David Simmonds MP: speeches

Speeches

• 16 Oct 2025 · English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill (Sixth sitting) · Hansard source

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  Briefly, the Bill states, “including road traffic reduction”, and the Opposition’s concern is that when we consider our UK transport infrastructure, the one area in which we conspicuously lag a long way behind our peers is our provision of roads, particularly our motorways. We have about 20% less road capacity than peer countries, but we are in line with them on things like high-speed rail, trams and bus networks, where we have seen enormous progress in recent years. However, I recognise that these are plans that will be implemented subject only to that local democratic process, so we will not oppose this provision. Question put and agreed to. Clause 27 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill. Schedule 8 Key Route Network Roads

• 16 Oct 2025 · English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill (Sixth sitting) · Hansard source

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  If the Minister can give us an assurance that she will provide that in writing before the conclusion of the Committee, I am happy not to press these amendments to a vote.

• 16 Oct 2025 · English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill (Sixth sitting) · Hansard source

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  On a point of order, Ms Vaz. I think, in my enthusiasm for the proceedings, I made reference to the amendments that we will be dealing with in the next grouping. I shall not repeat my observations, but I am sure the Minister will hold my comments in mind and be desperate to respond to them when she makes her introduction to the next group.

• 16 Oct 2025 · English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill (Sixth sitting) · Hansard source

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  I shall speak to amendment 304, which stands in my name. I would like to think that it is one of those amendments that the Government will adopt, if they are wise, because it would do something practical towards the delivery of a higher level of housing through the Bill. Despite the provision of very large amounts of capital funding by the previous Government, the Mayor of London has been a case study in the failure to deliver. There will be complex reasons in the wider market why it has been a challenge, but the previous Government delivered just shy of a net additional 1 million new homes over the life of the previous Parliament, in line with the target. Since then, house building has collapsed. Partly that seems to be because operators in the market—big developers and house building companies—are looking at the Bill and seeing opportunities to increase the potential value of their sites by arbitraging between all the different layers of bureaucracy, rather than delivering homes. However, many of our constituents look at areas that have good PTAL—public transport access levels—scores, and so an ability to access effective public transport, as offering a high degree of opportunity. The Opposition’s view is that we should prioritise sites like that, which in some cases are quite close to securing planning consent, because of their ability to densify our urban centres. In London and other big cities, such as Manchester, where we had our recent party conference, we see examples of this approach delivering large amounts of additional housing in city centre areas. It contributes to growth, to housing delivery and to the economy of those local areas. For all those reasons, the amendment is positive, so I hope that the Government will accept that it would add significant value to the Bill. I look forward to the Minister’s response.

• 16 Oct 2025 · English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill (Sixth sitting) · Hansard source

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  I beg to move amendment 287, in clause 28, page 36, line 12, leave out “implement” and insert “have regard to”. This amendment, and Amendment 288, would ensure that councils had to have regard to local transport plans, rather than be under a duty to implement them.

• 16 Oct 2025 · English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill (Sixth sitting) · Hansard source

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  Mindful of your invitation to repeat my earlier remarks, Ms Vaz, I am none the less going to risk your displeasure by refraining from doing so.

• 16 Oct 2025 · English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill (Sixth sitting) · Hansard source

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  The current Mayor of London clearly has a mountain to climb, given the distance by which he has fallen behind his housing targets. We remain concerned that some issues are sometimes seen as easy pickings, such as the disposal of TfL surface car parks, where we have seen a series of unwelcome planning applications that have risked creating congestion in town centres across Greater London. However, we recognise that the purpose of the clause is more about the technicality of the consultation process, and therefore we will not oppose this provision. Question put and agreed to. Clause 26 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill. Clause 27 Key route network roads Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.

• 16 Oct 2025 · English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill (Sixth sitting) · Hansard source

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  I rise to ask some brief questions of the Minister, perhaps starting with the last point, about where there is a conflict. London is a good example. The Mayor’s total failure to achieve the housing targets set by central Government is creating a knock-on pressure at local authority level. We know that, in trying to unlock developments, the Government are currently engaged in discussion about significantly reducing the target for affordable housing. There is the potential for call-in powers to create a conflict with the housing duties of the local authority against its overarching objectives. I can think of places in or close to my constituency—a good example is Hendon circus, where 27 years ago I chaired a planning committee that granted consent. That is still a derelict site, despite multiple interventions with the Mayor of London, because it has basically been ping-ponging between developers. We need to make sure that this legislation has rigour and will actually deliver. Will the Minister provide some assurance that an effective mechanism will be in place? It is all very well talking about mayoral powers to direct planning authorities, but we often see a mayoral failure to progress developments, to the frustration of a planning authority. How will we ensure that there is that rigour, so the homes for which planning consents are granted actually get built?

• 16 Oct 2025 · English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill (Sixth sitting) · Hansard source

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  I will speak to amendment 287. We understand the point that the Minister is making about a need to ensure that there is strategic oversight of what is going on. Our concern is that, as we have seen in London, where a version of this already exists, there is sometimes a conflict between what a mayor seeks to do and the views of a local authority—in particular, the elected mandate of that local authority. We have heard a lot of evidence and had a lot of lobbying as constituency Members of Parliament about issues such as the impact of floating bus stops on people who are partially sighted, and the conflict that the use of bus lanes can sometimes introduce with cyclists. Rather than a duty to implement whatever the mayor decides, there clearly needs to be a duty to “have regard to” it, so that those two things can operate constructively together. That is the thinking behind the amendment, which we intend to push to a vote in due course.

• 16 Oct 2025 · English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill (Sixth sitting) · Hansard source

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  We understand the logic of this. Could the Minister set out for the Committee where the liability will sit for issues arising from the maintenance, standards or provision of those roads under the clause?

• 16 Oct 2025 · English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill (Sixth sitting) · Hansard source

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  I am very sympathetic to what the hon. Lady has said. In my constituency, people come from as far afield as Sheffield for a day out at the Ruislip lido, the only beach in Greater London. It is a huge cause of trouble for local residents, and I am glad that we have a local authority that is using its existing powers and is implementing measures such as towaway zones and higher parking fines to begin to address that. She probably feels, as I do, that we do not see mayors who do not know the local area, but the specific purpose of our amendment 291 is to ensure that this is not an opportunity to raise funds for them at the expense of the ability of the local authority to use its powers in a specific area to deal with the traffic management issues for which it is responsible.

• 16 Oct 2025 · English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill (Sixth sitting) · Hansard source

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  We have some concerns about the real-world impact of the measures outlined in these amendments. We all recognise that there is a logic in bringing consistency to concessionary travel, but public transport is commonly not uniformly available across all parts of single existing and combined authority areas. If we think of the footprint of Greater London, there are places such as Harefield in my constituency and Orpington on the opposite side of London that are essentially rural villages that do not have access to trains and are not on the tube network. They are entirely reliant on buses and their transport connections are frequently outside the boundary of Greater London. The value to people who live in those places of the transport network for which they are paying is therefore significantly less than it is to people who live in the centre of the city. It certainly feels like this set of measures will benefit people in urban areas at the heart of some of these new combined authority areas, but leave people in areas on the fringes paying but not seeing much benefit in terms of access to transport. We know that in many rural parts of the country, access to bus services, for example, is infrequent. Such services are certainly not fit for purpose in terms of providing school transport and transport for medical appointments or similar purposes. I have a couple of questions for the Minister. One is around how existing settlements—whereby local authorities that will become constituent authorities are already, in effect, levied through the local government finance settlement to pay into a centrally co-ordinated concessionary travel scheme, which is what operates in London—will be managed. The London boroughs effectively forgo a part of their budget in return for free public transport being paid for children of school age. The Freedom Pass also operates for older people, alongside a variety of other concessions—for example, for people with disabilities. How will that be managed so that we do not see a situation where the mayor takes control of it but has no responsibility for that element of the financial impact, or indeed chooses to redeploy resources away from the things for which that resourcing was originally provided? Secondly, how will that issue be addressed in areas where this factor is newly established? When the end of that first financial year comes into effect, the constituent authorities, which may have a variety of schemes—for example, because one has a particular priority around access to apprenticeships and may have set up a concessionary travel arrangement to enable people to access that—might find themselves at risk of losing them because the combined authority does not have the same priority? It would be helpful to hear from the Minister how those arrangements, many of which are designed to take account of specific local circumstances, will be accounted for in the provisions.

• 16 Oct 2025 · English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill (Sixth sitting) · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Vaz. It seems to the Opposition that this schedule is weaker than it would have been had the amendments been accepted. I know that when we have debated other areas of local government legislation, the issue that comes up time and again is the frustration that our constituents feel when they are unable to get what sounds like a perfectly robust regulation enforced in practice—whether that is fly-tipping, antisocial parking or the point made by the hon. Member for Brighton Pavilion around delivery drivers, scooters and so on, which I know exercises many of my constituents. We remain concerned that this is a missed opportunity to give local authorities the most robust tools that would put beyond doubt what the test that had to be met was, and create the appropriate legal path for effective and rigorous enforcement locally. None the less, the schedule broadly represents a step forward. Therefore we will not oppose it.

• 16 Oct 2025 · English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill (Fifth sitting) · Hansard source

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  I entirely disagree with my hon. Friend—he has not been nearly vocal enough in expressing the level of his concern. The faults in new clause 19 are multiple. It would compel mayors, in a Bill that is supposed to be about devolution. Having spent a part of my life engaged with deliberative democracy and citizens assemblies, I agree with my hon. Friend. While I am sure they were an uplifting experience for all concerned, they achieved absolutely nothing. They wasted a huge amount of taxpayers’ money. If we reflect on the previous Labour Government’s Local Agenda 21, all the money was spent on meetings to discuss what to do about climate change, and there was nothing available to implement any of it. On Building Schools for the Future, years were spent on consultations and project planning, with not one brick laid and not one school roof repaired as a consequence. We have seen lots of examples where these kinds of processes have led citizens up the garden path. The point about trust and consent is an important one. I reflect on my own party’s experience in government during the pandemic of low-traffic neighbourhoods. A vocal minority argued for them, but did not remotely gain the trust and consent of the affected residents. That sparked a backlash, which has led to their removal, at great expense to the taxpayer, in order to enable people to go about their daily lives. Our experience with these processes is quite negative. If a mayor wishes to implement such a process, in particular on a specific policy area, they should be free to do so, but they should not be compelled. I suspect we and the Government will find common cause on that. The hon. Member for Banbury made reference to talking shops. We do not like talking shops in the Conservative party. I am sure he will find one quite easily if he wishes to continue his proposed debate about capital punishment and the death penalty—I am sure there are many people who would like to discuss that. It is really important that mayors are focused on the things that they can do on behalf of their constituents. We should not set up authorities that are there to talk; they should be there to do things on behalf of their constituents.

• 16 Oct 2025 · English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill (Fifth sitting) · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend is absolutely right to spotlight what is at the heart of the matter. The learning from the pilot schemes is that they are widely engaged with and used, and I know Members of this House who use micromobility hire as part of their commuting near the Palace of Westminster. Such schemes potentially form a responsible and useful part of our transport system, but we need to ensure that the issues that persist in undermining them are addressed. I will listen closely to what the Minister has to say about how the Government propose to deal with the issues. Ordered, That the debate be now adjourned. — (Deirdre Costigan.)

• 16 Oct 2025 · English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill (Fifth sitting) · Hansard source

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  The purpose of amendments 297 and 298 is to forestall the possibility—with reference to the Minister’s earlier comments—that, when in response to a request to collaborate or engage with an issue an organisation legitimately says it is not prepared to do so, that is followed by multiple repeated requests, which would create a situation in which there was a foreseeable conflict that should be avoided. That is the purpose of the amendments, which sit together. We will see what the Minister has to say about how that particular risk will be managed.

• 16 Oct 2025 · English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill (Fifth sitting) · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Mr Stuart, and to resume consideration of the Bill. The Opposition are proud that the general power of competence was introduced when we were in government during the coalition years. It was something that I, as a serving local authority councillor at the time, lobbied hard for. The then Secretary of State, now Lord Pickles, was very receptive to the view that local authorities should have a greater remit, rather than being constrained to do those things that they were specifically permitted to do by law. I have a question of clarification for the Minister. She said that the general power of competence could be exercised for economic purposes. Will the authorities have the full general power of competence, or will the power be constrained to a specific set of mayoral functions? Constraining it would not be entirely consistent with what was said in previous proceedings about the use of precepts.

• 16 Oct 2025 · English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill (Fifth sitting) · Hansard source

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  I beg to move amendment 300, in schedule 5, page 128, line 11, at end insert— “(3) The regulations must include a requirement for the license holder to maintain sufficient docking space for the micromobility vehicles for which they hold a license. (4) The regulations must include requirements for license holders which would require them to ensure that the micromobility vehicles for which they hold a license do not obstruct any highway, cycling path, footpath, bridlepath, or subway. (5) The regulations must stipulate that failure of license holders to comply with subsections (3) and (4) will warrant a loss of license.” This amendment would require that regulations ensure that license holders for micromobility vehicles are responsible for maintaining sufficient docking space for their vehicle and ensuring their vehicle does not obstruct any highways or public paths, or else lose their license. From the interactions so far on the subject, I feel as if there is a high degree of consensus on this point. The purpose of the amendment is to ensure that any regulations under the Bill will answer some of the questions that many of our constituents have been asking about such micromobility schemes. A number of Members present have a particular interest in this topic and a series of pilot schemes across the country on the hire and use of micromobility were broadly modelled on some of the previous schemes that were introduced to improve access to bicycles. They have met with mixed reviews. The key thing that comes up repeatedly is the number of micromobility vehicles that are left to cause obstruction to people who have disabilities, parents who have pushchairs, people who have vision difficulties or are partially sighted, and those who are undertaking duties such as repairs, maintenance and cleaning. They all can find such vehicles a significant problem if not properly managed. The purpose of the amendment—I particularly draw attention to proposed new subsection (5)—is to be clear that if the provider of the scheme fails to manage its vehicles properly, the licence may be removed. I am open to what the Minister has to say about how such a provision could be enshrined.

• 16 Oct 2025 · English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill (Fifth sitting) · Hansard source

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  I beg to move amendment 297, in clause 22, page 26, line 22, at end insert— “(3A) If a collaboration request is denied by mayor B, the request may not be appealed or reissued for the same purposes.” This amendment would prevent a collaboration request which has been denied by mayor B from being appealed or reissued.

• 16 Oct 2025 · English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill (Fifth sitting) · Hansard source

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  May I ask the Minister to clarify something? Some 70% of workers in this country are in an enterprise with fewer than five employees in total. Where is their voice at the table? Why is it only the unions representing large-scale organised labour that are compelled in legislation to be at the table when the mayor makes decisions?

• 16 Oct 2025 · English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill (Fifth sitting) · Hansard source

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  The Opposition are not entirely persuaded of the argument for this amendment, although the point is well made. We will be listening attentively to what the Minister has to say. We are always very conscious that there is a risk with this legislation of creating conflicts. I know you have done a lot of work in the past in the field of education, Mr Stuart; we have seen that the well-intentioned education policy of school autonomy can come into conflict with the statutory duties placed on a local authority. We need to ensure that is resolved. As we heard from the hon. Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole, education is a good example of where conflict can crop up—for example, a university technical college is part of the skills economy, but is also, for the purposes of the Bill, a school. There is a need to ensure that all those statutory duties are squared off. Although we are not persuaded of the need for the amendment, we would like to hear what the Minister has to say so that we can be confident that those points have been fully taken into account.

• 16 Oct 2025 · English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill (Fifth sitting) · Hansard source

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  I beg to move amendment 296, in clause 22, page 25, line 29, at end insert— “(7A) The guidance issued by the Secretary of State under section 7 may not include a role for trade unions.” This amendment would prevent the Secretary of State from creating a role of trade unions in the execution of mayors’ duty to collaborate. I shall speak briefly about the motivation for tabling the amendment. A concern that has run through the Opposition’s responses to a number of the Government’s measures, especially in the space of economic development, is that the Government have chosen not to enshrine the roles of businesses, entrepreneurs or local employers, but always to give a statutory privilege to trade unions to be part of discussions. Although it is wise for any local leader to include the broadest possible range of stakeholders, singling out one, which serves the interests of only one group—sometimes at the expense of others—is simply not a process that any democracy should envisage. We tabled the amendment to ensure that that is not the case in the Bill, and we will press it to a vote. We are clear that, following a change of Government, this is one provision that we would seek to repeal very rapidly.

• 16 Oct 2025 · English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill (Fifth sitting) · Hansard source

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  Following discussion with colleagues, we remain concerned about this, but we made the point in earlier debates and there has already been a vote on a similar issue. I therefore beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn. Clause 22 ordered to stand part of the Bill. Clause 23 Regulation of provision of micromobility vehicles Question proposed , That the clause stand part of the Bill.

• 16 Oct 2025 · English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill (Fifth sitting) · Hansard source

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  I spent many years chairing employers’ organisations, negotiating with trade unions about all kinds of matters. I have a very high degree of respect for them in the space in which they have expertise, but I do not really understand the Government’s rationale for arguing for a model in which one specific group—perhaps coincidentally, a very large-scale Labour funding group—is given a privileged place at the table when decisions are made about political matters for which the mayor is elected. That place at the table is not protected in statute for anybody else affected by it. That seems to me to border on abuse of the political process. It is very serious to be putting trade unions in a position to make decisions on matters that are not remotely within their area of competence and for which they have no mandate whatever. It is simply unacceptable.

• 16 Oct 2025 · English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill (Fifth sitting) · Hansard source

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  We have concerns about these measures; I will briefly explain why. As we have seen in the passage of the Bill so far, much of what is proposed for mayors will cut across different Government Departments. It could have financial and legal implications for constituent authorities, and there is plenty of scope for disputes to arise, not least where there might be different political control across different authorities. Our concern is that if we go down the route of using the negative procedure, there is a risk that the awareness of the issues in government will not be triggered and that what we will, in fact, be doing is setting up the authorities to fail by not having the appropriate procedures for getting the issues resolved at the first point where they arise, rather than waiting until they are the subject of disputes in the courts. So we are not content that this is the best way to address the issue.