Planning Policy: Traveller Sites

David Simmonds Excerpts

Wednesday 11th September 2024 Westminster Hall

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

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dame Siobhain. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Kevin Hollinrake) on securing the debate. The contributions of all hon. Members have helped to illustrate both the complexity of this issue and its importance at community level.

Every local authority has a quasi-judicial role as a planning authority, in that it has to follow planning law and the relevant statutes, and my hon. Friend and other hon. Members have called for everyone to be treated equally before the law for the purposes of the planning process. That is clearly a complex challenge for our local authorities, which also have various statutory duties as housing providers. When considering an application, the local authority has to ensure that planning law is fully upheld, but it also has a role in designating sites on which Traveller pitches and other development may take place. Most of us will have experience of that matter—the situation at Jackets Lane in my constituency is almost identical to that described by my hon. Friend. Like many Members, I am fortunate to have two local authorities with full housing revenue account, local authority-maintained Traveller pitches, as well as privately designated sites.

However, it is understandable that, for the reasons outlined by my hon. Friend the Member for Bromsgrove (Bradley Thomas)—I have experienced this in my own home—the sites can cause a great deal of community concern, given some aspects of the behaviour of individuals associated them. We cannot simply say that the Gypsy, Roma and Traveller community is one community. In my constituency, there are settled Travellers, who have chosen to occupy a bricks and mortar home and may require family members who are travelling to be able to stay close to them at certain times of year. There are people with much more ancient lifestyles, particularly among some of the Roma and traditional Gypsy community, whose requirements are very different. All our local authorities need to be flexible, and communities need to be aware of those distinctions, so that the responses that we put in place are appropriate.

We all accept that provision will be inadequate for some individuals, and that there may not be a spot on a local authority-provided site when they arrive. Indeed, the behaviour of some, who may not even be UK residents but who can arrive in large numbers and undertake unlawful and illegal incursions, can significantly affect the reputation of other members of the Gypsy, Roma and Traveller community.

My hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton asked an important question in the context of parliamentary proceedings: how can something that is either unlawful or, in some cases, specifically illegal in planning law be rendered lawful by other considerations? If a property developer were to purchase the field and seek to build a mansion, there would be rigorous enforcement against them. If a developer sought to build family homes, or a care home, there would be rigorous enforcement against them. Why is it, therefore, that other elements of our law allow one individual to bypass the statutory planning process and rules, especially when the site may subsequently be sold to another occupier? How can we ensure that those elements do not create a back door to flouting the planning rules? I have personal experience of a developer who cited diplomatic immunity as a reason why the local authority could not carry out enforcement action against structures built on agricultural land.

Given the enormous remediation costs associated with abuses of the planning process, it is not surprising that many local authorities are extremely concerned, as my hon. Friend the Member for Bromsgrove, with his experience as a local authority leader, described. We can all think of examples. A site may be used for housing development after illegal occupation, or it may, for example, be used for waste disposal. Buckinghamshire council, on the border of my constituency, was faced with having to clean up a site that a group of Travellers had purchased from a farmer and then used to dispose of asbestos and hazardous waste, which was removed at enormous cost—a multimillion-pound cost—to the taxpayer.

In all such cases, there is a common issue: the local authority’s inability to use swift and robust enforcement powers. As my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton said, once a site is occupied and the use becomes established, it is very difficult to change that in the way the community would expect. During the recent general election campaign, I delivered leaflets to properties that formed part of an illegal encampment— because those individuals had been there for so long, they were on the electoral roll. Other residents in the community asked, “How is it that all these processes that are designed to make sure everyone follows the law can come together in a way that enables those rules to be flouted?”

On behalf of the official Opposition, I extend an offer to the Minister, who has taken an incredibly constructive approach to all the issues in his portfolio. Members on both sides of this debate have made constructive contributions and have set out ideas about how we can more effectively address the broad sweep of concerns that arise from this issue. My constituents are affected by an unauthorised encampment in the Hog’s Back, and have expressed great frustration that the local authority planning notice that applies to the site has effectively been bypassed as the individuals have moved to another part of the site. Those kinds of things understandably create a public backlash, as people feel that the law is not working effectively and is not on their side.

It is one thing for local authorities to have to resort to section 61 of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 to deal with illegal and unauthorised encampments that are causing a nuisance, but activity that can become established through the passage of time needs to be dealt with differently. I suggest to the Minister that, as we work together on that, we should also consider the operation of things such as the planning conditions that apply in national parks. My hon. Friend has the North Yorkshire Moors and the Yorkshire Dales national parks near his constituency. It is common to apply to national parks specific planning conditions that do not operate in other areas, such as conditions around the occupation of new homes by agricultural workers. Again, that provides scope for abuse of the planning system. For example, a developer could build a property purportedly for agricultural worker use and then say they wish to convert it to a holiday let or an extended family home.

There is also the wider issue of ancillary uses, which my hon. Friend referred to. When a piece of land is in the green belt, perhaps with agricultural designation, there are always opportunities for a prospective applicant to say that they need a barn for their farming business or a sports pavilion because they hope to use the land for sporting activity. That potentially enables a property footprint to be established. In planning terms, conversion of that—legalisation of the occupation—follows later, to the dismay of local residents, who then question the effectiveness of the planning system. The scope for the use to become established and the property to be sold on for profit in a way that is not available to developers who seek to work within the system remains a significant cause for concern.

I thank all Members who have contributed to this balanced debate, which has highlighted many angles to the way in which this policy interacts with Gypsy, Roma and Traveller and settled communities. I urge the Minister to make the best use possible of the expertise of Members across the House and ensure that, as we move to update planning law, we have effective enforcement powers in place so that all our residents—all our constituents—have confidence that they will be treated equally before the law in the way that Parliament expects.

Exempt Supported Accommodation

David Simmonds Excerpts

Tuesday 10th September 2024 Westminster Hall

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

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Mark. I add my congratulations to the hon. Member for Birmingham Edgbaston (Preet Kaur Gill) on securing today’s debate. I must draw attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests because, like the hon. Member for North Shropshire (Helen Morgan), I am also a member of the LGA’s parliamentary team of vice-presidents.

I recall from my work on the Kerslake review into the governance of Birmingham city council that it has the highest proportion of residents needing to access social care during their lifetime of any local authority in England. The level of need is patently particularly acute, which is why one of the five pilots introduced following the “Supported housing: national statement of expectations” in October 2020 was in Birmingham.

Anybody with local government experience will be familiar with these challenges, which go back many years. They often result from reforms, such as those in the 1980s with care in the community, those in the late 1990s with the fair access criteria, and the introduction of extra care housing supported living. They all had a high degree of cross-party support based on the idea of improving the level of independence and autonomy that could be provided to people who need extra support through a combination of housing and social care.

All Members’ inboxes will contain at least some examples of concern about abuses in the market; some examples where the quality of care provided is not reaching the appropriate standard; and, of course, some examples where the quality of care is exceptional and supports our constituents to enjoy the fullest, most autonomous life and the greatest degree of independence in pursuing their interests. As we have heard, in response to the abuses that were identified in the market, my constituency neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman), brought forward a private Member’s Bill, which was adopted by the Government and enjoyed cross-party support in the last Parliament, with a view to bringing a clear legislative and regulatory focus to the sector.

As we know and have heard in the debate, the combination of challenges around resourcing the implementation of that measure—for example, the ability of local authorities to make good use of feedback from residents who may be extremely vulnerable, and ensuring that that new regulatory environment is enforceable when it sits outside of the planning system to a great degree, as the hon. Member for Birmingham Edgbaston identified—remains significant.

When we consider recent work, it seems that the Minister has a great deal to build on. As has been highlighted, there has been a good degree of cross-party support for improved measures to address the issue, and, following the publication of the “Supported housing: national statement of expectations” and the implementation of the five pilots, an evaluation was published in the last Parliament, around April 2022. A written ministerial statement from the then Minister, Eddie Hughes, set out the future plans and funding aimed at implementing the regulation that those pilots had identified as being necessary. That work led to and fed into the Supported Housing (Regulatory Oversight) Act 2023 and interacted with the Social Housing (Regulation) Act 2023. The issue was also the subject of a Levelling Up, Housing and Communities Committee inquiry in 2021.

The debate and discussion in Parliament has significance only in so far as it can be implemented at a local level. Both the Select Committee inquiry and the learning from those pilots was very clear that local authorities need to have sufficient resource and flexibility to implement it at a local level. I welcome the fact that, in the previous Parliament, the Government provided a £20 million fund to begin ensuring that all local authorities could learn from that and had a degree of resource. However, it is clear from the level of wider need, and in particular, from the emerging evidence of market abuse not just in this sector but in areas such as children’s homes and care homes, where significant rip-off fees are being charged by some providers for a service that is simply inadequate to meet the needs of those residents, that further work is needed. Clearly, the Minister has taken office at a time when the Department has accumulated a high degree of evidence as a result of the pilots, the debates and the work done in the previous Parliament. I hope that that will be enormously useful in ensuring that the expectations set out in that Parliament can be fulfilled.

I would like to add my support on this matter. I do not think that this Minister is responsible for planning, but the point that was made about how we support the identification of exempt accommodation through the planning process is important. I think we all recognise that this is a marketplace in which we have a combination of local authority providers, private providers, charities and voluntary organisations, and we do not wish to place undue impediments in the way of those who wish to convert existing buildings—for example, houses in multiple occupation—to provide additional support to residents who may be able to make the most of it. At the same time, in all communities, in order to avoid the problems we have seen—with particular settings, for example, requiring a high degree of police and law enforcement input—there needs to be that earlier identification process.

As the Government bring forward their proposed review of the planning system, I hope the Minister and her colleagues will give some consideration to how changing the use classes that relate to exempt accommodation or making that part of a wider review—for example, of change of use of residential accommodation to become children’s homes, houses in multiple occupation, care homes and so on—would enable the earlier identification of sites and input to be gathered from the likes of police and NHS services. That would then influence the planning committee in deciding whether a location was appropriate in order, for example, to avoid the clustering of problem locations. As we have seen in the past with local authorities at the coast, we may find a combination of bail hostels next to children’s homes next to asylum accommodation, all of which can create a very challenging social mix for a local authority and other local authority services to deal with.

This has been a very helpful debate. I again congratulate the hon. Member for Birmingham Edgbaston. I hope that the Minister will be able to build on the constructive work done in the last Parliament and that we will see that feed into a significant change in the experience of the most vulnerable people, who need to access exempt accommodation, but also in the communities in which it is located and their experience of it in the coming years.

Oral Answers to Questions

David Simmonds Excerpts

Monday 2nd September 2024 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Minister.

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

We share the ambition of seeing a big increase in the supply of housing, and of social housing in particular. Given that there are around 1.4 million new homes with planning consent already granted in this country, what process led the Government to prioritising the removal of green-belt protections rather than building the homes for which our councils have already given consent?

[Matthew Pennycook]

What I would say to the hon. Gentleman is that we are doing both. We are making changes to the national planning policy framework to encourage the release of the right kind of lower-quality grey belt land within the green belt, and we are taking action to ensure that those sites across the country that have received consent but which are stalled or are not being built at the pace required, are moved along with additional support from the centre.

[David Simmonds]

The previous Government made new measures available to local authorities to encourage borrowing against the housing revenue account to enable the creation of new council housing. What measures do the Government have in mind to increase the take-up of this approach by our local authorities?

[Matthew Pennycook]

We are committed to working with councils, including with the signatories of the recent report on securing the future of council housing, to address the many challenges they are facing, including in connection with the housing revenue account headroom as many of them are feeling lots of pressure on that front. As a first step, we have given councils more flexibility to increase the delivery of council homes using right-to-buy receipts, and allocated an additional £450 million to councils to secure homes for families at risk of homelessness. We will set out plans at the next fiscal event to give councils and housing associations the rent stability they need to borrow and invest in new and existing homes.

Leasehold and Freehold Reform Bill

David Simmonds Excerpts

Report stage
Tuesday 27th February 2024 Commons Chamber

[Priti Patel]

The amendments tabled by the Government —new clauses 30 to 32 in particular—will offer my constituents some hope and a quicker means of redress on many of the points raised in the House’s discussions. I will press the Minister on some concerns raised by my leaseholder constituents and by all colleagues on the whole issue of remediation of defects, and transparency and accountability.

At one development in my constituency that opened in 2019—now a significant period of time ago—the residents experience a shocking case of misery and distress. The problems include water ingress, damp and mould, with children getting sick as a result, which is unforgiveable. There are also: damaged sprinkler systems; defective and non-compliant fire doors, which is unthinkable in this day and age; inadequate insulation—we have heard about water pipes and the lack of heating and cold water; roofing issues; damaged gates; and poor grounds maintenance. On top of that, when someone raises a complaint, guess what happens? Nobody does anything about it. However, whenever constituents get a letter, it is about their service fees increasing—it happens all the time. That is not acceptable.

The residents seek redress, but it just does not happen. Not only are they frustrated but we see a clear issue with buck passing; that is shameful and must be addressed. This property was a permitted development, and we should pause for thought on that. I am pro such developments—we need more of them—but we must ensure that charlatans do not come along and exploit people who are desperate to buy their first home, with all sorts of things happening in the building. I have had reports from residents who have purchased their property more recently, and guess what? They were not informed of all the defects and the problems going on. That is simply scandalous.

I want to mention again FirstPort—this should be a topic of wider debate in the House—and management companies. I am meeting FirstPort at the weekend. Again, why do these companies feel that they can be let off the hook? They will not engage effectively. In one case, leaseholders of a site in Stanway were not notified of a change in management company for about half a year. Every single colleague in the House will have cases of that nature.

FirstPort has refused requests to hold annual general meetings and has been lacking in visibility. If I may, I will praise Councillor Kevin Bentley, my county council leader, who is a divisional member for the area in question and has secured a public meeting for the weekend. It will be the first point when we have been able to get in the room with these people to seek redress. Contractors come in, and people are charged for monitoring works that never take place—it goes on and on.

I am grateful to the Minister for how he opened the debate, and spoke frankly about the issues and concerns. I have a suggestion to put to him. Yesterday it was announced that the Competition and Markets Authority will look into the practice of house builders and whether there has been collusion in pricing and the development of schemes. May I suggest that it might be worth looking into management companies? Many of those house builders come part and parcel with the management companies. The house builders do the negotiations with the management companies, and there is a lack of transparency. Should we be looking at more open book contracting around management companies, with details of how they are brought on board by the developers published, so that there is greater transparency for the purchasers? That is really important. As the Minister’s Department has already enlisted the CMA, he may wish to ask it to look at that important area as well. I hope that he can respond to some of those points when he sums up.

All hon. Members are grateful for the chance to raise these points, which speak to the totality of what we are seeing—a sense of a lack of fairness for many of our constituents, which the Government are clearly pressing in the right direction and seeking redress.

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

I very much welcome the Bill, which addresses the frustrations expressed by a great many leaseholders in my constituency. I thank Suzy Killip from the Pembroke Park Residents Association and Jo Tapper at The Sigers, both of whom have faced significant challenges while representing their communities and taking forward issues arising from the management and lack of services often provided to them under their lease arrangements.

I would particularly like to thank Ministers, because this legislation takes into account the way that the market has changed. Many years ago I started my career as a financial adviser, dealing with people taking out mortgages. One stark change is the extent to which leaseholds are seen as an opportunity to extract money from people as investments to be traded by freeholders, on the basis of extracting the maximum possible amount rather than ensuring good quality of services. I was involved in cases as a local authority councillor, where part of the planning agreement was that roads, parks and open spaces would be brought up to an appropriate standard to be adopted by the local authority. Once the development was completed, an opportunity was spotted by the developer and, therefore, people who had moved in on the understanding that the local authority would take over—because the roads were built to adoptable standard, for example—found that it did not happen because it was seen as an investment opportunity. That is very much in line with the rip-offs referred to by Members across the House.

I commend Ministers on taking a balanced approach on the need to recognise a link between the arrangements in the Bill and our housing supply. The UK has the oldest housing stock in Europe. The ability of freeholders of larger developments to regenerate sites where properties that have been rented are falling vacant over a period of time could be inhibited if there is a proliferation of small freeholds on those types of sites. If we are to ensure that the quality of our housing, in particular energy efficiency, is brought up to a good standard, it must still be possible for larger sites to be regenerated. We must not inhibit that completely while addressing a different concern about the rights and freedoms of leaseholders.

I mentioned some constituents earlier; the situation in particular at Pembroke Park is a good example of why the reforms in this legislation are so important. The development was constructed on a former military site by Taylor Wimpey, and handed over to be managed by A2Dominion housing association, with a mix of social housing tenants and private leaseholders. There are umpteen issues still more than a decade after the completion of that site, and issues simply getting A2Dominion to respond to problems including insulation that was never installed in buildings to the building regulations standard, a complete failure to ensure that proper ventilation was installed in the buildings, and drains that are completely inadequate. There has been progress, but I would add A2Dominion to the list of companies raised by other Members.

I commend A2Dominion’s relatively new chief executive, Ian Wardle, on the progress that he is making, but it remains a huge challenge to my constituents, and a huge frustration, that as opaque charges rise and rise, the actions of that organisation make it incredibly difficult even to understand whether the basic legal protections that they enjoy under existing legislation are being observed, including how insurance costs are apportioned across a very large property portfolio.

I strongly support the points made around forfeiture provisions. A number of constituents have come to me with significant challenges and justifiable concerns about the rising service charges on their properties. It is completely unacceptable that they would forfeit a significant amount of value that they have paid for and earned—potentially to fall to the developer. That is another opportunity for the shamelessly greedy to rip off our constituents. I am very glad that this legislation and the comments made by Members across the House today will represent a significant step towards ending that practice.

[Richard Fuller]

Thousands of homeowners in my constituency and millions across the country who face estate management charges will have their rights substantially increased thanks to the provisions in this Bill. I am extremely grateful to the Prime Minister, the Secretary of State, the Minister and his predecessor, my hon. Friend the Member for Redditch (Rachel Maclean), for including estate management charges in this Bill.

Local Government Finance

David Simmonds Excerpts

Wednesday 7th February 2024 Commons Chamber

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

I draw the House’s attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. There is an old saying that we can tell the state of a civilisation by the condition of its public toilets. It is often one of the services that the wider public and voters associate with local government, alongside potholes. However, as has been well reflected in the debate, local government finance is a huge part of overall Government and public sector expenditure. The vast majority of it—around 75% of the average local authority’s budget—goes not on public toilets, libraries or potholes, but on the care of the most vulnerable people in our society. All of it is hugely influential on the quality of life of our constituents, because it affects everything from education to the built environment, and things such as parks and sports facilities, which are incredibly important in people’s day-to-day lives.

In that context, it is important to start by recognising the positive news in the statement: the recognition by Government that on the core statutory services around adult and children’s care, cost pressures are becoming unsustainable. That has been acknowledged with a significant injection of extra cash. There will be a huge debate about whether that money is sufficient to address the concerns, but it demonstrates that the Government recognise the impact that unsustainable cost pressures are having, and are addressing them. Of course, it continues to create pressure that legislation on the setting of council tax requires local authorities to consult with residents in the autumn, around October, before council tax is set by law the following February. It is quite late in the day for us to be factoring in the additional funding announcements, welcome as they are.

I reiterate the calls from both sides of the Chamber that the earlier we can get any of these announcements into the system, and the more they can be structured into a multi-annual financial settlement, the more efficient the use of those resources and the greater the benefit to our constituents will be. It is always immensely challenging to run around trying to get road contractors to mend some extra potholes at the tail end of the financial year, but if we know that extra money is coming down the tracks we can invest in such things as jet patchers, which have been used in both Hillingdon and Harrow for many years, as a means of proactively getting out there and dealing with pothole repairs before the condition of the roads deteriorates any further.

I will pick up on a couple of issues in a little more detail, some of which have been touched on and some of which I hope will be fresh to the Chamber. The first is the impact that deficits on the dedicated schools grant high-needs block has on the funding announcement that we are debating. For many years, not just before 1991 and the setting of the council tax bands but since the earliest inception of business rates, the funding of education has been based on the business rate take from a given education authority’s area. That carries through today in the form of the dedicated schools grant, and it is why we see such differential funding rates for education from local authority area to area. However, around half of local authorities now have significant deficits on the dedicated schools grant.

While the dedicated schools grant, and the education budget generally, sits with the Department for Education, for the purposes of local government law it has to be covered by the annual balance requirement that is covered when council tax is set by the given local authority each February. If there is a substantial deficit on that budget, which is pretty much entirely under the control of the Department for Education, then significant savings have to be made in the general fund, which today’s statement covers, to make up for it. That has been dealt with in recent years by an annual renewal of a disregard, which essentially says to the accountants and monitoring officers in local authorities, “You simply have to allow the DfE to carry this forward, and don’t allow it directly to impact on your council tax every year.” However, there is no absolute certainty about the long-term position with the impact of the dedicated schools grant.

While the efforts being made by local authorities, borrowing against their own revenue budgets to fund an expansion of capital investment to create more SEND school places—the subject of a Westminster Hall debate by my constituency neighbour, hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Steve Tuckwell) this afternoon—will begin to have an impact in bringing those costs down, it remains a significant financial risk to local authorities. It would be helpful to hear, from the Minister today if possible, but certainly from the Government before too long, that that will be addressed and there can be some certainty for local authorities on that long-term position, not least because of the impact it has on the balances held by local authorities around the country.

It was great to hear the hon. Member for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts) refer to public health, which remains a key responsibility of local authorities. The covid pandemic rather brought that into the light once again, and the capacity of local authority public health team test, track and trace services, which have been there for many years, was critical to the national response to covid. It also highlighted the fact that, as a country, we went into that pandemic with a population that was, on the whole, a bit less healthy than in many comparable countries. Continued investment in that public health function, to ensure that our children in particular are able to enjoy a better degree of general health in the future, will make us much more resilient as a country in the face of future such challenges.

Turning to the local government funding formula, it is important to recognise that, as all hon. Members reflect, one major challenge in its impact on our constituents is the enormous historical inequity in the way the formula operates. That has a number of different manifestations. Many Members have talked about rural versus urban and suburban impact. Having served, alongside several other hon. Members in this Chamber over the years, at the Local Government Association, that was a pretty much annual subject of lobbying to Ministers, and a number of studies were done on the rural/urban/suburban differential.

The reason that many of those studies did not see the light of day is that the conclusion was that there was not, in the end, much difference—that the challenges that arose from high degrees of density, particularly the consequences for the delivery of all kinds of public services, were pretty much in balance with the equivalent challenges that arose from a greater degree of geographical sparsity in rural areas. Those studies tended to look at the costs of a whole variety of public services.

What is also clear, however, is that the move to significant rises in council tax will raise significantly different additional amounts in different parts of the country. I represent a constituency in a relatively prosperous London suburb, covering two local authorities. However, even in London, with 33 local authorities, we see a differential. When the last calculation was done, a 2% rise in council tax would create, for the local authority that generated most of its money from council tax, which at the time was Richmond, an additional 1.8% increase in its revenue budget, or disposable money to spend. In comparison, the City of London, which was largely dependent on Government grants, would see an additional 0.02% increase in its disposable income as a consequence.

Across the country we see that effect magnified. The ability to raise money of a local authority with a large number of band A properties will be much less than that of a local authority with band G and H properties, such as the constituency I represent. While it will help, therefore, it will not be a long-term solution, and we need to find a way to address the differentials for the long term.

I want to express my strong support for Ministers in the Department and for our Prime Minister, who came in for a bit of criticism for saying he wanted to get to grips with the way the funding formula has historically divided up funds. I spent my time as a councillor during all but one year of the last Labour Government and then for most years of the coalition. Every year was challenging, but there was enormous frustration during those years of Labour government. Most additional funding was not placed, as we are debating today, within the core funding settlement; it came in the form of additional grants that were routed to local authorities based on needs that were not reflected in the statutory obligations of the local authority.

A local authority for a seaside town with lots of elderly people to whom it had a statutory obligation to deliver adult social care, or a local authority in an outer London suburb with many children with significant care needs to whom it had a statutory obligation, got no extra funding at all. However, cities in certain parts of the country—although there was perhaps genuine poverty and housing need that had to be address—often had more money than they could possibly spend.

Many local authorities would have spent every single one of those years having to make cuts to statutory services while being given additional grants for things that were less of a priority. It is enormously welcome that the Government are beginning to get to grips with that by saying that the way in which the money flows must first reflect the legal obligations that Parliament has placed on local authorities. If we in this House say that adult and children’s social care must be delivered to a certain standard and driven by certain costs, we must ensure that the money is flowing in that direction.

Let me gently push back on the couple of Members who mentioned equalities. I had the joy of being a peer reviewer for the equalities standard for local government during my time as a councillor. There has been criticism, or perhaps an implication, that councils are wasting money in that area. One reason that councils do things such as equalities impact assessments is to avoid expensive legal challenges of the kind that used to be extremely common, that cost taxpayers huge amounts, and that obstructed reform, particularly of social care services. If officials at the town hall are ensuring that contracts are tendered in a way that reflects the diverse needs of a community and means that they will not be tangled up in years of legal challenges based on the Human Rights Act 1998 or any other element of equality legislation, that increases the efficiency of service delivery by that local authority. We should be cautious about assuming that if it comes with an equalities badge, it must, in some sense, be a waste of money.

Funding reform will be enormously welcome across the country. Let me set out the key things on which I ask the Minister to reflect as he embarks on that process. First, the work that has already started, to ensure that local government funding reflects the cost drivers arising from legislation passed by this House, is critical. If we say, “This must happen and must be done by local government,” we must ensure that the resources are there for the delivery of that thing, otherwise we create an unsustainable and unbridgeable gap between our constituents’ expectations and the available funding.

As the bigger picture of reform is taken forward, I suggest that we look at the role that planning gain will play in how local authorities are funded. Despite economic development being an enormous priority for our Government and our country, most forms of development remain a net cost to local authorities. In Hillingdon, we certainly had that spelled out to us starkly in respect of Heathrow airport, the campaign for expansion and the national debate about whether that was an additional benefit to UK plc. However, it was extremely clear, especially because the business rates all went to central Government, that the expansion of Heathrow airport simply created significant additional cost to the local authority. A recent study estimated that each new citizen moving to a city represented an additional cost of £15,000 per annum to its public services, after all the benefits, including the tax that they pay, were accounted for.

As development proceeds, we must ensure that our constituents see a real benefit, so that local authorities, and Members of Parliament—instead of standing up in this House and saying, “We want more housing and more economic development,” before appearing on leaflets in the constituency opposing it all—can look their voters in the eye and say genuinely, “If we get this new factory, it will be disruptive, but the money from it will mean that we get a new bus service or an improved GP service.”

The Minister will be looking at a lot of detail, but I ask him to reflect in particular on the impact of funding temporary accommodation costs from local authorities’ general fund. The housing revenue account is ringfenced, and we know that that comprises both the rents that are paid by local authority tenants and several other funding streams. However, the fact that it is ringfenced and often significantly in profit has encouraged Governments in the past to look at it as, for example, a source of funding borrowing to invest in housing. The temporary accommodation challenge that we face—especially because of the large numbers of people arriving in the UK over fairly short periods of time, exacerbating some pre-existing challenges—is significant and acute. I urge the Minister to look at whether some additional flexibility around the housing revenue account could begin to relieve some of the pressures on the general fund referred to in the motion.

I finish my remarks by thanking the people who serve in all local authorities, in particular those who serve as councillors in my constituency and lead my two local authorities. The feedback that I receive from constituents, despite all the potential gloom and doom about local government, continues to be extremely positive and is often improving: people see that their streets are becoming cleaner and their environment is being cared for. That is incredibly important to them—often far more important than the issues we are debating in this House—and we owe those councillors a huge debt of thanks as fellow elected politicians.

Economic Activity of Public Bodies (Overseas Matters) Bill

David Simmonds Excerpts

3rd reading
Wednesday 10th January 2024 Commons Chamber

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

There is about £70 billion of local government spending in the UK, which is a very significant economic factor. It is entirely right that, in a context where local authorities have their remit within the Public Services (Social Value) Act 2012 and the most advantageous tender rules, introduced by the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, they are able to ensure that that money is spent in a way that fully expresses their ambitions and the aspirations and views of their local communities. Clearly we need to ensure—and this is why I support the Bill so strongly—that we have appropriate limits when there are risks that that will stray into causing real, serious division and interfere with what is more appropriately national policy.

During my time at the Local Government Association, I engaged in a good deal of effort working with the local government friends of Israel group and observing the massive amount of BDS lobbying of local councillors. I must pay tribute to our local government counterparts. Overwhelmingly, despite that pressure, they took the view that this was not an appropriate course of action, and that in fact they should ensure that the concerns and aspirations of their residents were front and centre rather than engaging with international campaigns that were both beyond their remit and at risk of conflicting with the more broadly expressed objectives of the country.

We should not forget—this is why what the Secretary of State said about retaining the capacity for freedom of speech is so important—that we have counterparts in local government who are specifically elected on an international platform. For example, many will recall Justice for Kashmir, later the People’s Justice party, which became a significant force in the politics of Birmingham City Council. It was specifically elected on an international law issue. Later, its members joined the Liberal Democrats. Clearly, communities felt that the issue was so important that they were prepared to elect local councillors on that platform.

As a Member who represents a diverse constituency and who has heard a lot from people on both sides of this debate, I want to finish by saying that the incredibly bitter divisions that have arisen about the Bill and other issues are not seen and felt by my constituents in day-to-day life. When a local Muslim charity wanted a base, it found one in St John’s church. When it wanted to raise funds to purchase its own permanent base, the local synagogue spoke out in support of that. There is a real sense of solidarity among our communities, regardless of faith or any other element of diversity in their backgrounds. We need to ensure that BDS, which solely targets the state of Israel, is restricted from inflicting any further damage on our communities.

Economic Activity of Public Bodies (Overseas Matters) Bill

David Simmonds Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 25th October 2023 Commons Chamber

Amendment 3 would amend clause 4 to lift the effective ban on criticism of this legislation by other elected individuals. Again, the proposals in the Bill strike at the very heart of what we try to achieve at every level of our democracy in this country, which is a sense of ethical and moral conduct, and that people should be able to express their views.

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

My right hon. Friend is making a powerful point. Like me, he has spent a lot of time in local government. Does he agree with the point I raised on Second Reading that a key issue is that our local elected brethren—for example, those specifically elected on a foreign policy platform, such as the 17 councillors who served at one stage on Birmingham City Council on behalf of the “Justice for Kashmir” party—may have a specific democratic reason for being there to express that foreign policy view? There will be circumstances in which councillors, including those who sit in the House of Lords and who sit as part of international bodies, such as the congress of the Council of Europe, benefit from parliamentary privilege in expressing their views. There is therefore a risk that this gagging order is not simply gagging what people should expect as freedom of speech, but is also ineffective in the objective it sets out to achieve.

[Kit Malthouse]

My hon. Friend speaks with experience, and he puts it extremely well. To assume that councillors are merely elected on the basis of their attitude towards potholes and refuse collection is completely erroneous; they are elected for all sorts of reasons. Many councillors and Members of the devolved Administrations who campaign on social, moral, ethical and, indeed, foreign policy issues would say that they have a mandate, and not even to be able to express opposition to the law while still complying with it seems very un-British, extremely illiberal and unnecessarily draconian. We have lots of laws in this country to which councillors and, indeed, other elected officials of opposing political persuasions can express opposition. To have an exception on this basis seems faintly ridiculous.

On amendment 4, I declare my interest as a member of the local government pension fund, which I understand is the only pension fund affected by the Bill. As I said on Second Reading, it is unfortunate that, as the right hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) said, my accumulated savings are being put under the control of the Secretary of State. If, in pursuit of this control, my pension diminishes in value because I am forced to follow the decisions made by the Secretary of State, what will be my compensation in retirement?

Amendment 5 is about exempting universities as public bodies. There is a technical reason, as well as a principled reason, for this amendment. I outlined my objection on Second Reading, not least because we had just appointed a free speech tsar and legislated for free speech on university campuses, but here we are busily curtailing free speech through this Bill.

The technical issue is about universities being classified as public bodies. As the Secretary of State will know, there has been a flurry of activity in the Treasury because further education colleges have been classified as public bodies, which means all their debt comes on to the public balance sheet. This is another step towards universities, with their even greater levels of debt, coming on to the balance sheet, about which the Treasury ought to have a say. I hope and believe that, when the Bill goes to the House of Lords, the Treasury will want to have a look.

Finally, amendment 6 is about international law. I know that the Secretary of State, like every member of the Government, is extremely keen on international law and wants to ensure it is followed in all circumstances, and particularly in this current horrific conflict in Israel and Gaza. One of the great benefits of our more flexible system is that, as the Government called for boycotts of Russian businesses and Russian individuals following the invasion of Ukraine, other parts of civic society were able to move extremely quickly to comply, whereas under this legislation they would have to wait for the Government to issue some kind of regulation, which would have to go through this House and be debated. That could possibly take weeks, if not longer, particularly if the House is in recess. Amendment 6 proposes that if the Government declare that a country or situation is in breach of international law, other organisations can immediately respond by issuing their own sanctions or disinvestments.

I honestly believe that the amendments I have tabled—I understand that only amendment 7, which is probably the most important, will go to a Division this evening—represent an attempt to improve the legislation, rather than necessarily picking a side. Although this debate has, I am afraid, been positioned as a pro-Israel or pro-Palestine debate, I am primarily pro-Britain. I want to get the legislation right for this country, for the Jewish community and for every community in this country so that we can live with the consequences for years to come.

Economic Activity of Public Bodies (Overseas Matters) Bill

David Simmonds Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 3rd July 2023 Commons Chamber

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

I declare my interests as a vice-president of the Local Government Association and the co-chair of the all-party parliamentary group on British Jews. I am privileged to represent a very diverse constituency with a large and established Jewish population, and indeed many people from every possible religious background. It is great to see that, on the whole, those different communities get on extremely well, but this legislation is necessary for the reasons that many Members have outlined.

As the hon. Member for Wigan (Lisa Nandy) said, the long-standing BDS campaign creates a situation where the state of Israel, and Jewish people here in the UK and elsewhere, are singled out for criticism and discrimination. However, like my neighbour and hon. Friend, the Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman), I will be voting for the legislation, having noted a number of areas in which improvement is required, which I hope we will be able to address in Committee. I will take each in turn. First, I urge Front-Bench colleagues to give serious consideration to entirely dropping clause 4(1)(b), which has raised a number of concerns among Members. In the context of local government, especially in respect of pensions committees, a significant population of councillors are decision makers for the purposes of the legislation and, as an increasing number of local authorities—especially small ones—move to the committee system, the constituency of members who would be considered decision makers for the purposes of the legislation gets larger and larger.

The hon. Member for Caerphilly (Wayne David) will probably remember the late councillor Ray Davies: everywhere you turned, you would find him protesting against something or chaining himself to railings about something else. We can imagine a situation in which a back-bench member of a local authority called to attend a pensions investment committee as a substitute member expresses the view that their preference would be to not make a particular decision because of concerns about the behaviour of a particular Government, and finds themselves in breach of the law as a result. That would seem to have a chilling effect on freedom of speech. We should ensure that those who disagree with a policy are able to express that view while still making a decision that is within the law, as outlined in clause 4(1)(a).

The second piece of important context goes to the point that was raised by the right hon. Member for Barking (Dame Margaret Hodge): we should give our local government colleagues a degree of respect for their common sense in this matter. At the Local Government Association, it was my privilege to do some work on exactly this issue, working with the Local Government Friends of Israel—a very good organisation. Through that process, we identified that, at the time, at most two or three councils had passed BDS motions. We should accord respect to our local government colleagues by removing clause 4(1)(b), recognising that, on the whole, they have been wise and sensible in exercising their powers.

The next issue is the way in which these powers are exercised in respect of contractors and subcontractors. On, for example, an investment committee or a procurement committee charged with making decisions to place contracts, elected members may not necessarily be aware of the decisions and policies of the bodies with which they are contracting. It is not unusual for a local government pension committee to have 15 to 20 investments at any one given time. Given that those private companies may themselves be under similar pressure to exercise BDS views, what is not always going to be transparent to those elected members is how those things are taking effect in practice. We need to ensure that, in bringing in what is intended to be about decision makers in public bodies, we are not losing our desired intention to ensure that BDS is not present in the public sector by ensuring that those bodies that are contracting or subcontracting are also within sight.

Again on my concern in respect of how these decisions will affect elected members in local authorities, the legislation envisages that it will apply where matters are in line with, or outside of, the policy of the Government. Paragraph 9 of the explanatory notes sets out the example of where a specific legislative provision was introduced in respect of sanctions against Russia following the invasion of Ukraine. It is my view that when this legislation passes we need to be completely clear what we mean when we talk about the policy of the Government. Do we mean as expressed in legislation? Do we mean as expressed by the Minister at the Dispatch Box? What is it that we mean when we talk about the policy of the Government? Is it a policy of different Government Departments? We need to make sure, given that it would be a breach of the law to express opposition to it, that the position from which the policy of the Government is drawn is absolutely clear.

Social Housing (Regulation) Bill [Lords]

David Simmonds Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 1st March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Matthew Pennycook]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention; I could not have put it better. We are seriously concerned that clause 22 does not have the same effect as bringing providers within the scope of the Freedom of Information Act. We think that tenants, and tenant representatives and those acting on their behalf, should be able to enjoy those rights, so that they can get information of the kind that, as he rightly says, providers regularly refuse to give to tenants.

Before turning to the Government amendments that have been tabled since the Bill left Committee, I wish to speak briefly to new clauses 7 and 8, which stand respectively in the names of my hon. Friends the Members for Dulwich and West Norwood (Helen Hayes) and for Mitcham and Morden (Siobhain McDonagh). I turn first to new clause 7, or “Georgia’s law”, as my hon. Friend the Member for Dulwich and West Norwood has named it, in reference to a constituent of hers who was forced into temporary accommodation for an extended period as a result of her teenage son being threatened by gang members at their family home.

In our view, new clause 7 is a sensible and proportionate amendment that would make a real difference to a small but significant minority of tenants in England who find themselves in the exceptional circumstance—I must stress that fact—of a police referral as a result of being subject to the threat of serious violence. Its effect—the protection of existing tenancy rights in the case of a forced move linked to a threat of violence and greater co-operation between registered providers to rehouse those affected in a social home—is clearly not unduly onerous, and the Government’s argument that such a measure would cause insurmountable problems with local authority allocations policies is entirely unconvincing.

The Minister gave a guarantee in Committee that the Government would work with my hon. Friend

“to see what more can be done in this area to prevent any more cases like that of Georgia and her boys emerging.”––[Official Report, Social Housing (Regulation) Public Bill Committee, 29 November 2022; c. 66.]

It is therefore incredibly disappointing that the Government have not been willing to bring forward an amendment of their own to ensure that others do not have to experience what my hon. Friend’s constituents were forced to go through. As such, if my hon. Friend pushes her new clause 7 to a vote, we will of course support it.

We also support new clause 8, because while we recognise that the Government are taking steps to address the issue of unscrupulous providers of supported accommodation by means of the Supported Housing (Regulatory Oversight) Bill, promoted by the hon. Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman), we are in full agreement with my hon. Friend the Member for Mitcham and Morden that the regulator should have the ability to inspect temporary accommodation. There is statutory guidance designed to ensure that existing minimum standards are met for all temporary accommodation, but we know that in practice bed and breakfasts, hotels and shared houses used by local authorities across the country to house homeless families are frequently substandard and often hazardous, because that guidance is rarely adhered to.

The truth is that with almost 100,000 households, and now more than 125,000 children, living in temporary accommodation, according to the Department’s own figures, local authorities have little leverage when it comes to deciding what standards they are willing to accept. A huge amount needs to be done to decrease the demand for temporary accommodation across the country, most of which is well outside of the scope of this Bill. But in the short term, stronger regulation and inspections could make a real difference, and in the most extreme cases they could save lives. On that basis, we support new clause 8.

Finally, I turn to the Government amendments that have been tabled in recent weeks. The bulk of them are uncontroversial and largely technical, and we support their incorporation into the Bill. I do, however, wish to touch upon Government new clause 1. Awaab Ishak’s untimely death from prolonged exposure to mould in the house his parents rented from Rochdale Boroughwide Housing should never have occurred and the fact that it did, frankly, shames our country. The coroner was right to call it a “defining moment”, but it falls to this House to ensure that it truly is. It is therefore essential that we legislate to compel landlords to act quickly to remedy hazards of the kind that ultimately killed Awaab.

The regulator’s initial findings on damp and mould in social housing, published on 2 February, estimated that up to 160,000 social homes have notable problems with it, and a further 8,000 have hazards so severe that they pose a serious and immediate risk to health. Given the scale of the problem, landlords who fail to proactively review the homes and buildings they manage or lease for hazards, who deal with tenant complaints relating to such hazards ineffectively, or who blame damp and mould on lifestyle choices and myriad other factors, rather than taking responsibility, cannot be tolerated.

Government new clause 1 is a laudable effort at amending the Bill to ensure that social housing providers are forced to investigate and deal promptly with hazards that are a danger to the health of tenants. As the Minister said, it would allow the Secretary of State, by regulation, to set timescales to which social landlords must adhere in respect of remedying hazards or be in breach of a tenancy agreement, as well as specify what kinds of action must be taken. Enforcement will, of course, depend on access to legal representation, and in many cases legal aid, Government new clause 1 nevertheless provides an enforceable right that enhances the provisions contained in the Homes (Fitness for Human Habitation) Act 2018, introduced by my hon. Friend the Member for Westminster North (Ms Buck). We commend the Government for tabling the new clause and we support it in principle.

However, we are convinced that Government new clause 1 could be strengthened in several important respects, and to that end we have tabled amendments (a) to (f). Taken together, they would set out on the face of the Bill the location of the relevant prescribed requirements at proposed new section 10A(2); make clear the extent of their application; detail the circumstances in which any provision of a lease or any agreement relating to a lease is void; and clarify where courts may order specific performance of certain obligations. We believe those changes would improve the clarity and functionality of Government new clause 1 and thereby make it stronger, and we hope the Government will give serious consideration to accepting them.

To conclude, this is without question an important and urgently needed piece of legislation, and we are extremely pleased it will complete its passage today. Everyone has a basic right to a decent, safe, secure and affordable home, and it is our sincere hope that by overhauling the regulation of social housing by means of this Bill, we will better protect the health, safety and wellbeing of social tenants across the country. We welcome the numerous concessions that the Government have made throughout the passage of the Bill, but we believe it is not yet the most robust piece of legislation that this House can possibly deliver, the achievement of which has been our objective from the outset. We will shortly have the opportunity to amend it further so that it is, and I urge the House to come together to that end.

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

May I start by drawing the House’s attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests and, in particular, my role as a vice-president of the Local Government Association? That is an important starting point for why I so strongly welcome this Bill and commend the Government team, especially for new clauses 1 and 2, which are going to be the main focus of my contribution this afternoon.

It was immensely useful, and terrifying, having served as a London local authority councillor and as an office holder in the LGA, to see the things that we learnt about the regulation of our housing market following the Grenfell disaster. Local authorities across the country will welcome the fact that this Bill begins to bring a degree of definition to the situations where regulation that perhaps in the past had been vague could apply, and a greater degree of rigour, which enables a greater degree of accountability in respect of landlords who may be falling short in their responsibilities.

I wish to flag up the fact that some issues remain to be addressed, because although the model of Ofsted as a regulatory framework is a good one, the weakness of Ofsted is that it focuses its inspections through the role of the local authority and the local authority’s powers in a diverse and complex education market are limited, just as they are in the context of a very diverse and complex housing market. I would simply say that, following the situation at Grenfell where large numbers of landlords suddenly realised that they would be required to address quite serious safety issues, we saw a number of examples around the country where private landlords with substantial blocks that were entirely occupied by tenants on social leases through the local authority essentially put those blocks into liquidation and walked away. Therefore, there was a need for a local authority in those kinds of situations to step in. How we deal with perhaps sharp business practices by landlords, who may seek, under a single brand, to register large numbers of individual properties or developments separately to try to evade—at least to some degree—the scope of regulation will be an ongoing challenge, and one that we already face in the buy-to-let market.

[Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)]

I thank my hon. Friend for the consultative way in which she has guided the Bill through the House. Having gone through the Lords and now reached Report, the Government have tabled four new clauses and a substantial number of amendments. What consideration is she giving to the consultation that will be needed on those new clauses with the organisations involved, to make sure we get the regulations right when she brings forward the secondary legislation?

--- Later in debate ---

I do not mean to criticise local authorities for these failures. In nearly all cases, councils are doing their best, but they are in a bind because they are under incredible pressure. Children experiencing housing instability are seeing their social relationships broken. Their academic performance is poor, their access to healthcare is limited and they are more likely to be psychologically distressed.

[David Simmonds]

The hon. Lady refers to securing children’s education during a move. I have constituents who have moved into the area, often after fleeing violence in other places, for whom that has been an issue. Does she agree that the proposed regulation of multi-academy trusts might be able to address that? At present, local authorities do not have any powers to direct an academy to take a child in order that they can sit examinations. If we restored that power to local authorities or introduced such a requirement on academies as an element of inspection, it would at least guarantee that parents who have to move could find a school in the new area at which their child could sit their GCSEs or A-levels.

[Siobhain McDonagh]

I would have no problem with changing the rules for multi-academy trusts, but I do not think that that alone would resolve the difficulty. Most schools would be loth to take a child in year 11 or year 13 because they would be in the second year of their exams and the curriculums would not match. Schools of all statuses are concerned about their performance.

The 26,000 families I described are forced to travel an estimated 400,000 miles each year to access temporary accommodation—the equivalent of going 16 times around the globe. On one day at the civic centre in my constituency, the only temporary accommodation that could be offered to families was in Telford, 170 miles away from their home borough, and that is not unique. How can someone possibly start putting their life back together when they are 170 miles away from the borough they have been living in? And that was in Merton, which does not have the same problems as other London boroughs.

Across the UK, as I said, the total temporary accommodation expenditure has reached £1.6 billion, of which three quarters was funded by housing benefit. That is not money well spent. If we moved each family out of temporary accommodation and into social rented housing, we would save £572 million a year. As the Public Accounts Committee put it, not only is temporary accommodation

“often of a poor standard”,

but it

“does not offer value for money.”

I am aware that the Government have supported the Bill promoted by the hon. Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman), which would try to raise standards in exempt accommodation, but it is important to note that exempt accommodation is distinct from temporary accommodation. Exempt accommodation provides accommodation with extra support for more marginalised groups such as recent prison leavers, care leavers, those fleeing domestic violence and homeless people with substance dependence or mental health issues. Exempt accommodation is a problem of its own, with landlords exploiting the housing benefit system to profit from vulnerable people, but it should be noted that temporary accommodation is different. It represents people who are either awaiting the outcome of a homelessness application under the 1996 Act, or awaiting an offer of suitable accommodation.

I will finish by saying that, after nearly 30 years of Ofsted, we know that unless a school knows that Ofsted is coming, problems begin. A substantial proportion of outstanding schools that were not inspected for five years have recently been graded as needing improvement. Organisations—the best organisations—need to know that somebody is coming, and in a reasonable time. The same is true of councils that are meant to be ensuring that the standards and code of guidance are met. The Government clearly think that schools and children’s social services departments should be independently inspected. What is different about temporary accommodation for homeless families? The Government provide a national curriculum for schools. They do not just say, “That’s okay—I’m sure the curriculum is being followed.” They actually check to see that it is happening. We can talk about what we are going to introduce, such as different pieces of guidance for councils, but unless local authority housing departments are inspected in the same way that schools and children’s social services departments are, we can never expect the standards in temporary accommodation to be safe.

Oral Answers to Questions

David Simmonds Excerpts

Monday 20th February 2023 Commons Chamber

[Rachel Maclean]

Yes, the Government do recognise the urgency of this issue, and I thank my hon. Friend for raising it. He is right to be consistent about it, because, as we recognise, access to healthcare is one of the most important concerns—if not the most important concern —of local communities when new housing is planned. Our community infrastructure levy places much firmer requirements on local planning to engage with healthcare provision in the local community, and I would be happy to meet him to discuss this matter further.

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

21. What progress he has made on devolving power to local communities.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (Dehenna Davison)]

In 2022 we signed six new devolution deals—with York and North Yorkshire, the east midlands, Norfolk, Suffolk, Cornwall, and the north-east—with £4 billion of long-term investment funding and key powers devolved to local leaders. When these deals are implemented, more than half of the English population will benefit from devolution.

[David Simmonds]

My constituents benefit from access to places such as Ruislip woods and the Pinner Memorial Park as a means of getting to green spaces in the local area. What measures does my hon. Friend have in mind to ensure that, through the access to nature target, more local authorities can use these devolution powers to create good-quality green spaces?

[Dehenna Davison]

I completely agree with my hon. Friend about the importance of access to green space. My Department has made significant funds available to local areas, including through the UK shared prosperity fund and the levelling-up parks fund, which can be used to regenerate green spaces, but I would be happy to sit down with him to discuss the matter further.