David Simmonds MP: speeches

Speeches

• 29 Apr 2025 · Planning and Infrastructure Bill (Fourth sitting) · Hansard source

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  This is a small “p” political point rather than a party political point, but it undermines confidence in devolution when we hear that a devolved body—a local authority, regional government or whatever it may be—has been given a power and has not used it, or central Government have said, “We have allocated additional funds for potholes,” but the council has spent it on social care, as we have seen recently. It undermines the confidence in those central messages that what is promised will be delivered. I urge the Minister, on behalf of my hon. Friend, to please come back to the Committee with that assurance. For those listening to this debate who expect that the funds raised will be spent on the purpose that the Minister has told the Committee they are intended for, that assurance needs to be there.

• 29 Apr 2025 · Planning and Infrastructure Bill (Third sitting) · Hansard source

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  It would be helpful if, when the Minister produces that response, he could also set out for the Committee how the processes in place will ensure consistency of decision making. As he described, some local authorities may be more pro in a particular area, or less so. There is a need to ensure transparency that a given nature of development and a given scale will be dealt with in a consistent manner. Can the Minister tell us whether any consideration has been given to any time constraints? I am just mindful of the fact that one issue that certainly occurs in local authorities and potentially in central Government is that if the end of a Parliament, a general election, is coming up, there is a risk of developers thinking, “At this point, I’m more likely to get the Minister to sign things off if I go down this route or that route,” regardless of the merits, on a planning basis, of the individual projects that are being put forward. Can we be assured that that will be properly addressed so that we do not see development being constrained by an imminent election or, indeed, advanced without due process because of an imminent election?

• 29 Apr 2025 · Planning and Infrastructure Bill (Third sitting) · Hansard source

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  I agree very much with the Minister’s point about not introducing excessive complexity. A key issue, though, that this element of the Bill highlights is where there are complex interactions—with legal obligations that are placed on local authorities, for example. I think of my experience with Heathrow airport, where air quality duties are an absolute obligation on the local authority. Parliament can decide to derogate from that, but that does not remove the possibility of the local authority being judicially reviewed, having failed to oppose the Government’s position on a national planning policy statement. When there are such obligations on other affected public bodies but the decision has been taken from them and is being made instead by Parliament, how will the Government ensure that those public bodies will not find themselves held liable and find that the whole process is effectively derailed—because although parliamentary decisions cannot be judicially reviewed, the involvement of that public body in decisions can be?

• 29 Apr 2025 · Planning and Infrastructure Bill (Third sitting) · Hansard source

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  Sucking fish into a nuclear reactor—what could possibly go wrong? That seems a good example of how, when the details of a project are analysed, there is a requirement for such measures. However, we have also looked at the issue of battery storage in connection with improving grid capacity, and the point has been made that ongoing appraisals of the nature of battery storage ensure that local authorities granting planning consent have fulfilled all their relevant environmental and health and safety duties when doing so. It seems to me that, if a parliamentary Select Committee had looked at and taken into consideration such projects, it would be valuable for the Secretary of State to be required to respond, rather than being able to set that aside and having to seek to unpick the whole decision later as a result of judicial reviews brought because of the failure of a local authority to carry out its statutory obligations.

• 29 Apr 2025 · Planning and Infrastructure Bill (Third sitting) · Hansard source

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  Does the hon. Gentleman agree that there is another risk? Ministers may set out that, in order for a particular project to be expedited, it needs to meet a series of tests. I think again of airport expansion; numerous Ministers have said at the Dispatch Box that a whole set of different tests on air quality and finance would need to be met before it could be approved. If we effectively set aside elements of parliamentary feedback, then Ministers, having announced that such tests would need to be met, could, in effect, retrospectively set aside that requirement in order to enable major infrastructure projects to go ahead, without having satisfied the kind of environmental and community concerns that the hon. Gentleman describes?

• 29 Apr 2025 · Planning and Infrastructure Bill (Third sitting) · Hansard source

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  I think that most of us who have been on a planning committee, as the Minister has, probably recognise that, if anything, to satisfy the concerns of our constituents we should be going further with the consultation on small applications, rather than reducing it in larger ways. We are debating developments that will have an enormous community impact, and there are often important points of detail that influence the level of consent. We have had multiple debates in this and the previous Parliament about the loss of high-quality agricultural land to solar farms, for example. It is quite likely that a community, if it fully understands exactly how a developer will mitigate that impact, will come around to supporting such a development; but if the community is simply faced with, “Here is the planning application. We have made it already. Take it or leave it,” there is a risk from not allowing the opportunity for the level of consent to be built up. That will in turn encourage, and in the case of local authorities’ statutory obligations, force, the exploration of other legal routes of objection to prevent the application proceeding. While I understand what the Minister is saying, like the hon. Member for Taunton and Wellington, we will use the opportunity given by the provisions being tabled relatively late in the day to explore alternative methods by which concerns can be addressed. It seems to us fundamental that if a major application is made, those who are affected by it should have the opportunity in advance to learn what it means for them, their community and their home, and should not simply be told that the planning application has been made. There is a world of difference between a planning application that means, “Your house is going to be demolished in order for something to proceed,” and a planning application that indicates a much less significant impact. It is those kinds of issues that need to be teased out; that is what the pre-application discussions and consultations are there for. We encourage the Government to think about a different, more nuanced way to address fully the concerns that have been expressed cross-party, although in slightly different ways.

• 29 Apr 2025 · Planning and Infrastructure Bill (Third sitting) · Hansard source

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  May I press the Minister a little further on that? I am thinking of the Southall gasworks site, a very large housing development on a former gasworks site in London. The only possible access route to facilitate the development involved constructing a bridge from the London borough of Hillingdon, where none of that development took place, into the borough of Ealing. Clearly, one of the issues there is that the large scale of housing being delivered is of benefit to Ealing, since it goes against its housing target. The section 106 yield also goes to Ealing as it is the consenting planning authority. However, the loss is that an access road has to be driven through a nature reserve and leisure facility in the neighbouring local authority. I am just keen to understand how the clause will be used. When the decisions sit with two separate local authorities in normal due process, one of which has a lot more at stake and the other a lot more to lose, how will the Secretary of State be able to balance them so that local residents—constituents—can be assured that their concerns are taken into account?

• 29 Apr 2025 · Planning and Infrastructure Bill (Third sitting) · Hansard source

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  I have a lot of sympathy with the comments made by the hon. Members for Doncaster East and the Isle of Axholme and for North Herefordshire. I appreciate that the clause was tabled quite late, and the evidence that we heard last week was mixed. The National Infrastructure Commission gave us its views on the impact of pre-application consultation, and local authority representatives who are responsible for that section of the planning system’s decision making said that they have quite significant concerns. The Opposition have sympathy with what the Government are trying to achieve, but it seems to me that, as the hon. Member for Taunton and Wellington outlined, we need to look at alternatives. It may be that a regime of deemed consent is a mechanism we could use to speed up elements of the process, or perhaps altering how we set out the requirements of pre-app consultation. I know that you have extensive experience in local government, Mrs Hobhouse, and you will be aware that, as a matter of law, Parliament has set numerous obligations on local authorities in respect of the quasi-judicial process that they follow in planning, and numerous other obligations in respect of what they do for their communities. The pre-application process is a means drawing out, before a major application is made, how the impacts may play out. I can draw a good recent example from personal experience. The Chancellor, at the Dispatch Box, said that Heathrow expansion, and airport expansion more generally, would be enabled because sustainable aviation fuel would reduce emissions. It is true that sustainable aviation fuel mandates reduce the overall lifetime emissions from a given quantity of aviation fuel, but they do not reduce the level of pollution at the tailpipe of the aircraft at all. So when we look at Heathrow airport, it does not matter whether the fuel burned there is sustainable aviation fuel or conventional aviation fuel; emissions within the locality, which are what give rise to the legal obligations on the local authority regarding air quality, remain the same. It is not a solution. When a developer proposes to create a solar farm, a battery storage area or a nuclear power station—or any kind of major infrastructure—the pre-application process gives the local authority an opportunity to begin to understand which of its legal obligations may be engaged by the application. I am conscious of the experience that the hon. Member for Barking described, illustrating the need to streamline the process as much as possible, but clearly, as several hon. Members have said, the major risk of that is that a developer comes along and sets out an ambition for a development, and residents are consulted and their response is, “In general—in principle—that sounds okay, but what will the impact on us be? Do we understand that from what the developer is putting forward?”

• 29 Apr 2025 · Planning and Infrastructure Bill (Third sitting) · Hansard source

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  I understand the point the hon. Member makes, but part of me thinks, “Well, they would say that, wouldn’t they?” For a business whose profits come from expediting the grant of planning consent as much as possible, removing potential obstacles to that is important. However, as has been outlined in many of the examples that we have debated, there can be crucial points of detail that either would make all the difference to the level of consent and support in the local community for a project, or would engage other legal obligations that Parliament has placed on the local authorities, either to carry out an impact assessment—an evaluation of what that will mean—or, in some cases, to engage with that process to oppose the development taking place, because it contradicts other legal obligations placed on the authority by Parliament in respect of environment, health or whatever it may be. Clearly, we need to ensure that there is a functional process.

• 29 Apr 2025 · Planning and Infrastructure Bill (Third sitting) · Hansard source

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  I rise in support of my hon. Friend the shadow Minister to press the Government on this point. I think the key issue for all of us is what remedy is available where there are concerns about the impact of a decision taken using these new provisions. In the evidence sessions, there was much mockery of a so-called fish disco at a new nuclear power station. However, the local constituency MP, the local authority or fishing and wildlife organisations would be very concerned about the impact of that development on wildlife, particularly at a location with significant numbers of protected species, some of which are unique in Europe. When the detail of a project emerges and an issue of that nature needs to be addressed, and there is feedback from Parliament, if we have inserted provisions that allow the Secretary of State to say, “I am going to ignore that now,” we lose the opportunity to ensure appropriate remedies and measures to address the impact of that detail, either in planning terms or on the local environment. I recall a judicial review brought by the local authority where I served as a councillor in respect of a scheme that had been agreed with the Secretary of State. The Secretary of State had written to the local authority and said, “This is what it is going to be. This is the process that is going to be followed.” That Secretary of State was then replaced with another, who said, “I am not going to follow it. Although my predecessor wrote to you last year to tell you this is how it was going to be, I am not going to do it.” The local authority said that was clearly unsatisfactory, because of the impact at community level. The test that was required to be met for a judicial review to succeed was that we had to be able to demonstrate that the Minister was—what the judge said has always stuck in my mind—“out of her mind” when she told Parliament at the Dispatch Box what she was going to do, on the basis that parliamentary sovereignty was so great. If Parliament had approved the Minister’s actions, regardless of whether they were a flagrant breach of an agreement previously entered into with another part of the public sector, provided they had said that at the Dispatch Box and unless we could prove that the Minister had actually been out of their mind at that point, the decision would stand and would not be subject to judicial review. It could not even be considered, because parliamentary sovereignty has such a high test. I think the shadow Minister is right to raise the need to get this right. We are all talking about the importance of getting infrastructure and major developments through, and we can understand the desire to drive that forward, but we would not wish to find ourselves in a situation where a key point of detail, which has a significant community impact but which emerges only once some of those detailed elements of a major project are in the public domain, cannot be taken account of and is irrelevant or disregarded in the planning process. It is absolutely critical that we have that level of safeguard to ensure that constituents are assured that the concerns that they might perfectly reasonably have will be properly addressed.

• 29 Apr 2025 · Planning and Infrastructure Bill (Third sitting) · Hansard source

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  May I press the Minister a little more on that point? I understand and thank him for the clarity that he has brought. As he set out, one purpose of the change is to ensure greater certainty for investors and applicants about the process. We are all very aware that planning issues can often become quite significant local political issues as well. How will the regime avoid a situation where, with an election in the not-too-distant future, there is a political trade-off that involves a Government, a Minister or a candidate saying, “If we win the election, we are going to push it down this route” in order to try to produce outcome A, versus “We think we should push it down an alternative route” in order to produce a different outcome through the planning process? How can we make sure that it is sufficiently insulated from that political turmoil to ensure certainty?

• 29 Apr 2025 · Planning and Infrastructure Bill (Third sitting) · Hansard source

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  How does the Minister propose that this measure will address boundary issues? It is not uncommon for a significant construction project to be located in one local authority while the access road, as he described, is in another local authority. Particularly where a section 106 benefit is derived from a development that is taking place, the consenting authority will undertake those negotiations, so clearly it will be necessary to have taken that into account. Can he indicate how such an approach will be built in, so that everyone has an assurance that that will be fully dealt with?

• 29 Apr 2025 · Planning and Infrastructure Bill (Third sitting) · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend puts it probably more bluntly than I have, but he is absolutely spot on. I know he has an enormous amount of experience in local government negotiating around exactly these kinds of points.

• 24 Apr 2025 · Planning and Infrastructure Bill (First sitting) · Hansard source

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  Q I have two specific questions about resourcing. The experience with section 106 agreements is often that, by the time the resource is aggregated to the point where it is spendable at scale, the cost of delivering what it was supposed to deliver has increased. You have described your expectation that the resource coming in will begin to cover the costs for Natural England in administering that. First, have you done any modelling on how the income and those rising costs will be managed? Secondly, particularly in the event of significant challenges to Natural England, how can we be assured that a significant amount of the contributions will not end up being absorbed into administrative and management costs, as opposed to being spent directly on the environmental mitigation for which they were first gathered? Marian Spain: I cannot tell you about modelling that we are doing for the future—that work has only just started—but I can refer back to what we have already. For example, with district level licensing, the formula is quite simple: how much does it cost to build a pond and how much does it cost either Natural England or, in that scheme, a third party, including private businesses, to deliver that? That is what drives the levy and that is what developers pay. They pay the cost of administration and the cost of delivery, and that is the model we will use for this. Those costs will, of course, vary—there will not be a single cost—because it will depend on the complexity of the issue and possibly even the geography, land price and so on.

• 24 Apr 2025 · Planning and Infrastructure Bill (First sitting) · Hansard source

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  Q I found the evidence you gave about the parliamentary process by which this might be streamlined really helpful, Mr Owen. My question is for you both. One challenge for the planning system element of this Bill is that the local authority has a quasi-judicial role in administering planning law, and then statutory consultees and other organisations might be required to give consent for something, so the local authority has consented but Natural England, the Environment Agency or someone else needs to sign off. First, does the Bill strike the right balance in streamlining the different parts of that process, so that nationally significant infrastructure can make its way through quickly and efficiently? Secondly, as well as judicial review, I am always conscious that a local authority may be subject to a maladministration complaint if it fails to take into account the legal obligations that Parliament has placed upon it. While the system may seem bureaucratic, the bottom line is that Parliament requires councils to go through that process when considering planning applications. Do you think there is a need to remove not so much the ability of others to challenge, but some of the requirements we place on local authorities, so that there are fewer loopholes and less complexity in administering that quasi-judicial role? Sir John Armitt: That is a very complex question. I shall pass to my legal friend. Robbie Owen: It is a complex question. On the balance and restricting this to national infrastructure, where the role of local authorities is among the role of many public bodies, as I touched on earlier, I do not think that we have yet got to a balance where the development consent order contains the principal consents and leaves subsidiary ones to be dealt with later. I would like to see the Bill repeal section 150 of the Planning Act 2008 so that decisions can be taken on a case-by-case basis by the deciding Secretary of State on what they consider to be appropriate to put into the development consent order by way of other consents. I do not think it is appropriate for that decision to be subject to the veto of the relevant regulatory bodies, which it is at the moment. That is inappropriate. If I understood the question on maladministration correctly, I am not sure that is a particularly relevant process for national infrastructure. My own experience is that it is quite ineffective generally. In terms of the role of local authorities in downstream supervision of the implementation of these projects, the answer is to make sure that the development consent order is very clear on the requirements and the conditions to the consent, which the local authority then needs to police and give approvals under. I think that is the way forward.

• 24 Apr 2025 · Planning and Infrastructure Bill (Second sitting) · Hansard source

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  Q I have two connected questions. A lot has been said about the role of local authorities in decision making on planning. I am aware that councils are not short of planning guidance from central Government—every element of a local plan must already be in detailed conformity with 19 chapters of the national planning policy framework. Is there any element of your local planning process that is there for any other purpose than complying with the law, as passed by Parliament, in respect of planning? Have you gold plated locally? Secondly, coming back to the point about strategic infrastructure projects, one of the issues is that local authorities have a lot of obligations, particularly under environmental law, whereby they have a specific legal duty around issues like air quality. Effectively excluding them from the decision-making process or even a failure to intervene in the process would leave them open to legal challenge. Air quality is a good example: I know from my experience at Heathrow airport that there was a local authority fine of £300 million per annum for the level of air quality breaches caused by Heathrow airport, through which we would have been judicially reviewed by ClientEarth had we not judicially reviewed central Government over their proposals to expand that. Can you think of some other areas, around either environmental or other legal obligations, that are imposed on local authorities where the role you play in either the development and consent order process or those national strategic infrastructure projects is arising not simply out of local politics but because of legal obligations to your residents that you have to fulfil? Councillor Wright: With regard to nationally significant infrastructure projects, for instance, I was thinking about the fact that we are responsible for the environmental impact assessments. I worry at times that we do not have enough weight with those when it comes to the actual decision making. One example, which we are testing at the moment, relates to battery storage—a new thing that is exciting lots of people—and whether we can predict not just the here and now, but what would happen in the event of a problem. If we are going to have a huge array of batteries on what was good agricultural land suddenly blighting the landscape, we could ensure that the industry is not allowed to use a type of battery that is more prone to cause huge environmental issues if it catches fire, when there are already good batteries that could be used. But it comes down to a financial decision. In some places, we would actually like more weight to be given to the powers that we already have, but quite often, as you say, we find ourselves guarding the place but not being able to make the decisions that would avoid the need for guards in the first place. Councillor Hug: My concern is not about gold plating. It is about the question whether local authorities across the country have the capacity on their planning teams to deal with the range and breadth of the requirements that are placed on them. That is one reason why local government reform is in the air, but I would also welcome some movement on fees. We have to make sure that planning is seen as a field that people want to go into, to help unlock these things, rather than these people being seen purely as the blockers. Ultimately, part of the blockage is that the system is not working effectively. The question is how we can work with local authorities to deliver not only training to communities, but greater support to the officer core so that they can move stuff through as quickly as possible. Councillor Clewer: I do not think we gold plate our local plans. There are many councils that want to go beyond existing guidance, particularly on net zero, for example. That is mostly to stop expensive retrofitting in future and make people’s bills cheaper. There are areas where councils will want to go beyond existing national policy, but every example I can think of was done for a very good reason and will end up with broad public support. On the bigger issue of legislation, yes, there are some real challenges. Some environmental legislation can be significantly challenging when you want to see building or when you are looking to find a way to mitigate or even unlock. For example, I have a brownfield site in Trowbridge where they need to leave a bat corridor by a train line. How on earth that makes sense I honestly do not know, but it is making the viability of the site really challenging. Some sort of off-site provision would be far more appropriate: it would be far better for the bats and would help to unlock development. There are also problems around highways issues, for example. Whether it be for economic development or building land, there is an inability for us to work properly with National Highways to deal with motorway junctions, or the A36 in my case. The constraints that that places on us can be real blockers to our desire to build in areas that would be sensible, as opposed to in areas where developers are putting forward planning permissions. Lastly, it would be really nice if we could tell developers where they should be building, rather than developers saying, “This bit of land? We can’t build on it yet,” when we know full well that we will get a speculative application the moment the local plan is through for that bit of land as well, having just fought the contentious bit of land.

• 24 Apr 2025 · Planning and Infrastructure Bill (Second sitting) · Hansard source

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  Q I would like to ask you both about the interaction between green-belt and farming areas. In a constituency such as mine, which is on the edge of London, as well as a lot of edge-of-city constituencies, there is land that is both in the green belt and farmland. That has significant implications for the landowner because the hope value is significantly higher than farmland might be elsewhere, but it also needs additional protection because it is ancillary to the existence of the city. It sometimes provides a source of food and leisure, as well as the environmental benefits of it being a green space. I am interested in your view on whether the Bill sufficiently addresses the balance between green belt and agricultural use. What improvements would you want to see on compulsory purchase processes to ensure that landowners in those locations have appropriate recourse? Also, where it is clear that the land in question provides a broader public benefit, as opposed to simply being a business standing on its own, how can we ensure that the broader public benefit can be accounted for in the reckoning up of the value of that land? Rachel Hallos: It is almost like having ransom strips next to urban conurbations. That green belt gets sucked into that urban conurbation and, all of a sudden, it becomes a brown belt—I think “grey belt” was also considered at one stage. The reality is, when you are in that situation—I can completely understand, although some of my members would not; that is the leadership role that we have to take—that that land is of national benefit through development. That is because it increases the size of the town, the infrastructure—the whole thing. On what the Bill needs to do, again it goes back to doing the number crunching. What is the long-term benefit of this? We also have to remember that when we compulsorily purchase land from a farmer who is running their business and living there, they have every right to make a decision to restart their business elsewhere. What if the land value goes up and they are being paid just the flat agricultural rate? Everybody wants that land, because guess what? Everybody wants land right now. Everybody wants land for everything, so land prices are creeping up anyway. There is then artificial inflation of the land price in that area because everybody is after it. That bit also needs to be taken into consideration when it comes to recompensing anybody who has land taken away from them. It is a complicated formula, but the Bill really does need to look at that if we are to go anywhere near rebuilding confidence and trust between the agricultural community and Government. Especially if we put it in the package of everything else that is going on, we are very much in danger of having it go “bang” again. This has to stop. We all have to get on with life. We all have to get on with what we do—produce food, infrastructure or growth for the country. Paul Miner: Green belt is a planning policy, but as you have rightly pointed out, green-belt land often has a wide range of public benefits and meanings for people who live in the towns and cities that the green belts surround. We strongly support the Bill’s provision for spatial development strategies, because you need effective strategic planning in order for green-belt policy to work effectively. Also, from our perspective, we should not just be looking at how the planning policy should work. If we accept that the vast majority of green-belt land will not become grey belt in the future but will remain designated green belts, we need to think about how we can better manage that land. That is why it is really important that in spatial development strategies and in the Government’s land use framework, we have policies for improving the management of green-belt land. Until now, green-belt land has been relatively poorly served by successive Governments’ environmental land management schemes. There is relatively low take-up in green-belt areas. We urge the Government, as part of the land use framework but also with spatial development strategies, to seek to improve the quality of green belts for nature and for climate. Rachel Hallos: May I add one last thing to that? Sorry to be rude. When it comes to the spatial development strategies, LNRSs and all the different things that are going on and are being consulted on at the moment, there is no legal requirement to consult the land manager. That worries me. It is just wrong.

• 24 Apr 2025 · Planning and Infrastructure Bill (Second sitting) · Hansard source

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  I think it covers both, but each of those things is addressed separately in the Bill. Jack Airey: It goes back to my initial point that community participation in the planning process is so low, and you often only hear about the negative parts. If we could boost that a bit—in truth, I am not sure how you do that in a way that is not totally burdensome on local authorities, because often people have better things to do than go to a town hall on a Tuesday evening. Raising that is a difficult but necessary thing to do. That is how you begin to spell out not just the negatives but the benefits of development on the local planning system side. On the NSIP reforms, I know you will hear later from Catherine Howard, who is much more of an expert on this than I am. It looks like a wholly positive thing to me. The Government press release talked about saving around 12 months off an NSIP development consent order process, which is a hugely positive thing. Sam Richards: I agree with Jack. Dare I say it, I think there is a role here for elected representatives in making the case when we need to build things. I know it is hard, not least when development is poorly planned or ugly, and of course when there is local opposition it is often tempting to row in on the side of those who are opposing development, but there is a job to do here. Fundamentally, we have not built sufficient infrastructure for decades and, as a result, we have the highest industrial energy costs in the world. London has the most expensive housing in Europe. We have not built the infrastructure we need for decades. It is incumbent on all of us, including our elected representatives, to make the case for the building that we need.

• 24 Apr 2025 · Planning and Infrastructure Bill (Second sitting) · Hansard source

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  Q It is worth noting that less than one in 10 planning applications goes to committee at all, so it is hard to argue that it is a particularly heavy democratic burden. One of the things that we heard is burdensome in the evidence earlier today is the pre-application process. I would be interested in your view about what can be done to ensure that there is meaningful and useful pre-application discussion. In particular, I am mindful of the amendment that the Minister tabled yesterday on nationally significant infrastructure projects, which removes quite a number of the requirements for consultation. Some of the large energy infrastructure projects have described having large pipelines of potential projects, some of which were very speculative and others of which were quite close to the spades in the ground stage. How can we ensure that what emerges from the Bill guarantees meaningful and proper consultation, so that the receiving community really understands what the impact will be and, where there may be local objections, people have a really detailed understanding of what the benefits will be in order to persuade them to be more supportive of the proposals? Jack Airey: Is your question specific to nationally significant infrastructure projects, or does it relate to the TCPA as well?

• 7 Apr 2025 · Town Centres: Population Growth · Hansard source

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  The Opposition broadly support the Government’s proposals in the plan for neighbourhoods, which carries on the excellent work started under the previous Government. However, how will the proposals to diversify the base of consultees to prioritise the voice of trade unions—which, by definition, are found mainly in large public sector and corporate organisations—not drown out the voice of the small businesses on which our town centres depend?

• 7 Apr 2025 · Supporting Local Growth · Hansard source

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  I agree with the Minister that the Government have changed how growth is happening in local government, because apart from the massive growth in the numbers of people rough sleeping and the massive growth in piles of rubbish uncollected in Birmingham, there is little evidence of economic growth at the local level. Does the Minister acknowledge that when we compare band D equivalents, Conservative councils consistently charge much lower council tax than Labour or Lib Dem ones? The best way for our constituents to ensure local growth is to vote Conservative at the council elections.

• 31 Mar 2025 · Political Donations · Hansard source

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  This is the second time in a few weeks that we have debated this issue. I am aware that we are likely to be interrupted shortly for multiple votes, but I will do my best to make some progress in responding to the many and varied points that have been made. The debate about political financing always feels like an equal opportunity debate: we can all find something in other political parties’ financial arrangements that we would like to criticise and call into question. However, the high degree of cross-party commitment—and the fact that Governments of all parties over the years have passed legislation to ensure a high degree of security in UK political financing—demonstrates that our politics, on the whole and by any international comparison, is pretty clean. Members have raised a number of points, however, that have been widely debated and that are worth our consideration, and that I know the Government are already looking at. The first point that is important to highlight is that foreign donations to political parties in the UK are already illegal. It is also illegal for foreign citizens to channel their own money through UK sources. Although we have heard a great deal of political debate about donations, prompted by Mr Musk and his comments, it is clear that if a UK company acted as an agent for a donation by a foreign company, that would be an impermissible donation under current laws. If a person or an organisation makes a donation on behalf of another without disclosing who that donation is from, that is also against our laws as they currently stand. The key thing is to make sure that we have effective measures in place for the enforcement of those rules. A number of Members referred to the role of the Electoral Commission. It is important that we reflect that more recent legislation is based on the original Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000, which was passed by a previous Labour Government. I draw the attention of Members who have criticised more recent legislative developments to the words of a then Labour Minister when that legislation passed through the House. With respect to the Committee that designed the legislation, he said: “The Neill committee made clear its view that prosecutions in respect of breaches of the law relating to controls on donations and election expenses should be placed in the hands of the Director of Public Prosecutions and should not be the concern of the commission…the commission does not have that power... the commission will be an enforcement authority but not a prosecuting authority.” —[ Official Report, House of Lords, 20 November 2000; Vol. 619, c. 631-632.] There had clearly been some drift over time, whereby there was a lack of clarity as to who was responsible. Given, in particular, the significant civil penalties that can be levied by the commission, there was a requirement for absolute clarity that prosecutions for breaches of the law were a matter for the police and the Crown Prosecution Service, since any objection to those would likely end in a judicial review anyway. That is something that all Members should welcome in terms of bringing clarity to the process. I have a few brief questions for the Minister, which will reflect what we debated previously on the Floor of the House. First, it is clear that, contrary to the points that have been made, taxation has never been a basis for suffrage in the UK, and a number of situations relating to that have been clarified in recent caselaw. Students, for example, are exempt from paying council tax, but none the less have a vote in local elections where they reside. There are also expats from the UK who have paid no taxes for a long time but have the right to vote, while others pay significant UK taxes on investments, pensions and other assets held in the UK and do not have a vote. As such, it is important to recognise that although those who pay taxes in the UK have a significant connection to this country, that is not the only basis on which people may exercise a vote. The last Government, in the previous Parliament, made a commitment during the passage of the National Security Act 2023 to enhance powers so that regulators, law enforcement and security services could share information with political parties. That was, in part, designed to help avoiding a repeat of the situation in which the Labour party found itself taking £700,000 from Chinese spies. Will the Minister commit to ensuring that those commitments are delivered, so that our political parties can access that information when risks are identified? Will the Minister close the loophole that was created by the Labour Welsh Government and the SNP Scottish Government, which for the first time allows Russian, Chinese and Iranian citizens who are resident in Wales and Scotland to donate to UK-wide political parties and campaigns, when those donations would otherwise be banned? Will she tell us why China is not to be included in the enhanced tier of the foreign influence registration scheme? I appreciate that the Government are seeking to enhance relationships with China, but that does create a significance risk of foreign interference. Will she say on record, as she previously did in the House, that she accepts that UK politicians are low risk, and that—although there are significant rules in the politically-exposed persons agenda, which has had a impact on the ability of parliamentarians from both sides of the House and their families to access financial services—no significant risk has materialised? Finally, will the Minister commit to ensure that there will be the fullest possible consultation with all political parties and wider stakeholders on any planned changes to political finance law? There is a long-standing precedent that, when Governments of any party seek to change such law, they engage with the widest possible group of stakeholders. However, thus far, there have been no discussions with the parliamentary parties panel, no formal consultations with parties, nor any discussions on Privy Council terms about what those changes may be. It would be helpful for the Minister to confirm from the Dispatch Box whether that will happen as it always has in the past. It is clear that to address the concerns that many Members have set out, there needs to be a reflection on not only the influence of political financial donations but the impact of benefits in kind. For example, technology companies seek to use algorithms hosted, based and written outside of the UK to influence where the eyes of UK residents and voters fall when engaging with the political system. We know that that creates a significant risk that needs to be addressed. I thank the hon. Member for North Ayrshire and Arran (Irene Campbell) for introducing this debate, and it is a pleasure, once again, to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Harris.

• 26 Mar 2025 · Local Authorities (Changes to Years of Ordinary Elections) (England) Order 2025 · Hansard source

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  I will not detain the Committee for long. There has been quite a rich debate—unusually so for a Delegated Legislation Committee—a lot of which has focused on some of the politics and the structures around local government reorganisation. I think the intervention from the right hon. Member for Oxford East was a good illustration of that. The proposed footprint for the new local authorities has been a key subject of debate, and we know that the Treasury clearly has one view about that, and I suspect that the Ministry has a slightly different one. Certainly, historically, 300,000 was seen as about a reasonable minimum, broadly reflecting the size of London boroughs, for example, which are unitary authorities; but clearly a move to a larger footprint is an opportunity to spread the overheads over a greater population area. However, it remains a significant challenge for authorities that are coming forward, where they may be happy to consider a footprint of 300,000 but 500,000 does not work for them, and the Government and the Minister will have some significant challenges taking that forward, with his task of unitising local government in England by the end of the Parliament. Turning to the specifics of the instrument before us and how we got here, again I have some sympathy with the Minister’s point that the invitation was sent out, and it was very clear from the outset that the first step was an invitation for those who were willing; but for those who were not initially willing there would be a statutory invitation—an invitation you can’t refuse—to come forward with proposals for local government. I think that justifies the concern expressed by a number of Members that there is a significant top-down element to this. However, in order to deliver that process, the key thing that we are—and remain—concerned about is that, in this case, the Minister is a little bit boxed in by the legislation that says that this instrument will postpone these elections. He took us through a list of actions by previous Governments such circumstances, and described, in all of those examples, that those were about the cancellation of those elections—those elections would not take place any longer. This instrument merely postpones these elections. I think it is the clear understanding of all the local authorities on this list that they will not hold elections to their local authorities ever again because they are about to be abolished through the process of local government reorganisation. Exactly as the Minister has described, cancellation is about those elections never being held again because some new local government structure will come into being at some point. However, the instrument says to all those local authorities that their local elections are expected to go ahead on the due date in 2026—that the election is merely postponed in Essex and the other local authorities listed. While I absolutely support colleagues in local government who have said, “We accept that this is going to be done to us whether we like it or not—we need to make the best of this opportunity,” and there is logic in coming forward in the first tranche, the legal implication of what we are being asked to decide is that those elections will take place, but at a point when the abolition of those local authorities is even closer than it is today. That does not seem to be a good choice for us to make. There should be a clear and structured plan, so that residents understand not just that they are losing the right to vote that they had hoped to have in Essex, or wherever it may be, this year, but that elections will take place to those new structures; so that they can see that they will have the opportunity both to exercise the democratic right that they enjoy and to shape the new structures as they come into being. Those are the reasons that we find ourselves here today. Question put.

• 26 Mar 2025 · Local Authorities (Changes to Years of Ordinary Elections) (England) Order 2025 · Hansard source

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  I beg to move, That the Committee has considered the Local Authorities (Changes to Years of Ordinary Elections) (England) Order 2025 (S.I. 2025, No.137). It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Ms Hobhouse. The postponement or cancellation of local elections in pursuit of local government reorganisation is a subject that has been much debated on the Floor of the House, and indeed, is a debate that has played out in the media. The Opposition have some concerns about the decision being made, and I will briefly summarise the reasons for that. As Ministers have said repeatedly, the practice has been to postpone and cancel local elections where doing so is necessary to facilitate the reorganisation of local government. The practice has applied since the Local Government Act 2000, and it has been followed by Governments of all parties. We have concerns, however, about the messages that have gone out suggesting that these elections are merely to be postponed, and indeed, that is the substance of the Government’s proposals. We know that the intention, as has clearly been set out—this was certainly our intention in government when dealing with this matter—is not merely a postponement for a 12-month period but that these elections will be cancelled, so that new local authority structures can come into being. We would not elect a council that is about to be abolished in 12 months’ time, but we might hold elections for the new local authorities that would come into being, and the new elected mayors who would serve those local government areas. Clearly, that process is one in which there needs to be a degree of input, perhaps from the boundary commissioners or the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, in order to ensure that effective democratic representation is in place before those elections occur. That practice was followed, for example, with the reorganisation of the Buckinghamshire and Northamptonshire councils during the previous Parliament. At present, there is a lack of a clear timetable for local authorities. Members of Parliament and local residents in those areas have expressed concern that, while they understand the rationale for reorganisation, they want to know confidently when they will have the opportunity to cast a ballot to shape the political direction of their new local government representation. The Opposition have set out a degree of concern that, contrary to previous practice—where local authorities were invited, if they felt it appropriate, to bring forward proposals—in this case, the drive for the proposals comes from Whitehall and the Ministry, and it is to a template that has been set out by Government on the likely size and population of the local authorities. We are concerned that there is not a clear plan for how the reorganisation of local government will interact with other legislation that either has been passed or is making its way through Parliament, including the Planning and Infrastructure Bill, which began its passage last week, and the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill. All of that will have a significant impact on the organisational role of local authorities. Other legislation, particularly the envisaged wholesale reorganisation of planning in England, will also require significant input from local authorities if it is to work effectively. That lack of clarity is a significant concern to us. Finally, I have two questions that I am sure the Minister will be able to answer, the first of which is about the treatment of vacancies that arise. The order sets out a process whereby elections that have already arisen, but which would have normally been postponed until the occurrence of the regular cycle of elections, will be required to be held between the order coming into force and a date in May. However, given that the postponement is part of an undoubtedly longer period, one issue that clearly arises is that it is likely to lead in due course to the cancellation of those elections, so how will vacancies be treated beyond that period? I am sure that the Minister has an answer, but it would be helpful to know what will happen if local authority by-elections cannot go ahead outside the period that is specified in the statutory instrument. The second issue is the specific decision that the statutory instrument envisages for Thurrock, where elections are postponed until 2030. Clearly, that is a long time, and it would be helpful if the Minister set out the thinking behind that particular decision. What are the benefits to the residents of Thurrock of having those elections postponed until 2030?

• 26 Mar 2025 · Local Government Finances: London · Hansard source

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  I think I will probably avoid descending too much into parochial politics, but it is important to recognise that I will have to pay the garden tax—I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman will—because I live in the London borough of Hillingdon. All our local authorities are facing elements of those challenges, and are addressing them as best they can. London local authorities have demonstrated probably the greatest financial resilience of any group of local authorities in the country. We have seen a considerable increase in balances held by local authorities across the capital, but that masks significant variations. In particular, significant financial pressures are being created in outer London, partly because of the significant numbers of unfunded costs around things such as asylum and the long-term impact of the very rapid rise in rough sleeping. Set that alongside the fact that the long-standing structural underfunding leaves them less able to deal with the impact of a massive increase in national insurance contributions and the devastating impact of the Budget on the local economy and its ability to pay those taxes, all of which support local services. Let us take all those things into account, and come out of this with a new funding settlement for London. I ask the Minister to give us an undertaking that this will not be one of those settlements where a Government simply give with one hand and take with the other.