Local Government Reorganisation

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Thursday 26th March 2026 Commons Chamber

[Alison McGovern]

As I have said to other Members, local authority debt is a serious concern for the Government. We will work through the issues that the hon. Gentleman mentions in the transition process, and I am happy to provide him with more technical detail on that. The overall picture of local authority debt is not a happy one. It arises from policy failure emanating from this place, and we have a collective responsibility to put it right.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

rose—

[Mr Speaker]

Well, this will be a very interesting connection! I didn’t realise Strangford was up for reorganisation.

[Jim Shannon]

We slogged through 10 years of reorganisation and restructuring in Northern Ireland, and not a penny was saved. Indeed, if anything, prices and rates have gone up—this year, the rise in rates has been exceptional. I say gently to the Minister that perhaps it is time to consider and learn from what Northern Ireland has done and where it has gone wrong, so that we can do better here.

[Mr Speaker]

I am not sure whether you are being dragged into a devolved matter, Minister, but go ahead if you are happy to answer.

Proposed Visitor Levy

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Wednesday 25th March 2026 Westminster Hall

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Efford. I thank the right hon. Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds) for leading the debate.

Tourist infrastructure is an incredibly important issue in my constituency; I know the motion is about the visitor levy in England, but I want to reflect my constituency and the concerns there. I think the right hon. Gentleman and other hon. Members have set the scene incredibly well. I may have a slightly different opinion from others in the Chamber—I apologise for not always thinking alike—but I have to reflect the opinions of my constituents.

I hear the concerns in relation to tourism levies, which could harm areas that rely on tourism and burden them with additional charges. For context, I represent a beautiful constituency, which is as equally coastal as it is rural. I am aware of numerous Airbnbs along our peninsula, which hundreds of people come to stay in each year. I agree with the right hon. Gentleman that to keep our tourism sites alive we must keep the price down. What is being proposed will have a clear impact on the tourism opportunities on the mainland. For us back home, it sends a cloud over tourism that a levy may, at some point, come our way.

I, like everybody else, understand that the value of money in my hand is important. I am, after all, an Ulster Scot and for us, every pound is a prisoner. That is a fact of life, and I always want to see value for money. I am also inclined to go for what I would refer to as affordable options. I believe that, in today’s age, many people are like me and the price of staycations and holidays is already, in some cases, extortionate. It may be a small fee, but people do not want to be asked to pay more just to stay in a certain area.

There is an even bigger issue back home when we look at the comparison between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, because any levies would have an impact on both sides of the border. Adding a levy back home would make Northern Ireland relatively more expensive and push visitors to stay in the south. The potential impact of a levy on us in Northern Ireland would be the same as what the right hon. Gentleman has referred to here.

If something of this nature were ever to be introduced, clarity would be needed about where the money would be used. That question has been raised in almost every contribution. Local councils and authorities must provide clear road maps, and if people staying are asked to pay an additional fee, it should go towards the tourism sector in that specific area, not to other council services that do not benefit the industry.

The levy would not impact large chain hotels, but I worry about the family B&Bs. The right hon. Gentleman, when he set the scene, specifically pushed that issue hard. Nobody can deny that the levy would have a detrimental effect. Those B&Bs might not want to pass the additional fee on to their consumer, but they might find that they cannot sustain their business because people do not want to stay somewhere where they have to pay more.

I recognise the potential benefits that a visitor levy could bring in supporting local services and infrastructure, but we must proceed with caution. We need caution, we need a review and we need understanding before we go anywhere.

Foreign Financial Influence and Interference: UK Politics

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Wednesday 25th March 2026 Commons Chamber

[Steve Reed]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. There are recommendations in the review about precisely that, and we will come forward with our detailed response. I have accepted the review in general terms, but we will bring forward detailed responses to the individual recommendations and then amendments to the legislation so that we can put in place the necessary protections to ensure that it is the British people who take the decisions about who governs them, not people sitting in the Kremlin or in seats of government in other countries.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I thank the Minister very much for his positive statement and for the clear direction from the Government. Some four or five weeks ago, I asked him a question about Sinn Féin moneys. At that time, he said that he would come back to me, but he did not—this is not a criticism, by the way—and I now understand that the reason he did not was that this statement was coming today.

In the light of the statement, can I ask for some clarification? Accountability and transparency are tenets that have to go hand in hand with elections, and those ideals must become realities. Given that Sinn Féin has historically received millions in US-placed donations and maintains a unique cross-border structure, will the Minister ensure that the Rycroft review specifically examines the adequacy of safeguards against political funding originating from the Republic of Ireland and the United States of America, to ensure a level playing field for all parties within this United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland?

[Steve Reed]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question and for his deep interest in this entire matter. Our intention is to ensure that the safeguards we put in place are robust enough to ensure that no dirty or dark money can enter British politics in any way or from any source. I am always more than happy to continue to engage with him about any specific concerns he may have.

Women’s Safety in Rural Areas

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Tuesday 24th March 2026 Westminster Hall

[Anna Sabine]

Certainly. That sounds excellent and I will come to lots of nerdy points about design guidance in due course.

My constituency of Frome and East Somerset is, by any measure, a beautiful part of England. It is also a place where the challenges I am describing are felt with particular intensity. Inspired by Holly, last autumn I launched a survey to hear directly from women in my constituency about how safe they feel. Their responses were sobering. Women wrote about being followed on dark country lanes that had no street lighting; about waiting for buses on isolated roads with no shelter, no CCTV and no way of summoning help; about giving up running and cycling all together, not because they lacked the inclination but because they simply did not feel safe doing so; and about the constant, exhausting vigilance required just to get home.

Coincidentally, earlier this year I was contacted separately by a brilliant urban designer called Natasha, who drew my attention to the fact that the Government have set out an excellent strategy to combat violence against women and girls, and a national planning policy framework, but at the moment the two things make no reference to each other, which is a shocking oversight.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I commend the hon. Lady for securing the debate. In rural constituencies such as mine and the hon. Lady’s, large stretches of unlit roads, pathways and open land, often bordered by dark fields, can create a real sense of vulnerability. Does the hon. Lady agree that future developments or planning proposals in such areas must take into account safe, well-lit corridors, especially when it comes to transport links, to ensure that women feel safe commuting to where they need to be in areas that are historically dark and isolated?

[Anna Sabine]

I absolutely agree with the hon. Member. I will talk about lighting in due course.

In her book “Invisible Women”, Caroline Criado-Perez documents how the built environment has historically been designed around a default that is male, and how data on street use, transport planning and public space has been gathered without disaggregating by sex. The result is infrastructure that works reasonably well for men and imposes a hidden cost of time, money, anxiety and constrained freedom on women. That cost is not inevitable. It is a design choice, and it can be designed out.

Women are four times more likely to experience sexual assault than men, and more than twice as likely to experience stalking. Many such offences happen not in the home but in public spaces—on paths, at bus stops, in car parks and on the routes between places. They happen disproportionately in spaces that are poorly lit, poorly overlooked and poorly served by transport.

The consequences extend far beyond the incidents themselves. Girls’ loss of freedom in public space is directly and measurably linked to poor mental health. Women who feel unsafe curtail their physical activity, social lives and working patterns. Violence against women and girls costs hundreds of lives a year, alongside widespread and serious harm that ripples outwards into health services, the economy and the fabric of communities.

To circle back to my opening point, we know what works, but the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government seems determined not to implement it. On 16 December 2025, the Government published the revised national planning policy framework, and just two days later they published their violence against women and girls strategy, rightly declaring VAWG a national emergency and committing to a whole-of-society approach to prevention. Those two documents should have been in conversation with each other, but they were not.

The revised NPPF contains no reference whatsoever to women, girls, gendered safety or violence against women in the built environment—not one. Chapter 8, on promoting healthy and safe communities, discusses safety, health and crime, but does so in entirely gender-blind terms, despite overwhelming evidence that safety is not experienced equally by all people in all spaces. A chapter about healthy and safe communities which does not acknowledge that safety is not experienced equally is not, with respect, a chapter about healthy and safe communities. It is a chapter about healthy and safe communities for some people.

In January I wrote to both the Minister for Housing and Planning and the Minister for Safeguarding to raise the issue directly. I have yet to receive a substantive response from either of them, but when The Guardian asked MHCLG for comment, the response received was frankly jaw-dropping. MHCLG said:

“The NPPF is a planning document. It sets out guidelines for housebuilding and planning in England. The VAWG strategy is about protecting women and girls from violence and misogyny.”

The Department said it was

“unclear as to why anyone would expect the two things to be combined”.

That tells us that, alarmingly, the people responsible for designing our spaces and places apparently do not understand, despite huge bodies of evidence, why planning with women in mind might be relevant or useful. That raises serious concerns not just about the policy position but about the Department’s basic understanding of the relationship between planning and women’s lives.

What makes that omission particularly hard to defend is that it was not an accident. The previous Government explicitly raised this issue in the 2022 NPPF consultation, asking whether greater emphasis should be placed on making women and girls feel safe in public places. Responses were received, but nothing changed in the December 2025 revision, under the current Government. I want to be precise about that means: MHCLG was asked whether it should do better on this issue, received evidence it should and chose not to act. That is not an oversight; it is a decision.

International best practice in gender-responsive planning is really well established: clear sight lines and natural surveillance; active street frontages that keep eyes on the street; thoughtful lighting design—not simply more but better lights, placed in the right locations; and safe, well-connected public transport routes that do not leave women stranded after dark.

Make Space for Girls, the UK campaign that has done forensic and compelling work on how public space is designed for teenagers, has shown that the spaces we build for young people—the parks, play areas and recreational spaces—are overwhelmingly designed with boys in mind. The default is a multi-use games area: a hard, caged, male-dominated space that girls report, in study after study, feeling excluded from and unsafe in. Girls do not lack interest in outdoor space; they lack outdoor spaces that were designed with them in mind. The consequence is that girls retreat indoors earlier, exercise less and lose the freedom of movement that is so fundamental to adolescent development and mental health. This is not a minor amenity issue; it is a public health issue—and it starts with planning.

The principles are well established, but without explicit inclusion in national policy, they remain optional. As a result, women’s safety in public space is a postcode lottery—and nowhere is that lottery more consequential than in rural areas where the baseline is already so much lower.

The omission also creates a tension with the Government’s international commitments. UK infrastructure policy is explicitly aligned with the UN’s sustainable development goals, including SDG 5.2, on eliminating violence against women and girls, and SDG 11.7, on safe and inclusive public spaces explicitly for women and girls. The NPPF discusses the safety and design quality of green space at length, but does not mention either of those commitments.

A further tension is emerging that I do not think has received sufficient attention—the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) alluded to it. Nature recovery and biodiversity policies are rightly being pursued with increasing ambition, with green corridors, rewilded verges and, in some cases, reduced lighting to support wildlife. Those are good objectives, but in some instances they are pursued without adequate consideration of what they mean for women’s safety. A dark, overgrown footpath may be an excellent habitat, but it may also be a route that women no longer feel able to use. We should not have to choose between environmental policy and women’s safety. Without gender-responsive planning guidance, that tension will not be managed; it will simply produce worse outcomes by default. The NPPF is not a neutral document; it is a statement of priorities, and right now it does not include women’s safety among them.

Water Supply and Housing Targets: West Kent

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Tuesday 24th March 2026 Westminster Hall

[Tom Tugendhat (Tonbridge) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered water supply and housing targets in west Kent.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir John—not for the first time or, I certainly hope, the last. What is less pleasurable is having no water coming out of your taps. Sadly, that could be the reality for more than 13,000 new homes in Tonbridge and Malling if the Government get their way. Planning decisions in the community are, I think we would all agree, best left to local councillors. After all, it is right that those elected at the most local level have responsibility for shaping the place they live in and represent. However, this Government’s planning policies are taking us away from that principle.

Since the general election, we have seen mandatory housing targets reintroduced and increased enormously. They are up by 34% in Tonbridge and Malling and by 63% in Sevenoaks district. Then, of course, there is the grey-belt policy. I have been getting used to Green party and Labour MPs going through the voting Lobbies and making things easier for development to merge towns and villages and create one single, homogeneous, blended whole and for development on previously protected grey-belt land. However, water seems not to have been considered. There are many aspects of water locally that I could focus on, including the excellent work done in Edenbridge on water quality by NEDRA—the New Edenbridge District Residents’ Association—but in the interests of time, I will focus my comments today on water supply only.

This is now a very salient issue for those of us in west Kent. Although Tunbridge Wells has been the worst affected, towns and villages such as Tonbridge, Edenbridge and across the north downs have lost water supply this winter and last winter. Why is that? It is because there is not enough water in the system to supply houses in our area. I am aware that the Water Industry Act 1991 in effect places a legal requirement on water suppliers to ensure that running water appears when the tap is turned on. Although South East Water is not very good at doing that right now, we also need to focus on the future. That means asking fundamental questions. Where is the water—now and in the future? Do housing targets accurately reflect the water infrastructure in west Kent?

I will focus on two authorities in the area that I represent: Tonbridge and Malling borough council and Sevenoaks district council. I emphasise to the Minister that they are two of the very best run councils in the whole country and have been for a number of years. We are very lucky to have brilliant people at both councils, and both are trying to do the right thing for future development and adopt a local plan. In both cases, however, that has been delayed from 2024 because of the Government changing planning policy. It is not the fault of either council that they do not have an adopted local plan; that is because of tinkering and meddling by the Government and, historically, the Planning Inspectorate.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I commend the right hon. Gentleman for bringing forward this issue; he is absolutely right. He outlines a case in his own constituency, which is very pertinent to him. Unfortunately, what he describes is the case across the whole of the United Kingdom. In Northern Ireland, I have the very same problem. Northern Ireland Water seems to be discouraging planned housing, as it cannot meet the need. Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that the Government must step in with direct action and fund the deficit while enforcing the obligations on water companies to hold up their end of the deal?

[Tom Tugendhat]

It is no surprise to me that this issue applies across the whole of the United Kingdom. I very much welcome the hon. Gentleman’s intervention.

One thing that the Government have not changed, but ought to change, is the position of water companies in planning. Somewhat strangely, water companies are statutory consultees on the local plan process, but not on planning applications. I invite the Minister in her response to explain whether she agrees that this is peculiar.

There are four water supply companies across Sevenoaks district. Two cover the area that I am privileged to represent: SES Water in and around Edenbridge, and South East Water elsewhere. In advance of this debate, I asked the new leader of Sevenoaks district council, Kevin Maskell, to outline what engagement on local plan and infrastructure delivery matters the council has received from water companies. The answer was that only two of the four water companies had even replied, and the replies received were very limited. Indeed, the experience from Sevenoaks is that water companies see their role as not being a priority.

There is no detailed modelling for housing projections against water resources management plans, especially for site allocations. All infrastructure planning is deferred to the planning application stage, where the water companies are not even a statutory consultee. That makes it impossible to plan for the cumulative impact of developments on the water network. How is that good for planning? Well, it isn’t.

If the situation with water suppliers is a problem in Sevenoaks district, however, it is critically urgent and potentially disastrous in Tonbridge and Malling. For the benefit of the Minister, I will explain what has happened in recent months. Tonbridge and Malling borough council agreed to its regulation 18 local plan consultation in the autumn. It received unanimous cross-party support, which was a huge vote of confidence in the leadership of Matt Boughton and the work of Mike Taylor, the cabinet member for planning. Both of them have contributed enormously to the life of our community.

The TMBC cabinet member for infrastructure, Adem Mehmet, approached infrastructure providers for consultation responses, including South East Water, which is the drinking water supplier for almost all of the borough—and the whole of the part that I am lucky enough to represent. I have a copy of the response here, dated 17 December 2025. In it, South East Water tells Tonbridge and Malling borough council that the maximum number of additional homes it can supply between now and 2042 is 6,318. The Government housing target for the council is 19,620.

What is Tonbridge and Malling borough council expected to do? Is it supposed to allocate sites for 13,302 new homes, despite having been told that there is no infrastructure for water to be supplied to those properties? I am sure that the Minister agrees that this would not be appropriate or wise. Having received the response, and being the excellent councillor he is, Adem Mehmet wrote to South East Water on 15 January this year, which happened to be in the middle of the water outages we were facing. South East Water responded on 3 February.

Three simple questions were put to South East Water. First, does South East Water agree that it cannot provide sufficient water to cope with a significant increase in housing targets? South East Water agrees that it cannot. Secondly, do the current targets mean that there will be more water shortages? Again, South East Water agrees that the probability of water outages is higher. Thirdly, would the planned increases identified in the water resources management plan allow South East Water to cope with the Government housing targets for Tonbridge and Malling? South East Water says that the increases will not be sufficient to meet the Government housing targets.

Productivity and Economic Growth: East Midlands

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Tuesday 17th March 2026 Westminster Hall

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I commend the hon. Gentleman for securing this debate; he is making a name for himself in the House for raising issues that affect his constituency, and I congratulate him on that. There are lessons here for all parts of the United Kingdom, so I thank him for raising this topic. Given that manufacturing alone supports almost one in 10 jobs in Northern Ireland, does the hon. Gentleman agree that strengthening regional productivity—whether in the east midlands, Northern Ireland or anywhere in the UK—depends on supporting advanced manufacturing, skills and supply chains across the whole of this great United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland? Always better together—let that be our motto.

[James Naish]

The hon. Member is absolutely right: there are fantastic advanced manufacturing capabilities across the country, including in the east midlands, and the supply chain and the skills chain are key to making them thrive. I will come on to skills in the east midlands in a moment.

Ahead of the comprehensive spending review last year, the all-party parliamentary group for the east midlands launched an inquiry into regional priorities. We received 34 written submissions and held an oral evidence session here in Westminster, with contributions from local government, business, infrastructure, skills and other sectors. This work was about trying to distil, from the people who know our region the best, what the most serious barriers to boosting economic growth and productivity are, and about determining what practical steps the Government should take to address them.

Grenfell Tower Memorial (Expenditure) Bill

Jim Shannon Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 16th March 2026 Commons Chamber

[The Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government (Steve Reed)]

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.

I start by paying tribute to the bereaved family members of those who died at Grenfell Tower, as well as the survivors and members of the local community. Nothing we can say in this Chamber can take away what they have been through. The fire at Grenfell Tower, which took the lives of 72 people, was a terrible moment in our country’s history. It was an avoidable tragedy, and it has had lasting consequences for bereaved families, for those who survived and for the local community and far beyond. We must ensure that nothing like it can ever happen again. There is still much to do on justice, on reform and on making homes safe, but today’s Bill is about one clear part of our responsibility: how we remember Grenfell and how we keep our promise over time.

This is a simple Bill with a simple purpose: to ensure that the Grenfell Tower memorial is properly supported today and for the long term. It is for the bereaved, survivors and the community to take their decisions on what the memorial will look like. The Bill is here to fund that important work. Grenfell must not be about party politics. The previous Government promised to support bereaved families and survivors to create a fitting and lasting memorial. This Government are keeping that promise.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I thank the Secretary of State for the sombre and appropriate way he proposes the Bill. Although the memorial is important and should be tasteful and poignant, the best memorial is the lessons learned so that no other family has to suffer as these victims’ families have suffered, and the lives that will be saved by the changes that are implemented for safety. That is the real memorial those people wish to have.

[Steve Reed]

I could not agree more with the hon. Gentleman. He describes it absolutely correctly. That is why it will be the local community, survivors, the bereaved and the next of kin who will take decisions about what the memorial will look like.

Rough Sleeping: Families with Children

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Wednesday 11th March 2026 Westminster Hall

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Dr Murrison. I thank the hon. Member for Liverpool Wavertree (Paula Barker) for leading the debate. She often brings important debates to the House, especially on issues such as this. I welcome her contribution. She showed passion and understanding from her constituency, and she expressed that incredibly well. I am pleased to see the Minister in her place again. She has been a frequent visitor to Westminster Hall in the past two days; it is always a pleasure to see her in her place. I wish the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Hamble Valley (Paul Holmes), well too.

I have seen on social media awful revelations that in England children as young as three, holding on to their mummies—three years old; my goodness!—are being forced to sleep rough with their families. What an awful thing that is to think about and to experience, even if at that young age they may not exactly understand all that is happening. The hon. Member for Liverpool Wavertree is right to raise this issue. It is our duty to ensure that no child—furthermore, no individual—is ever subject to sleeping rough with little or no support. The hon. Lady conveyed her revelations and personal experience very well through her words today. This should not be allowed to happen.

There are many charities in Northern Ireland and across this great United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland that contribute and do well. I want to thank the church groups in my constituency that collectively and ecumenically come together to help families in need at the time that they need it. The good will and Christian faith that drive people and churches to do that are often underestimated; I thank them for that.

The Simon Community is very active in Northern Ireland. I have used its stats and information as evidence. In audits it carried out across Northern Ireland, the number of people observed sleeping rough has ranged from zero to 19 per night—it very much depends on the circumstances—with an average of six in certain monitored areas. To be fair, in Northern Ireland rough sleeping among families with children is relatively uncommon, because families are usually placed quickly in temporary accommodation. When there is a rush because circumstances overtake them and they have to leave their house—domestic abuse can be one of the reasons for that—the authorities quickly jump in to give temporary accommodation. Rough sleeping is not something that we see much of in Northern Ireland because of the methodology that the authorities use to ensure that families are housed.

I am ever mindful that this is a devolved matter, but my request of the Minister is that we learn together. That is an example of what we do. Maybe things are different in Northern Ireland and the temporary accommodation is a bit more abundant. Maybe the way we do things works. Again, I just want to be helpful in this conversation today.

As of November 2024, almost 5,400 children were living in temporary accommodation in Northern Ireland. That is the other side of the coin, which illustrates very clearly that there is much need. Temporary accommodation is often under the “homeless” category as properties are not permanent places of residence and are often, with respect, substandard and not always up to the standard they should be. The figures are increasing, showing that there is a real issue and that steps are not being taken to address it.

Loss of housing and domestic abuse are significant drivers of homelessness. Victims of domestic abuse might be forced to leave their homes suddenly to protect themselves and their children, often without time to secure alternative accommodation. Given the shocking stats in Northern Ireland in relation to domestic abuse and violence against women, I want to reiterate how important it is that we make those services available and known and that we continue to ensure they are fit for purpose to provide support for those who need it most.

I am working on the assumption that my speech will be about five minutes, to make sure that everybody else can get in. Although families with children sleeping rough are often hidden from official stats, the reality is stark: this is real. In England alone, over 140,000 children are living in temporary accommodation, and the problem is not confined to one region—it affects communities in Scotland, Wales, England and Northern Ireland alike. Things do not stop at the Irish sea and at borders. We must do more on a UK-wide basis to prevent families from reaching crisis point and to expand access to safe and affordable housing.

I congratulate the Government on removing the two-child benefit cap. That made sure that almost 60,000 children in Northern Ireland from 13,000 families were lifted out of poverty. I have put that on the record in the main Chamber and I say it again in this one. Some of the work that the Government are doing is to be welcomed and encouraged, but we need to ensure that every child has a secure home. I look to the Minister to commit to that.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Minister for Local Government and Homelessness (Alison McGovern)]

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool Wavertree (Paula Barker) for securing the debate. She has been dedicated to tackling homelessness for many years, including in her work as the co-chair of the all-party parliamentary group for ending homelessness. Rough sleeping and homelessness are issues that scarred our city region for many years, and I know that everybody at home is very proud of her and the work she does.

As many hon. Members from a number of parties have mentioned, we do not want to be here talking about this issue, but it is so serious that we must. Like all hon. Members, I was extremely concerned about recent reports of families with children sleeping rough. To be absolutely clear, because there ought to be no ambiguity, this should never, ever happen.

Let me say, for clarity, that a household with a child has a priority need for the purposes of the Housing Act 1996. That means that if a household with a child is homeless and is eligible for homelessness assistance, the household must be provided with temporary accommodation until suitable settled accommodation is secured. Where households do not meet the criteria for homelessness assistance, local authorities have a duty under the Children Act 1989 to safeguard and promote the welfare of children who are in need, including by providing them with accommodation where necessary. Let me say, for absolute clarity, that that applies irrespective of the child’s immigration status.

The law is absolutely clear that where a local authority believes that a household does not have a local connection to the district, it remains under a duty to accommodate until a referral to another district has been accepted. It is only when a referral has been accepted that the receiving authority must fulfil any duties to accommodate. There should never be any reason for families to be refused accommodation while there is a dispute about which authority owes that household a duty. There is no grey area here: families with children should never be left without accommodation.

[Jim Shannon]

That is very clear for everyone, and I thank the Minister for it. One example from Northern Ireland that I did not get a chance to mention in my speech was the case of a mother with two children who were sleeping rough in the square. The reason they could not get temporary accommodation was that the Northern Ireland Housing Executive had none at the time. However, because of its duty of care, which the Minister outlined, it made accommodation available in a local hotel until such time as temporary accommodation became available. Is that something that the Minister advocates?

[Alison McGovern]

I am not quite sure that I caught all the details of the case that the hon. Member raised, but if he sends me them I will happily respond to him. He will know that we do not want children to be in B&B accommodation. That is one of the main planks of our strategy, which I will come to later.

As has been mentioned, I wrote to local authority leaders and chief executives last month to remind them of their duties and to ask that they take personal responsibility for making sure that no child in their area is ever left to sleep on the street, in a car or in any other location not designed for living in. I am conscious of the case raised by the hon. Member for Dewsbury and Batley (Iqbal Mohamed). I am sure that he has made every effort to sort that out with Kirklees, but if he has further problems, or Kirklees has specific issues that it wants to raise with me, I trust that he will write to me directly.

We must support councils to meet their obligations, and my Department has been in contact with the councils mentioned in the report to understand how this was able to happen and to ensure that it will not happen again. More broadly, hon. Members will be aware that we recently completed the local authority finance settlement for the next three years, reconnecting council funding with deprivation. That should aid the councils that are more likely to face these issues to deal with them.

The Government are providing more than £2.4 billion this spending review period in support of the Families First Partnership programme, which is introducing reforms to children’s social care. It will ensure children and families can access timely support so that they can get ahead of this problem, as many Members have suggested. Local authorities should use that ringfenced funding to meet their duties under the Children Act. It has been great to speak to many Members and their local authority leaders about how they will do that.

We are providing record levels of investment in homelessness and rough sleeping support, including more than £3.6 billion over the three years from 2026-27 to 2028-29. That is a funding boost of more than £1 billion compared with the previous Government’s commitment, and I pay tribute to the Chancellor for taking that decision. It is right that we are investing that much, because we inherited a homelessness crisis. Members have set out just how bad things have got.

Our long-term vision is to end homelessness and rough sleeping and ensure everyone has access to a safe and decent home. The statistics that we have heard today show that, for far too many people, that is not yet the case. We published our national plan to end homelessness last December to shift the system from crisis response to prevention and to get back on track to ending homelessness.

Our plan is backed by clear national targets to increase the proportion of households who are supported to stay in their own home or helped to find alternative accommodation when they approach their local council for support. That is the prevention goal, and it should underpin everything we do. For reasons that have been mentioned—not least the experience shared by my hon. Friend the Member for Doncaster East and the Isle of Axholme (Lee Pitcher)—we must prevent first. Homelessness is too big of a trauma; nobody should experience it.

By the end of this Parliament, we want to eliminate the use of B&B accommodation for families, except in absolute, dire emergencies, and halve rough sleeping. Of course, we want everyone to have a roof over their head, but some of the problems that we are facing and the experiences of rough sleepers go deep, so we have to go to the toughest of problems.

Our plan is backed by £3.6 billion of funding, including £2.2 billion that councils are free to use to design effective, locally tailored services to deliver better outcomes and reduce reliance on emergency interventions. A number of Members asked about ringfencing. There is tension between allowing local innovation, for which ringfences are unhelpful, and putting clear ringfences around funds to ensure that all councils can tackle homelessness. It is a balance, and that is the way we have taken the decision about the funding.

Our plan sets out how we will tackle the root causes of homelessness by building 1.5 million new homes, including more social and affordable housing than has been built for years. We are also lifting 550,000 children out of poverty through the measures in our child poverty strategy, including by lifting the two-child limit.

Public institutions should lead the way in preventing homelessness. Our plan sets a long-term ambition that no one should leave a public institution into homelessness, and we have cross-Government targets to start that change and reduce homelessness from prisons, care and hospitals.

A number of Members, including the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Hamble Valley (Paul Holmes), were kind enough to say that they believed in my will to get this done but expressed scepticism about other Departments. I hope I can reassure them that they do not need to be sceptical. My experience of working with Ministers in other Departments has been positive.

Local Government Reorganisation: South-east

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Tuesday 10th March 2026 Westminster Hall

[Dr Al Pinkerton (Surrey Heath) (LD)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the impact of local government reorganisation in the South East.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship today, Mr Vickers. I am grateful to the hon. and right hon. Members from across the House who will be contributing to this debate.

Local government is the tier of government that is most closely woven into people’s everyday lives. It is where national decisions become local realities: the roads we drive on, the services that support vulnerable families, the planning decisions that shape our towns and the community spaces that bring people together. It is for that reason that I support the principle of devolution. Decisions should, wherever possible, be taken by those closest to the communities they directly affect. But as is so often the case in public policy, the difficulty is not the principle, it is the implementation.

In Surrey, implementation is already raising serious concerns about scale, financial sustainability and a process that has moved forward with a troubling democratic deficit. This debate concerns the south-east of England more generally, but colleagues from across the region will speak about how reorganisation is affecting their own counties and communities. My perspective naturally comes from Surrey, where those concerns are already becoming clear. Size, remoteness and financial fragility are among them, and we must add to that mix the glaring democratic deficit.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I commend the hon. Gentleman for securing this debate. I spoke to him beforehand, so he knows what I am going to say. I want to support him—that is the reason why I am here—and I want to give an example that happened in my constituency and which is similar to what the hon. Gentleman is referring to. Two councils, Ards and North Down, were merged together, and one issue that was put forward as a “must do” was the financial and administrative savings with two councils being able to do the job of one, but that did not work out. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that while efforts to streamline governance should be welcomed, more action must be taken to provide adequate financial support to cover one-off reorganisation costs without compromising the delivery of services such as, for example, waste services?

[Dr Pinkerton]

As ever, I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his thoughtful, sagacious intervention. He will discover, if he is able to stay for the rest of my speech, that I will cover those fundamental topics: the funding of the transitional moment, and the certainty that joining two authorities together does produce long-term savings and the modelling that those assumptions rely on.

In late 2024, Surrey was placed on a fast-tracked path towards local government reorganisation. That process was triggered when the leadership of Surrey county council requested that the Government cancel the local elections that were scheduled for May 2025. That request was granted, and the result is that councillors elected in 2021 will now remain in office until April 2027, two years beyond their original mandate, and oversee one of the most significant and consequential restructurings of local government in our county’s history. The idea of cancelling elections has, more recently, fallen out of favour with both the Government and, as I understand it, the Conservative party. Sadly, for those of us in Surrey, that realisation came only after the Surrey Conservatives pulled the trigger on the policy that the Government had placed before them. Whatever one’s view of reorganisation, it is difficult to argue that such a profound change should proceed without giving residents the opportunity to pass judgment on those leading it. Local government reform should be carried out with democratic consent, not in its absence.

Alongside those democratic concerns sit serious financial questions. Over the past decade, several councils across Surrey pursued large-scale commercial property investments in an attempt to generate income as central Government funding declined. In some cases, those strategies have left councils carrying extremely substantial debt. The six councils that could form the proposed West Surrey council—Woking, Spelthorne, Guildford, Runnymede, Surrey Heath and Waverley—collectively carry around £4.5 billion-worth of debt. In my constituency, the then Conservative-led Surrey Heath borough council speculated wildly on commercial property between 2016 and 2019. It spent £113 million on a shopping centre with a knackered roof and a former department store riddled with asbestos. At the time, those purchases were described by the council’s then chief executive as “investments” that would help to secure the council’s long-term financial viability as Government funding declined. In practice, it amounted to a Conservative-run borough council borrowing heavily on the financial markets and through the public works loan board in the hope of defying the gravity of the cuts coming from Conservative central Government. Today, those assets are estimated to be worth around £30 million—not the original £113 million. They are operationally loss-making and together risk bankrupting my borough before we even reach unitarisation next year. Surrey Heath cannot afford to keep them but cannot afford to sell them because selling would crystallise the losses it has incurred.

Social Cohesion Action Plan

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Monday 9th March 2026 Commons Chamber

[Steve Reed]

I recognise well and with deep sorrow the situation that my hon. Friend describes. It is outrageous that over 40% of all recorded religious hate crime targets Muslims—that is way out of line with the Muslim proportion of our population. We have published the report, the entire plan and the definition to encourage and support organisations in tackling the forms of discrimination that blight the lives of British Muslims up and down the country.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I thank the Minister very much for his positive statement, in which he described the society we all wish to live in. It is the society that I wish to live in, too. As he will know, I chair the all-party parliamentary group for international freedom of religion or belief, which speaks up for those of the Christian faith, those of other faiths and, indeed, those of no faith. Respect is core to realising that we can all live together. In Northern Ireland, the past 34 years have shown that Protestant and Roman Catholic can live together. We have seen that in my constituency of Strangford. In Ards, the local mosque is side by side with the Presbyterian church, and there are no problems and no attacks—nothing happens. Christian Syrian refugees came to Ards for sanctuary under the refugee allocation of the last Conservative Government. Has the Secretary of State had the opportunity to see what has been done in Northern Ireland, as he considers the pluralistic society that he desires? Will he ensure that all religious beliefs are treated and respected equally?

[Steve Reed]

The hon. Gentleman makes an important point. He is right: there will be much to learn from the experience of Northern Ireland in bringing back together disparate communities, particularly in the period since the troubles came to an end with the Good Friday agreement. I will ask my Department to reach out and make sure that we take those lessons on board.