Oral Answers to Questions

Will Forster Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd October 2025 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I welcome Millie to the Gallery—I appreciate that Members on the Opposition Benches cannot see her, but she is looking down at us and smiling with the courage and positivity that I know is everything to her. We absolutely salute that; we are humbled by it. [Hon. Members: “Hear, hear.”] I really do find it hard to understand how a school trust could make a decision like that in relation to the ramp. Rather than berate those in the trust from the Chamber, I would just implore them on behalf of everybody here and Millie in particular to look again, and hopefully, with the endorsement of the whole House, to reconsider that decision, put in that ramp and match the positivity and the courage that Millie has shown all of us. I thank my hon. Friend for raising that campaign.

[Mr Will Forster (Woking) (LD)]

Q4. The Times has reported that local elections across the country will be delayed for a second year in a row. The leader of my local authority, Surrey county council, has had to go on the record to say that he has not called for elections to be cancelled, but other Conservatives clearly have. Can the Prime Minister give me a cast-iron guarantee that my constituents in Woking and others across the country will not lose their democratic right to vote?

[The Prime Minister]

The hon. Gentleman knows that we inherited a situation where local councils were underfunded and millions were wasted on duplication. By reforming the system, which is what we are doing, we will save money and reinvest that in improved public services. In response to the hon. Gentleman’s question, we expect the elections in Surrey to be for the new unitary councils, and we will be setting out the planned timetable very shortly.