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My constituency has nearly 5,000 SMEs, all of which are facing increasing business rates and taxes, threatening jobs and growth. Will the Minister signal his support for SMEs by following the Conservative party’s lead and completely abolishing business rates for pubs and restaurants on the high street?
The Mayor of London is making £260 million of cuts to the Metropolitan police, axing 1,700 police officers and staff, removing officers from schools and magistrates courts, and now closing Bromley police station’s front counter overnight. That breaks his manifesto pledge to protect London’s police stations. Given that the Government promised to strengthen neighbourhood policing, will the Leader of the House find time for a debate on the impact of Sadiq Khan’s policy and police cuts in London?
I hope my voice manages to survive this speech. I am pleased to respond to this important debate on behalf of the Opposition. I welcome the Minister to his new role. I know how knowledgeable and committed he is to the welfare of the children we are discussing today. I congratulate the hon. Member for Dulwich and West Norwood (Helen Hayes) on an important Select Committee report. She gave an excellent speech. The hon. Members for Falkirk (Euan Stainbank) and for Southampton Itchen (Darren Paffey) spoke with experience of their roles in local authorities. The personal experiences of the hon. Members for Southampton Itchen and for Cannock Chase (Josh Newbury) make them especially important voices on these matters, and I thank both of them. The report sets out a sobering context. The need for children’s social care has risen significantly over the past decade, with the number of looked-after children reaching 83,630 in 2024—an increase of over 20% compared with 10 years earlier. This increase has caused pressures on the provision of care for the children involved, and growing numbers of children are now placed far from where they live. We heard a bit about this in the debate, but last year 45% of looked-after children were placed outside their local authority area and 22% were placed more than 20 miles away from home. The report found that there are serious shortages of foster carers, with an additional 6,500 foster parents needed to fill the gaps. I am pleased by the report’s emphasis on the importance of kinship care. A bugbear of mine, and not a proper criticism of the Committee, is that the report refers to kinship carers being “an essential part of the care system”. I always find the language of “systems” quite dehumanising, when kinship carers are vital, loving family members. A responsible member of the family is always a better option than the inhumanity of a bureaucratic system. As the report says, it is vital that kinship carers have the support they need and deserve. If we can get children’s social care right, the rewards could not be greater: difficult starts giving way to new beginnings; great potential given the promise of a fair chance; and, as the hon. Member for Dulwich and West Norwood said, a reduction in some of the social problems that we contend with in other parts of Government. The report makes clear the consequences when we do not get it right. Children in care often experience trauma, abuse and neglect. They are more than four times more likely to suffer emotional or mental health problems than other children of their age. The Committee reported on the poor outcomes for too many care leavers—the hon. Member for Dulwich and West Norwood mentioned this in her speech. Some 39% of care leavers between the ages of 19 and 21 are not in education, employment or training; one third of care leavers become homeless within two years of leaving care; and almost a quarter of the prison population has spent time in care. Many fantastic organisations, such as Cangle Foyer in Haverhill in my constituency, do so much for vulnerable young people who find themselves with no place to live and little hope of getting the skills they need or a job they would like without professional help to get themselves established. Demand for such help would obviously be less necessary and less urgent if we were successful in improving the social care system for children. I know, after a recent Ofsted report into children’s services in Suffolk, how much work there is still to be done. The Conservative party agrees with the Committee’s recommendations for a national sufficiency strategy for children’s social care and a reduction in the number of out-of-area placements; the development of a national care offer to harmonise support for care leavers; a new national fostering strategy and a register of foster carers; better financial support for kinship carers in line with support for foster carers; and permanent funding for the adoption and special guardianship support fund. We broadly welcomed the measures relating to children’s social care in the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill and the policy paper, “Keeping Children Safe, Helping Families Thrive”. Much of that is a welcome continuation of some of the policies that we pursued in office, including powers to regulate the children’s social care provider market, to cap profits, if necessary, and to regulate the use of agency workers in children’s social care. The Conservative party has argued that there are some ways in which the Government might be able to go further. For example, we proposed amendments to the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill to require the Education Secretary to report annually on the work and impact of multi-agency child protection teams, which would have included their effectiveness in improving information sharing, risk identification and service co-ordination. There are also important questions about the relationship between social care and special educational needs. I know from our experiences in Suffolk that demand for special educational needs and disabilities places outstrips supply. Parents are waiting and waiting for education, health and care plans, and the system is buckling under the pressure. I look forward to hearing very soon what the Government intend to do in relation to SEND. Vulnerable children are often not getting the care they need. They are falling out of the education system, sometimes altogether, or travelling great distances—often more than 75 minutes—at great expense, and sometimes leaving them more exposed to harm, to get to schools that can meet their needs. I know that the plan for the White Paper has been delayed into next year, but I would be grateful if the Minister told us more about the Government’s broad intentions and how he sees the interaction between special educational needs and the social care system. We also have to raise some questions to which the Government have to date been reluctant to give answers. The Casey report into the rape gangs did not focus specifically on the systemic failings in social care, but it showed how children’s services departments repeatedly failed to protect and support victims—vulnerable children who were in the care of the state. In Rochdale, for example, Baroness Casey said that health services “repeatedly shared their significant concerns with the police and children’s social care about the organised sexual exploitation of children in the area”, but nothing happened. Anwar Meah, who was a social worker in Bradford, notoriously attended the so-called wedding of an under-age girl in his care to her abuser. I find that absolutely extraordinary and am surprised there was no prosecution in that case. Will the Minister tell us what the Government will do to earn the trust of the victims involved with the inquiry? Finally, when will the national inquiry into the rape gangs get under way? Every child deserves the best possible start in life. That is why this Select Committee report is a welcome contribution. This debate has been so important. Members across the House, regardless of party politics, have an important duty to be constructive, to work together and to do everything we can for every young person in our country. It is a duty, and we cannot let them down.
Every Labour Government in history have ended their time in office with unemployment higher than when they started, and this Government have made a record-breaking start. Businesses large and small in West Suffolk are putting off investment decisions, freezing recruitment and laying off staff because of the burdens already imposed on them by this Government—business property relief, the family farms tax, national insurance contributions, and the employment rights legislation. After the last Budget, the Chancellor told the Confederation of British Industry that she was not going to “come back for more”, so will the Secretary of State take this opportunity to end the uncertainty and tell business very clearly that there are going to be no more tax rises on business in the Budget?
I call John Grady, who is trying to confuse the Chair by sitting exactly opposite where he normally sits. I found you eventually.
These questions will last around an hour. Members will have to police themselves over the length of the questions that they wish to deliver. I call the shadow Leader of the House.
Order. Colleagues can see that it will be impossible for me to get everybody in, particularly if you are 13 minutes late—Mr Grahame Morris, you will most definitely not be getting in. [Laughter.] I call Martin Vickers.
I call my parliamentary chess partner, Warinder Juss, who lost to Kazakhstan by six points.
A tip for Members: look at your question, cross out half of it, and speak for half the length of time.
I thank Members for working with me and for speaking at lightning speed. I also thank the Leader of the House, who has got his exercise in for the week.
Order. Ms Munt, you say, “you are saying”, but I am not. I hope you are coming to a conclusion.
I thank the hon. Gentleman for notice of his point of order, and his assurance that the Member concerned has been notified.
I can see the hon. Gentleman nodding. What Members say outside the Chamber is not a matter for the Chair, but he has most definitely put his point on the record. He has most likely read the recent report from the Speaker’s Conference, which once again talked about Members using moderate political language.
I thank the hon. Lady for notice of her point of order, and her assurance that she has notified the Minister. While this is not a matter for the Chair, I am sure those on the Treasury Bench—I am seeking to make eye contact—have heard and noted her frustration.
Emily Thornberry will speak for up to 10 minutes, during which time no interventions may be taken. At the conclusion of her statement, I will call Members to ask questions on the subject of the statement, and these should be brief questions, not full speeches. I emphasise that questions should be directed to the Select Committee Chair, not the relevant Government Minister. Front Benchers may take part in questioning.
Order. All Back Benchers are now on a six-minute speaking limit. I call Justin Madders.
Order. It is up to Members if they wish to take an intervention. If they do, they have an extra minute on their speaking time.
As a constituency MP, I have had some appalling experiences with FirstPort, at Oak Lodge in Hockley and at King Georges Court in Rayleigh. The latter is a four-storey McCarthy Stone development that it manages, where the lift was out of action for almost a year. Is not the fundamental problem with FirstPort that it is ultimately owned by several offshore venture capital companies that are very aggressive in seeking revenue from their tenants, but do not seem very willing to provide a decent quality of service in return?
As a member of the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee, I want to bring the House’s attention to the work we did in the summer looking into property management companies. The Chair of the Committee, the hon. Member for Vauxhall and Camberwell Green (Florence Eshalomi), would have been here if she was not already committed to a Westminster Hall debate at the same time, so I send her apologies. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Reigate (Rebecca Paul) for securing this important debate. Like many in this House, my constituents have been affected by property charges and the lack of transparency from certain companies. We have already heard about FirstPort, and I wish to expand on what has been said about it. In Penn Place in Rickmansworth in my constituency, FirstPort looks after about 140 apartments on an estate. Many of my constituents who live there have contacted me regarding the ever-increasing service charges that they face. Their monthly payments have more than doubled, on occasion. They receive no communication as to why an increase is needed, and that places extortionate pressure, both financial and emotional, on those living there. We all are aware of the cost of living in our communities at the moment, given the cost of council tax, energy prices, and licence fees for renting properties in certain London boroughs. Many of my constituents have been unable to sell or move, as people do not want to purchase properties that come with ever-increasing service charges, and we have already heard about that. This is not just an issue in my constituency. I have worked with many of my fellow Conservative MPs on this, and indeed, I know it to be a proper cross-party issue. I have a huge amount of respect for the Minister, who I know will continue to ensure that this issue is addressed, build on the legacy of my Government, and continue to push the matter forward, hopefully at speed. I look forward to him giving that commitment when he responds to this debate. Despite its expensive charges, FirstPort does not even provide an adequate property management service. One of my constituents made me aware that carpets were not being replaced and walls were not being repainted. There is also a high turnover of property managers, which is ineffective for maintaining the estate and symptomatic of a poorly run company. When we were in government, we brought in the Leasehold and Freehold Reform Act 2024, which required transparency about leasehold service charges. It would have allowed leaseholders, such as those in Penn Place in my constituency, to scrutinise and challenge increases if they are unreasonable. The Act has received Royal Assent, but it is yet to be brought fully into force. I understand some of the reasons behind that, but I urge the Minister to get moving on this. I am sure he will give us that reassurance a bit later. In closing, what assurances will the Minister provide to my constituents and many across the country, who constantly face service charge increases but no increase in service, and how we can better protect those residents?
I am sure that many Members have attended meetings with groups of residents who, in trying to resolve issues that are causing them so much anxiety, are at their wits’ end. We have an example in Fylde that is actually pre the management company. An estate has been developed, but it flooded during the construction and twice since, and now the estate company is desperate to get it into a management company, and to transfer all the flood risk liability to that company. Does my hon. Friend agree that kind of thing will just cause further problems down the line?
I thank the Minister for his statement and for advance sight of it—although just under an hour is not a lot of time to digest 75 pages of documentation, so I will do my best. I join the Minister in acknowledging the work done by Sir Brian Langstaff and his inquiries, as well as the serious improvement in the pace of payments that IBCA has made in recent months. We thank Sir Robert Francis, David Foley, and all their team at IBCA. On behalf of the Opposition, I welcome the measures that the Minister has announced that implement some of Sir Brian’s recommendations from the additional report, particularly those dealing with HIV eligibility start dates, the deeming of severity bands, evidence of the date of diagnosis, affected estates, and bereaved partner support scheme payments. Turning to the recommendations relating to hepatitis, we of course welcome confirmation that the Government will remove the earnings floor on the supplementary route exceptional loss award. However, I did not hear any specific reference in the Minister’s statement to measures to address recommendation 4(c) of the original report, which deals with effective treatment. Perhaps the Minister could set out how the Government intend to give effect to that recommendation. Similarly, could he set out what measures the Government are taking—beyond the appointment of the new members of the technical expert group that he has announced—in response to recommendation 2(e), which deals with the transparency of scheme design? That is particularly important in light of the inquiry’s worrying finding that victims did not feel that they were being listened to. I now turn to the recommendations that the Government did not feel able to accept immediately. I welcome the fact that the Minister is consulting on a way forward on those issues; clearly, as I have said, there is a need for transparency and proper consultation. The consultation period will last until the end of January next year. We recognise that there is little that the Minister can do about that clearly defined period, but given the need to address these measures without undue delay, will he ensure that once that consultation period closes, the Government respond swiftly to the consultation paper and introduce any necessary further regulations with maximum speed, so that this House can consider any further measures that are necessary? More broadly, how are the Government applying the lessons learned from the implementation of payment schemes for people infected to better inform the operation of payments to people affected and to their estates, as he referred to in his statement? What action is the Minister taking with the independent IBCA to ensure that the pace of payments, which has seen welcome progress, continues to accelerate and is not jeopardised by changes to rules and processes? As I said, Sir Brian’s inquiries have done incredible and invaluable work to give a voice to those who have battled so courageously against decades of injustice, and to ensure that victims and their families have some remedy, although clearly no amount of money can ever reverse the terrible harm done by this scandal over many years. The recommendations in the additional report that Sir Brian published shortly before the summer are an invaluable contribution. Looking forward, there will need to be a degree of policy certainty as we move from a period of review to one of rectification and delivery. That is one reason that the cross-party work, both before and since the election, has been so important to give confidence and certainty. Looking ahead, does the Minister have any indication as to when we might expect the inquiry to draw to a close, and what might the mechanism be for doing so?
The Chair of the Backbench Business Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman), sends his apologies, so I am standing in for him. It is unfortunate that we are going to miss an opportunity for Backbench Business time next Thursday, but could the Leader of the House reconsider the following Thursday? We will have Lords amendments to the Planning and Infrastructure Bill, and that is likely to finish early, so perhaps there could be an hour or two at the end of the day for additional Backbench Business. In Westminster Hall, there will be a debate next Tuesday on the impact of reductions in official development assistance on international development. On 11 November, there will be a debate on support for dyslexic pupils at school. On 13 November, there will be a debate on modern day slavery in Pakistan. On 18 November, there will be a debate to mark the 80th anniversary of UNESCO, and on 20 November, debates on inequalities faced by unpaid carers and World COPD Day. Turning to my own question, I have raised on a number of occasions the impact on my local community of the possible closure of Lindsey oil refinery. There is growing concern among union representatives, the local community and possible investors in the refinery, that the Government do not favour a bid that takes in the entire site and continues refining products. Indeed, one potential investor is considering a judicial review of the process. Will the Leader of the House arrange for a statement from the relevant Minister in the next few days?
I commend my hon. Friend the Member for Reigate (Rebecca Paul) for securing this important debate. I understand more than most the issues with property service charges, because I am a leaseholder where I live in Hoddesdon. A quarter of my constituents live in flats or maisonettes, and 25% of property transactions in Broxbourne last year involved leasehold properties, but shockingly, as we have heard, it is hard to find any leaseholder who has a good word to say about their landlord or their service charge. Landlords and solicitors do not provide enough information to new residents, and far too often prospective residents are not properly informed before they move in about how much service charges have increased in previous years. They are then hit with huge rises down the line. It is also unclear where the money is going. A resident in Waltham Cross told me: “The service charge has skyrocketed from around £800 to £6,000 for each leaseholder, yet living conditions remain extremely dire. Residents here face ongoing issues including trespassers, mould, broken security doors, mice infestations and squatters. Our building also has several defects, including weak floors, fire safety issues, and ongoing leakages. At one point my flat became uninhabitable after a severe leak that took months to resolve”. I hear these stories again and again from constituents who come to me as the contact of last resort after months and sometimes years of neglect to their property. In that case I met the management company involved, RMG, earlier this year, but nothing has changed. Whether it is RMG, FirstPort, Bamptons, EN8 Homes or Warwick Estates, leaseholders deserve better from their landlords and management companies, who focus purely on collecting ever higher charges for worse services. However, by far the worst treatment of leaseholders in my constituency has been at the hands of—I hope the Minister is listening to this point—Labour-run Enfield council. I was first contacted by residents on the Whitefields estate in May this year, and what I heard left me outraged. Completely out of the blue, Enfield council was demanding up to £50,000 from each leaseholder for “urgent” repairs. Roofs that had never had a leak were earmarked to be replaced, and windows would be fixed, even though they had been used for years without issue. Understandably, my residents immediately asked, “What about my service charge?” Well, as the Leasehold Advisory Service says, many landlords collect money out of the service charge for a sinking fund, to help cover the cost of exactly these kinds of major works. But not Enfield council. No, it expects my constituents to stump up all the cash, even after raising the service charge that year and, as far as the residents are concerned, having not spent a single penny on the estate in decades. The Whitefields estate tenants association, and in particular leaseholder Nicky McCabe, have worked incredibly hard to bring the community together in response to this issue. They simply demanded straightforward answers to straightforward questions, but they were met with confusing statements from Enfield council representatives, who found it far too easy to say, “That’s not my job.” I attended the meeting. There were a number of directors from Enfield council there, all of whom earn significant sums of money, and they could not answer basic questions from my constituents about how much they would have to pay, and what was going to change on the estate. The communication was shocking. My constituents’ fight is still ongoing, and they have my full support.
I agree with my hon. Friend, who makes an excellent point in standing up for his constituents. This is an important point. All MPs across the House have probably attended such meetings, and these companies are unable to answer the most basic questions. They are paid considerable amounts of money, and they cannot answer simple questions from constituents about how much money they will have to pay, where the liability sits, and what work they are going to do.
I fully support the right to buy, which was a good policy—[Interruption.] I am just stating that it was a good policy and I supported that. The hon. Lady makes an interesting point about communication, which must be there. As I have mentioned, Enfield council does not collect a sinking fund, which can go some way towards mitigating some of the issues, as she and I have raised, with leaseholders being asked to stump up for large bills. We need more transparency and better regulation, and we must ensure—here I agree with hon. Members across the Chamber—that councils adopt outside amenity spaces. We need real improvements in the way that leaseholders are treated. Abolishing ground rent is a good first step and the Government need to get on with delivering that. I also agree that commonhold must be more widespread, but is by no means a silver bullet or right for everyone. I urge the Government to get on with it, improve the lives of hundreds of my constituents, and urgently implement more of the Leasehold and Freehold Reform Act 2024. We must get on with those improvements and help hundreds of our constituents.
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Reigate (Rebecca Paul) on securing this debate in the House. Earlier this year, I wrote to hundreds of residents across the Weald of Kent to get a better understanding of how property management companies operate across our home. What I discovered was very worrying and, as many Members here will recognise, it is an all too common story. To date, I have heard from nearly 100 people across 11 estates all complaining about their property management company FirstPort. The pattern is as depressing as it is predictable: steep and unexplained increases in service charges, slow and inadequate responses to maintenance issues, and a serious lack of accountability and transparency. Let me share a few examples. Constituents in Yalding and Headcorn have told me that they face a 70% and a 40% rise in their management fees respectively. Those are not minor uplifts, and nobody can tell them clearly what they are paying for. I understand that costs are rising not least for things like insurance, but at the very least, hikes like that should be clearly explained. Constituents in Marden and Kingsnorth have documented cases where no maintenance at all was carried out for months, despite repeated chasing—grass not cut, lights not fixed and rubbish not cleared—and yet the bills keep coming. Finally, constituents in Tenterden and Coxheath have told me that it is beginning to affect the value of their homes, as my hon. Friend mentioned. Some have said that their properties are becoming unsellable because buyers will not take on the liability of these charges and this management. In one case, two sisters are trying to sell their late father’s flat. He bought it for £150,000 and they now cannot even sell it at £60,000. At auction, the price has fallen below £20,000. They told me that local estate agents refuse to list it because of the fees associated with managing the property. Much of this is part of a wider pattern. Many residents on these estates pay twice for what most people would regard as the same basic services. They pay full council tax to their local authority, as everyone does, but on a growing number of estates, the council has not taken over the roads, street lighting or green spaces and therefore does not maintain them.
I am afraid so, and fairly regularly in fact. The legal action that the hon. Member mentions is important to reflect on because it can in some cases be deeply distressing and seem very aggressive for people just trying to get what they have already paid for, which in some cases does not even exist yet. Residents are required to pay a second set of charges on top of the council tax to a private management company, such as FirstPort. They pay council tax for street lighting and then they pay a private company for street lighting. They pay council tax for maintaining the verges, and then they pay again for someone to cut the grass—except of course in many cases the grass is not cut. In these situations, the homeowner has almost no practical leverage. The council says, “It is private land”; the management company says, “You are contractually obliged to pay us anyway”; and the person who lives there, who cannot simply switch provider and who must disclose the charges when they come to sell, is left with little ability to challenge poor value. People are paying more and getting less. There is a continuing lack of transparency, with residents routinely denied a proper breakdown of charges, not given meaningful answers and, in some cases, not even given the dignity of a reply. FirstPort is one of many property management companies that have been allowed, in some respects, to conduct themselves with impunity, largely because local residents have almost no consumer power or transparency. I have met representatives of FirstPort, and they assure me that the company is changing and improving. I very much hope that this is true. But, in case that does not happen, the last Government took important steps to address this through the Leasehold and Freehold Reform Act 2024. The purpose of the Act is to give residents clear information about what they are being charged and why; to widen access to redress when something goes wrong, which is crucial; and to ensure that disputes with management companies can be resolved fairly. But residents will not see those benefits until all the secondary legislation is brought into force, guidance is published and management companies are given a clear expectation that they will need to comply. I caution the Government against assuming that the answer might be to layer on fresh regulation or to draft a new Bill. I encourage the Government to accelerate the implementation of those elements of the Act. My constituents do not want to wait, say, another year to see itemised, comprehensible service charge bills and prompt access to redress. They accept that the streetlights must be maintained, the gutters cleared and insurance bought—they know all of that costs money—but what they will not accept, and nor should they, is paying more for less with no answers and no accountability.
There are many displaced people in other countries in the region as a consequence of the violence in Sudan. What additional support are the UK Government giving to those countries to support those displaced people?
I recently met with Discover Adventure, a small business in Coombe Bissett which is genuinely struggling to engage with Government over the recent package travel regulations. It sits ambiguously between DBT, the Department for Transport and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport; indeed, a question was thrown back today, having been tabled in the Table Office. May I sincerely ask the Minister to help me locate the correct Minister to deal with the Association of Independent Tour Operators? This is a vital small business sector in this country, and it needs someone to engage with in Government over these regulations.
May we have a debate on the regressive taxation of single parents? If we look at the costs for 2025-26 of employing a single parent on the national living wage for 30 hours a week, we find that the combination of the national insurance threshold going down 45%, a 6.7% increase in the cost of the national living wage and additional costs related to national insurance means that it is 11% more expensive to employ somebody who is working 30 hours a week on the national living wage. Surely that is not what a Labour Government should be standing up for?
I thank the Minister for his meticulous and thorough analysis of all the different strands of this challenging problem, and for the work he has done to deal with the complexity of different groups’ concerns over delivery of the compensation. I also thank Sir Brian Langstaff for what he has done. However, after six years, £140 million has been spent on this inquiry—and we do not yet have the accounts for the current year. In Sir Tyrone Urch’s review, which the Minister mentioned, the first recommendation is regarding policy stability. Can the Minister say something about how we will achieve that policy stability? Respectfully, is it not time to thank Sir Brian and Sir Robert for their work and then focus on the delivery of IBCA, rather than have more iterations of recommendations, which do not achieve much for the individuals who need this accelerated?
I thank the Leader of the House for that update. I know the whole House will want to join me in sending our very best wishes to the victims of the hurricane in Jamaica, and now also Cuba, Haiti and the Turks and Caicos Islands. I want to pay a personal tribute to Prunella Scales, who died this week. She was a magnificent actress, the linchpin of a great acting dynasty and—as was her husband Timothy West—a wonderful reader of audiobooks. Among the news this week have been the following items: the former Leader of the House, the right hon. Member for Manchester Central (Lucy Powell), has been elected as deputy leader of the Labour party, and has vowed to work constructively with No. 10 Downing Street; the Director of Public Prosecutions has publicly contradicted the Prime Minister in relation to the collapsed China spying case; the Labour party has fallen in the polls to a record low for a recently elected Government; and Irish citizens may now be forced to have digital identity cards to work in this country under the Government’s new plans. I would like to raise with the Leader of the House two important issues, one directly relating to the recent business of the House. As a former Chief Whip, he will know that the first question at Prime Minister’s questions always follows a simple formula: the Prime Minister is asked to list their engagements; he or she typically presents public condolences or congratulations and comments on an issue—often an international issue—affecting the whole House; and then says, “This morning I had meetings with ministerial colleagues and others,” and so on. Unfortunately, since taking office last year, the present Prime Minister has increasingly misused his first engagements question. Two weeks ago, he used it to avoid making a full statement to the House about China, which I do not think can have pleased the Speaker’s Office. This week, he used it to try to score a series of partisan political points—by my counting, the eighth time he has tried to do this since taking office. This is an abuse of procedure, and it is a discourtesy to this House. Its effect is to turn an open question into a party political broadcast. It undermines a valuable opportunity to bring the House together every week on a matter of public importance before the usual knockabout of PMQs begins. It is unworthy of the Prime Minister’s office and unworthy of the Prime Minister, who is a very decent human being. Therefore, may I politely invite the Leader of the House to ask the Prime Minister to desist? [Interruption.] And may I wish him good luck in doing so? My second issue concerns the so-called graduate premium. The Government hold an extremely powerful set of data known as the longitudinal educational outcomes —or LEO data—which link people’s school results, university records and later earnings. Many people in this House—including, perhaps more than any of us, the Leader of the House—will know that education can transform people’s lives for the better. This dataset can show what happens and how it does so in detail, but most of the data remain entirely hidden. Only limited figures have been published, such as average graduate earnings five years after university. The Government also have information on what happens to those who do not go to university, but this too is withheld, so we still cannot answer questions that are crucial for many people. How financially worthwhile is a particular course or a particular institution? How effective are apprenticeships? What difference does university really make? The secrecy weakens public trust and good public policy. Families and young people are being forced to make major life choices without clear facts, because no member of the public or, indeed, Member of this House can see which courses or institutions genuinely improve this kind of opportunity. It seems that the Government themselves will increasingly use the data to shape policy, but without making those data public. People go to university for many different reasons, and financial returns are only part of the story, but these data are gathered at public expense and describe public outcomes. With the right safeguards, they should be open for review and for public debate and discussion. The Institute for Fiscal Studies has explained exactly how, so will the Leader of the House ask his colleagues in the Department for Education to make the LEO data public soon?
To show his deregulatory zeal, the Business Secretary just boasted about scrapping the British Hallmarking Council, which has one part-time employee. Given that every £1 of regulatory costs has the same impact on investment as £1 taken in tax, why are the Government proceeding with their unemployment Bill and proposing a £5 billion a year tax on British businesses?
The Liberal Democrat-chaired Buckinghamshire and Milton Keynes fire authority has cooked up a dangerous plan to remove nearly a third of the fire engines from the area, including Haddenham. They are also fully closing Stokenchurch and Great Missenden fire stations in my constituency. Can we have a debate in Government time on the importance of not just local fire services but joined-up thinking, given that this Government wish to massively increase the number of homes built in Buckinghamshire and plaster our countryside with dangerous things like battery energy storage systems, which pose a huge fire risk?
T2. The Conservatives brought in a national guarantee of 11,500 post offices in the network. Labour has promised to scrap that. What assurances can Ministers give to people in Middleton, Lockington, Leconfield, Cherry Burton, Aldbrough, Walkington, Tickton, Hedon, Wawne, Skirlaugh, Sproatley, Beverley, Roos, Ottringham, Keyingham, Withernsea, Easington and Thorngumbald that their post offices will be retained?
Labour’s industrial strategy recognises that housing and infrastructure are vital to driving regional investment. But as I hope the Minister will know, across the road, the Treasury has been quietly consulting on changes to the landfill tax, ending the decades-long exemption for quarries. That change would add millions of pounds on to infra- structure projects and increase tax costs for construction businesses across the country. How would such a move help grow our economy and build the homes and infra- structure that we need?
I am afraid that is not good enough. The industry is facing deep uncertainty around the kite flying going on across the road at the Treasury. I realise that he is not responsible for that, but he needs a better answer for the construction industry. The Construction Products Association has just cut its growth forecast for the sector to barely 1% next year, warning that the uncertainty over new taxes is choking investment. I will ask the Minister again: how on earth will adding £28,000 to the cost of a new home, or 25% to road construction costs, through a new builders tax do anything other than cement the slowdown that Labour is overseeing in our economy?
T7. Earlier, the Secretary of State said that he was committed to growing our car industry, but British car manufacturers face huge fines for selling cars that consumers actually want, while the Government use taxpayers’ money to subsidise the purchase of foreign cars with Chinese batteries in them. What are the Government’s plans to end the nonsensical zero emission vehicles mandate, and to restore a normal market, from which our car industry would benefit?
Thank you for calling me, Madam Deputy Speaker, and through you I thank Mr Speaker for granting this important Adjournment debate. I congratulate the Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, the hon. Member for Glasgow South West (Dr Ahmed), on his well-deserved promotion to ministerial office—it was in very short order, but it is very well deserved. I thank him for being present to respond to this debate tonight, because he has, as I have just indicated, a rather longer journey home to his constituency than I do back to Leicestershire. At the outset of this debate, I should put on the record that I am, of course, registered as a patient at one of the NHS GP practices in my constituency, which I may refer to in the course of this debate. As every Member of this House will recognise, general practice is in many ways the gateway to the NHS for our constituents. It has the potential to do a huge amount more. Sadly, on some occasions the gateway to NHS services for our constituents is simply to go to A&E, rather than seeking to go to their general practitioner, or indeed rather than using—to the extent that it has the potential to be used—pharmacy as a first port of call, as people can see a pharmacist for some advice in the first instance. For the vast majority of people, though, it is the GP practice that is the route into the NHS and where people go when they are concerned about their health. I am sure that all Members of the House would recognise the challenges and pressures faced by general practice irrespective of Government in recent years. There are a number of factors behind that. We should not forget the impact of the pandemic, with the changing patterns of attendance that followed it and the increased demand that came immediately after it. We are also seeing the consequences of an ageing population in our country, with people living longer with more chronic conditions. We also see the increased pressure in many of our communities, irrespective of where they are in the country, that arises from increases in housing development that are not met with increases in the provision of key local infrastructure. This has been especially true in recent years in my constituency, where we have seen huge increased local development without that infrastructure. There is also the prospect of significantly more development. I am going to talk primarily today about the particular issues in Melton Mowbray and the surrounding villages, as I have indicated to the Minister, as I am keen that he is able to give a pragmatic and helpful response for my constituents. I will also touch on some broader themes and on the provision of general practice in the village of Sileby in my constituency, which also faces pressure and challenges.
The hon. Gentleman is right. Although I spent two and a half years as a Minister in the Department of Health and Social Care, I was never the Minister for Primary Care, but I am very much aware, as I suspect Members across the House are, that that is an additional pressure on time for general practitioners. We in government sought to do what we could to reduce that, and to be fair to the new Government, I know the Secretary of State is actively looking at what can be done to further streamline administrative processes to allow general practitioners and their teams to spend more time with patients. Although my focus is on GP services in Melton Mowbray and Sileby, it is true that all GP surgeries in my area—whether that is the County practice and Jubilee medical practice in Syston, or practices in Thurmaston, Bottesford, Long Clawson and other nearby villages—continue to face huge pressures. It is important to say that these practices really do their best. Their staff—not just the GPs, but the whole teams—work incredibly hard, and I know they care deeply about the service they provide to their patients. In Melton Mowbray especially, they see acute pressure, particularly on appointments: we have just one GP practice for a growing town. Latham House medical practice has over 36,000 patients on its books, making it one of the largest in the country. Timely access to GP appointments is one of the largest regular issues to appear in my constituency inbox, with waits—according to the correspondence I receive—of at least six weeks, and it can be eight or 10 weeks before an appointment is available. Clearly, that is not right. It is important to say, to be fair to Latham House medical practice, that when my constituents get to see either a nurse, an allied health professional or a GP, they regularly cite in their emails the quality of the care and the kindness shown by the staff. Indeed, we recently saw a Cavell star award given to Debra Gilbert, one of the nurses at the practice, so the team there work hard and are passionate about what they do. In 2024, they saw an average of 6,900 appointments per 1,000 of the population on their list. That is higher than the national average, but I would urge a little caution because that is a crude statistic that does not necessarily comparatively reflect the different demographics of different areas, such as whether an older population or deprivation in an area lead to a higher need. It is important to put on the record that they are doing what they can to try to improve access, but clearly, an increase in provision is needed locally. Back in 2021, the then clinical commissioning group agreed that it recognised the need for increased provision of GP services in Melton Mowbray. In 2023, the integrated care board continued with that and agreed to explore a second GP practice, recognising the need for it. I believe that was a sensible decision by the ICB, but regrettably, just a few weeks ago in early October, it announced that it was pausing its work to develop such a plan until 2027. I have been around the Department of Health and Social Care and worked with the NHS long enough to know what a pause, sadly, all too often means. In Melton Mowbray, we have seen a pause of six months at the St Mary’s birth centre—a midwifery-led unit—to allow for staffing shortages to be addressed. Four months into that pause, we have yet to see any suggestion of how it might be brought to an end. When I hear the word “pause”, I fear that will run on into something more permanent. This issue, which is hugely important to my constituents, has been covered extensively and powerfully in the local media—in particular by the excellent local paper, the Melton Times. It is important to say that I am conscious that neither I, as a Member of Parliament, nor Melton borough council—which is equally keen for increased provision and with which I have spoken—or indeed the Minister himself have the power to simply overrule a decision taken by an integrated care board in a local matter such as this. I took through the 2022 Act, so I have a vague recollection of how that works. That remains a deeply disappointing decision, and, I believe, the wrong one. The value of access to general practice, and the impact that a lack of access has, is writ large. Earlier today, I had one of my regular catch-ups with Councillor Ronan Browne, the leader of the opposition on Melton borough council, who did a lot to get us to the point where we were hopeful of seeing a second GP practice. He set out his deep disappointment about this decision. There is a clear remaining need. The ICB, in its announcement on reaching its decision, stated that the section 106 payments on which it was aiming to base the provision of capital for the new building were now insufficient. It also stated that slow growth in new registrations, and slower population growth than had been anticipated, were relevant to its decision making. However, that does not help my constituents. I am conscious of the challenges of funding buildings. As the Minister and I have discussed, in a sense—ironic though it may sound—finding money for a building is sometimes easier than the second part of the equation, which is securing the staff, and managing the oncosts to fund that. I should say that I am grateful to the ICB for its engagement and to Toby Sanders, its chief executive, for his open engagement with me. As I say, he has emphasised that he believes that section 106 payments are not enough, and the ICB has said that it has no funds to backfill that or pay for anything from its own funds. It is important to remember that, as the Minister will be aware, general practitioners and general practices are, in many ways, private businesses contracted to provide services to the NHS, but they are not direct employees of the NHS, so they cannot be directly instructed by the Minister, by ICBs or by NHS England—it is important to put that context on the record. In respect of the argument by the ICB that there were insufficient increases in new registrations and new patients to justify a second GP practice at this time—noting the pause—I am afraid that that fails to reflect the importance of choice for patients in switching to a different service in their locality if they so wish, and, in so doing, potentially easing pressure on the existing practice’s list. Pausing without a clear alternative long-term plan is simply not good enough. Latham House surgery has recently announced that it has taken steps to help to address this in the short term. On 15 October, it announced that it was recruiting an extra five GPs and additional nursing staff, that its Asfordby satellite surgery would be opening full-time in the future, and that it was looking to create new provision in a small premises on Sherrard Street in the town. Those are welcome steps for which I am grateful, and I look forward to hearing more about those proposals from the practice, but they do not alter my view on the long-term needs of Melton Mowbray and the surrounding villages. The ICB needs to act and be supported in doing so by the Department of Health and Social Care. It is true to say as well that ICBs face real challenges, including the Government requiring them to force cuts in staff and to restructure, but without seemingly providing them with additional ringfenced funding for the costs of that restructuring, be they redundancies or otherwise. That means that regardless of whether the end is a good one—that is, a leaner ICB—ICBs will potentially have to cut from the frontline in the short to medium term to fund that restructuring. As I have alluded to, there are also the challenges of oncosts and funding GPs to staff a surgery. GPs have a choice as to where they choose to work, and I suspect the old Carr-Hill formula, which the Minister and I have spoken about in the past, does not aid that. It is a challenge that Governments of all complexions have faced and I hope that he, if he is willing, will take on the challenge of looking at the Carr-Hill formula. He will have my constructive support in doing so. Latham House practice has cited the challenges in securing and retaining staff so I recognise that, but again, those are challenges for the Government and the ICB to assist and support with and not ones that should be borne, as a consequence, by my constituents. I will briefly mention Sileby, another village in my constituency. It has two good GP practices, but it is a rapidly growing village, and larger premises are needed. Again, the ICB has indicated that it will not have funds to fund or support that and once again, section 106 moneys are likely to be insufficient. It is a real challenge faced by GP practices up and down the country as to how they take that step, often having to accept more patients as houses are built. Even when there is a section 106 payment, it is only triggered later in the process once they have already had to absorb an increase in patients. I hope that the Minister might look at that. Although I recognise and welcome Latham House’s actions and hard work and I hope that delivers results, I fear it simply is not enough to tackle the long-term needs. The Secretary of State’s new neighbourhood health centre programme may well help us in the longer term. For example, one of those could be allocated to Melton Mowbray, which already has Melton Mowbray hospital—in my view an underused and therefore perfect site, and the Minister can take that as a potential early bid for such a centre. That may help in the long term, but we still need action now for my constituents to improve access and to build for the long term. I am sure the Minister will know that Melton Mowbray and the surrounding villages and towns are fantastic places with a real sense of community, a proud history, a great present and huge future potential, just like the other parts of my constituency. Melton Mowbray’s residents are good, decent people who need, and frankly deserve, improved access to GP appointments and an increased focus on tackling this for their communities. Will the Minister set out what steps the Government are taking in partnership with ICBs to help address increased need for access to GP appointments, both nationally and locally? Is he willing to take on the challenge of looking at the Carr-Hill formula and how GPs are funded per patient for their activity? Will he reassure ICBs that all restructuring costs, over and above their current budgets, will be centrally funded to avoid them cutting frontline services? Will he work for better links between section 106 moneys and the needs of healthcare provision locally? Will he meet me, ideally in Melton Mowbray—he is very welcome—to discuss what can be done locally to improve GP provision? I genuinely hope that he shares my view that Melton Mowbray and the nearby villages not only need further enhancement to existing services, which Latham House is trying to put in place, but genuinely need that second GP practice to meet their future needs. I will continue to campaign on behalf of my constituents for that, but I will also, as I hope he has seen in the brief time we have known each other, be willing to work with the NHS and with any political party that helps facilitate that locally and nationally. Finally, will he agree to work with me and my constituents to deliver the improved premises and services needed to meet the current and future primary care needs of my fantastic constituents in Melton Mowbray and the surrounding villages?