Indefinite Leave to Remain

Jamie Stone Excerpts

Monday 8th September 2025 Westminster Hall

[Rachel Blake (Cities of London and Westminster) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir Jeremy. I thank the Petitions Committee for scheduling this important debate, and I welcome the spirit in which it has been conducted so far: the original purpose of debating indefinite leave to remain has been respected and we have risen above the appalling and divisive rhetoric that we have heard recently in relation to the role of migration and the lives of asylum seekers.

My constituency has a long track record of welcoming migrants and refugees. The historic neighbourhoods of the City of London, Soho, Fitzrovia and Pimlico are just some of the villages in the very centre of London that have a long track record of welcoming people. They continue to be proud of their diverse heritage. Indeed, our country prides itself on fairness and stability in our approach to the law and to migration and asylum policy. We are a place where people come to build and rebuild their lives, and to invest in their futures. I think we are all richer for that.

[Jamie Stone (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD)]

On behalf of the Petitions Committee, I thank the hon. Member for her thanks. Far away from London in the highlands of Scotland, the same is true: we have refugees who have fitted in and been greatly welcomed. May I make the point to the Minister that involving the devolved institutions, such as the Scottish Government, the Welsh Assembly and the Northern Ireland Assembly, will be hugely important if we are going to make all this work?

[Rachel Blake]

I thank the hon. Member for that contribution.

I want to focus my remarks on those who have BNO visas and particularly on the importance of stability in that system. I first became particularly interested in the lives of people living in Hong Kong because of my constituent, Jimmy Lai, who is currently interred in Hong Kong because he stood up for freedom and democracy. That brought me to be profoundly concerned about the importance of BNO visas.

While it is absolutely right that we should be discussing how we appropriately balance the many benefits of migration with the concerns that some people have about the current system, I do think it important that we have stability in the system and recognise that the bar to securing indefinite leave to remain is already high. I will be focusing very closely on the Home Office proposals to ensure that we are standing by those principles and the values of fairness and stability.

--- Later in debate ---

[Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South and Walkden) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Pritchard. I welcome the Minister to his new Department. I worked with him when he was in the Department for Housing, Communities and Local Government; he listened, and I got £20 million for the regeneration of Farnworth in my constituency. I hope he is in a listening mood today and will do what we are asking him to do.

It is an absolute privilege to speak in this debate on behalf of many families who have come to the United Kingdom either under the British national overseas visa scheme or on work permits to work in our country, often in areas that are difficult to recruit for—for example, the social care sector. With an ageing population, such jobs are unfilled, as are roles in the IT sector and many other industries.

On Friday, I met the Salford Hongkongers group. They explained to us why many of them left Hong Kong, fleeing from persecution. They have been working hard, as my hon. Friend the Member for Salford (Rebecca Long Bailey) mentioned, and they make a great contribution to our economy, as, of course, have others who have come to work in the social care sector, where the jobs are not the nicest and the pay is often not great either. They are all working very hard.

What they have in common is that when they made the decision to come to the United Kingdom, they believed in certain fundamental rules, one of which was that after five years they would be able to apply for indefinite leave to remain. Of course, it was not guaranteed that they would get leave, because there are other criteria to satisfy—such as having worked for five years, meeting a certain level of pay and being of good character—but at least they knew what they were working towards.

I urge the Government and the Minister to reconsider the proposed changes—we do not yet know exactly what those changes are—for two reasons. It is manifestly unfair to change the rules for people who came on the basis of what they understood the rules to be. Retrospective legislation is always bad legislation. It has been done occasionally, but normally only in a state of immediate national emergency. I do not think this situation falls into that category, by any description,. For me, being British is about knowing the laws, knowing the rules and abiding by them. That is exactly what these people have done.

[Jamie Stone]

The hon. Lady mentions, quite correctly, the role of these wonderful people caring for the elderly. Let me give one example. I have cases in my constituency in the far north of Scotland where the care package has fallen through for lack of care workers, and those poor old people have been readmitted to hospital. That is a disgrace, and it is precisely one of the reasons why I completely back what she is saying.

[Yasmin Qureshi]

I thank the Chair of the Petitions Committee for that helpful intervention. In all honesty, what people are asking for is fairness. That is it—simple fairness.

English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill

Jamie Stone Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 2nd September 2025 Commons Chamber

[Angela Rayner]

I am really disappointed, because I thought that the previous Government were the ones to turbocharge devolution, and we are moving on that agenda. We actually do believe that devolution is a good thing and that these measures will enable mayors and local areas to be empowered more to drive that growth that we desperately need in all parts of the country.

This Bill is long overdue. England is one of the most centralised developed countries in the world. Too often, the system works against rather than with local people. Too many decisions affecting too many are made by too few. That, combined with short-term, sticking-plaster politics, has left the country in a doom loop of worsening regional divides.

[Jamie Stone (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD)]

Madam Deputy Speaker, you many wonder why a Scot would make an intervention at this point in the debate. May I advise the right hon. Lady to look north, to Scotland, to see how this should not be done? The Scottish Government have centralised powers, taking them right away from communities such as mine. That is how we should not do it. This is a cautionary tale.

[Angela Rayner]

I thank the hon. Member for his guidance. I always look north—contrary to what other people believe. I am very proud of the north. I gently say to him that the challenge at the moment lies with the Government of Scotland. Hopefully, we can reverse things and have a Government who truly believe in putting the power in local people’s hands.

We only have to look at the difference being made by our mayors to see that there is a better way. From building tens of thousands of new social homes with Mayor Rotheram in Liverpool, to fighting child poverty with Mayor McGuinness in the north-east, to making people’s commutes quicker and cheaper with Mayor Burnham in my own Greater Manchester, and to creating London’s summer of al fresco dining and world-leading culture with Mayor Khan—

Political Donations

Jamie Stone Excerpts

Monday 31st March 2025 Westminster Hall

[Irene Campbell (North Ayrshire and Arran) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered e-petition 707189 relating to the rules for political donations.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mrs Harris. I begin by thanking Mr Jeremy Stone, who is here today, for starting this petition, and congratulate him on gathering more than 140,000 signatures, which is a fantastic feat. The petition, titled “Tighten the rules on political donations”, states:

“We want the government to…Remove loopholes that allow wealthy foreign individuals to make donations into UK political parties (e.g. by funnelling through UK registered companies)…Cap all donations to a reasonable amount…Review limits on the fines that can be levied for breaking the rules…We think that ultra-rich individuals or foreign state actors should not be able to use their money to give unfair advantage to a political party in order to further their own agenda.”

I think that is a principle that all of us here will agree with—that foreign interference through donations has no place in British elections or politics, and that democracy cannot be for sale.

I declare an interest: I am a member of Unite the union and I have received donations from both Unite and the Communications Workers Union, the full details of which are freely available on my MP profile on the UK Parliament website. Functions like this mean that we, as MPs, can be constantly transparent and honest to our constituents about where money is flowing in politics. As a member of a political party, I am very aware of how much parties rely on donations; however, donations can become concerning when their origins are unclear and the public cannot be sure whether some foreign interference, or any other suspicious dealings, may have slipped through the cracks in the rules.

About a month ago, my hon. Friend the Member for South Dorset (Lloyd Hatton) introduced a similar debate on political finance rules, which covered a lot of the points that I am sure will be mentioned again today. He similarly began by declaring his interest of being a member of a political party, a sentiment that many others here will echo. He used his speech to highlight Transparency International’s research on questionable sources of donations.

In particular, the group found that almost £1 in every £10 reported by political parties and their members since 2001 has come from unknown or questionable sources. Some £13 million comes from donors who are alleged, or proven, to be intermediaries for foreign funds or hidden sources; £10.9 million comes from companies that have not made sufficient profits to support the political contributions that they have made; and £4.6 million comes from foreign Governments, Parliaments and regime-linked groups.

Reported donations from private sources are growing, from £30.6 million in 2001 to £85 million in 2023. That is unsurprising, given that, in this period, former Governments increased campaign spending limits by 45% to be in line with inflation, meaning that the larger parties’ de facto fundraising targets rose to around £100 million in the major election years. The previous Government also increased the threshold for reporting donations by 50% in 2023, thus demonstrating how complex the system is.

Alongside that, the Elections Act 2022 constrained the independence of the Electoral Commission and banned it from prosecuting criminal offences under electoral law. The Electoral Commission said:

“The UK Government does not consider this to be an area of work we should undertake and considered it to duplicate the work of the Crown Prosecution Service…and Public Prosecution Service Northern Ireland”.

Ministers can now even set the Electoral Commission’s strategy and policy priorities through their own strategy and policy statements. Transparency International said:

“This is inconsistent with international good practice, unnecessary, and fetters the Commission’s independence.”

[Jamie Stone (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD)]

The hon. Member is making a very good speech. With her permission, I might just broaden the concept of a political donation, because, in many ways, it is not always quite as simple as a cheque hitting a given political party’s bank account. Whatever one thought of him—he was a great man in Scottish politics, and is no longer with us—it is a fact that Alex Salmond, for a number of years, hosted a show in his own name on RT, a Russian television channel, on which he, on a regular basis, put forward views that were not always particularly helpful to the concept of a United Kingdom. That seems to me to be a subtle way of foreign Governments influencing decisions and trying to interfere.

[Irene Campbell]

I thank the hon. Member for his contribution, and I agree with his point.

At the time of the Elections Act 2022, the House of Commons Levelling Up, Housing and Communities Committee, whose corresponding Department was responsible for introducing the Act, also concluded that there was no need for such statements and no evidence to justify their introduction. The recent Backbench Business Committee debate on political finance rules mentioned some case studies and evidence from previous elections of overseas donations. For example, the 2020 report of the Intelligence and Security Committee found that Russian oligarchs had used their business interests, donations to charities and political parties to influence UK affairs.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jamie Stone (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD)]

Thank you, Mrs Harris. I do not want to add much to what I said in my intervention. This is a very dangerous principle. I have people saying to me in the street, “It’s getting like America—you can buy political results, politicians and policies.” This strikes me as fundamentally dangerous. We call ourselves the mother of Parliaments, and we pride ourselves on the way we do democracy in this country. Every time such things are said to me, I feel that another little brick has been taken out of the edifice of what we do.

As the Chair of the Petitions Committee, I thank the petitioners for bringing forward the petition, which expresses what an awful lot of people out there think. The very fact that the Committee, which I have the honour of chairing, gets the honour of a Government reply each time we have a petitions debate strikes me as a very good thing indeed.

I will leave my comments there. As I said in my intervention, there are more subtle ways of influencing politics in any country than a cheque or cash in the bank. We need to be constantly vigilant.

Rural Housing Targets

Jamie Stone Excerpts

Wednesday 29th January 2025 Westminster Hall

[Jamie Stone (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD)]

On a personal level, it is a particular pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Jardine. We go back a long way, do we not? I congratulate the right hon. Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds) on securing this debate. My difficulty is that housing is devolved, but—as you will understand, Ms Jardine—when constituents come to me, as a Scottish Member, with issues, I am duty bound to raise them.

I will start with two brief anecdotes. I was canvassing in Ullapool, in Wester Ross, before the election and I was astounded when I was told by a householder that the local headteacher had to commute from well to the east of my vast constituency—every day, there and back—because no housing was available in Ullapool. It seemed absolutely ludicrous because, if anyone should be part of the local community, it is the headteacher. That struck me mightily.

After the election, I was staying with my wife in the Summer Isles hotel in Achiltibuie, which is getting pretty remote. I was talking to the young barman, and because we knew that the hotel was going to be closed over winter, I said, “So, what will you do during the wintertime?” He said—you know what is coming, Ms Jardine—“I have to head south. There’s nowhere for me to stay here. I can’t afford the accommodation.”

The hon. Member for Hexham (Joe Morris) rightly mentioned depopulation; it has been the utter curse of the highlands for generations. It is one of the great tragedies that if someone drives across Caithness on the Causewaymire—the local pronunciation is “Cazziemire”—they will see umpteen empty wee houses on either side in the heather. That is people who have gone, and gone forever, and that is the tragedy of the highlands. So people leaving because they cannot get accommodation in Achiltibuie is a desperate business altogether.

I want to say on the record that I in no way blame the Highland council for this problem. As a local authority, it does its level best against the odds to think of imaginative ways to create housing. But if a wee house comes on the market in Wester Ross, or in most of my constituency, it is snapped up by people from far away who can afford the prices, which local people simply cannot.

Let me turn to what happens in my constituency office. In the highlands, there are about 8,000 people on the waiting list for housing, and every week my office will get two, three, four or five housing cases, which are incredibly hard to resolve. We may talk about going private—renting or buying—but as I have already hinted, they are just priced out of the market.

We have to balance that against something that I am grateful to the previous Government for. We were given the Inverness and Cromarty Firth green freeport—one of two in Scotland—which was a real shot in the arm for the area, as it will be under the new Government. It could make as big a contribution as Dounreay did when nuclear power came to Caithness, or as the Nigg and Kishorn oil fabrication yards did when they came to Ross and Cromarty. These things really offer employment and can keep people in an area, but the point is very simple: if we do not have the housing, what are we going to do? Despite the best intentions of the previous Government and this Government, not having the housing really gets in the way of all of that.

I find it very difficult to see young people put in this position; it is really quite harrowing and it seems a fundamental injustice. It is wrong that they have to face these terrible decisions—“Do I stay where I come from? But I can’t, so I have to go.” I remember my own father, before the North Sea oil came, saying to me, “You’ll have to go south, young man.” That is something we do not want to see happen.

I am talking about a devolved matter, Ms Jardine, but may I simply say this? I have great faith in the best intentions of Governments of all colours. I simply ask that, as and when the best practice is developed to tackle this problem, His Majesty’s Government share that best practice with the Scottish Government, so that we can see how we can nip this problem and try to reverse this wretched tendency. I hope that now, as I speak, that teacher has got a house in Ullapool, but I am not sure that she has.

Rural Councils: Funding

Jamie Stone Excerpts

Wednesday 29th November 2023 Westminster Hall

[Jamie Stone (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Latham. I congratulate the hon. Member for West Dorset (Chris Loder) on a well-informed and passionate speech. I am going to talk about local government in Scotland, which is a devolved matter but which I believe impinges on what the United Kingdom Government do in England and Wales.

I had the honour of serving twice as a member of the Highland Council. The word “messiah” rang a bell with me, because there is that wonderful chorus from the “Messiah” about “Wonderful, Counsellor”; I always regard it as my personal tune. The Highland Council is the biggest council in the entire United Kingdom. It is 20% larger than Wales. We have 7,000 km of road, 200 schools—the most of any local authority in the UK—and extraordinary diversity, from the conurbation of Inverness to very remote areas with very sparse populations. These bring particular challenges that all rural Members here will recognise: distance, inclement weather and everything else that makes funding those councils much harder.

In my brief contribution today, I want to highlight a cautionary tale. I am sorry that no Scottish National party Members are present, because this is an issue for them and their Government in Scotland. The Scottish Government in their infinite wisdom have seen fit to impose a council tax freeze. For the Highland Council, that means that £108 million of savings will have to be found over the next three years. That is incredibly difficult for my former colleagues, because £108 million represents slightly more than half the annual education budget for the Highland Council—that is how massive it is. I do not envy those good people of all parties: Conservative, Liberal, Labour, independent and, indeed, Scottish nationalist. I do not know how they will do it.

I believe that there is a cautionary tale here for the United Kingdom Government. We talk about what exactly is meant by levelling up. The first point is that this sort of thing happening in the highlands of Scotland or in other parts of rural Scotland amounts to a form of levelling down. Services will be cut, investment will be cut and—this is my message to the Minister—that sits unhappily with the Government’s policy of trying to ensure levelling up. If we have part of the United Kingdom going in the opposite direction, it makes the equation that much harder for the UK Government to square, notwithstanding the good intention and efforts that might lie behind the initiative.

This is my second and last point. When His Majesty’s Treasury agreed the local government settlement as part of the Scottish Government settlement, was the intention that the Scottish Government would take those resources and decide to freeze council tax? I do not believe that that is what any Treasury of any Government of the UK would see as a worthwhile outcome. Will the Minister be kind enough to convey that message back to the Treasury? As and when it looks at the Scottish Government settlement, it might just want to take a good, hard look at what the SNP Government are doing in Scotland and how it is having a direct impact on my constituents—the children, the old people and the people who need carers and social help in my constituency. I want to say on the record that I very, very much resent that.

Affordable Homes Programme

Jamie Stone Excerpts

Tuesday 25th April 2023 Westminster Hall

[Jamie Stone (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone. I congratulate the hon. Member for Slough (Mr Dhesi) on securing the debate. He made an excellent speech, as did all the other speakers.

It might not be obvious why I am going to take my contribution in this direction, but I am going to outline a situation that developed recently in my constituency, which has a link to housing and should be aired publicly. Today I spoke to Councillor Michael Baird, who represents North, West and Central Sutherland, one of the biggest wards in the United Kingdom. It is 1,800 square miles—the size of three Greater Londons and 18 Edinburghs. It is vast.

Michael has outlined to me a harrowing situation. He and his fellow councillors have one facility for the elderly in the entire ward—in that vast area. It is called Caladh Sona and is in the tiny village of Talmine on the north coast of Scotland. It has six care beds and, at the moment, four residents. NHS Highland has announced that it will close the facility in 12 weeks, and the residents will be moved to the two nearest homes, one of which is in Thurso, 47 miles away, whereas the other—if they can get beds—is in Golspie, 62 miles away. I think about those old people being moved and about their families, their loved ones, trying to see them. It is a lot harder with distances such as that.

I think also about the remaining staff. They have been offered jobs somewhere else, but will have to move from their community or make long commutes, sometimes in pretty dreadful winter weather. This is happening because the home cannot get the staff needed to run it, and that is because—this is where I return to the agenda—there is not the housing. If a house comes on the market on the north coast of Sutherland, it is snapped up as a holiday home or becomes an Airbnb. It is so like what everyone else is saying. If we cannot get the carers, we are in real trouble.

To echo what everyone has said this afternoon, if young people’s families cannot get an affordable home, they will not live there, and that means that school rolls drop and we have that old, dark monster of depopulation, which we had for far too long—for hundreds of years in the highlands. People up sticks and away. They go to Canada, Australia and America and never come back. That is one reason why we have a diaspora of Scots all over the world.

What can we do about it? It is ironic that we have one of the greatest sources of renewable energy, that is, land-based wind farms, in my constituency. Some of the money that the wind farms make could help the local authority—the Highland Council—a housing association or whatever to buy properties when they come on the market. An old expression we used to use has already been referred to: key worker housing. That is the key. Even if they come up for only five days a week, if we can offer a carer somewhere to live that they can afford, we will go some way to looking after the old people. As the oldest member of my party in this place, I can remember when houses were being built in the 1960s in my hometown of Tain. They were going up and it was great. There was hope that people would be housed, but the situation is very different today.

I will conclude with what the hon. Member for Slough said: we need a renewed national effort. By goodness, we certainly do. I am aware that housing is devolved, but I am sure that Members who belong to the Scottish Government’s party would admit that there is a major problem, just as hon. Members have described this afternoon. There has to be a renewed national effort. It has to involve all the nations of the United Kingdom, and we have to get it going, because if we do not, we are going back to the bad old days of our past. That is something that we thought was dead, buried and gone forever, but it seems to have come back. Action has to be taken.

Building Safety

Jamie Stone Excerpts

Tuesday 14th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

The hon. Lady makes a very important point. In the legislation, there is a category of non-qualifying leaseholders: people who have more than one property. We wanted to attempt to draw the line in order to ensure that, for example, significant investors—people with significant means—were not benefiting from a scheme that was designed for every man and woman, as it were. However, I have some constituents who are in the same boat as the hon. Lady’s, and we are looking at the situation to try to make sure that we do not have people at the margins who are being treated unfairly. I cannot make any promises at this stage, but the hon. Lady raises an important point, and we are aware of it.

[Jamie Stone (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD)]

I address the right hon. Gentleman as a fellow Scot, and I welcome the new spirit of accord that there will surely be between himself and the new First Minister, whoever she or he is. As I drive through the right hon. Gentleman’s home city of Aberdeen, I see the high-rise flats. I do not know what condition those flats are in, but it occurs to me that a similar dialogue between a Scottish local authority such as Aberdeen City Council and a suitable one south of the border could be very constructive when sorting these problems out. Will the Secretary of State undertake to encourage that sort of co-operation?

[Michael Gove]

Yes. The hon. Gentleman makes a very important point, and he is absolutely right: co-operation between councils, between the UK Government and local authorities in devolved areas, and between the UK Government and devolved Administrations is the way forward. We all deserve Governments who are working together to resolve this issue. He makes a very good point: in Aberdeen, as well as in Dundee, Glasgow, Edinburgh and some other areas, there are high-rise buildings that are in precisely this situation. It would be a pleasure to work with the Lib Dem coalition council in Aberdeen to try to make sure that that council can benefit from the experience of local authorities in England.

Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Jamie Stone Excerpts

Report stage
Tuesday 13th December 2022 Commons Chamber

[Wendy Morton]

I welcome the way in which Ministers have listened to the concerns of many of us on this side of the House and sought to improve the Bill, recognising in particular that planning is always local and it is vital that we have a locally led planning system, with local communities at its heart. I pay tribute in particular to my right hon. Friend the Member for Chipping Barnet (Theresa Villiers) and my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight (Bob Seely) for the huge amount of work that they have done on what was new clause 21.

On housing targets, I am pleased that local housing need is now acknowledged as the starting point, and that centrally determined housing targets are advisory and not mandatory. That, coupled with ending the obligation of the five-year land supply—which is actually six years when the 20% buffer zone is factored in—is a step in the right direction. I would just press the Minister on how much councils may be able to challenge and reduce their targets, because that will be important to many local areas, including mine. I really hope that the changes secured will start to help local communities feel that they have a meaningful part to play in the planning process. In Aldridge-Brownhills, our experience of being listened to or even engaged with during the consultation on the Black Country plan was woefully inadequate, but the plan is now, thankfully, defunct.

The measures in the Bill will see our communities start to be able to shape their towns and villages. I am also pleased that the Government will incentivise and enable development on brownfield sites first, not least because of the real difference that could make if we are serious about delivering. Fundamentally, we all know that we cannot justify building on the green belt, greenfield and green spaces when brownfield sites on high streets and in town centres are ready to be regenerated. Continuing to tilt the playing field in favour of brownfield first is a win-win.

I welcome the response on seeing what more can be done to unlock development on small sites, especially with respect to affordable housing, and the prioritising of brownfield land again. I well remember getting the keys to my first home, and I want the next generation of homeowners to be able to get on the property ladder like I did. We can be the regeneration generation. The Bill is now in a much better place to start moving us in that direction.

[Jamie Stone (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD)]

As ever, I will contribute to the debate from a highlands perspective. I hope that all hon. Members will one day visit my constituency and see Caithness and Sutherland. If visitors drive across Caithness in a north-westerly direction on a road called the Causewaymire, they will see abandoned houses to left and right. That is because for far too long depopulation was the curse of the highlands, and that is why we have so many people with highland surnames in Canada, in the Carolinas and in Virginia.

The advent of the nuclear facility in Dounreay halted and reversed that depopulation in the 1950s. The Labour Government in the 1960s established the Highlands and Islands Development Board, which in turn led to the fabrication of oil facilities at several yards in the highlands. That, too, helped to halt and reverse depopulation in the highlands, and it is why I got married and had children myself—I worked in one of those yards at the time.

My point is a fundamental one: we talk about the definition of infrastructure and, in my mind, it is about quality employment. If we do not have quality employment for the young generation for the future, the finest housing plan, however we put it together, will be undermined. It is no accident that, after Dounreay came to be, we saw house building on a very large scale in Caithness, around Wick and Thurso. When the yards at Nigg and Kishorn in Ross and Cromarty opened, we saw large-scale housing developments—private housing and social housing—in my home town of Tain, in Alness and in the village of Balintore. Without that part of infrastructure called employment, it ain’t going to work, folks, I am afraid.

That is why I go on quite a lot in this place about space launch in Caithness and, in particular, Sutherland—because it is about jobs. This is an unashamed sales pitch, Mr Deputy Speaker; I hope you will forgive me. I hope that His Majesty’s Government and the Scottish Government will look favourably on the bid to establish a green freeport on the Cromarty Firth. I must register my disappointment that there are no Members of the party that is running the Scottish Government here with us today, because I would have liked them to hear that message loud and clear.

[David Simmonds]

I draw the House’s attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests: I am an unpaid vice-president of the Local Government Association. I place on the record my thanks to the Conservative Environment Network and the Royal Town Planning Institute for their assistance in formulating a number of the amendments that I tabled or signed.

I also thank the Government for the interest that they have shown in the issues highlighted in my amendments on wildbelt. There is a strong sense across parties that, in the way we approach regeneration, we must take account of the needs of wildlife as well as the need to provide green space around our towns and cities. Especially in areas where large-scale housing development may take place, it is incredibly important for local authorities and developers to identify sites that contribute to biodiversity.

I welcome the progress that we have made in respect of the greater degree of rigour around the planning process. It is clear that many local authorities face challenges in recruiting sufficient professional staff and in ensuring that, from both the developer perspective and a governmental perspective, we have the necessary strategy and oversight in place to ensure that our objectives are delivered.

I will focus on three areas that are especially important. We have heard a great deal about childcare, and I have made a number of interventions on the issue. Let me clarify that the reason I signed amendment 2 is that I am pretty clear that the guidance from the Department for Education—that is one of a number of a number of Departments that own guidance that is used in the planning process, another being the Home Office, which permits PCSOs and police services to be funded through section 106 agreements; those are owned by DLUHC as the Department responsible for local government but bring in other legislation—already allows for childcare to be considered. However, I would welcome confirmation from the Dispatch Box. I think the Minister noted that in her opening speech, but it would be helpful to have clarity.

Let me add my appreciation of the Government’s move on housing targets. The local authorities that serve my constituency have consistently delivered more housing than the targets that have come from any part of central Government or, indeed, the Mayor of London. It is clear that effective local leadership and a sense of ambition, particularly around regeneration, can deliver the homes that we need in this country.

Finally, let me place in the Government’s mind an issue that is very much on those of my constituents: the impact of ultra low emission zones. As we consider the impact of increased traffic on areas, I hope that, in due course, the Government will be minded to accept amendments that require the consent of the local authorities affected before such policies are introduced.

Council Tax

Jamie Stone Excerpts

Monday 12th December 2022 Commons Chamber

[Justin Tomlinson]

The hon. Gentleman, bless him, has got absolutely muddled. As he would have seen from the pilots if he had taken the time to look, anybody can access IDs. They are commissioned by the local authorities. It is straightforward.

The proof of the pudding was that turnout in Swindon was up during the pilot. Sadly, that pilot came to an end and we were not part of the second pilot, so we were inundated with complaints. People want to have trust in our democracy. The regulations are a brilliant thing to have brought forward.

[Jamie Stone (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD)]

The hon. Member talks about increased turnout. One of the highest turnouts in British history was for the 2014 Scottish independence referendum, which had a very clear result: Scotland voted to remain part of the United Kingdom. A conspiracy theory was circulated at the time that votes would be altered if people put their cross in the box with a pencil instead of a biro or a pen. That was rubbished by the general public and put in the dustbin where it belonged. Should we not trust the great British public to get these things right, as they have in the past?

[Justin Tomlinson]

Yes, it is about trust: trust in our world-leading democracy and trust in making sure that we can safeguard what matters. I will not stray into conspiracy theories about Scottish elections, but trust is the proof of the pudding. When there was a pilot in my constituency, voter turnout went up and people complained when the pilot came to an end. It is quite straightforward.

Unfinished Housing Developments: Consumer Protection

Jamie Stone Excerpts

Tuesday 18th October 2022 Commons Chamber

[Lee Rowley]

The hon. Gentleman makes an important point, and I would be interested in hearing more. He will appreciate that I am seven weeks into post and I am still learning, but I would be genuinely interested in understanding the Northern Irish approach, given the information that he has highlighted this evening. Where there are things that are done well, we should be willing as a Government to look at those to see where we can take best practice and apply it on a broader level. I want to understand in more detail what is happening in Northern Ireland, and I will be happy to do that separately with him and his colleagues, if that would be helpful. I would be keen to understand the particular difference that he thinks comes from the Northern Irish approach, and I am always happy to find out more about particular instances and whether they would work on a broader scale, should that be helpful.

[Jamie Stone (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD)]

Could I perhaps look at the issue the other way round? As in Northern Ireland, housing and planning are entirely devolved to the Scottish Parliament, yet as a Member of this place, I get stuff about housing all the time. Looking at it the other way around, as and when His Majesty’s Government develop clever ways of doing things with housing, taking on board the points made by my hon. Friend the Member for North Shropshire, I would be grateful if those new methods could at least be offered to the Scottish Government in case they could glean something that might improve the housing issues north of the border.

[Lee Rowley]

The United Kingdom Government are always keen to indicate to the Scottish Parliament and the Scottish Government where we might be able to work together and where we think that elements of policy might work for Scotland as well as they work elsewhere in the Union. Occasionally, the Scottish Government are not that keen to listen to His Majesty’s Government, but perhaps, given the hopeful outbreak of consensus on the desire to make progress, that will not occur on this particular subject. I am happy to consider the point that the hon. Gentleman rightly and properly makes.