Oral Answers to Questions

Helen Hayes Excerpts

Monday 9th June 2025 Commons Chamber

[Natasha Irons (Croydon East) (Lab)]

13. What steps her Department is taking to help ensure that councils are financially stable.

[Helen Hayes (Dulwich and West Norwood) (Lab)]

14. What steps her Department is taking to help ensure that councils are financially stable.

[Terry Jermy (South West Norfolk) (Lab)]

21. What steps her Department is taking to ensure that councils in areas with higher levels of deprivation receive adequate funding.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jim McMahon]

The questions that have been raised demonstrate why the fair funding review is needed, and why it has to take into account all the different factors that have an impact on whether councils can provide good public services or not. I appreciate, understand and accept that pressures that were previously felt in inner London are now felt in outer London, and in rural areas too. My hon. Friend will know that in February we provided £136 million in EFS support for Croydon council, and we will continue to work with it. We have met and talked about the issues a number of times, and I know that she understands that those are not small problems to deal with.

[Helen Hayes]

The statutory override to special educational needs and disabilities deficit comes to an end in just 10 months. Without a plan from the Government for the end of the statutory override, more than half of all local education authorities face effective bankruptcy. The need for a resolution to the issue is now long overdue. When does the Minister expect to be able to give local authorities the certainty they need?

[Jim McMahon]

We are laying the groundwork now, ahead of the provisional settlement, which will be the first multi-year settlement in over a decade and will deal with a lot of the structural issues. If it is any help, the Government understand and accept that it is not right or acceptable for councils that have done everything that has been asked of them and provided good public services, particularly for young people, to find themselves at the financial cliff edge as a result. We have an absolute commitment to work through those issues.

--- Later in debate ---

[Matthew Pennycook]

No. We are confident that the protections in place for the green belt—the tests that have to be met for grey-belt release—are robust. It is ultimately for local planning authorities to conduct green-belt reviews and to bring forward those sites as part of local plans.

[Helen Hayes (Dulwich and West Norwood) (Lab)]

T8. Across London, 90,000 children are living in temporary accommodation, denied the essentials of a stable home, which has terrible consequences for their physical and mental health and education. This is a scandalous inheritance from the previous Conservative Government. When does the Secretary of State believe that we will begin to see those numbers drop substantially?

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

We have invested almost £1 billion in tackling homelessness and rough sleeping, and we have recognised the scandal of temporary accommodation, which we inherited. We are taking action to ensure that there is a cross-Government strategy to get us back on track to ending homelessness.