Police Grant Report
Order. Does the right hon. Gentleman want to stand up and correct the record? Go ahead.
5,731 spoken contributions under 12 words (interjections such as “Will the hon. Member give way?”) are hidden. Show them
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Police Grant Report
Order. The Minister is making an intervention on Mr Wilkinson, not continuing the debate. Please make the intervention, so the hon. Member can respond.
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Police Grant Report
Order. Before I call Max Wilkinson, I note that the Front Benchers will have an opportunity to respond at the end of debate.
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Police Grant Report
Order. I remind Members that it is completely up to them whether they wish to take an intervention.
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Police Grant Report
Order. I do not agree, I do agree—I am pretty neutral. The hon. Lady should ask the Member to agree and not use the term “you”.
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Police Grant Report
Order. To help other Members in case they should make the same error: I am not “Madam Chair”; I am Madam Deputy Speaker.
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Local Government Finance
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following: That the Referendums Relating to Council Tax Increases (Principles) (England) Report 2026-27 (HC 1605), which was laid before this House on 9 February, be approved.
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Local Government Finance
Before I call the shadow Minister, I will announce the result of today’s deferred Division on the draft Greenhouse Gas Emissions Trading Scheme (Amendment) (Extension to Maritime Activities) Order 2026. The Ayes were 362 and the Noes were 107, so the Ayes have it. [The Division list is published at the end of today’s debates.]
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Engagements
May I associate myself, and those on the Opposition Benches, with the Prime Minister’s words on the horrific stabbing in north London yesterday, as well as the shooting in Canada? When he was Leader of the Opposition, the Prime Minister said, “I never turn on my staff. When they make mistakes, I carry the can.” What changed?
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Engagements
The Whips have done a great job today—[Interruption.] Labour Members say, “Yes, exactly.” The Whips have done a great job today getting them cheering. We all know that they have been sick for the last week. Let us remember that just last week the Prime Minister told us he had “full confidence” in his chief of staff, Morgan McSweeney. On Sunday he sacked Morgan McSweeney—[Interruption.] Oh, “He resigned.” Last week the Prime Minister was defending the Cabinet Secretary. Now he is sacking him. What changed?
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Engagements
The Prime Minister is demonstrating stratospheric levels of delusion if he thinks the problem is on the Opposition Benches. He did not say anything about why the Cabinet Secretary is going, but we know the truth: it is because he is throwing everyone under the bus except himself. The Mandelson episode was not an isolated incident. A few weeks ago, the Prime Minister announced a peerage for one Matthew Doyle, his former director of communications. Immediately after that, The Sunday Times published on its front page that Doyle had campaigned for a man charged with child sex offences. Despite the Prime Minister knowing that, he gave Doyle a job for life in the House of Lords anyway. Why?
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Engagements
The Prime Minister pretends not to know about Matthew Doyle, but it was on the front page of The Sunday Times. He cannot explain why he gave this man a peerage—I think Labour Members should be wondering why they are still cheering for him after that. The Prime Minister sometimes likes to claim that he cares about violence against women, as he just did, but the truth is that he cares about the victims only when he is trying to save his own skin. Labour Members can shake their heads at that, but we saw it with grooming gangs, we saw it with Mandelson and now we see it with Doyle. Is that not what a former prosecutor would call an established pattern of behaviour?
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Engagements
Nobody buys it, Mr Speaker—not even the Labour women, because they know that the Prime Minister always puts the Downing Street boys club first. How dare he criticise us? The Conservatives were not the ones stuffing Government with hypocrites and paedophile apologists. He cannot build a team and he has no plan. He cannot even run his own office, let alone the country. He is now dealing with a new scandal of appointing someone who campaigned for a man convicted of having indecent pictures of girls as young as 10. Is the Prime Minister not ashamed that that will be his legacy?
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Engagements
The Prime Minister has not apologised for appointing Matthew Doyle, because he will not take responsibility—he never does, and Labour Members know it. The Prime Minister is now telling everyone that he has never lost a fight, but that is because he will not step into the ring. He has never lost a fight because he has walked away from welfare reform, he will not stand up to the unions, he will not stand up to China—he cannot even stand up to Mauritius. He has had three Cabinet Secretaries, four chiefs of staff and five directors of communications in just 18 months, and now he is mired in yet another scandal. Does he ever look in the mirror and ask himself if the real problem is staring him in the face?
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Local Government Finance
On the point about Reform councils and the promises they made and the reality of that, in Lancashire they are trying to balance the books by initially consulting on closing 10 care homes and day centres and narrowing that down now to just the day centres. Does the hon. Member share my surprise that Reform MPs are not here to defend their record on what they promised versus the reality of a Reform-led council?
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Local Government Finance
It is all very well to say that this is a fair settlement. On balance, councils that have Labour constituencies benefit from it, and councils that are represented by Conservative Members do not. The fairness can be derived from that.
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Local Government Finance
The hon. Member is touching on an important issue that affects a lot of councils across the north of England, including Blackpool, which neighbours my constituency. Larger metropolitan areas are effectively exporting their children-in-care problems to much cheaper areas, such as Blackpool and Hartlepool, which the hon. Member represents. Some kind of restriction on how far councils can move children who are being put into care might stop the dumping of children in care in areas where housing is cheaper.
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Local Government Finance
I thank the hon. Member for giving way, as he gives me a chance to respond to the Minister as well as to himself. As a former police and crime commissioner for Lancashire, I saw at first hand the impact on communities of cities miles away in effect dumping children into high crime, high deprivation areas simply because the housing is cheaper. Dealing with the damage that has on children’s life chances—let alone the impact on communities already struggling with regeneration by adding to the problems—is paramount. I would be more than happy to meet the Minister and the hon. Member to discuss how we take forward this issue not only on the Fylde coast, but across the north.
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Police Grant Report
I join the House in thanking our frontline police officers and staff for their incredible commitment, and the contribution and sacrifices that they make to keep our streets safe. I am grateful to the Minister for her statement, though I must say that it has the familiar quality of a Government announcing success, while the public are left wondering where exactly it has occurred. The Minister has come to the House today to present this police funding settlement as a turning point—as if police numbers are not actually falling, and as if criminals across the country are now packing up their tools and reconsidering their life choices. However, outside Westminster, the country looks rather different. The public judge policing in a far more old-fashioned way than Ministers. They judge it not by the tone of a statement, but by whether they see officers on the streets, whether the police answer the telephone and turn up, and whether crime is dealt with when it happens—and on those measures, too many of our constituents feel that policing is being stretched to breaking point. This debate cannot take place without us confronting the central fact behind it: Labour promised more police on our streets, but since it entered government, police officer numbers have fallen by more than 1,300. That is not a minor adjustment, or an accounting quirk; it is 1,300 fewer police officers available to respond to crime, protect victims and patrol our communities.
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Police Grant Report
This is the net number of police officers making the difference out there on Britain’s streets. There were 149,769; there are now nearly 2,000 fewer—that has a real impact. We hear all this noise about neighbourhood policing. Neighbourhood policing has a huge part to play in the policing model, but we cannot take away the police who respond to 999 calls. Should we badge police up, redeploy them, and leave people waiting longer for a 999 response when they really need one?
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Police Grant Report
I could not agree more. That is why the number of robberies against businesses has surged, shoplifting is up, and people feel less safe on our streets. Between September 2024 and September 2025—entirely on this Government’s watch—the number of officers fell by 1,318, compared with the year before. More broadly, 3,000 fewer people are working in police forces across the country to keep us safe.
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Police Grant Report
Back in 2010, I was deeply concerned about lots of things—the damage to our economy, the number of people without a job, the challenge of the difficult choices that the Government had to make—but the previous Government left office with record numbers of police on our streets.
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Police Grant Report
When the Conservatives last left office, we had record numbers of police on the streets. I do not know how many police officers we had on the streets when the Liberal Democrats last left office. [Interruption.] I will make some progress. In terms of headcount, the picture is starker. In March 2024, under the previous Government, there were 149,769 officers—the highest number since records began. As of September 2025, that number stands at 147,621—a decrease of more than 2,000. When the Minister speaks about supporting the police, the House is entitled to ask a simple question: how can the Government support policing while presiding over fewer police? Worryingly, the bad news does not stop there. The number of officers in the British Transport police and the number of staff in the National Crime Agency have also decreased, all while the Government announce a national police service that will be created from organisations such as the NCA. The staff who will make up that service are leaving. That is critical because the grant that we are discussing comes against the backdrop of many forces warning about their long-term financial stability. As the chair of the National Police Chiefs’ Council said: “The overall financial picture remains challenging. Many forces are planning service reductions, with consequences for officer numbers, staff capacity and overall resilience.” That is a direct consequence of the Government’s decisions. There are real funding challenges, here and now, with real consequences for forces and communities across the country. The Association of Police and Crime Commissioners says that this year’s settlement leaves police forces with a shortfall that could be as high as £500 million. Labour’s own police and crime commissioners across the country have spoken out on the challenges. In my own part of the world, Labour PCC Matt Storey has said that Cleveland police have to operate with “one hand behind their back”, and that funding has “failed to keep pace with the level of inflation, while other funding has been removed and re-allocated”, making it impossible to maintain current levels of service. I understand that he has written to the Minister on three occasions and is still awaiting a response. Durham’s Labour police and crime commissioner has been even more direct in her criticism. She said that the Labour Government have “consistently demonstrated a complete lack of understanding of policing and community safety.” The Minister will no doubt point with great enthusiasm to headline figures. Such spin fails to acknowledge inflation, pay awards and the ongoing cost of the Government’s jobs tax. Many at home will be stunned that our police forces were subjected to hundreds of millions of pounds of costs by way of the national insurance increase, and that the Government have actually taxed the police off our streets. This settlement is not the straightforward increase that the Minister claims it is. It relies heavily on the police precept, pushing more of the burden on to local taxpayers, while forces face rising costs and rising demand. In 2023, an MP told this House that the then Government’s approach was to “put up local taxes, put up council tax, push the problem on to local forces”, and that “Ministers have chosen to heap the burden on to hard-pressed local taxpayers through the precept.”—[Official Report, 8 February 2023; Vol. 727, c. 935.] Any idea who that might have been? [Interruption.] Yes, it was the current Policing Minister. Given the Government’s fondness for U-turns, I am not surprised by the Minister’s change of view.
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Police Grant Report
An increasing burden is being put on local taxpayers. Members can say one thing in opposition, but then they enter government and have to make real choices. Labour’s choices have meant cuts to police numbers, increases in the burden on local taxpayers, and spiralling levels of retail crime and robbery against businesses. The consequences of that approach are as obvious today as they were then. The reliance on the police precept entrenches a postcode lottery in policing. Areas with strong council tax bases can raise more; areas with weaker council tax bases cannot. Yet the need for policing does not neatly align with local prosperity. Criminals do not check council tax bands before committing burglary. Nor do they decide where to operate based on local authority revenue forecasts. Yet under this Government’s model, two communities can face the same crime pressures but receive very different policing capacity simply because one can raise more money than the other. Perhaps the Minister can tell us what changed her mind about increasing the burden on local taxpayers for funding the police. Given the articulate case made by my hon. Friend the Member for Huntingdon (Ben Obese-Jecty)—and by the Minister when in opposition—will she tell us when the funding formula review will take place? The pressures on policing are not diminishing; they are growing. Forces are dealing with county lines, drug gangs exploiting children, organised crime operating across borders, cyber-crime and fraud expanding at an industrial scale, and domestic abuse cases that require extensive time, safeguarding and specialist capacity. They are also dealing with public order demands, which have become increasingly routine. This is a modern landscape of threats that requires modern capacity, and it cannot be met with funding settlements designed for ministerial speeches rather than frontline realities. This settlement will ultimately be judged not by the Minister’s tone, but by its results. This debate comes down to the difference between saying and doing. The Government can say that they support policing, but too many see numbers falling. They can say that they support victims, but too many see no justice. And they can claim to be tough on crime, while quietly introducing early-release schemes that put offenders back on our streets sooner. Until the Government’s actions match their words, the public will not be convinced—and nor should they be.
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Short-term Let Accommodation (Data Sharing Requirements)
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. I raised a previous point of order regarding the Royal Mail and postal delivery services, and I mention that because I recently wrote to some constituents about that very point of order. However, that letter, which was sent first class from the House of Commons, took 12 days to arrive. Many Members across this House are writing about important issues on House of Commons paper, in House of Commons envelopes, and they are taking many days to arrive. As a result, many of our constituents might be ill-informed about the speed with which Members of Parliament are responding, which—as you will know, Mr Speaker—can be raised with the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards—
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Police Grant Report
As the Policing Minister knows, West Mercia police—which covers Shropshire, Herefordshire and Worcestershire—is a very good force in many ways. However, is she aware that West Mercia is about to see the first fall in police numbers in over a decade, with approximately 20 frontline police officers likely to be removed as a result of what the local police and crime commissioner calls a “shortfall in Government funding”, and that this will affect The Wrekin constituency?
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Police Grant Report
The Minister is being very generous with her time, as she always is. I hope that she will also be generous in her reply. AI is already playing a part in policing, and I would hope that everybody who wants crime reduced supports that, but as far as I am concerned, that support comes with caveats. There needs to be legislative oversight to ensure that AI is regulated and not abused. When will the Government come forward with the legislation that was mentioned by the Home Secretary? Just very briefly on police reform, does she recognise that West Mercia oversees a rural and semi-rural area? In any reconfiguration, restructuring should recognise the unique challenges of rural police forces, as opposed to, let us say, those of the neighbouring force, West Midlands.
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Police Grant Report
It is true that a huge number of police staff are never seen—support staff, admin staff and call centre staff, for instance—and they play an important part in delivering police services to all our communities, but is it not the case that visibility in policing is needed, and only police officers who are warranted can make arrests when crime is committed? Notwithstanding all the wonderful people working in the back offices of all our police forces, we still need police officers in our communities, tackling the antisocial behaviour that my right hon. Friend mentioned and turning up at least occasionally at the parish council, where the local police officer still has a reference in the agenda. Visibility is critical to deal with the fear of crime, and a police officer with a warrant is critical in enforcing the law and making arrests.
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Draft Mesothelioma Lump Sum Payments (Conditions and Amounts) (Amendment) Regulations 2026 Draft Pneumoconiosis etc. (Workers’ Compensation) (Payment of Claims) (Amendment) Regulations 2026
We welcome the uprating for both the mesothelioma lump sum payments and the Pneumoconiosis etc. (Workers’ Compensation) Act payments. This has been done on an annual basis and over many Governments. Today’s regulations specifically provide a 3.8% increase in line with the September 2025 consumer prices index rate. We welcome that inflation-linked increase so that the compensation amounts are more representative of today’s cost of living. That is especially important in this instance, given how debilitating these diseases can be. Colleagues will know that mesothelioma is a rare and aggressive cancer with known links to asbestos exposure. Pneumoconiosis is equally serious, often affecting those who worked in heavy industries such as coalmining. What is cruel about both those diseases is that it can take years for symptoms to start presenting themselves, and therefore, by the time that someone receives a diagnosis, in most cases it is already advanced and leaves them with little time to react. The other issue with the latency of diagnosis is that many sufferers struggle to pursue civil claims against employers. These schemes help to address those issues and provide decency for people affected. They also underpin the point that our benefits system should be a critical safety net for the some of the most vulnerable people in our society. I reiterate that the Opposition welcome this compensation lump sum uplift today and support the Government’s proposals.
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Local Government Finance
I was going to say thank you for the Pride in Place money, actually; I am very grateful that the Government have given £20 million to my constituency. On the subject of funding for councils, the Government are requiring district councils to pay for food waste recycling. That is not an unreasonable proposition, but there was a principle under the previous Government of new burdens funding, whereby when a new burden was presented to a council, the Government would sort it out. Why have the Secretary of State’s Government decided not to support councils with new burdens funding?
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Local Government Finance
The Secretary of State is being incredibly kind. He talks about the settlement, but the settlement does not work. Wyre Forest district council has had a 0% increase in core funding. Dare I say that across the whole of Worcestershire, where there is a district council with a Conservative Member of Parliament, there has been a 0% increase, but where there is a district council with a Labour Member of Parliament, there has been an increase of up to 5%. Can he explain why that has happened?
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Local Government Finance
On exactly this point about the democratic process, my constituents were promised by the Reform candidates that they would cut council tax, but Worcestershire county council’s council tax is going up by 9%. It is a shame that not a single Reform Member of Parliament has turned up to defend what they have done. The worrying point is that we are being denied a referendum even though this goes above the 5% threshold. That bit of the democratic process has been removed from Worcestershire.
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Local Government Finance
My hon. Friend and neighbour is raising incredibly important points about how our constituents were promised that their council tax would be cut and have been royally let down by Reform councillors. Can I embarrass my hon. Friend? It is worth remembering that many Conservative district councils do well. My hon. Friend led Wychavon district council within the last 14 years, and for five years it was deemed the most financially resilient district council in the country, and at the same time it did not increase council tax by a single penny. That is what Conservative councils deliver.
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Local Government Finance
Has the Secretary of State made an analysis of the division of Pride in Place funding between Labour and Reform seats versus Liberal Democrat and Conservative seats?
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Local Government Finance
I am incredibly grateful to the Secretary of State for giving way. He calls it a milestone; I call it a millstone. He talks about fairness. Stanwell in my Spelthorne constituency hits the markers for the double deprivation criteria that would qualify for the Pride in Place funding, but that is diluted by the more affluent areas in my constituency. How is it fair to the people of Stanwell that they do not qualify for Pride in Place funding just because they are surrounded by more affluent areas? Rather than helping, is the Secretary of State not just going to engineer the continuation of pockets of deprivation?
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Local Government Finance
Does the hon. Member believe that people who promise not to raise council tax should not raise council tax?
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Supported Exempt Accommodation: Birmingham
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Lewell. I congratulate the hon. Member for Birmingham Perry Barr (Ayoub Khan) on securing this important debate. Supported exempt accommodation plays a critical role across the country, but as we have heard, there are clear issues that need to be resolved. It provides housing to support those living independently, and crucially, it supports some of the most vulnerable people in our society, including care leavers, people with disabilities, those who have experienced homelessness or rough sleeping, those recovering from a drug or an alcohol addiction, individuals recently released from prison, and victims of domestic abuse and modern slavery. The nature of supported accommodation and the support that it provides mean that it is exempt from the usual caps on housing benefit. That exemption exists for a good reason. However, the sector is fragmented, regulated by multiple bodies and lacks a single, coherent regulatory framework. For some time now, there have been serious concerns about inconsistency, poor standards, poor-quality provision in some areas and the long-term financial sustainability of the sector. More recently, the Government’s supported housing review, published in November 2024, showed that in 2023, there were 634,000 units of supported housing in Great Britain. More than a third of those—more than 215,000 units—were claimed through the housing benefit system. Critically, the review also highlighted a substantial shortfall. It estimated that nearly 400,000 additional supported housing units are needed right now to meet the unmet demand. Looking ahead, that figure rises dramatically, with up to 640,000 additional units required by 2040, particularly for older people. Against that backdrop, it is deeply concerning that the sector itself has warned that it is in crisis. In April 2025, more than 170 organisations wrote to the Prime Minister to call for at least £1.6 billion a year in long-term funding for local authorities. Further warnings followed in July 2025, highlighting the risks of strengthening regulation without providing the funding to make it work. In August 2025, the Local Government Association echoed those concerns, calling for increased funding and new guidance to help councils prepare for the implementation of the new regulatory requirements. All that sits in a wider housing context that should worry us all. The Government have set a target of delivering 1.5 million homes by the end of this Parliament, yet their own figures show that housing supply in England fell to 208,600 net additional dwellings in the year 2024-25 —a 6% decrease on the previous year and the biggest fall in 12 years, outside the pandemic. Just over 190,600 new homes were built, which is fewer than in the final year of the previous Government and 16% below the peak of 2019-20. Against that backdrop, let me turn to the Supported Housing (Regulatory Oversight) Act 2023. I welcome the fact that the Conservative Government supported the passage of the Act, which is the first to directly regulate the standard of support provided in supported accommodation in England. It received Royal Assent in June 2023, and has the potential to drive up standards, improve accountability and protect residents from poor-quality provision. However, legislation alone is not enough. The Government consulted on the implementation of the Act in the summer of 2025, and in January 2026 they said they would respond “as soon as possible”. Given the pressures facing the sector, a response cannot come soon enough. Will the Minister confirm when the Government will publish their response to the consultation and when the Act will be fully implemented? Finally, let me put on the record the action taken by the previous Government in this area. Alongside the passage of the Act, they published a national statement of expectations for supported housing, setting out what good looks like and how local authorities should plan to meet the demand. They invested £5.4 million in enforcement pilots, including in Birmingham, and an independent evaluation showed that the pilots improved the quality of accommodation and support while preventing an estimated £6.2 million in illegitimate or unreasonable housing benefit payments. Further support was provided through updated guidance, good practice resources and £20 million from the supported housing improvement programme to help councils to drive up quality and value for money. The challenge is clear. Regulation must be implemented properly, swiftly and with adequate funding. Supported housing is not a niche issue; it is a lifeline for hundreds of thousands of people and a cornerstone of our wider housing system. If we fail to get this right, the most vulnerable people will pay the price. That is why I urge the Government to act with urgency, with clarity and with the resources needed, so that the sector can thrive.
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Defence Industrial Strategy 2025
Whatever the defence industrial strategy aims to do, its aims will not be met if we cannot find and recruit people willing to use the equipment and technology that are created. People will be far less likely to risk their lives to keep our country safe and free if they cannot rely on the Government to stand by them both during and after their service. What assessment has the Minister made of the impact on the military and the defence industry of the Government’s decision to allow our veterans who served in Northern Ireland to be dragged vindictively through the courts?
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Economic Impact of Government Policies
2. What assessment he has made of the potential impact of Government policies on the economy in Northern Ireland.
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Economic Impact of Government Policies
The Government are giving a 50% reduction to the emissions trading scheme levy on ferries crossing between Northern Ireland and Great Britain in an apparent effort not to negatively impact the economy there. Scottish islands are getting a 100% reduction, yet the Isle of Wight is getting no reduction. What economic assessment has been done to arrive at those figures, or are they simply plucked out of thin air?