrase, that deal with any number of services. What we see now are local finance teams who are stretched, to be candid. There has been a lack of investment in them over the years. Gareth talked about trainees going from the Audit Commission into local government, but that does not happen now. There is a bunch of people who are around 50, who may be disappearing in the short term, so we have to sort out the strength of local government finance teams. As I said, we also need to sort out the complexity of the accounts.

In terms of the standards, all local government accounts are under international financial reporting standards, and that will not change. That is a Treasury requirement. How that is interpreted and what is important in those accounts is open to judgment. The emphasis from the LAO on whether it is more important for us to audit income or to audit property will make a difference to what local auditors do. I would always argue that it is more important to audit income.

It is very difficult to standardise anything that we do, because local government is not standardised. I can take you from a district authority that spends £60 million, most of which is housing benefit, to an authority that spends £4 billion and has significant regeneration schemes and companies. The skillsets that you need and the ability to standardise is very difficult. You have to have the right skills to do the work.

[Manuela Perteghella]

Q Do you anticipate any issues in the working relationships between the new Local Audit Office and the local authorities it will audit?

Mark Stocks: The Local Audit Office cannot look like the Audit Commission. The Audit Commission took a particular tack in terms of what it did and the level of scrutiny that it put on local government. If the Local Audit Office follows suit, which this Bill does not allow it to, I am sure there will be problems. But the way the Local Audit Office is configured in the Bill is to make local audit stronger. As long as the Local Audit Office sticks to that, I do not think there will be too much of a problem.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Chair]

Could that paper be sent to the secretariat and circulated around the Committee?

Zoë Billingham: Certainly.

[David Simmonds]

Q I would like to ask you to enlarge on this subject. The point at which Professor Denham finished was a helpful starting place. I think we all share the desire to see that level of community empowerment. What is very striking, when we compare local government in all its forms in the UK with what is well established in other countries, is how little of it there is, relatively, and how few powers people in local authorities already have. One of the concerns we flagged is that the chosen footprint of half a million envisages, in shire England, the elimination of 90% of existing local councillors in one fell swoop. I am interested in how, in the context of a country that is already massively under-represented at local level, we can address that manifest democratic deficit in this process.

And to come to the point that both of you have touched on, the Bill as drafted assumes power upwards to mayors, and it introduces a raft of powers—in chapter after chapter of the Bill—whereby the Secretary of State will direct the mayor and the authority, requiring them to produce various strategies. In a country that is already very centralised anyway, how do we develop and encourage local leaders to come forward in a context where there will be significantly fewer roles for them to fulfil, and where those roles will be significantly more constrained than they have been used to?

Professor Denham: Let me break that down into a number of sections. First, on local government reorganisation and size, I will be straightforward: Sir David and I did not propose local government reorganisation. We proposed creating what would now be called strategic authorities from what we generally call upper-tier authorities—the unitaries and the counties. I am not saying that there would not have been a need down the line to do something about what will be a messy system, but in terms of getting growth plans and those things up and running—I just put that on the record, because I am not going to get too far into the issue. However, if you are where you are at the moment, I would commend the idea of community empowerment plans and a proper legal framework for devolution below those levels.

What I would say, though, is that there is a level of devolved function that needs to operate at the level of strategic authorities. If you are going to have really good local growth strategies, and if they are going to tie into a national industrial strategy, it could not be done, say, at the level of a city such as Southampton, where I was an MP for a long time. You need a bigger body. However you do it at the micro level, that strategic level must operate effectively.

To tie my threads together, if you go to other European countries with a higher level of devolution, they have an intermediate forum between the strategic body and the national, where these issues are thrashed out, best practice is worked out and, in a sense, the Secretary of State does not exercise their direction powers without discussing it with the mayoral council first. You actually say, “How is that going to work then? How is that power going to be used?” So building in that layer means the right sort of compromise between the desire of Governments to get on with things and the need to engage people at local level. That would be one way of dealing with it.

You are inviting me to say we should keep all the district councils, but I am going to pass on that one, because that was not part of our proposals.

Zoë Billingham: Let me just build on that and the question of scale. As John says, the proposed 500,000 scale of the unitaries post-reorganisation is very large compared with European counterparts, and that poses some big questions, not least whether the projected efficiency savings will be realised. However, town and parish councils still exist within the system, and we have previously done work that looks at what we call the hyper-local tier of governance. While they are imperfect bodies, there are improvements that can be built upon at that hyper-local level, in addition to having some sort of formal forum, as John says, to engage with communities.

If the neighbourhood area committee proposal continues as planned, I would really urge that to be—the majority—taken up by community leaders and young people. There are other ways that we can help to counterbalance this through democratic innovations. There was talk, for instance, about remote meetings and remote voting, which are not currently available. Especially when you speak to young people about why they do not engage with local politics, they say that meetings are at the wrong time and too far away, and if you do not have a car, you cannot get to them, especially in rural communities. So I think this could be a real opportunity to see how normal council business is done and improve on it.

Finally, to build on the point about participatory methods, it is about making sure that unitaries are committed to properly engaging with their communities on the big questions they face, and not seeing it as distancing from communities.

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[Miatta Fahnbulleh]

Q The Government will do our very best to make sure that chaos is not the thing that comes out of this set of reforms. I think most people would concede that the status quo is not optimal and therefore reform is required. The piece that I want to push back and follow up on is the need for public participation. That is the whole basis on which our planning system works, but there is something about accountability and the mandate that sits with the mayor. Ultimately, if people do not like the set of decisions that the mayor drives through a development plan, they can boot them out in an election, so there is a specific piece around the function of the mayor that means that they can hold that development plan and the public are able to hold the mayor to account.

Naomi Luhde-Thompson: I think we need to reflect on what became of the regional spatial strategies, and on whether that was an issue around social licence and public consent. Obviously, an examination was attached to them in their development, and there was accountability in different formats. If it is not clear to people that they are going to be involved, you will just get disempowerment and disenfranchisement, and then people are just going to say, “Well, it’s nothing to do with me. I haven’t been able to be involved, and I haven’t been able to have an influence.” Those routes to influence and to participate properly, which means having an impact on the outcome, need to be very clearly laid out so that people can participate. I agree with you that it is a whole discussion. Planning is the way we organise ourselves in space, in society and in places. That is what it is supposed to be, so we need to make it like that.

Your point about democratic accountability is really important. One of the things that the Better Planning Coalition has been looking at is the national scheme of delegation, which will have a huge impact on whether there is democratic accountability for planning decisions at local level. If people realise what is happening only when the bulldozer turns up at the end of the road, that is obviously a failure of the system. If they feel that a decision has not been made in a way that is accountable, if there is no one for them to go and talk to, and if they do not have public speaking rights at planning committees any more and cannot have their say on that decision, I think that will lead to a democratic deficit.

[David Simmonds]

Q To pick up on the point about a democratic deficit, one of the things that has been much debated is that the Government have embarked on two major pieces of legislation: the Planning and Infrastructure Bill, and the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill. Both will have a huge impact on the policy area, particularly around housing. We know that housing delivery has collapsed, and part of the solution to that in the Planning and Infrastructure Bill is to strip out a lot of the environmental protections, which you have referred to. Then the devo Bill comes along and removes much of the community voice as well—for example, by reducing the number of planning applications that may be considered by a local planning committee. Can you tell us a little bit about how, perhaps in an ideal world or a more optimal world, that community voice could be secured behind the delivery of the types and number of homes that communities want, but in a way that best reflects the needs of those local communities and those areas?

[The Chair]

Bullet points would be great.

Richard Hebditch: This is not a good way to start an answer, but it is a massive challenge, and I very much recognise that. One of the things is around democratic legitimacy. As Naomi was saying, it is not about entirely removing local planning authorities’ say in how they deal with applications. It is important to ensure there is a community voice in the development of local plans as well. There is a challenge, as previously mentioned, if local government reorganisation is going on at the same time.

It is also about having a level of democratic accountability within the strategic layer. I mentioned the lack of structures for these new strategic authorities beyond the indirectly elected constituent authorities. The previous panel was discussing ideas that might improve engagement. There are risks in relying on elections every four years as the entire democratic legitimacy, particularly in a time when you have five parties all quite close together in polling, and you are seeing that in local authority elections at the moment.

There are risks in relying on that to justify your decisions without necessarily having a structure for what happens in the gap between those four years to ensure democratic voice and community engagement. It is not necessarily for the Bill, but maybe there is something around ensuring that there are adequate reviews of how this will operate, drawing on the ideas that the previous panel was discussing. We also now have the national covenant between civil society and national Government, so it is about whether we can look at similar things at a strategic layer and at a local layer.

Naomi Luhde-Thompson: Let me add just one example. I do not know whether anyone knows about the Salt Cross area action plan. It is West Oxfordshire district council: 2,000 homes on a greenfield site, and they want it to be zero carbon. It is going to have business on it and affordable housing. The community is really supportive, because that development is bringing things for them. The only problem is that those developing it want to strip out some of the things about zero carbon, for example, so there is a conflict there. I think that is all about—this is a whole different conversation—land values and land value capture, and how you get the public benefit out of development.

--- Later in debate ---

[Perran Moon]

Q Meur ras—thank you, Chair. I am afraid it is Cornwall again, Minister. In 2016, commenting on the previous Government’s plans for redrawing boundaries, the Council of Europe’s advisory committee on the framework convention for the protection of national minorities said that

“Article 16 prohibits restricting the enjoyment of the rights of the Framework Convention in connection with the redrawing of borders.”

The Bill currently excludes Cornwall from accessing the highest level of devolution unless we compromise our national minority status. Is there an appetite in the Government, before we pass a Bill that breaches the framework convention, for making special provision in the Bill for Cornwall so that it can access the highest level of devolution without compromising our national minority status?

Miatta Fahnbulleh: First, let me thank you for being such a consistent, persistent and passionate advocate for Cornwall. The Government absolutely recognise Cornwall’s national minority status. We recognise the uniqueness of Cornwall and are trying to operate within that framework. Ultimately, strategic authorities, at their best, try to drive economic performance and growth, so geography matters.

The conversation that we want to have with Cornwall is: “If you want to drive growth and employment opportunities, and if you want to create jobs in your area, what is the best geography to do that in?” That is not to deny Cornwall’s uniqueness and specialness, which I think every single Committee member recognises and appreciates, but it is to say that if our objective is to make sure we are delivering for your community in Cornwall, what is the best spatial strategy to do that? That might require collaboration beyond the boundaries of Cornwall.

[David Simmonds]

Q I think we have established that the Department has not done an independent assessment of the financial impact of the reorganisation that has been described, so we do not know where we stand with that, but let me push for a little more clarity on the footprint. It is clear from the representations from local government leaders that the Government had previously given them the steer that unless their bid was for a footprint of around half a million, or had a very strong justification for why it was larger or smaller than that, the Government were unlikely to approve it. That was the evidence given to us by the previous Minister.

Clearly, a number of those authority areas are in the process of finalising their bids, and in some areas there is dispute at different levels of local authority as to what the footprint should be. Many of us will have been pleased to hear you say earlier, Minister, that that was flexible, in your view—that it was not intended to be a strong guideline, but was something where you were looking at a much greater level of latitude. So that we can have assurances in relation to the relevant groupings later in the Committee process, will you commit to all those local leaders—in particular any who have submitted a bid on the understanding that it had to be around that 500,000—that there will be the opportunity to revisit that if it was not dictated by their local circumstances and preferences but, in their minds, something required by the Government?

[The Chair]

Can you come to the question, please?

[David Simmonds]

That is the question.

Miatta Fahnbulleh: I come back to, “What is the purpose of this?” We are not doing reorganisation for the fun of it—it is not fun. We are doing it because we think it will help us to drive certain outcomes. Our assessment is that around 500,000 is the sort of scale that allows us to do certain functions. That has to be consistent and compliant with what makes sense locally. The whole purpose of localism is that you have that interaction between the two. We have therefore given a benchmark for what we think makes sense, but when we look at proposals we will, of course, take into account the specific circumstances. If an authority comes forward with 100,000 or 200,000, we are likely to say that that probably does not cut the mustard, but we want to have that conversation, because fundamentally this has to be aligned and make sense on the ground. Otherwise, none of this will play out in the way that we want it to.

[David Simmonds]

Just to check—

[The Chair]

Order. I really want to allow other Members to get in.

[David Simmonds]

Q May I put a point of clarification? If there is no independent financial assessment, on what basis do the Government have a view that 500,000 is the most efficient size?

Miatta Fahnbulleh: I come back to the fact that it is not just about savings and efficiency, but about removing fragmentation and about what makes sense in terms of the types of services that we are asking local authorities to deliver—it is a whole set of things. That is our benchmark, but ultimately the basis of localism is to say to places, “Given these parameters, what do you think makes sense?” We will use that to make decisions.

[Vikki Slade]

Q Most areas that are currently undergoing local government reorganisation seem to be moving at pace to set up town and parish councils, if they do not have them, to protect their assets, protect their identity and retain local democratic accountability, because they are nervous about decisions being taken a long way away. That demonstrates how much they are valued. Yet places are not being supported to do so. There is no duty to co-operate with, include or consult with town and parish councils in the Bill. The funding for neighbourhood planning is gone, and I have had confirmation today that it is not coming back. There is no money to support the community right to buy. I believe that the desire for devolution is genuine, and we share it, but if you want to devolve to truly local people, you have to include and value the community level. Will you be open to reviewing the role of town and parish councils and how local people can truly get involved, either through town and parish councils or through community activism, rather than it being top-down?

Miatta Fahnbulleh: The push of powers to communities is absolutely critical to us, and the duty on local authorities to think about neighbourhood governance is trying to get to the heart of that. Parish councils may be the structures and institutions that the local authority decides to build on, but it is not consistent across the country, so we have to ensure that we are finding the right governance structures for different places so that communities have a genuine voice. We have to ensure that we have diversity of representation, which we need for this to be enduring and for it to ensure that there is power and voice for communities. The commitment is there, and that is why we have it. We were very clear that this was not just about strategic authorities or local authorities, but was absolutely about the neighbourhood level. How we get that right has to be a conversation—an iterative relationship with places. That is the bit that we are absolutely committed to.

English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill (First sitting)

David Simmonds Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 16th September 2025 Public Bill Committees

[Manuela Perteghella (Stratford-on-Avon) (LD)]

I declare that I used to be a parish councillor and, until March, a district councillor for Stratford-on-Avon.

[David Simmonds (Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner) (Con)]

As per my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests, I am a director of Localis think-tank, which has contributed evidence. I am also a parliamentary vice-president of the Local Government Association and for London Councils, which has also submitted evidence.

[Lewis Cocking (Broxbourne) (Con)]

I am a former councillor and I know lots of the witnesses from my previous role leader of Broxbourne council.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Chair]

Would the witnesses like to say a few words about themselves?

Justin Griggs: Good morning. I am Justin Griggs, head of policy and communications at the National Association of Local Councils. We work in partnership with our 43 county associations to support, promote and improve England’s 10,000 parish councils, which are the community tier of local government in England.

Sam Chapman-Allen: My name is Councillor Sam Chapman-Allen. I am the chairman of the District Councils’ Network for England, representing 169 district and unitary councils, the single biggest arm of local government, delivering 45% of all planning permissions across the country. I am also the leader of Breckland council in Norfolk.

[David Simmonds]

Q This is a question for both of our witnesses. The title of the Bill is the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill. Both of you have very deep roots at community level in representing the voices of local people. Could you set out your views about how the measures in the Bill will impact on the ability of elected parish, district and borough councillors to exercise that power, control and voice on behalf of those residents and communities?

Sam Chapman-Allen: To start off, at the DCN we are absolutely in favour of devolution as long as it is meaningful for our local community. I think the threat and the concerns that we have so far with what is presented in the Bill is that district councils, which are responsible as the planning and housing authority, have no seat round the table of the new strategic authorities that are being established. If we want to work in partnership with this Government, delivering 1.5 million homes, you need those planning authorities around that table.

Beyond that, many things are missing. If we look at what is being devolved from Whitehall and those Whitehall Departments, it is very short in its forthcomings. Some of those powers are just about recentralisation. If we are going to achieve what devolution should be, which is a bottom-up approach where local residents get to shape what their local communities look like, and the centre truly devolving, you need to make sure that those constituent councils—which are the housing authority and the planning authority, and are in control of economic growth—have a seat round that table to drive that agenda forward.

Justin Griggs: At the National Association of Local Councils, we have long advocated for a shift of power out of Whitehall and into our communities, but it is important that that devolution goes beyond the regional, sub-regional and principal authority levels, and into communities themselves. That is why we welcome the ambitions, taken together, that the Government have set out in the White Paper and the Bill. They provide some helpful recognition of the important role that parish and town councils play in their communities—as local leaders, with skin in the game, who know their places best, and providing a wide and growing range of hyper-local public services, such as using neighbourhood planning to plan for housing within their areas, tackling the cost of living crisis, stepping up to support communities during the covid pandemic and working with their communities on climate change.

However, it is important that the Bill goes further and takes more steps to strengthen communities, and parish and town councils. It is helpful that there are measures in the Bill that seek to strengthen the relationship between strategic authorities, unitary authorities and parish councils. That could very much be strengthened. But there are a number of other areas that the Bill could be strengthening to support parish and town councils to do more for their areas, to work with mayors and strategic authorities, and definitely to support colleagues in principal authorities to deliver public services in what is a very challenging financial environment.

[David Simmonds]

Q Thank you very much to both the witnesses. It has been a helpful start. Councillor Chapman-Allen, you referred to the role of your constituent authorities in the planning system. We know that a big focus of the Government is around an increase in housing. What impact will that have on the ability of the overall system to deliver the necessary number of planning permissions and the necessary strategic planning—undertaking this extensive reorganisation, which involves, essentially, the abolition of most of those planning authorities at the same time?

Sam Chapman-Allen: The reason why my members are able to successfully deliver 45% of all new homes across the country is localism. It is being close to those communities and able to work across every mile within our villages, towns, cathedral cities and coastal communities. But it is about taking our communities with us, to understand where those houses need to be built, what the challenges are and how we overcome them together. When you begin to introduce strategic authorities at a large scale, which sometimes seem very distant, you have to have that piece in between it to allow people to have a local voice and representation.

How can a mayor, sitting in a strategic position, be supposed to deliver on housing and planning, when the local authority, which is responsible for housing and planning, does not have a seat round that table? That is the challenge and the risk. This Government have a clear mandate of 1.5 million homes. To achieve that, they need all those councils round that table. We need to make sure that the public have that ability—democratic accountability at a hyper-local level—driving forward not just housing but also wider place-shaping.

[David Simmonds]

Q One of the issues that we aired in the debate when this subject first emerged on the Floor of the House was that at the Government’s chosen footprint of 500,000 minimum population, the Bill implies the abolition of 90% of the local elected representatives in each of those areas. I know the cross-party concerns about the risk of losing that community voice. With your experience at community, district and borough level, it would be helpful for you to spell out what you think is the impact of that potential democratic deficit, especially on contested issues such as planning.

Sam Chapman-Allen: You will appreciate how busy your inboxes and mailsacks are, with the casework that you receive daily from your residents. When you begin to remove councillors, that casework does not disappear; it just becomes a bigger challenge for a single councillor. The risk is as we begin to get bigger those mega-councils, and we begin to think about how to ensure that those councillors can represent their communities. Does it become a full-time job? Does it then preclude other people from being able to stand to become community champions?

The reason why local government and district councils work successfully, in the same way as London boroughs and Manchester metropolitan councils, is because they are hyper-local. There are circa 200,000 to 350,000 residents per council, and they have local councillors representing a couple of thousand people. As we move forward with mega-councils, the risk is that a single councillor will be representing some tens of thousands. The independent think-tank Localis has done some analysis of the current proposal for a 500,000 threshold. We could see 90% of councillors across shire areas removed overnight. That would be a democratic deficit and an absolute catastrophe.

If we look back through the pandemic, as Justin has alluded to, community councillors were out every single day, just as you were as MPs, supporting the most vulnerable, making sure that communities could bounce back and, more importantly, giving support to local businesses to make sure that they could bounce back as well and grow from strength to strength. My concern is that if we begin to move ourselves to a distant model, there will be a democratic deficit and unaccountability, and the ability of a councillor to know that every resident, street, business and community leader will be lost.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government (Miatta Fahnbulleh)]

Q My first question is for Councillor Chapman-Allen. First, I should put on the record that the 500,000 number that has been cited is not fixed. The Government will prioritise making sure that there are clear links and that we have that democratic basis, so that communities feel connected to their local institutions. That is a priority for us and we will proceed on that basis.

Strategic authorities are made up of constituent local authorities, and at their best, where they work, it is based on partnership. Can Councillor Chapman-Allen give the Committee examples from among his membership, where strategic authorities already operate, of that collaboration among the constituent authorities, which will always have a key role, working in tandem with the mayor to deliver for communities?

I also have a question for Mr Griggs. The role of neighbourhoods and the connection between communities and the places where elected representatives serve is fundamental to what we are trying to do with the Bill. The part of the legislation on neighbourhood governance is looking to bolster and strengthen that. What are your views on how that will create new opportunities not only for community partnership working but, critically, for community voice and power?

Sam Chapman-Allen: Thank you for your question. To start, I think the 500,000 figure as the initial threshold has caused confusion. I think that many of the submissions that will be received in the devolution priority areas next week and then in the rest of the country in November will show that many councils are submitting models of 500,000-plus. Let us put that into context: they will be some of the biggest councils in the western developed world. I think that will ensure there is a democratic deficit.

In relation to strategic authorities and constituent members, the only model where all district councils, or all principal councils, are members are in Cambridgeshire and Peterborough. If you look at what is taking place there, you will see it is a really successful model. Yes, there is a little bit of grit every now and then, but that is why scrutiny, governance and accountability are so important. We will not always agree on everything.

If we look at a model in which all principal councils are members—I cite Greater Manchester, with Andy Burnham and his 10 councils within that area—they all share responsibility together. All of them within that locality are the responsible authorities for housing and for planning, and they are working together to drive the agenda forward around the real challenges that localities face. They have had some real successes, and I do not think anybody should take that away from them. I know that you have Lord Houchen giving evidence later; he will give exactly the same example of where you have those principal councils able to pull the levers to get stuff done.

Justin Griggs: First of all—

--- Later in debate ---

[The Chair]

We will now hear evidence from Councillor Bev Craig, Labour group leader and vice-chair at the Local Government Association; Councillor Kevin Bentley, leader of Essex county council and Local Government Association senior vice-chair; and Councillor Matthew Hicks, chair of the County Councils Network. This panel will finish at 10.44 am.

[David Simmonds]

Q I have a question on accountability for all three panellists. With the proposals for the new mayoral roles and the reorganisation of local government, a key challenge will be ensuring that the mayor, on a large footprint, is accountable at a local level. There are different systems in place in London and Manchester, for example, which are probably the best-known mayoral authorities at the moment. I would be interested in your reflections on what you think works well, and on what challenges the Government might need to fix in this legislation to ensure the accountability is really effective.

Bev Craig: Good morning, I am Councillor Bev Craig. I am a Local Government Association vice-chair and leader of the Labour group. I am also the leader of Manchester city council, a city of 630,000 people. In my spare time, I am also the Greater Manchester combined authority deputy mayor for economy, business and international issues. In response to your question, the first thing to say is that, across the Local Government Association, we have been calling for devolution from Whitehall to communities for quite some time. We have spent a lot of time thinking through what accountability looks like in that context.

As we move from combined authorities to strategic authorities, it is important to make sure that the Bill reflects not only the competencies of local authorities within new strategic authorities but points of collaboration. For example, in the Greater Manchester system, each of the 10 local authority leaders holds a portfolio. That is perhaps a key difference from the London model, where deputy mayors appointed by the Mayor of London hold a portfolio.

From experience, looking across the country, we think it is really important to bind organisations that have different competencies in different areas into the same shared goal in a place. Many of our members have raised with interest what will happen in the move to majority decision making, rather than consensual decision making. From the LGA’s perspective, we have been quite keen to keep that under review. As it currently stands in Greater Manchester, it is consensual decision making that leads us into a place. A model that binds in local authorities from the beginning is really important. Let’s be honest, in my place, we are the ones building homes. My local authority and I are contributing to growing the economy, and Greater Manchester benefits when we work as one.

Kevin Bentley: I am Kevin Bentley, the senior vice-chair of the LGA and leader of Essex county council. Also, Matthew is actually the leader of Suffolk county council, not Sussex county council. There is no such authority as Sussex county council, unless something dramatic has happened overnight that we are not aware of—that would be rapid devolution.

I absolutely agree with what Bev has said, and we already have that form of scrutiny with police and crime commissioners, and it works well. That works on a model where constituent parts and people who are not necessarily in leadership roles actually have the ability to scrutinise. In the same way, we have scrutiny panels that could hold the mayor to account, which is important. Every action has a consequence, and every action should be challenged on behalf of the public. I absolutely believe there should be good scrutiny of mayors, and I think any mayor would welcome that good scrutiny.

Matthew Hicks: I am Matthew Hicks, the leader of Suffolk county council and chair of the CCN since last Wednesday. Sorry I could not be with you today—diaries are still clashing a bit.

I agree with my colleagues, as I think it is critical that we look at the mayoral commissioners and ensure they are subject to effective and proportionate scrutiny and accountability. Mayors can be voted out every four years, but genuine democratic accountability is really important. I think having structures in place on scrutiny, overview and audit will be key.

[David Simmonds]

Q Councillor Hicks, your point about audit is probably a good entry point for my follow-up question. We are aware that a very large proportion, more than half, of education authorities have a council-killing debt associated with the high needs block in their dedicated schools grant. The Committee has received many representations about the indebtedness of some authorities in areas that are proposed to be part of these mayoral combined authorities. Do you feel that sufficient attention has been given, and that there is sufficient assurance in the system that those debts and deficits will not be a financial barrier to delivering the ambitions that you all share for the new authorities? If so, could you tell us a bit about that? If not, how could that be addressed?

Kevin Bentley: It is a constant conversation. With the high needs block, you are talking about a system that needs to be changed rather than just an issue at the money end—that is perhaps another conversation for another panel. It needs to be addressed soon for the sake of society.

The debt question is a live one. The LGA and constituent councils within the DPP are talking to the Government about debt. Of course, there is good debt and bad debt. Asset debt means that a council is doing things, which is very good, and there are other debts that are not good. We are aware of the councils in that situation. It is a constant conversation. My view has always been that we cannot allow any new authority to start with a major deficit that it cannot cover. We must have that serious conversation with the Government, and we are having those conversations. Has enough attention been given to it? I would like to see more.

Bev Craig: That is a fairly consistent point across Local Government Association members. A significant underfunding of local government has built up over the last 14 to 15 years. There is a big job in taking local authorities back from the brink, which is a conversation for another panel. It is one of the reasons why we will continue to make the point that a well-resourced, well-run local authority can transform and change communities, so they need to be resourced in a way that they can do so.

Matthew Hicks: I echo that. From the CCN’s perspective, SEND is one of the biggest issues, and the growing DSG debt is a huge issue. The Government have said they are going to look at that imminently, and we would absolutely welcome positive changes. That debt is growing, and it is almost unspoken. It is critical that we understand that debt, but also understand the impact if we were to have fewer unitaries. That debt would be transferred to those new unitaries. How would very small unitaries cope with that?

[The Chair]

I understand that Councillor Craig has to go fairly soon.

Bev Craig: As long as we finish on time, I can make a quick exit.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Chair]

We will now hear evidence from Catriona Riddell, the director of Catriona Riddell & Associates Ltd, and Ion Fletcher, the director of policy for finance and regulation at the British Property Federation. We will end this panel at 11.14 am.

[David Simmonds]

Q This question is to both witnesses. There are a number of different elements in the Bill on which you have relevant expertise, but can you give the Committee your view on the impact of the envisaged reorganisation on the planning system? What impact will the measures in the Bill about upward-only rent reviews have?

Ion Fletcher: Good morning, everyone. My name is Ion Fletcher. I am the director of finance policy at the British Property Federation. Our members own, develop and invest in both commercial and residential property across the UK.

In high-level terms, our members have had a good experience with devolution so far. Having combined authorities with responsibility for planning, transport and place making, and strong convening powers, means that our members are able to invest with confidence, knowing the strategic aims for that area. We hope to see that replicated with strategic authorities. We can get into more detail—Cat is better placed to comment on the reorganisation and the impact on planning.

We feel that the way that upward-only rent reviews were introduced into legislation without any meaningful consultation is not good policymaking. We feel that it will not do much to help the high street and it could have a negative impact on new investment and development.

Catriona Riddell: Hello, I am Catriona Riddell, a strategic planning specialist. There are two components to this. First, it is about the fact that fewer than 30% of local plans are up to date. That is partly because all the decisions and all the financial, technical and political risk sit with individual local planning authorities. It is right that there is a separation of decision making in the way that we had before 2010 for 40 years.

If that decision making is now through the new strategic authorities, that is probably the right place for it in terms of the new spatial development strategy, which I know sits with the Planning and Infrastructure Bill. However, there is no point in strategic authorities having the responsibility to prepare those strategies if they do not also have some responsibility to deliver them. The range of delivery mechanisms set out in the Bill will help that.

For example, in the last few weeks, the Mayor of the North East combined authority announced a massive housing development in Newcastle on a site that has been derelict and unviable for many years. She has used her convening and financial powers to bring together Homes England, local authorities and others to bring forward development on that site. On the delivery side, the powers and funding that the mayors will have to make sure that spatial development strategies and local plans are implemented will be really important

In terms of local government restructuring, it is fair to say, as everybody has already this morning, that resources are thin on the ground. They are getting thinner the longer this goes on. People want a resolution. They want to move to the new local government structure as soon as possible to make sure that the resources within the local government family remain.

But, again, before 2010, for 40 years planning resources were done in two ways. The strategic level is where all the specialist skills sat, and then the planners and others were within the local authorities. They worked as two parts of the same team. We do not have the specialist skills in local authorities anymore; they have to pay to bring that back. A lot of specialist skills are rare anyway, so they are difficult to get. Having some teams and general support at the strategic scale will be invaluable to local authorities going forward.

[Miatta Fahnbulleh]

Q I have a question for Mr Fletcher and then a question for both witnesses. You have expressed some reservations and concerns about the upward rent review. Is it fair to say that the position among your members is not unanimous? Mark Allan of Landsec, who I think was the previous president of the organisation, has said that he thinks the changes are favourable, and that the status quo is complex and suboptimal. It would be good to clarify that there is not a single position that thinks this is averse.

Northern Ireland went through a very similar reform about a decade and a half ago. I am interested in your assessment, because most people would look at that property market and think it works well. There was a transition, and it has ended up in a position that, most people would argue, is not just benign and effective but consistent with what we see in other countries. I am interested in your views, and then I will have a question for both of you.

Ion Fletcher: I think that Mark would also say that the way it was announced was not great; it should have been done with prior consultation. One of our main concerns is about how one of our members was recently in Malaysia and Singapore, and his investors were asking him questions about it: “Where did it come from? Why was there no consultation?” It has been noticed overseas, and by people who are deploying capital into our towns and cities. It was not something that was trailed, either in the Labour manifesto or in any of the discussions about devolution. In fact, it is a bit odd to find commercial leasing provisions in a Bill that is mainly about local government reorganisation and strategic authority powers.

There is also the focus on the high street. Upward-only rent reviews are not what is keeping shops empty at the moment. That is more to do with business rates and a lack of demand for space. Most high street shops are on leases of five years or less, so upward-only rent reviews are not going to be an issue; they do not have those clauses in them.

The real value of upward-only rent reviews to investors and developers is that they provide predictability of income. If you are thinking about undertaking a new development project or refurbishing an existing commercial building, having the confidence about the level of income that you are going to get gives you much more security, and it de-risks the project. It makes it more likely to happen. At the moment, there is a shortage of development going on—there is a bit of a development viability crisis across both residential and commercial property—so adding more uncertainty in the form of unexpected policy changes does not help.

In relation to your point about international comparators, yes, Ireland went through this, as did Australia about 20 years ago. There is a transition period. The industry can and would find ways to adapt, but the point is: what problem is it really trying to solve? Is the disruption that it is going to cause in the meantime—the transitional costs, for example—worth the candle?

Draft Building Safety Levy (England) Regulations 2025

David Simmonds Excerpts

Monday 15th September 2025 General Committees

[David Simmonds (Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Sir Desmond. I am sure you will be pleased to hear that His Majesty’s Opposition do not propose to divide the Committee on the regulations. As the Minister set out, they arise from the Building Safety Act 2022, which was passed by the Conservative party in Government.

After extensive consultation, the regulations should command broad support. We welcome in particular the commitment to enshrine the exemptions for smaller sites and for other types of development, about which extensive representation has been made about how the imposition of a costly levy would significantly inhibit their deliverability. We support the proposal for regular reporting on the outcome. We are aware that there has been extensive consultation with the 295 local authorities that act as building regulations authorities, and that their representations are reflected in the grant award to ensure that there are sufficient resources to get the system up and running. I am sure we will scrutinise the resulting reports in due course.

English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill

David Simmonds Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 2nd September 2025 Commons Chamber

[David Simmonds (Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner) (Con)]

It has been a wide-ranging debate. I particularly thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Wendy Morton) and my hon. Friends the Members for Bromley and Biggin Hill (Peter Fortune), for Isle of Wight East (Joe Robertson), for Reigate (Rebecca Paul), for Romford (Andrew Rosindell), for Bromsgrove (Bradley Thomas), for Broxbourne (Lewis Cocking), for Keighley and Ilkley (Robbie Moore) and for West Suffolk (Nick Timothy) for their contributions. The range of issues that they and other Members covered starkly highlighted the wholesale inadequacy of the Bill in relation to the scale of the challenges that our country and our communities face.

There are big issues facing local government, which deals with some of the most difficult tasks faced by any of our public services. We know that the cost of social care is rapidly growing and will consume a greater share of the available resources. Since this Government took office, there has been a collapse in the delivery of new housing. It is down 17% in the country as a whole and there has been a 66% drop by large social landlords under Mayor Khan here in London. As we have seen in the news today, the Government’s chums in the unions have voted to extend their strikes until March 2026. The people of our second city are left with their waste uncollected and populations of rats.

[Wendy Morton]

As an MP for a constituency neighbouring Birmingham, I see all too often the impact of the strikes. Does my hon. Friend agree that this issue is absolutely shocking? The one thing that residents expect from their local council is a regular collection of their household waste, and often garden waste and recycling as well. Birmingham city council is failing the residents.

[David Simmonds]

I thank my right hon. Friend for highlighting that issue; she has been a champion for the voices of those affected by it. While I understand that Ministers have come to the Dispatch Box time and again and said that they must wash their hands of it, the unions said in their statement today that there was “no point” negotiating with the council, because it lacked the authority to resolve the issue. The Government need to roll up their sleeves and get involved.

While our second city struggles with these challenges, here we have a piece of legislation about tinkering with structures. Not only that, but, as we learned just a week ago, it is an entirely uncosted plan. The Department has not undertaken any assessment of the cost-benefit of the measures contained in this legislation. That comes against the backdrop of the decisions of this Government which, as we know, are making the financial situation of our country more perilous by the day. In the first few months of this financial year alone, the Government borrowed £60 billion more than they raised in taxes. Borrowing costs have hit a 27-year high—a level seen only in the early days of the last Labour Government in 1998.

This Bill opens the door to a host of tax-raising powers. As we go through the pages and pages of new powers for Ministers and the Secretary of State to direct local authorities in one way or another and to instruct communities to accept this or that, we see the prospect of local authorities, which are already left a net £1.5 billion worse off by the Government’s rise in national insurance contributions, facing the maxing out of parking charges, huge increases in borrowing and big rises in business rates and council tax.

The £60 billion black hole that this Government have created just in this financial year will need to be bridged somehow. The Chancellor will be back to tell us how in a few weeks’ or months’ time, but I think we can see a clue already that local communities and local authorities will be the route by which those costs are raised. When we read what this Bill has to say about neighbourhood governance, the threat is very clear even at parish council level. Those parishes—the smallest unit of local government, but one with precepting powers—will be one of the local kitties that the Government expect to raid to finance the consequences of their economic mismanagement.

When we think of Sir Humphrey’s famous advice that it was always best to

“dispose of the difficult bit in the title”

of the Bill, because it did a lot less harm there than in the text, we can see that when this Bill talks about devolution, it devolves to the local level the responsibility for those tax rises and service cuts. Can the Minister tell the House how many libraries will close to pay for this Bill? How many road projects will be set aside? How many more communities, such as those referred to by the Labour leader of Shrewsbury, will lose their regular recycling and bin collections to pay for it? How high will council tax go?

What is the limit that Ministers will set on the tax rises that the Bill will drive? What is the maximum parking charge or fine that Ministers think it is reasonable for councils to have? What level of costs will local businesses have to face? When we debated the Bill on business rates that sits behind many of the financial elements of this Bill, Ministers said that they wanted to tax Amazon, but they ended up taxing our local high street stores and our pubs. On average, local pubs alone have to pay £6,500 extra a year, and that was before the £60 billion that this Government have borrowed in the last few months.

I am going to finish with a direct plea to the Minister, for whom I have a great deal of respect. He led his party in local government—he was its champion—and for many years, he was a local councillor too, earning a huge degree of respect in this House and in that wider family as a result of the work he did. At the Government’s favoured population level for new unitary authorities, this Bill abolishes 90% of all the councillors in England’s shires at the stroke of a bureaucrat’s pen. That is 90% of the voices of those local communities—people such as Chris Whitbread, who stood up for his community against this Government over the Bell Hotel in Epping. These people have been the voices of their communities on migrant hotels, on protecting their green belt and on air quality. They are the people who stood up for their local communities on issues such as the grooming gangs, which we heard so much about earlier from the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, the hon. Member for Birmingham Yardley (Jess Phillips).

This Bill could have been transformational—a chance to step up that voice of local communities. I am sorry that the Minister lost his battle to let those communities keep their voices, but he still has time to change course, to support our reasoned amendment, start again, and build a cross-party consensus on the future of local government. Let this not be the funeral oration for local democracy in England.

Draft Local Audit (Amendment of Definition of Smaller Authority) Regulations 2025

David Simmonds Excerpts

Monday 1st September 2025 General Committees

[David Simmonds (Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Stuart. I am sure we are all delighted to be here—I could sense the excitement in the room when Members read the subject matter.

The Opposition commend the Government for their efforts to bring about a greater degree of fairness in local government audit. This has been a challenge for many years, in particular as a result of many larger audit businesses stepping away not just from very small public bodies, as the Minister described, but even from large local authorities, where the fees have not been large enough to justify the risks. A slew of big names, with which we are all familiar, have departed from that area of work.

We should recognise that efforts have been made over the years to address that problem. In my time in government, I was involved in launching Public Sector Audit Appointments Ltd as a means by which local authorities, working together, sought to increase the supply of effective and accredited auditors to undertake this work, but all of us, whether we represent areas with larger metropolitan authorities, or rural areas where small parish meetings sit within the audit envelope of a large local authority, are conscious of the importance of transparency. Because there is a large degree of consensus on this subject, we will not oppose the regulations this evening.

Black Country Day

David Simmonds Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd July 2025 Westminster Hall

[David Simmonds (Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Vaz. I am sure that, for the rest of us, you are our favourite Black Country Member of Parliament, in contrast to what we have just heard from the hon. Member for Cheltenham (Max Wilkinson). I add my congratulations to the hon. Member for Tipton and Wednesbury (Antonia Bance) on securing today’s debate.

One of the pleasures of working on local government, which I am sure the Minister and I share, is hearing the passion with which Members speak for their local areas. We all recognise that patriotism is not just about wrapping ourselves in the Union Jack or speaking about our country or national football team; it starts at the level of a community, town, city and region. It is in the strength of those towns, cities, regions and communities that the strength and cohesion of the country as a whole lies. For me, as a proud outer-London MP, whose constituents like to celebrate Middlesex Day—which we have debated and heard a great deal about—it is a pleasure to be here to speak as we talk about the Black Country.

It was clear listening to the exchange just before the debate got going that there is some degree of competition, shall we say, among Black Country MPs about exactly whose constituency supplied the parts for the anchor that secured the Titanic, or manufactured the bits for Newcomen’s steam engine, and all the other things that have been spoken about so wonderfully by Members across the Chamber.

I was particularly struck by what my right hon. Friend the Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Wendy Morton) said. It is a good illustration not only of the things that pop up on Wikipedia—things that we would learn about a region we were thinking of visiting for the first time as a tourist—but of some of the detail of what is happening in the local economy, which other Members referenced. The region’s manufacturing heritage may have started 100 or 150 years ago, but the skills are still maintained today. Sometimes, those skills contribute to other brands—British and international—and to the ongoing success of our national economy.

It is good to see a region of the UK that is proud of its industrial heritage and whose representatives speak eloquently about how that heritage has continued into the modern age to support jobs, brands and identity, while moving away from the issues of pollution and industrial poor health and safety, which we know—I speak as somebody who grew up in south Wales—dogged many areas associated with industrial heritage. We are proud of that heritage, but we also know that many people who lived through and worked in that industrial past were quite keen that future generations did not experience such conditions. It is important to see how all that feeds through to the modern world.

The significance of the Black Country has been recognised for many years by Governments of all parties, but I will highlight a couple of the things about which Conservative colleagues in the last Parliament were very exercised, such as the Repowering the Black Country project. A number of Members have spoken about the impact of energy costs on businesses. We know the UK now has the highest industrial energy costs of any developed economy, and we understand why that is happening. None the less, it has been a concern for Governments for some years, and supporting those energy-intensive industries that are particularly prevalent in the Black Country and across the wider midlands with their energy costs was a high priority.

The West Midlands combined authority was allocated £1 billion of additional transport funding. As an outer London Member of Parliament, my constituents are mostly commuters—very large numbers of people move around our capital city—so I know the importance of effective, high-quality public transport. Andy Street, the former Mayor of the West Midlands, invested in the Wednesbury to Brierley Hill route to deliver rapid bus transport and open the opportunities being created across the region to a greater geographical area.

[Cat Eccles]

Does the hon. Gentleman recognise that it is Richard Parker and this Government who have fully funded the West Midlands Metro to Brierley Hill, and that, sadly, Andy Street left a big black hole in that budget and did not enable the link to be fully realised?

[David Simmonds]

Several Members mentioned the late Queen; as she was fond of saying, “Recollections may vary.” When Andy Street left office, he was particularly proud of the contribution made by his work, especially as somebody who was absolutely rooted in that local area. He was also proud that he had not levied a precept on residents, and I know the Minister may have something to say about the impact of local government funding on households across the west midlands.

Of course, the Black Country & Marches institute of technology is also often mentioned. There is a sense that, to sustain the region’s industrial heritage for the future, there is a need to invest in apprenticeships, education and opportunities so that the new jobs being created can go to local people who have the skills those jobs require. We know the world is changing, and people need to be able to adapt to meet those challenges. Of course, the Department took the decision in 2021 to open its first non-London headquarters in Wolverhampton.

I have gone through a list of initiatives, investments and positive points, but we all recognise that our country faces significant challenges. As this is a local government debate, we must consider the financial position of local authorities in the Black Country, whose work is important to supporting local heritage. For example, we have heard from City of Wolverhampton Council’s budget consultation that it has faced unprecedented financial challenges since this Government took office. Indeed, it has never previously experienced such serious financial concerns under any party in office.

[Antonia Bance]

Does the hon. Member recognise that a number of our Black Country local authorities have, over the past 15 years, lost hundreds of millions of pounds of local government funding, which has led to the diminution of local government services, the closure of libraries and Sure Starts, the creation of potholes across our road network and, frankly, the degradation of our public realm? That is not an occurrence of the last year, but of the last 15. One might hope that action will be taken in the review of local government finance to set that right.

[Valerie Vaz (in the Chair)]

Order. The motion is about Black Country day.

[David Simmonds]

The hon. Member for Tipton and Wednesbury (Antonia Bance) did say in her introduction that she wanted to be a bit political.

It is important that we acknowledge—the Minister may wish to comment on this—that Sandwell council talked about a £19 million budget gap and the scrapping of weekly bin collections, which will have an impact on that subset of residents in the Black Country. That comes against a backdrop in which our economy is challenged and unemployment is rising. Jaguar Land Rover—mentioned by a number of hon. Members—has announced a further 500 redundancies because of the challenges that it faces.

We need to ensure that the momentum represented in some of the projects that I referred to, which has led to an improvement in the economic outlook and in the opportunities for people across the Black Country—the kind of economic opportunities that have been seized in the past and given rise to the proud industrial heritage that so many hon. Members have eloquently described—is not lost against the backdrop of a national picture of rising unemployment, increasing poverty and the loss of jobs in some of these key industries. That loss is gaining momentum. I am sure that the Minister will not just say a little about how he is proud of the heritage, but will want to tell us specifically what the Government are doing to address those issues.

[Valerie Vaz (in the Chair)]

Thank you, and thank you for your kind comments.

Birmingham Bin Strikes

David Simmonds Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd July 2025 Commons Chamber

[David Simmonds (Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner) (Con)]

As the hon. Member for Birmingham Perry Barr (Ayoub Khan) alluded to, the House knows that the origins of the dispute in Birmingham are in the 2017 settlement of the equal pay arrangements, which created a £760 million liability for that local authority under the Labour party, and which have been undermined at every turn by the relationship between Labour’s administration in Birmingham and the unions. It is clear that that local authority and its leadership have been dodging scrutiny and accountability at every turn. They refused even to debate the local authority Conservative group’s proposals for a plan to end the strikes and clean up the city.

I have a series of questions for the Minister. What guidance will he give his seven-strong commissioner team to bring about an end to the strikes? What public health assessment are the Government carrying out of the impact of more than 21,000 tonnes of uncollected rubbish and a huge increase in the rat population in Birmingham? Will he consider withdrawing the facility time for Unite the union, which is currently refusing to go about the process of bringing an end to the strikes? Will he tell his commissioners—including Tony McArdle, whose appointment has been announced today—that Birmingham’s besieged households must not be held to ransom by the unions for a day longer? Will he tell the House who he thinks has failed the households of Birmingham more? Is it the Labour council, in leaving rats on the streets and 21,000 tonnes of uncollected rubbish in a heatwave, or this Government, who have failed to intervene to bring an end to this blight on residents’ lives?

[Jim McMahon]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his questions, which I will try to answer in turn. Let me say, though, that we will take no lectures at all from the party that was in government for 14 years and saw the downgrading of local authorities across the country, including in Birmingham.

Although these are our commissioners, as the hon. Gentleman says—that is correct: they are Government appointed—let us not forget which Government appointed them. They were appointed on the watch of the previous Government. Today we are just announcing a change in the lead commissioner. We need to be careful not to politicise those people, who believe in public service and are helping out the local authority and supporting the Government in trying to turn that council around. Let us leave the politicisation of the commissioners to one side and deal with the facts.

Last time I was in the Chamber, the Conservatives were talking down the role of bin workers, as if somehow that work was degrading. At that time, I think they were suggesting that the armed forces might be brought in to collect waste and that that would somehow degrade their role. That was never going to be the case, but it was a glimpse into how the Conservatives view the workers who are affected. One thing that is absolutely certain is that the Labour party believes in the power of frontline workers and in the importance of these frontline roles. We absolutely value the role of refuse collectors, and we see the implications of waste not being collected. But we have got to be clear, too, that whatever settlement is on the table has to be lawful and affordable, and it cannot cross the red line of undermining the equal pay negotiations that are taking place. I hope that we can agree at least on that basis.

Draft Electrical Safety Standards in the Private Rented Sector (England) (Amendment) (Extension to the Social Rented Sector) Regulations 2025 Draft Hazards in Social Housing (Prescribed Requirements) (England) Regulations 2025 (First sitting)

David Simmonds Excerpts

Monday 21st July 2025 General Committees

[David Simmonds (Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner) (Con)]

Once again, it is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Vickers. I say at the outset that the Opposition have no intention of dividing the Committee on the draft instruments.

As the Minister set out, the origin of Awaab’s law in legislation is from 2023, under the previous Government. Again, it enjoyed cross-party support in the Chamber, bringing into effect regulations to ensure that the hazards that were highlighted in that case—many of us will be familiar with them from our own constituents—were addressed effectively. For that reason, we are supportive of the measures we are considering today. In respect of electrical safety, likewise, the intention set out is one that any Government would wish to achieve.

I have two points to highlight, although I am sure that the Minister has given them some thought. All members of the Committee will have read with great interest paragraph 7.13 of the explanatory memorandum that goes with the draft hazards regulations, which highlights the Government’s assessment of the cost of implementing the proposals and the feedback from the sector. Those of us who have had the joy of being involved in housing committees and so on in local authorities are particularly conscious of the theory that the monitoring and enforcement system is financially self-sustaining by cost recovery through the fines levied under the enforcement process. I want to highlight some concerns about that. The issues we are addressing are incredibly important, but we want to ensure that, in the real world, the legislation has teeth. In particular, with issues of damp and mould—we will all know from constituency experience that they can be technically complex to resolve—we want the draft regulations to result in a material change for people, especially those whose health is vulnerable to such issues.

My final point is about electrical safety. Many of us know that accessing the necessary skilled workers to undertake such work, given the scaling up of regular monitoring and testing envisaged under the draft legislation, is a significant challenge in that sector of the market. It will be helpful to understand from the Minister what consideration has been given to how those skills will be created and developed, whether through apprenticeships, or engagement with colleges or industry. There were questions in the House today about the education sector and the Government’s actions on apprenticeships, but it would be helpful to be certain that any actions taken will not have a negative impact on the availability of the necessary skills to ensure that safer homes, in electrical terms, is an achievable and realistic objective.

Oral Answers to Questions

David Simmonds Excerpts

Monday 14th July 2025 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Minister.

[David Simmonds (Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner) (Con)]

Community support is always vital for development, and with 95% of planning applications already decided by officials under delegated powers, it is clear that that democratic voice can be missing. Can the Minister tell the House why, taking that in tandem with the devolution White Paper, which envisages abolishing around 75% of councillors who represent their local residents on planning committees in England, local communities do not deserve more of a say, rather than less, in the planning process?

[Matthew Pennycook]

We do want local communities to have more of a say, particularly when it comes to the development of local plans, which are, as I have said, the best means for local communities to shape development in their areas. When it comes to the national scheme of delegation, which is the point the hon. Gentleman is really driving at, he knows that as things stand every local authority across the country has its own scheme of delegation. There is a huge amount of variation there. There is good practice and bad practice, and—as we debated at great length in the Bill Committee—we think there is a strong case for a national scheme of delegation to improve certainty and the speed of planning decisions. He is more than welcome to respond to the consultation that is live at present.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Minister.

[David Simmonds (Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner) (Con)]

There has been a 66% reduction in new affordable housing starts in London under Mayor Khan, and I note that Hillingdon Labour vigorously opposes the Conservative council’s plans for a new affordable housing site at Otterfield Road in Yiewsley. Will the Secretary of State condemn the failings of these Labour politicians on housing, and will she acknowledge that whether someone is a homeless person, a rough sleeper or an aspirational first-time buyer, this Government are failing those in housing need?

[Angela Rayner]

I find that absolutely astonishing when the Conservatives failed to meet their housing targets year after year. The Mayor of London has welcomed the money through the affordable homes programme. There is the amount of money we have given, and we are permitted to increase rents by CPI plus 1%. We are consulting on rent conversion, when the Conservatives prevented social landlords from being able to raise the money to provide the social housing that we desperately need. We are making the changes to get social housing where they failed miserably.

London’s National Economic Contribution

David Simmonds Excerpts

Thursday 10th July 2025 Westminster Hall

[David Simmonds (Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to speak for the official Opposition in this debate, and congratulate the hon. Member for Kensington and Bayswater (Joe Powell) for having secured it.

Although there will always be a degree of party political difference—I am sure the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Luke Taylor) achieved some cross-party consensus when he said “heaven forbid” the idea of a Liberal Democrat Government—what came across clearly in every Member’s contribution, including from the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), was the sense of valuing the success of our capital city, and understanding the contribution it makes not just to the people who live here and choose to make it their home, but to our country as a whole. That is my starting point.

In preparing for this debate we will all have been sent a lot of information from many organisations that represent different aspects of life in our capital, but is clear that the contribution of London’s economy to the rest of the country is vital. It is vital because it is the biggest income earner for our country, because it makes a huge net contribution to tax receipts, which support public services across the whole country, and because it is the one genuine world city that places the United Kingdom in an internationally competitive economic league. That is why it has such an incredibly diverse population. In my constituency alone, which is not by any means one of the most diverse in London, well over 100 first languages are spoken by local residents, yet they all have in common the essential fact of being Londoners.

As we consider the decisions that the Government will have to make, and the policies they are considering, I would like to highlight a number of points that arise partly from the views brought forward local authorities and business organisations, but also from the day-to-day concerns we hear from Londoners.

A number of Members highlighted the challenges around housing, which is an important place to start. We recognise the nature of our city: housing remains in huge demand and, as several Members highlighted, is significantly more expensive than it is in the rest of the UK. In Greater London, 300,000 new homes already have planning permission. However, we have to acknowledge that there has been a 66% reduction in new home starts in the last two years, and in the last 12 months a 92% reduction in new home starts through our housing associations, which are the main provider of social housing. There has also been a 27% rise in the last 12 months in the number of people sleeping rough on the streets of our capital city. There is, then, a rapidly accelerating challenge around housing and, overall, a collapse in London’s delivery of house building in recent years, compared with the ambitions that the Government have set out and many London boroughs have enshrined in their housing targets.

We need to ensure that the aspiration the Government set out in their Planning and Infrastructure Bill is reflected in the actions that take place in the market. The very significant loading of that additional housing funding towards the tail end not of this Parliament, but of the Parliament after means that many of those London boroughs are asking when they can expect to see the additional resources that will help them to deliver that aspiration. Decisions that have been made, for example, to further ringfence the ability of local authorities to spend homelessness funding that they already have further constrains their ability in particular to address issues around rough sleeping.

We also need to recognise that, although many have made reference to the challenges of the local government funding formula, the NHS funding formula also creates very significant variations in the levels of funding, particularly within the capital. Just as, on the whole, inner London boroughs under governing parties of all colours have enjoyed significantly better per capita levels of funding than those in outer London—reflected in widely differing levels of council tax—we know that certain parts of our London NHS are significantly better funded.

The Minister will have been in the Chamber and heard many of his colleagues talk about their hope that the new 10-year plan for the NHS will see the further development of walk-in services and urgent care centres to keep people out of A&E. The NHS, because of its funding pressures, is looking to close those services at Mount Vernon Hospital in my constituency, creating further pressure on an already hugely pressured A&E in the constituency of the hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Danny Beales), who will be aware of this already, as the hospital is under the same NHS trust.

We need to make sure that not only local government, but the national health service are thinking about how they can deploy their resources in the interest of Londoners across the capital. We also need to reflect on the diversity of London’s economy. As a number of Members have mentioned, when we talk about London we tend to think of glass towers in the City inhabited by billionaire international bankers. However, 44% of the London borough of Havering is farmland, as is 23% of the London borough of Hillingdon and 35% of the London borough of Bromley. As well as attracting international capital and the cutting-edge technology industries, London also remains significant through the contribution that agriculture makes to the life of people in our capital.

Those of us in outer London, where most of those farms are located, will have heard loudly and clearly from local farmers—whose land is often not just farmland, but often a crucial part of the green belt, which maintains and supports the environment of our city—how concerned they are about the impact of measures such as the family farm tax. The family farm tax has a disproportionately large impact on London, because that farmland is of significantly higher value than equivalent sites in other parts of the country, due to its location in Greater London.

[Danny Beales]

I thank my constituency neighbour for giving way. Does he agree that, although the farmland and the farmers of London are deeply important, that is one crucial measure—alongside a number of others that the Opposition have not supported—that will raise billions of pounds to invest in our NHS? Hillingdon hospital now has £1.4 billion, after only getting £70 million from the last Government, to be actually built after 14 years. Is it not the case that every constituent in Hillingdon will benefit from that and every constituent in London will benefit from billions of pounds more in our NHS and in education?

[David Simmonds]

I am glad to hear my neighbour express his strong, vocal support for the family farms tax. I am sure his constituents at Goulds Green farm, Maygoods farm and other such places will be listening attentively to the position he takes as they reflect on the impact that will have on their businesses and the contribution they make to the local authority.

Given the wealth it generates and the contribution that it makes, London needs to have those world-class services funded correctly. The hon. Member will know, as he was a by-election candidate before becoming a Member of Parliament, that Governments of all parties, broadly speaking, have made commitments. We need to make sure those are delivered and that some of the changes made, particularly on London’s fringes, do not have a detrimental impact. I suggest to the Minister that it is worth having a consultation going across Government on what the impact of some of those decisions around the London fringes will have on the provision of NHS services in the capital.

The fact that London is not immune to those worldwide trends means that issues around crime and personal safety remain very significant, and particularly salient in their impact on our tourist industry. All of us work in this city and will be very aware that, in the good weather as the summer holidays get going, our public transport is full of people from all over the world coming to stay in London hotels, spend money in London restaurants, go shopping, and take their children to see London museums. Making sure that we live in a capital city that is safe, and where the traditional reputation of the United Kingdom as a safe reputation is maintained, is incredibly important. I pay tribute to the work that one of my local councillors, Susan Hall, the Conservative leader at the GLA, has been doing to make sure that those issues remain active and at the forefront of mayoral thinking.

We know that Mayor Khan was the only police and crime commissioner in the whole country to give back to the previous Government the money that he was given for extra police officers in the capital, because he chose not to spend it on that. That has left a deficit in our police numbers across the city. We need to ensure that our police have not just the resources but the connections with other local public services that enable them to do an effective job of cracking down on crime. That is a process of long-term change. In the past, many retailers asked for and were granted additional powers, via the Security Industry Authority, to enable their in-house staff to, for example, carry out arrests of people who are shoplifting. The cost of insuring those staff has run well above what any of those businesses contemplated. We must recognise that we are therefore facing a new policing paradigm, around shoplifting in particular.

In conclusion, although this is not just about the Minister’s Department, we need to hear from him that the Government are sighted on the value that London adds to this country. There has sometimes been a sense, particularly in the debate about the local government funding formula, that any formula that does not extract significant resources from London and redeploy them elsewhere will not find favour with this Government. I appreciate that the Minister is under pressure from colleagues across the country who want the deployment of additional resources, but a 27% rise in rough sleeping in the capital and the collapse in the delivery of social housing under this mayor is putting acute pressure on London’s local authorities. The levels of deprivation in some parts of this city are especially acute, given that London’s median income is around £10,000 a year higher than that of the rest of the United Kingdom, which means the dynamic around housing costs is particularly powerful.

We need to ensure that this city can continue, from its thriving economy, to contribute 22%—although the figures are debated, and it depends which lobby group you ask, it is between a fifth and a quarter—of our country’s GDP, or around £12 billion net, after public expenditure, to the wider Exchequer of the United Kingdom. That is £64,000 a year GDP per capita against a UK average of £37,000 a year. That economic competitiveness is living proof of the effectiveness of trickle-down economics. We know that, from the international billionaire who decides to build a new business headquarters in the city, to the trades, the workers who deliver it and maintain it, everybody benefits from the success of London. This is, and must remain, a city where people from all over the world and all over our country want to come to live and work, to study, to make a home or to raise a family. As this debate has showed, we all recognise the stake that we have; for all of us, as Members of Parliament, London is not just a place where some of us choose to live, but the place where all of us spend our working lives.