Mike Reader MP: speeches

Speeches

• 28 Oct 2025 · English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill (Twelfth sitting) · Hansard source

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  The Leader of the Opposition, the right hon. Member for North West Essex, said at the Conservative party conference that she wanted to cut regulation on building, but she was silent on the Government’s consultation on speeding up building. Is this a change of policy? Are the Conservatives now supporting the Government on build-out programmes? Can we look forward to the hon. Gentleman joining us in the Lobby when the proposal comes forward?

• 28 Oct 2025 · English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill (Eleventh sitting) · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to speak about this issue. I thank the Minister, who has been gracious in giving me a lot of time to discuss upward-only rent reviews. I hope to use a couple of minutes to clarify a couple of points in the Minister’s statement that I do not think completely reflect the evidence that we have heard and, perhaps, the current position of the Bill. I say that in a constructive way, recognising that there is further opportunity to improve the Bill and make sure it delivers what we promised in the White Paper. As the Minister herself says, we have to protect high streets and small businesses, which can often be caught in really challenging upward-only rent reviews. She is completely right that the impact was seen particularly during the covid era. I will talk about international evidence first and then come back to how we can improve; I recognise that the amendments start to go that way. The Minister mentioned Ireland in particular, which is often cited as one of the great examples of action on upward-only rent reviews; industry there was concerned that sectors would collapse, but actually there was a relatively minimal impact. I am sure that the Minister’s civil servants will argue that that is a great example of why the worries of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, the British Property Federation, the UK Warehousing Association and agents such as Colliers, which have all written to me in the past week or two to share their concerns, are perhaps unfounded. The scheme in Ireland was specifically brought in with collars and a floor, which meant that there was protection—that was at the point of introduction rather than through secondary legislation, which I think is important. It was introduced in a very different market with very different interest rates, corporation tax and other factors that drive corporate rents. The challenge with the way the legislation is written at the moment is that it has unintended—

• 23 Oct 2025 · Building Safety Regulator · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Desmond. I thank the Backbench Business Committee for granting the debate, and I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes North (Chris Curtis) for doing tireless work to co-ordinate it on behalf of us both. I thank his team as well. I want to start by echoing my hon. Friend’s comments on the disaster that was Grenfell. Waking up on my birthday, 14 June, to see the disaster unfolding in front of my eyes is something that will stick with me for the rest of my life; I am reminded every single time I celebrate a birthday. As we move away from the disaster, I am always very much reminded of the impact not only on the families who lost loved ones, but on the hundreds of other families and the community that was devastated by Grenfell. To complement what my hon. Friend said, I have heard from the industry that the principles on how the Building Safety Regulator should work are very sound. We should work in a way that puts safety up front. There is a golden thread of data. When I joined the industry 20 years ago, one of my jobs as a graduate was to go and hunt O&M—operation and maintenance—manuals to find out exactly what had been built on site and how on earth we could improve it. There is a thread of information so that we can make decisions in relation to maintenance and operation, and there are very clear duty-holder liabilities and requirements, which were missing at Grenfell and in the industry. In practice, we are seeing poor performance, which is why this debate was called. We see a regulator that is risk-averse and adversarial and that has an outdated approach, despite being a very new regulator. It prevents the delivery of safe, affordable homes, which is critical given the housing crisis and the homelessness crisis we inherited from the Conservative party. I am perhaps a glutton for punishment. I give up my time as a Back Bencher to go to quite a number of breakfast events, dinner events and roundtables to talk about the sector that I am passionate about—the construction and built environment sector—as someone who built a 20-year career working in that great industry. It used to be about growth and change, when Opposition Members were in power as Ministers, but now the Building Safety Regulator comes up time and again as a real industry frustration. The BSR is widely regarded as actively hindering the construction of new homes—as a key blocker of the Government delivering 1.5 million homes. As my hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes North said, 22,000 homes are awaiting approval for remediation and 33,000 new homes are waiting for approval. Sometimes, it is not even homes that are stuck in this process. A small to medium-sized contractor from Northampton, Briggs and Forrester, spoke to me about doing the Guildhall in the centre of London. One might not think that that scheme would be caught up, but there are two grace and favour flats in the Guildhall, so the whole thing got stuck in the BSR and was delayed by over six months—all they were doing was replacing chillers on the roof and some mechanical and electrical equipment. Had those two flats not been there, the scheme would have been rushed through and we would have seen one of the great feats of engineering in our city renewed and improved. I am hearing some worrying things, which I have raised with the Minister, about a trend in London for developers to seek to develop hotels that, once built, are flipped into long-term rents, avoiding the BSR. There is now a grey market of people finding ways of avoiding going through the BSR, including by building alleged hotels that then become rental accommodation under long-term leases. I do not want my contribution to be only negative. I welcome the reforms, and particularly today’s announcements: the recruitment drive, the new BSR innovation unit and the new leadership, which I think will make a big difference. However, I have to ask the Minister why the industry does not feel like it is seeing the benefits. Is it because that is not enough, or because the Government have been poor at communicating what we are doing to fix this mess? I encourage the Minister to do more to talk about the things that we are changing, because we also need to change the industry culture of talking ourselves down and talking only about the issues that we face. I started my career 20 years ago in the construction sector as a civil engineer. I am fortunate to chair the all-party parliamentary groups for excellence in the built environment and on infrastructure and to be Labour’s construction champion. On Monday, I put out a LinkedIn post saying that my hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes North had secured this debate and that we would like views from industry. Generally, people have welcomed what has happened. There are lots of different proposals for how we could fix this: improving the way that fast-track lanes work; a ratings system for developers; digitising the process; competitive pay, as my hon. Friend said; and even a pre-application process so that developers can engage early to address the issues, as we do in the planning process. I encourage the BSR to consider private sector partnerships to build capacity, because I do not believe that we can recruit quickly enough to deal with the problem. From what I have heard, the fundamental thing that makes a difference to delivery—whether it is in projects or something like the BSR—is culture. We have heard about a “computer says no” approach and a binary blame culture. The BSR does not believe that developers are trying to do the right thing and is bureaucratic and combative. I have heard that 70% of submissions are returned to developers on their first submission. The majority of those returns are not because of safety concerns, but because of documentation errors. That is not what we want the regulator to do. We want it to focus on safety, not ticking boxes. The regulator should be a problem solver, it should be collaborative, and it should help us to deliver brilliant, affordable, safe homes. When I joined the industry 20 years ago, people talked about Latham and Egan, and about trust, teamwork and collaboration being central to how we deliver things in the sector. Twenty-five years later, that should still be the case. The Construction Leadership Council, co-chaired by my former boss Mark Reynolds of Mace, has done some brilliant work on that, for which I commend it thoroughly. I end by encouraging the Minister to challenge her officials on the culture that they are creating. It has to be a culture that says, “Yes, let’s do it together,” rather than, “No, come back and try again.” I have a number of questions for the Minister. The BSR has said that it will clear the backlog by 26 January. Does she feel confident that it can achieve that? The Construction Leadership Council co-chair said in front of a Committee that he believes it will be able to get down to a five-week approval process. How achievable is that? Can the Minister commit to making sure that there are more proactive communications on the issue from her Department so that we can start to deal with the negative sentiment in the market, encourage investors to invest in high-rise and mid-rise schemes, and start building the homes that we need in urban areas? Can the Minister challenge her officials to make sure they are ready for gateway 3? About three weeks ago, I attended a breakfast where the director of one of the UK’s biggest commercial firms told a room of 50 people, to some quite shocked faces, that she had been considering having a year in their programme to deal with gateway 3 beyond gateway 2, as we see projects now come through. That is a real risk, because we will have buildings finished, but the capital that is tied up in them will not be able to be released through sale or rental. It could really collapse the market. Finally, there is a suggestion that the new construction regulator could envelop the Building Safety Regulator within its remit. That will need primary legislation. It may well come through in the next couple of years, but knowing now how long things take to get through Parliament, we could be waiting until 2028 or 2029. Can the Minister assure us that if the scope expands and we see a construction regulator whose remit includes construction products and other things, we will not lose the focus on building safety and getting that process going? I have one more ask of the Minister. As the chair of the all-party parliamentary group for excellence in the built environment, our next inquiry will be into the Building Safety Regulator, so I hope that she will help us with evidence and support us in engaging with industry and helping the Government to fix the problem.

• 23 Oct 2025 · English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill (Ninth sitting) · Hansard source

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  I have some evidence on this point: under reorganisation, we actually lost Labour councillors. As the council came together, there were more Conservatives post reorganisation than before, so I am not sure about the hon. Gentleman’s evidence base for his suggestion that this is gerrymandering by the Labour party.

• 23 Oct 2025 · English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill (Ninth sitting) · Hansard source

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  There has been a lot of conjecture about what could happen. I am from an area that has a unitary, because the Conservatives bankrupted the county council. Has the hon. Gentleman spoken to people who have unitaries in order to fix some of his ideas in some sort of foundation? It is great to hear people’s ideas, but let us ground them in reality.

• 21 Oct 2025 · English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill (Eighth sitting) · Hansard source

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  Is there evidence that existing mayors—such as the Mayor of Cambridgeshire and Peterborough or the Mayor of North Tyneside—are not considering rural communities in their work, which would suggest that we need the amendments?

• 21 Oct 2025 · English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill (Seventh sitting) · Hansard source

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  A big reason we have a problem with housing numbers is the Building Safety Regulator. There will be a Back-Bench debate on it on Thursday, which I am sure the Minister will attend in order to give the Opposition’s views. It is critical that we get that sorted to get house building going.

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

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  I am a Labour party member, so I love a meeting that is a talking shop—anyone who has ever been to a constituency Labour party meeting will know exactly what my experience has been. The idea behind a citizens assembly is really positive—empowering people—but I see a couple of challenges. First, on the Energy Security and Net Zero Committee we looked at how we get community empowerment, and we could not find a single piece of evidence that said that standing citizens assemblies actually make a difference. They become a talking shop. Could the hon. Member give us an example of where a citizens assembly has successfully happened? That would give some precedence and make it more than just a great idea.

• 14 Oct 2025 · English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill (Third sitting) · Hansard source

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  I would just point out—I will say this multiple times in this Bill Committee—that, as someone in an area that has become unitary, no one is ever saying, “We want more district, borough and county councils, rather than fewer.” We have to be careful not to suggest that there will be less engagement with the council because we are going to unitaries. Could the hon. Lady set out what legal change to parish councils she is concerned about? What powers are they losing? I cannot see any change in a parish councils’ powers under the Bill.

• 14 Oct 2025 · English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill (Third sitting) · Hansard source

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  I declare that I am Hampshire born and bred, being from Romsey. I just ask: why are we so disrespectful of a place like Brownsea island? If it is called “Hampshire and the Isle of Wight”, what about the great Brownsea island, the home of our native red squirrels? Surely “Solent” is more inclusive for all the other islanders who live in the area beyond the Isle of Wight.

• 16 Sept 2025 · English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill (First sitting) · Hansard source

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  Q There are floors in Ireland, I think. I just want to ask quickly about planning, because there are new requirements for strategic authorities to set strategic plans and so on. Is the Bill clear enough to make sure that representative planning, representative surveys and so on are used, so that those plans represent the majority and not just the loudest voices? Catriona Riddell: In the engagement process, that will be another role for the strategic authorities. We have seen increasing use of tools such as citizens’ assemblies. If I were helping to set up a strategic authority, I would say that every strategic authority should have its own fully representative citizens’ assembly, not just for planning but to test out its policy and approach. We have oodles of experience in how to engage. I have been involved in structure plans and regional spatial strategies. It is difficult to engage on high-level frameworks. That will be one of the challenges, because there are no site allocations in the frameworks, but there will be specific growth areas. The frameworks will have to provide the spatial articulation of the local growth plans, which is another of the challenges. They will have to set out where the economic priorities should be, and how they should be addressed in those areas. It is quite difficult to engage local communities on those matters. Stakeholders will get engaged but engagement is going to be really important in how these plans are tested. Advice from citizen panels and things like that are really good methods because they get to build up more knowledge so that they are not starting green every time. You could use them from the start of the process, all the way through, and they are far more representative than the usual engagement: the consultation responses that we get through the planning process. Ion Fletcher: Some really interesting stuff is going on with digital citizen engagement tools. At a strategic authority level, Liverpool City Region combined authority used Commonplace, a digital engagement platform. It helped the authority reach a far broader and more diverse audience than might otherwise have been the case. Catriona Riddell: What Liverpool did is probably the right thing. “Spatial development strategies” is a very technical term. It is not an attractive proposition for local communities, so the combined authority went out and talked about place: how places are going to change and grow, and what the priorities are around climate and health—health was a big aspect of the authority’s emerging spatial development strategy. We need to change the conversation so that it is not technical.

• 16 Sept 2025 · English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill (First sitting) · Hansard source

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  Q Can I pick up on upward-only rent reviews? I recognise the points you made about consultation. The intention is primarily to focus on high streets. Do you think, with the way the legislation is written currently, it is focused on that narrow area, or is it broader? Could we see unintended consequences in things like—this is important to my constituency—logistics and advanced manufacturing? Ion Fletcher: That is a really good question. Yes, as currently drafted, the Bill applies to all commercial tenancies, regardless of whether they are on the high street or in an industrial park, a data centre or a laboratory. Upward-only rent reviews have definitely been highlighted as an issue among high street small businesses and in the hospitality sector, and I have a lot of sympathy for businesses that have been on high streets and going through a lot of change and turbulence over the last decade or so. At the same time, they have not really been raised as an issue by occupiers in logistics parks or in office buildings. I guess the main reason is that property costs are a far smaller proportion of their total cost base than for retailers and hospitality businesses. Larger businesses also tend to be well advised and are aware of the trade-offs that come with upward-only rent reviews. They can allow property owners to give a longer rent-free period, for example, or a bigger contribution to fit-out costs. There is definitely merit in thinking about how the Bill might be more closely targeted at those areas where there is perceived to be more of an issue.

• 16 Sept 2025 · English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill (First sitting) · Hansard source

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  Q As the Minister rightly said, we need to look at international comparators. These provisions were introduced in Ireland in 2010, and although there were very similar worries about an impact on the investment market, there has actually been very little impact. What do you think we can learn from how they are implemented in Ireland? Could the Bill be improved by adopting those learnings? Ion Fletcher: Apart from the targeting point, it is interesting to think ahead to what is likely to change about the way commercial leases are structured. What is quite common in other jurisdictions is that they are more closely linked to an index like inflation or construction costs, or they are stepped, so there are pre-agreed rents up front. I think that is what we are likely to see. We also need to be mindful of the use of caps and collars. It is quite common in other countries, and even in the UK for some types of longer leases, for the rent to be tied to a particular inflation index that has a cap on it, so if inflation goes above 4%, the rent will not increase by more than that. Similarly, with a collar, if deflation were to happen, the rent would not fall into negative territory. I think there is huge value in having that sort of approach. It is fair to the occupier, who gets a cap on inflation-linked increases, and fair to the property owner, who gets a floor if inflation goes negative.

• 16 Sept 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  T5. I have to raise a harrowing case from my constituency. An 84-year-old mother and grandmother reported being sexually assaulted in her care home by one of the workers. When this was reported, it was found that that care worker was already being investigated for a number of similar assaults. The family have waited over a year already to get into court, and they have now been told they will have to wait until 2026. Will the Minister meet me to review this case? Importantly, the family also ask, can we look at how we learn from this, to improve the system for other families?

• 16 Sept 2025 · English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill (Second sitting) · Hansard source

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  Q I will be very brief. The first programme has been in areas that were chosen on political consensus. There is a backstop in the Bill so that eventually the Government can form combined mayoral authorities. Do you think that the Bill should be more open to the Government forcing or pushing mayoral authorities where it is in the interest of the region or area? For example, in Northamptonshire, part of the Ox-Cam corridor, we have a south midlands devolution deal that fell apart because of political bickering. Should the Government step in when politics fails local people? Tracy Brabin: I am the Mayor of West Yorkshire because there was not a one Yorkshire, so I would say that it is for local people to decide. Donna Jones: The Government have made a commitment to have all of England in a devolved deal by 2029. If the Government want to deliver on that mandate, which they ran on in the general election, I think that they have no choice but to intervene. Ben Houchen: I think we are now at a stage where Government need to force it.

• 16 Sept 2025 · English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill (Second sitting) · Hansard source

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  Q I have already raised my points about the south midlands and particularly about devolution where it is in the interest of the country. Can we also have a conversation during this process about micromobility? We have Starship operating in Northampton. Robotics and automated delivery are not included in the provisions, but it would be great to see measures about them coming forward so that we can see growth in that area.

• 16 Sept 2025 · English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill (Second sitting) · Hansard source

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  Q In your evidence, you noted that the Bill does not go far enough to address tackling climate change, restoring nature and tackling health inequalities. We heard the same from the Healthy Air Coalition. Naturally, it says that air quality needs to be picked up. UK100 also picked up that the Bill is quite silent on this. Would it be positive of the Government to be clearer on the requirements for strategic authorities on the climate and environment, to stop it becoming a political football for climate deniers and others who want to use it for political gain? Richard Hebditch: Can we just say yes? Naomi Luhde-Thompson: You need duties, because then it provides a framework. All those parts of the green economy have had no stability over the last few years because they have not known which way the policy has been going. If you provide stability in terms of a framework—“This is the direction of travel: we have to mitigate and we have to adapt”—and it is stable and long-term, then you know in which direction you are going.

• 15 Sept 2025 · Channel Crossings · Hansard source

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  Immigration is still a big issue for my constituents—they email about it and it comes up when I am in the pub—but people’s frustration is turning to direct action, and Northampton is now filled with flags. Does the Home Secretary agree that flags are a symbol of our pride in our country, and they should not be hijacked by plastic patriots and those who do not work in our country’s interest?

• 2 Sept 2025 · English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill · Hansard source

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  They may well come to London. Meanwhile, in the Ox-Cam corridor and the south midlands region, we are struggling for a single voice that is speaking out for our area. That is what devolution will deliver for us. Devolution also saves costs. I am sure that all Members have read the detailed analysis in the Library briefings, but PwC also estimates that it will save between £500 million and £700 million a year for taxpayers. It would be absolutely bananas to vote against something that would reduce people’s tax bills. There are some great local benefits for Northampton. I will not talk about devolution, because the Minister knows my strong views on the issues that I face. One that I will not let slip through here is e-scooter licensing. We have had a long-running e-scooter trial in Northampton. Every single month, people complain to me about scooter-litter. It is important that local authorities be able to better control those licensing agreements and hold the scooter companies to account for ensuring that scooters are in the right place.

• 2 Sept 2025 · English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill · Hansard source

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  I cannot understand how anyone could speak against the Bill. It presents a real opportunity to do something different in our local communities. Northampton has been under a unitary system for five years now, after the Conservatives bankrupted our county council, and no one there has ever said to me, “I wish we had more councils and councillors.” People want simplicity, and that is what the Bill delivers. The Bill also delivers accountability. My hon. Friend the Member for North Somerset (Sadik Al-Hassan) talked about the personal accountability of councillors. In my area, the former Conservative leader had to stand down because of domestic abuse charges, and a former Conservative cabinet member is in court on abuse charges alongside men who are charged with abusing children, so I would say that more accountability for our local councillors and politicians is very important. The Bill drives growth. I speak to investors who want to come to the Oxford-Cambridge growth corridor. They have heard the Chancellor talking about the opportunities in our region and think, “There is no single voice that I can speak to, but I can go to West Yorkshire, South Yorkshire or anywhere else around the country with a big mayoral authority and find someone who is championing growth.”

• 2 Sept 2025 · English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill · Hansard source

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  I could not agree more. I cannot imagine how anyone can deal with the myriad companies working across London. Having just one in Northampton is challenge enough—although it is a good company. Local ownership is central to the Bill, and community right to buy will be fantastic. People have talked about pubs, but a number of different community organisations that have come to see me in the past year—the Nigerian Community Association, the Albanian Cultural Association and our local Ukrainian school—are looking to take derelict local properties and turn them into great community hubs. The Bill would give them more powers to take on those community assets and create great places in Northampton. The Bill protects small businesses. For retail businesses on Wellingborough Road, Kettering Road in the town centre or one of the shopping parades, the removal of upward-only rent reviews will mean that shop owners have more security and protection under this Government. Overall, I am very excited about moving power out of Whitehall and into local communities. Honestly, having listened to the debate for a good three hours, I cannot understand how anyone could possibly vote against the measures.

• 15 Jul 2025 · Industrial Electricity Prices · Hansard source

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  Last week, the Energy Security and Net Zero Committee heard from Make UK and representatives from the chemical, petrochemical, steel and ceramics industries that closer alignment and collaboration with the EU on energy pricing is critical to reducing bills. That is also recognised in the Government’s industrial strategy. What more is the Department doing to bring that forward quickly?

• 10 Jul 2025 · Electricity Market Review · Hansard source

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  As a member of the Select Committee, I enjoy that I can give a wry smile every single week when academics, non-governmental organisations, consumer groups and industry say they had so much delay and faffing from the Conservative party and now we are getting on and delivering. On zonal pricing, it is fantastic to see that we are giving some certainty to the market, and I thank the Secretary of State in particular for setting out that we are going to start tackling excessive transmission charges. In Northamptonshire, Green Hill Solar is bringing forward a massive opportunity for clean power right on my doorstep. Does the Secretary of State agree that that type of investment, and the certainty that the statement brings, will create quality technical jobs locally in Northampton and reduce people’s energy bills?

• 10 Jul 2025 · Energy Planning · Hansard source

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  I thank the Chair of the Select Committee for leading us through the report. It is right that sometimes Select Committees pose more of a challenge to Government. In this case, I think it is right to call out that, while the Department is doing great things and working at pace, we need to ensure that everything is joined up and co-ordinated. The national policy statements, the land-use framework, the new SSEP, strategies and plans need to be joined up to ensure that nature-positive and nature-based solutions and environmental protections are also joined up. Does the Chair agree with me that the Department needs to worker harder to ensure that, while we deliver at pace, everything gives one coherent message to the market?

• 10 Jul 2025 · Business of the House · Hansard source

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  East Hunsbury primary school in my constituency has been named the kindest school in Britain. Will the Leader of the House join me in commending the school, Kelly Roberts the mental health lead, and, in particular, all the students who put themselves forward to be kindness ambassadors? Does she agree that in our acts in this place, online and in the press, we could all be a bit more like East Hunsbury primary school and always act with kindness?