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12,832 spoken contributions under 12 words (interjections such as “Will the hon. Member give way?”) are hidden. Show them

1. 27 Oct 2026·Parliament·Labour·Dame Meg Hillier

   Building Safety (Remediation of Unsafe Cladding etc) Bill

   The hon. Gentleman and I have common cause in this respect, and I rely on the expertise of my constituents in this matter. The PAS 9980 approach was not reassuring for insurers. There was a big problem with insurance anyway, but PAS 9980 does not solve it, because it does not give insurers the certainty they need to do the risk assessment. I am not here as an apologist for the insurance industry—in fact, there are many issues that we will be taking up with that industry—but this approach is not the answer. Given his level of deep expertise in this matter before he came to the place, what would the hon. Gentleman propose instead? Is there an amendment to the Bill that he and the Government could coalesce around and reach agreement on?

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2. 27 Oct 2026·Parliament·Labour·Dame Diana Johnson

   Covid-19 Inquiry Module 4 Report: Government Response

   It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship this afternoon, Mr Stuart, as you are my constituency neighbour in East Yorkshire. I thank the hon. Member for Christchurch (Sir Christopher Chope) for securing this debate, and I pay tribute to him for his work on the APPG on pandemic response and recovery and all his campaigning work over so many years. It was interesting that he referenced his first speech on this topic in 2021—persistence is certainly one of his qualities. I am always willing to meet hon. and right hon. Members. This has been a very good debate on an important topic. My hon. Friend the Member for Worthing West (Dr Cooper), who speaks with great authority as a public health consultant, set out some of the good work that happened during the pandemic as well as the international perspective that we need to be mindful of. The right hon. and learned Member for Kenilworth and Southam (Sir Jeremy Wright) is a doughty campaigner on behalf of his constituent Kate Scott. He made an eloquent speech—as he always does—and I agree with him about the issue of timeliness. My hon. Friend the Member for Blackley and Middleton South (Graham Stringer) took us back to some of the key decisions that were made during the pandemic. The hon. Member for Great Yarmouth (Rupert Lowe), who delivered a speech that I sadly felt was anti-vaccination, did not recognise the public health benefits of vaccinations. The hon. Member for Bromsgrove (Bradley Thomas) spoke very movingly about John Cross and his family, as well as the fight that they had and the need for reform of the vaccine damage payment scheme. I will meet the right hon. Member for Tatton (Esther McVey) as soon as possible, as well as the family she spoke of. During the pandemic, Members on my side of the House did our best to offer constructive opposition to the previous Government, and this Government are committed to learning every lesson from the covid inquiry. We are extremely grateful to the noble Baroness Hallett and her team for the thoughtful and thorough advice they have offered us so far. At the end of next week, we will mark 80 years since the National Health Service Act 1946, which paved the way for the introduction of the NHS two years later, became law. That will be a chance for us to remember and pay tribute to all those who served the public with such courage and professionalism during the pandemic, not least our social care workers, whose contribution has been overlooked for too long. Turning to module 4, we are also grateful to the small army of researchers, clinicians and regulators who worked around the clock to ensure that vaccines were deployed at speed, having gone through the rigorous safeguards of a clinical trial. But while it recognised the success of the vaccine programme, the module 4 report also sets out a series of recommendations and areas for improvement. For example, future vaccination and therapeutics programmes must—of course—have people’s trust, be guided by the best available evidence and remain available to all who need them. The inquiry also notes that safety monitoring must continue to evolve, with improvements to health data infrastructure. The Government published our response to those recommendations earlier this month. We are taking action across the board to improve vaccination uptake, pandemic preparedness and the strength of UK life sciences, especially through our pandemic preparedness strategy. If the last pandemic taught us anything, it was that UK life sciences not only are vital for UK growth but play a central and strategic role in how we respond to health threats. We propose to establish an advisory group with our partners in industry, building resilience across our supply chains. Vaccination uptake is not where it needs to be, especially for children. That is why we need stronger engagement with communities, particularly those communities where uptake is lower than average. As the Minister for Public Health and Patient Safety, I am especially concerned by the re-emergence of measles and other diseases that we thought had been banished when I was a girl. I want to respond to my hon. Friend the Member for Worthing West on targets. We still have the World Health Organisation target of 95% coverage. I am determined to ensure that the protection that vaccines afford remains available to the many, not the few. I have also been clear that there must be strong collaboration across our United Kingdom, because diseases do not stop at Offa’s Dyke or Hadrian’s Wall. We are strengthening the way we monitor outbreaks, while improving access to linked healthcare data across all four nations. I now turn specifically to recommendation 5 of module 4 and the vaccine damage payment scheme. This is an important financial support for anyone who has become severely disabled following a vaccination. Fifty-three million people followed the example of Her late Majesty the Queen and took the jab to protect themselves, their loved ones and their communities. This country has a global reputation for an uncompromising approach to safety, and vaccines are authorised only once they have met robust standards of effectiveness, safety and quality. However, in rare and devastating circumstances, some people have gone through the nightmare of losing a loved one or suffered severe adverse outcomes following vaccination. Those people did as they were asked, in good faith, and through no fault of their own they have become disabled or worse. We can never turn a blind eye to the tragic instances in which things go wrong, and we must continue to be honest with the wider public that no vaccine is completely free of risk. This afternoon, I have listened very carefully to the concerns raised about the current scheme, the support available to those affected, the experiences of those who have made claims and the time that it has taken to respond to these concerns. People who experience severe outcomes deserve appropriate support. This is not just about the welfare of those families, important though that is. As the right hon. and learned Member for Kenilworth and Southam said, it is about public trust in our wider vaccine programme, because people must be confident, when stepping into the clinic, that the state will be there for them if things go wrong. The hon. Member for Christchurch asked me when we started to review the VDPS. I want to be very clear on this, because I know that previous Ministers have stood up and given answers on it. The Department has been considering options for reform and will now initiate a period of open engagement with those affected. We are going beyond the case for reform and turning now to the detail that must underpin any reforms. The hon. Member for Bromsgrove and a number of other Members have asked me whether the Government accept that the 60% disability threshold is too high and whether we will consider changing it. The Government understand the concerns raised about the 60% disability threshold by the inquiry. The inquiry’s recommendations will be central to our ongoing work as the Government consider a range of options for potential reform, including introducing multiple levels of payment. Last week, I met injured people and bereaved families. I understand their frustrations about how long this is taking when successive Governments have kicked the can down the road.

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3. 27 Oct 2026·Parliament·Labour·Dame Diana Johnson

   Covid-19 Inquiry Module 4 Report: Government Response

   Yes, I am happy to say that that is what I am thinking about because of the unfairness of that 60% barrier. I am certainly looking at that. It will be considered. I am not saying exactly what will be decided, but that is certainly an option that I have asked officials to look at. I note that the scheme has not been reformed since I was a member of the Labour Government in 2007. Of course the scheme must be made fit for the future; I think we can all agree on that. That is why Ministers will again meet with families of the injured and bereaved families before the end of the year. In the coming weeks, before Christmas, my officials will meet with advisers put forward by the families of the injured and bereaved families to listen to their views on possible options for reform of the vaccine damage payment scheme. From now until spring, officials will meet and engage with our key partners, including those injured and bereaved, to discuss the reforms. I look forward to updating colleagues in the spring.

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4. 27 Oct 2026·Parliament·Labour·Dame Diana Johnson

   Covid-19 Inquiry Module 4 Report: Government Response

   Yes, I am happy to meet with the right hon. Lady and to discuss all the points that she wishes to raise. Nearly everyone in our country remembers when they walked into their local clinic or pharmacy, or even into their church hall, school sports hall or village hall, to get their jab. We remember with pride how a country rallied together as part of a national effort to save lives. For most of us the vaccine was a welcome relief, offering additional freedoms and safety, but for some families it brought devastating loss and hardship. As the new Minister responsible for this policy I am committed to working closely with those families, who I met just last week, and I want progress made quickly. We will report any interim progress through the UK covid-19 inquiry implementation updates. The public have a right to know that we are learning from past mistakes and as the Minister for Public Health I will never take the public’s trust for granted. The Government’s response to module 4 will not be some exercise in box-ticking or window-dressing because we know that, when it comes to preparing for future public health emergencies, readiness is all and we need the trust of our communities.

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5. 27 Oct 2026·Parliament·Labour·Dame Chi Onwurah

   Topical Questions

   T5. While knocking on doors in Denton Burn in Newcastle on Saturday, a resident said to me that we see these terrible images of families putting children on to small boats and of floods, wars and droughts all around the world, but we never hear what Britain is doing to help people stay and flourish where they are. I thought, “Well, he’s right actually.” Could the Secretary of State tell us what is the most successful or effective thing that the Department is doing to reduce migratory pressures?

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6. 27 Oct 2026·Parliament·Labour·Chris Vince

   Electronic Monitoring of Offenders

   I speak regularly to victims of crime and their families in Harlow, and I find some of their stories absolutely heartbreaking. I feel really angry that there are men in our society who think it is okay to treat women in the way they do, and I am sure that people across the House feel the same way. One thing that victims and their families raise with me is their concern about how easy it is for perpetrators—these vile individuals—to take their tags off. What can the Minister say about the punishment that will be handed down to those individuals who tamper with their tags or try to take them off?

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7. 27 Oct 2026·Parliament·Labour·Chris Vince

   Building Safety (Remediation of Unsafe Cladding etc) Bill

   I thank the Secretary of State for opening the debate and, like many others, I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Kensington and Bayswater (Joe Powell) for his extremely powerful and important speech, and for all the work that he has done to support the Grenfell families who so deserve that support. He is a fantastic champion for them. I also welcome the Bill, and the fact that those responsible for unsafe residential buildings will be held legally accountable. History has shown that these matters cannot be left unmonitored. As you will know, Madam Deputy Speaker, I am forever honoured to stand in this place as the Member of Parliament for Harlow and the villages. To find myself listening to, for example, my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds South (Hilary Benn)—of whom I admit to being a bit of a fan—is a “pinch me” moment. I have to say, though, that above all that, the biggest honour I have experienced in this place was when I spoke for the first time in a debate about Grenfell, some two years ago. I mentioned an incredible constituent, Rod Wainwright, who was one of the first responders on the scene at Grenfell. As you may remember, Madam Deputy Speaker, he witnessed at first hand the absolute horror that was caused by the unsafe cladding that had been used. That unavoidable tragedy that took so many lives has had a lasting impact not only on the families whom I have mentioned, but on heroes like Rod. He is an incredible man, both personally and professionally. People like Rod should not be suffering the consequences of others’ failings, and the Bill is just one step towards ensuring that that does not happen again. I recently spoke to Rod, who, as I have mentioned previously, was medically retired owing to post-traumatic stress disorder. This is not an issue for the Ministers who are present today, but I hope that members of the Department for Work and Pensions team will listen. Every two years, Rod has to prove again that he has PTSD and that he should be medically retired. That has a massive impact on his mental health, and when I spoke to him I observed that impact at first hand. I do not think it right that heroes like Rod should have to go through this. He has to relive that terrible night every two years, again and again. It is very difficult for him, and it can be very difficult for his family. I welcome the Government’s wider remediation acceleration plan, and the measures to protect leaseholders from unexpected costs and eye-watering bills to fix building safety defects that they themselves did not cause. In Harlow, there have been many cases of leaseholders facing such bills, and for many years this cladding was not seen as a defect. Criminalising those who fail to remediate or mitigate such important elements is a huge step in the right direction. It is clear that that failure costs lives, and I am glad that this Government are recognising the seriousness of it. I am pleased that the Bill provides for financial penalties to ensure that people are legally obliged to provide truthful information—which, as we know, did not happen in the aftermath of Grenfell—and will face penalties if they do not. I also welcome the statutory duty to remediate multi-occupied residential buildings in England that are over 11 metres high or have at least five storeys. One of my constituents, Claire Miles, has talked about the tragic loss of her mother Daphne in a care home fire in April 2017 when building safety legislation applied only to buildings at least 30 metres high. Some consideration should be given to that during the Bill’s passage. While, as has been recognised, Harlow has great fire safety provision for high-rise buildings, earlier legislation has forgotten buildings such as care homes. Finally, I thank the Secretary of State, the Minister for Homelessness, Democracy, Communities and Faith and the entire MHCLG team for bringing forward this legislation and for their continued championing of building safety—something that I think we can all agree is incredibly important. Everybody deserves a home, as we discussed yesterday, but more than that, everyone deserves a safe home.

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8. 27 Oct 2026·Parliament·Labour·Chris Kane

   Cask Ale: Intangible Cultural Heritage

   It is great to hear my hon. Friend mention the titans of the brewing industry; I have enjoyed a few pints from his constituency in my lifetime. In my constituency, traditional brewing skills are being kept alive by small, independent businesses, often driven as much by a love of the product as commercial considerations. Brewers such as the Allanwater Brewhouse in Bridge of Allan, Sheep in Wolf’s Clothing Brewery in Dunblane and Brewing at the Fintry Inn all bring their own character and creativity to a local brewing tradition. I must also mention what went on in Alloa, my neighbouring constituency, over many years. Does my hon. Friend agree that preserving that cultural heritage is about protecting not just traditional skills, but the diversity, innovation and passion that smaller producers bring to the industry?

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9. 27 Oct 2026·Parliament·Labour·Chris Kane

   Council Housing

   I want to offer a Scottish perspective on the subject. In May 2024, the Scottish Parliament declared a national housing emergency. That was a significant admission, but declaring an emergency is not the same as resolving one. More than two years later, the figures make uncomfortable reading. Across Scotland, more than 10,000 children are living in temporary accommodation. That is the highest number on record. There are almost 35,000 open homelessness cases, which is also a record high. Last year, there were more than 21,000 recorded instances in which local authorities failed to offer temporary accommodation to households entitled to it, an increase of almost a third. Those figures come from the Scottish Government’s own statistics, a couple more of which came out just this morning. The “Housing Statistics for Scotland” report found that house building has fallen by 8% in the last year and we have more than 10,000 council houses sitting vacant, often as a result of lack of funds or people to bring them back into use. Housing is a constant feature of my constituency casework. We hear from families in overcrowded homes and people living in unsuitable accommodation. Most express a lack of confidence that they will ever find somewhere appropriate to live. As a former council leader, I know that providing good council housing takes more than ambition; it takes resources and power, something that this Labour Government are looking to devolve to local communities in England. However, in Scotland, the SNP is centralising rather than devolving powers. I have seen what can be achieved when these things come together because Stirling has been ranked first in the UK for roof-top solar installations relative to households. Our long-running programme of installing solar panels on council houses contributed significantly to that achievement. Successive council administrations invested in improving housing stock, helping tenants with energy costs and delivering environmental benefits. I also want to highlight the importance of housing to rural economies. Stirling council has recently allocated UK Government funding to new houses in Tyndrum at the northern end of my constituency. Local tourism businesses tell me they struggle to recruit staff because prospective employees cannot find affordable accommodation. If a hotel or restaurant cannot recruit because workers have nowhere to live, housing becomes an economic as well as a social issue. In small rural communities, even a handful of new, affordable homes can make an enormous difference, but much more needs to be done. I welcome the UK Government’s commitment to increasing council and social house building in England. We must share lessons from across the United Kingdom because devolution should never mean that we stop learning from one another. Ultimately, the test of housing policy is not how many targets we announce, strategies we publish or emergencies we declare, but how many families finally receive the keys to a safe, secure and affordable home. For far too many of my constituents, that day still feels too distant. To conclude with a bit of history, it pains me to admit that Scotland’s first pioneering council housing development was in Dundee, rather than in my constituency of Stirling and Strathallan, but I was fascinated to discover that, even before the Stirling houses were occupied in May 1920, the Commons was debating their affordability. In April 1920, Labour MP Alexander Wilkie questioned the Secretary of State for Scotland about rents that threatened to price out the very working people the homes were intended to help. More than a century later, we are still grappling with that same fundamental challenge of providing good homes that people can afford.

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10. 27 Oct 2026·Parliament·Labour·Chris Hinchliff

    Council Housing

    I beg to move, That this House has considered the delivery of council housing. It is an honour to serve with you in the Chair, Sir Jeremy. I must declare an interest as the chair of the all-party parliamentary group on council and social housing, for which Shelter expertly provides the secretariat. The APPG is currently undertaking an inquiry into barriers to council house building and the solutions required. Although I do not want to overly pre-empt our findings today, I do want to take the opportunity to invite the Minister to attend the launch of the report from that inquiry, and I invite hon. Members across the Chamber today to attend the evidence sessions we are currently holding, including that taking place shortly after this debate. Given the imminent Budget, I will not ask the Minister for lots of spending commitments today. Instead, I would be grateful if he could answer just one specific question: will he put a number on what is meant by “the biggest council house building programme” since the end of the post-war period? I think we would all be interested to know what precise target the Government are setting. I am keen to be optimistic and positive in my contribution today, so I will get the polemical bits out of the way first. There is, I am afraid, a nasty strain of ideology infecting political circles these days that seems to think of our fellow citizens as a lumpen mass of incorrigible misanthropes motivated only by mercenary selfishness and having no care for the good of their wider community when it comes to housing and development. That is certainly not my experience. It says more about the miserabilism of the so-called YIMBY—yes, in my backyard—movement than it does about those they accuse. There is no public support barrier to building high-quality homes in the towns and villages in my constituency. Indeed, people are crying out for it. When the public tell us they do not want this particular rubbish, the problem is the rubbish, not the public.

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11. 27 Oct 2026·Parliament·Labour·Chris Hinchliff

    Council Housing

    I completely agree. We have seen for many years that the market cannot solve this problem. In fact, it speaks to a rotten lack of ambition that the political response to children living in cramped, damp and overcrowded conditions has so often been to demand that we lower our expectations for the future, promising that the only way to get families out of temporary accommodation is to reduce insulation standards, concrete over the countryside and ignore risks such as flooding and the lack of infrastructure. Then, it might be more profitable for developers to cast their crumbs down to our communities. What a tragic irony that we are told that the only way to rescue families from low-quality emergency housing is by lowering the standards of the permanent homes we build instead. The problem was never that our standards were too high. It was the surrender to neoliberal capitalism and the lack of political will that accompanied its hollowing out of our state’s capacity to function that stopped the building of decent, affordable homes at scale. Secondly, it is worth paraphrasing Keynes early on in this debate by reiterating that claiming it does not pay to house the people of this country in affordable, high-quality housing is one of the most dismal notions ever advanced by modern economics. We have the technology and the capacity to house everyone safely, comfortably and in beautiful surroundings. If private capital says it is not profitable enough to do so, the problem is with the economic model, not with the hope for our nation’s future. Having dispensed with those points, before we get to the question of how, I want to dwell briefly on the possibilities of a future in which the Labour Government achieve their council housing goals. When we debate this subject, we often focus—and rightly so—on the immediate crisis and urgent need that council housing can alleviate, but the power of council housing to transform the future of our society does not end there.

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12. 27 Oct 2026·Parliament·Labour·Chris Hinchliff

    Council Housing

    I agree; my hon. Friend is absolutely right about the immediate need, which I will come to later. This is a slightly incongruous point, but I am sure that, like me, every hon. Member in the Chamber visits schools in their constituency often. When I see the potential in pupils such as those at Little Hadham primary school, where I was last, I cannot help but contemplate what future we are building for them. If it is one in which hundreds of thousands of council homes have been built in every community—and I do mean in our most rural villages as well as our greatest cities—for people of every background, including doctors, academics, farm workers, bus drivers, bin men and bar staff, then what our country will be able to offer them will be far greater than the prospects that adulthood currently holds.

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13. 27 Oct 2026·Parliament·Labour·Chris Hinchliff

    Council Housing

    Not at this point; I had better make progress. Housing is by far and away the most oppressive, anxiety-inducing and life-stunting part of the cost of living crisis in this country. The price of rent or a mortgage leaves millions struggling to make the bills add up at the end of the month, and millions more only just staying afloat, with little left over to experience life’s other possibilities. If we build enough council housing—to end the years wasted on waiting lists, to ensure that every child has somewhere safe to learn and play and make that a normal part of life again, and to provide an anchor on housing costs for our whole society—then our economy, society and culture will be much healthier than they are. Let us briefly imagine a boy or girl in a primary school classroom. If, when they reach adulthood, they are able to begin an independent life without shelling out upwards of a third or even half of their salary for a roof over their head, imagine what that would mean for our high streets, coffee shops, pubs, clubs, bars and restaurants. In a future with plentiful council housing, when genuinely affordable housing is recognised as a right of our citizens and not a rare collector’s item, no one, no matter how wealthy, will be able to buy up property and charge others extortionate rents for somewhere to live. With that model of economic vampirism finally laid to rest, billions of pounds currently sucked out of our local economies will begin to flow through our independent shops again. Suppose that that young man or woman has artistic talents and wants to make their contribution to our society. With our current lack of council housing, how many of us really have the opportunity to explore talents and abilities that do not immediately help to enable us to pay rent? With plentiful, genuinely affordable homes, such that covering the cost of life’s essentials is no longer such an uphill battle, who knows how many McCartneys, Joan Armatradings or Michaela Coels we might have? Delivering council housing is about more than just bricks and mortar; it is about unleashing lost creativity across Great Britain and re-establishing our place as the world’s pre-eminent cultural superpower.

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14. 27 Oct 2026·Parliament·Labour·Chris Hinchliff

    Council Housing

    I had better make progress; I am sorry. Perhaps most importantly of all, if we succeed in delivering council housing in every community, we will take one of the most important steps in fighting the atomisation of our society, which brings so many social ills. If today’s children are able to put down roots wherever they are growing up, should they want to, with no need to move away in search of prospects and a home of their own, then friendships forged at school will no longer need looked back on with regret, as connections that once meant the world but could not survive the splintering imposed by a lack of homes for the young. Similarly, if the next generation is able to grow into adulthood alongside their parents, supporting them through older life will be a natural part of everything we do, not something we struggle to find time for, with the constant sense that we are left snatching for precious moments all too quickly passing by. If our imaginary hero should fall in love and think about children of their own—and if we deliver council houses now—we can hope for a future in which the choice is simply whether a couple wishes to start a family, not whether they can afford one. Parents will be able to take time out of employment to raise their child and share in all their first memories, rather than living on borrowed time as burdens mount up. In short, delivering the council homes our country needs to transform our housing market will make possible a society in which all the parts of life that really matter can finally come ahead of the relentless and disproportionate financial costs of housing that we see today. How, then, do we realise these hopes? First, building a new generation of council housing is being held back by a pile of largely fictitious debt created by central Government. We cannot ask local councils to deliver the homes of tomorrow while burdened by a model that failed yesterday. Armed with even the best intentions, councils remain suffocated by housing revenue account debt; cancelling that HRA debt could deliver more than 280,000 additional social rent homes in the next decade. To reverse decades of retreat from public house building and restore the public sector as the driving force in our housing market, new funding must come with new powers for local democracy. If we recognise that social housing delivers a public good, its provision cannot be put on a level playing field with speculative land promoters looking to make a quick buck, or be beholden to the supposed right of wealthy landowners to inflate the value of their land to extract more from the public purse. Councils need to be able to assemble all the land we need for developments, large and small, including where it is already optioned, and to acquire land at existing-use prices, so that council house building is viable in every part of the country. Above all, we must invest in our councils’ institutional capacity to deliver the housing we need. Even with the fairest possible wind, and even if all the economically destabilising military conflicts around the world came to a close, the truth is that, if the Chancellor showered every local authority with all the funding they could want, the expertise and institutional knowledge to use it would no longer be there. To deliver the council housing that I suspect every MP in this room wants to see, we need to attract the best and brightest in the country to work in our local authorities, whether as an elected member or as an officer. We need to restore the standing of our underfunded, undervalued and overworked councils, so that the whole country can see that a career in local government is the most tangible route to shaping the future of our nation. From town planning to architecture, design, ecology and construction standards, only the very best is good enough for our constituents, so local councils must be where people go to excel. In our determination to remove the institutional barriers holding back council house building, we cannot undervalue solutions to get families out of temporary accommodation and off waiting lists now. The Prime Minister was right in his recent conference address to set out plans to take control of empty properties. We should back councils to acquire neglected and empty properties at scale. We have seen throughout our modern history that, in times of crisis, our citizens are conscripted for the common good. Where housing lies dormant during an emergency, we must be willing to take the same approach to property. The truth is that, from the standing start that we have inherited, in which local authorities such as mine have not built a single council house in decades, new house building will take years to ramp up. However, the housing crisis is one that requires urgent resolution. We must therefore make the acquisition of existing properties to rebuild our council housing stock as important a part of the Government’s mission as new builds. With the housing market in the doldrums, we have a much-needed opportunity for councils to purchase and re-let at affordable rates hundreds of thousands of homes across the country, to bring down waiting lists now. There are, of course, up-front costs, legislative hurdles and, I expect, a mouthful of teething problems, but it is the bitter medicine we must take today to stop the bleeding of public money to those profiting from the broken system. We must never forget that the Government’s £39 billion investment in affordable and social housing is dwarfed by the £70 billion that the Government are set to spend over the next five years on housing support to subsidise the gap between the rents that private landlords charge and what tenants can afford. The need for the housing is there, and we are already paying for it. The only question before us is whether we turn that spending into a lasting public asset or keep paying over and over again for failure.

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15. 27 Oct 2026·Parliament·Labour·Chris Hinchliff

    Council Housing

    I thank all hon. Members for contributing to a wide-ranging and passionate debate. I note that the Minister did not quite answer the one question I left him with, which was about the number of council houses that the Government are projecting to achieve. A quick search on my phone during the debate suggested that 47,000 council houses were built in 1979, which I suspect is when most of us would suggest the post-war period came to an end. I am genuinely interested to know whether the Government are aiming for something like that figure per year. More generally, I would like the Minister to take away two key points from the debate. First, we must move away from a failed housing delivery model in this country. It seems we have accepted for a long time that we can afford to build only unaffordable homes. It is a ludicrous failure and we must put an end to it. Secondly, we heard so many times about the 1.3 million people in this country on waiting lists and the nearly 180,000 children in temporary accommodation. It must be one of the most important yardsticks by which the Government measure themselves that, by the time we come to the next general election, those figures are no longer rising but have substantially fallen. Question put and agreed to. Resolved, That this House has considered the delivery of council housing.

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16. 27 Oct 2026·Parliament·Labour·Catherine McKinnell

    Electronic Monitoring of Offenders

    The Government inherited a justice system pushed to breaking point by the previous Government. When Labour came to power, we had fewer than 100 places left in our prisons, with incredibly serious problems with electronic monitoring. We have taken swift action to improve performance, and are now delivering the biggest expansion of tagging in British history, backed by £100 million of investment. As part of our reforms, there is a presumption—[Interruption.]

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17. 27 Oct 2026·Parliament·Labour·Catherine McKinnell

    Electronic Monitoring of Offenders

    Thank you, Mr Speaker. As part of our reforms, there is a presumption that eligible offenders released under the progression model will be tagged, giving the Probation Service an additional tool to monitor offenders and protect the public. We are now tagging a record number of offenders, helping to cut crime and make our streets safer. Electronic monitoring is not used in isolation. Those released from prison remain subject to licence conditions and probation supervision, which can include curfews and restrictions on their movements. We have also introduced tougher powers for probation officers, including world-first restriction zones for the most serious sexual and violent offenders where appropriate, as well as the ability to prohibit offenders from driving, attending public events or entering pubs, clubs and bars. Where an offender breaches their conditions or can no longer be safely managed in the community, they can immediately be recalled to prison. We have also ensured that the electronic monitoring service is ready to support the expansion. The service was ready for first-tranche releases on 1 October, with the equipment and staff in place to deliver the presumption to tag offenders on release. Serco has consistently met its contractual requirements since March 2026. The Ministry of Justice routinely publishes extensive data on probation and tagging. It is published quarterly, and the last set of data was published just last week. It is vital that the Government and the public have confidence that the information published by the Department is accurate. Our quarterly economic monitoring statistics, including figures for the number of prison leavers fitted with tags and the figures covering the October period, will be publicly available in January. This Government inherited a prison system on the brink of collapse, with just 500 places being built in the last 14 years. It is this Government who are now building the prison places we need and putting in the strictest measures possible to protect the public.

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18. 27 Oct 2026·Parliament·Labour·Catherine McKinnell

    Electronic Monitoring of Offenders

    While the hon. Member raises some important points, I stress again that we are working night and day to fix the broken system that we inherited. We are working across agencies. We are working incredibly hard with the police, the Probation Service and all those who work in the criminal justice system who want to keep the public safe and ensure that victims get the service they need, too. I caution the hon. Gentleman, because he appears to be conflating a number of issues. He will be aware that it is usual practice, which has been in place under successive Governments, including his own, that prisoners are tagged at their place of accommodation on release, and that was always the plan for 1 October. That said, we know that this creates a gap between leaving prison and having the tag fitted, which is why to address it we have conducted a successful pilot to fit tags at prison receptions. That is currently live in six prisons, and we are working at pace to roll this out to further prisoners who will have a tag upon leaving. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle (Dr Mullan) chunters from a sedentary position to ask about the police. He is talking about local Metropolitan police policy in relation to breaches of court bail where it is the responsible agency. It is important not to conflate the release of prisoners and the tagging policy, which we are working at pace to improve from the situation we inherited, with the other demands on the police, which we are working closely with them to resolve. We inherited a failing tagging system with record backlogs. We are investing £100 million in electronic monitoring, tagging offenders before release and, importantly, strengthening victim protections with a new alert system. To the MPs who share this Government’s and the Prime Minister’s ambition that no one should be street homeless, I urge them to support us in these endeavours and to ensure that their local authorities are working with us to support prisoners on release, to ensure they are tagged and to ensure that victims and the public are protected. That is our key priority, and we can work together across this House to achieve that. I visit prisons and meet prison officers and governors every week who are working incredibly hard to keep the public safe and to transform the lives of individuals in our prison system to ensure that when they leave prison, they leave in a better state than when they arrived. We are working to reduce reoffending and to support the Probation Service in reintegrating people into society, and to ensure in the meantime that people are tagged and victims and the public are kept safe. We are working incredibly hard getting on with the job of fixing the mess we inherited and rebuilding our justice system that was left so broken, and I urge hon. Members across the House to support us in their local area in that work.

    Hansard source
19. 27 Oct 2026·Parliament·Labour·Catherine McKinnell

    Electronic Monitoring of Offenders

    My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and I thank her for her assiduous work on all these subjects. As she says, we are rightly rolling out world-leading restriction zones, ensuring that it is offenders who are restricted, where that is appropriate. Indeed, we have the exclusion zones as well, where they are appropriate, and obviously these decisions are made by probation practitioners. She rightly highlights the work we are doing to accelerate the roll-out of tagging at prisons to ensure the safety and security of the system and so that tags are installed at the prison gate as soon as possible.

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20. 27 Oct 2026·Parliament·Labour·Catherine McKinnell

    Electronic Monitoring of Offenders

    The hon. Lady makes a number of thoughtful and helpful contributions. It is very important that housing and homelessness are tackled among the prison leaver population, to ensure that they have the opportunity to build a life and not reoffend, and we will work with local authorities as effectively as possible to ensure that prisoners are not at risk of becoming homeless. It is a priority of this Prime Minister and this Government to tackle homelessness across the board, which was reinforced by the announcement yesterday of £874 million of priority funding to tackle homelessness. We are already extending the period by which collaboration must happen between the prison and probation unit and local authorities, so that they have the maximum period possible to put in place arrangements that ensure victims’ safety and the public’s safety. The hon. Member rightly raised tagging at source, which we have had a very successful pilot of. This has not been done previously by any Government. We recognise it as an opportunity to really improve the work that is happening, and we are working at pace to ramp up tagging at source. She also raised the restriction zones. I can only reiterate that these are world-leading measures we are putting in place. We are not just fixing the mess that we inherited but working at pace to make this system work in the interests of victims and the public, and creating a society that everyone can contribute to.

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21. 27 Oct 2026·Parliament·Labour·Catherine McKinnell

    Electronic Monitoring of Offenders

    My hon. Friend is absolutely right that ensuring that there is purposeful activity in prisons, and that prisoners can gain life skills and work skills while they are in prison, will help to reduce reoffending and help to tackle the prison capacity challenge that we have. She will recognise that the capacity challenge we inherited makes all of this harder—it makes everything we are doing in the prison system harder. That is why we are both building more prison spaces and ensuring that we invest in and support rehabilitation while people are in prison, to reduce the need to recall people when they reoffend. We are tackling this on all fronts, and I appreciate my hon. Friend’s support for our efforts.

    Hansard source
22. 27 Oct 2026·Parliament·Labour·Catherine McKinnell

    Electronic Monitoring of Offenders

    It is not Government policy to provide tents to people being released from prison who are at risk of being homeless. We are clear that tents should never be an acceptable housing solution. The hon. Member will know that overall housing responsibility rests with local authorities in England and Wales. I assure him that we are working very closely with the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government to tackle the scourge of homelessness across the board, including among the prison leaver cohort that he is concerned about. He can support this work by encouraging his local authority to engage in pre-release panels, so that this work can be done collaboratively right across the UK to ensure that nobody leaves prison homeless.

    Hansard source
23. 27 Oct 2026·Parliament·Labour·Catherine McKinnell

    Electronic Monitoring of Offenders

    I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend that we must build more prison places, and we are working at pace to do that. Obviously, I will not comment on independent judicial decisions that are made in particular cases, but he should be reassured to know that when it comes to tackling acquisitive crime, tagging is appropriate and individualised to the offender, to ensure that it tackles their particular challenges in terms of reoffending. An acquisitive crime GPS tag pilot found that offenders were 20% less likely to reoffend within 12 months. We are working across the board to tackle all these issues in the round.

    Hansard source
24. 27 Oct 2026·Parliament·Labour·Catherine McKinnell

    Electronic Monitoring of Offenders

    The hon. Gentleman will have heard the answers I have given on the business as usual that we inherited: it was always the plan that from 1 October, offenders would normally be tagged at their accommodation. We are presuming that more offenders and individuals released from prison will be eligible for tags than at any point in history, and we are investing significantly in that. We have undertaken a pilot of tagging prisoners at the prison, which has been shown to be successful, and we will work at pace to roll that out further as quickly as possible.

    Hansard source
25. 27 Oct 2026·Parliament·Labour·Catherine McKinnell

    Electronic Monitoring of Offenders

    The contract with Serco was signed by the Conservative party, and its performance did not originally meet expectations, but we have focused on driving rapid improvement and ensuring that we turn that failing performance around, so that it is meeting contractual expectations and working with us at pace to make the improvements that we want to see in our system. We will continue to keep all these matters under review, as we would with any contract that the Government have entered into.

    Hansard source
26. 27 Oct 2026·Parliament·Labour·Catherine McKinnell

    Electronic Monitoring of Offenders

    The right hon. Gentleman asks a typically thoughtful question. Obviously, all these matters are kept under review. We work very closely with the Probation Service, which uses a range of measures to manage offenders once they are released into the community, to both support them to reintegrate and to ensure that the public are safe, and we also work very closely with the police on that. When an offender does find settled accommodation, a tag can then be put on as part of their licence conditions, but where there are concerns, the recall option remains available.

    Hansard source
27. 27 Oct 2026·Parliament·Labour·Catherine McKinnell

    Electronic Monitoring of Offenders

    I thank my right hon. Friend for her thoughtful question. Like me, she has the greatest regard for our prison governors. They work on the frontline, keeping the public safe and keeping their prisons running, and they do come up with a lot of good ideas, many of which I have heard myself. I meet governors regularly about what we can do to improve matters; I am very much “ear to the ground.” Indeed, many of the proposals that we are taking forward to improve significantly on the situation we inherited come from the very practical reality that prison governors encounter, so I thank her for the suggestion.

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28. 27 Oct 2026·Parliament·Labour·Catherine McKinnell

    Electronic Monitoring of Offenders

    The hon. Lady raises an important case. I am very sorry to hear about the situation that her constituent is dealing with this half term. Obviously, that needs to be escalated to the appropriate people. A whole variety of measures are used to ensure victim engagement, including the victim contact helpline, and specific orders can be put on domestic abuse offenders. I appreciate the ongoing concerns, and I would be happy to engage with the hon. Lady about this case.

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29. 27 Oct 2026·Parliament·Labour·Catherine McKinnell

    Electronic Monitoring of Offenders

    My hon. Friend brings us back to the crux of the issue that this Government inherited. We are dealing with the consequences of a failure to invest in our prison capacity over many years—there was a net gain of just 500 prison places when the Conservatives left Government. We are working at pace to deliver 14,000 prison places, and we aim to do so by 2031. We have already delivered 3,300 places, and I look forward to being at the groundbreaking and opening of many more.

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30. 27 Oct 2026·Parliament·Labour·Catherine McKinnell

    Electronic Monitoring of Offenders

    The right hon. Lady is absolutely right. Justice Transcribe, which she refers to, has supported probation officers to reduce their workload when it comes to the transcribing of notes; obviously, they must keep careful records, and this system is inevitably helping to manage workloads. She is right that probation officers do a vital job, and I thank them for the work that they are doing today and every day to keep the public safe and manage offenders in the community. In April, we secured the biggest probation pay increase in over a decade, and the current offer increases that by a minimum of 5%. We want to increase our recruitment of probation officers, so hon. Members should encourage people to join the service. We also want to retain our brilliant probation officers, and we are continuing in discussions with them to that end.

    Hansard source
31. 27 Oct 2026·Parliament·Labour·Catherine McKinnell

    Electronic Monitoring of Offenders

    I agree with the right hon. Lady that it is completely unacceptable for a prisoner to be released with a tent. That is not Government policy, and it is not something that we want to see. That is why we are working at pace to improve the current homelessness situation that we inherited from the previous Government, to make sure that nobody, including prison leavers, leaves prison homeless or has to live homeless.

    Hansard source
32. 27 Oct 2026·Parliament·Labour·Catherine McKinnell

    Electronic Monitoring of Offenders

    I am sorry to hear about that particular case. There are circumstances where there are physical challenges to fitting a tag—for example, because of a medical reason such as limb loss or swelling. It is important that the vast majority of people who should have tags do have tags, and we need to make sure that happens. The business-as-usual position is to tag an individual who is due to be tagged once they are in their accommodation, but we are trialling, have piloted and will be looking to roll out tagging at the prison as quickly as possible.

    Hansard source
33. 27 Oct 2026·Parliament·Labour·Catherine McKinnell

    Electronic Monitoring of Offenders

    I am sorry to hear about the experience of those young people in Yeovil. We need to be careful about some of the rhetoric around the subject and to always have victims in mind when we have these conversations. Yes, there must be robust challenge to ensure that we get this right and that we push the measures we are taking to the furthest point possible to make sure we keep people safe, but we must also respect the work of our probation teams who are monitoring offenders in the community and working to keep people safe. There are a range of offences that are excluded from the progression model, so those offenders are not eligible for progression. We have increased the tagging of offenders, even where they are excluded from progression but whose crimes are of a nature that we would want them to be tagged and monitored post-release in any event. I want to provide reassurance to young people: we are working at pace and our very hardest to ensure that we keep the public safe, and we manage offenders as they reintegrate back into the community.

    Hansard source
34. 27 Oct 2026·Parliament·Labour·Catherine McKinnell

    Electronic Monitoring of Offenders

    Indeed, Conservative Members have made a plethora of public commentary on such issues. As well as the book my hon. Friend mentioned, the former Prime Minister herself and her policy chief admitted that not enough prison places were built. I would be interested not only in whether Conservative Members might want to read the aforementioned book, but in whether they will apologise for the failures of the previous Government—this would be a good opportunity to do that.

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35. 27 Oct 2026·Parliament·Labour·Catherine McKinnell

    Electronic Monitoring of Offenders

    The right hon. Gentleman knows as well as I do that that figure is not available, but we could not take this issue more seriously. That is why we have tagging under the domestic abuse perpetrators on licence approach, and probation services have a wider set of powers, many of which I have mentioned, including restrictions on licence conditions to prohibit offenders from driving or attending public events. It is right that we bring in our world-leading restriction zones to ensure that it is the perpetrators, not the victims of domestic violence, who have to alter their lives. We will continue to prioritise and work on this issue, and he is right to raise it.

    Hansard source
36. 27 Oct 2026·Parliament·Labour·Catherine McKinnell

    Electronic Monitoring of Offenders

    I share my hon. Friend’s anger. Since taking on this role, I have felt very angry not just with some of the perpetrators and the cases that we see come across our desks, but with the 14 years of failure that left us in the situation we are in. We are working at pace to improve the technology and the application of the tagging system. [Interruption.] The Conservatives chunter from the Opposition Benches, but they wasted £100 million on tags that did not work. We are working to ensure that this scheme is effective, and we are working at pace to pick up the pieces that were left behind.

    Hansard source
37. 27 Oct 2026·Parliament·Labour·Catherine McKinnell

    Electronic Monitoring of Offenders

    That question has a simple answer: the hon. Gentleman will be able to see the data when it is published in January. We have just had data published for the previous three months. The data obviously needs to be verified and accurate. We are not in the business of publishing data that is not robust, and we will publish it in due course in the normal way.

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38. 27 Oct 2026·Parliament·Labour·Catherine McKinnell

    Electronic Monitoring of Offenders

    The hon. Gentleman asks a very thoughtful question, and one that probably requires a lengthier answer than I have time to give, but I absolutely acknowledge the point he makes. I am determined that we have the data, the monitoring and the reporting to ensure that this scheme does work and is not a sticking plaster, so that victims can have faith in it, and probation officers and the police can be supported to do what they need to do to keep our communities safe. We are investing significantly in this technology, and we need to ensure that it works. He raises a genuine and good point.

    Hansard source
39. 27 Oct 2026·Parliament·Labour·Catherine Atkinson

    Electronic Monitoring of Offenders

    Victims should not have to make their lives smaller, looking over their shoulder because offenders are free to roam; it is the offender whose freedoms should be limited. Will the Minister be more ambitious in using restriction zones, which keep an offender within a defined area, rather than simply banning them from particular areas, as with exclusion zones? If victims are to feel safe, tags must be fitted as they walk out of the prison gate, not weeks later. Will that be in place in January, as intended?

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40. 27 Oct 2026·Parliament·Labour·Cat Eccles

    Strengthening Community Resilience

    I thank the Minister for his statement and I welcome the Be Ready announcement. I have friends in Valencia who were impacted by the devastating flash floods in 2024. Spain and many other countries have long provided resilience and emergency preparedness advice to their citizens. Thankfully, my friends Eva and Pablo only lost their cars in the floods, but that culture of resilience meant that they had essentials at hand, and could help neighbours and vulnerable people as part of the community effort alongside the emergency services and regional authorities. With extreme weather threats now a reality here in the UK—as we saw this weekend—does he agree that it is right for us to adopt that approach to resilience, and that it is about everyone playing an active part in preparedness and in their communities?

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