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Before we come to the urgent question, I must say how disappointing it is that the Government were not forthcoming with a proactive ministerial statement on this matter. The disruption to aviation and the impact on many constituents has been considerable. I hope the Minister and the Treasury Front Bench will pass that message on to the Secretary of State.
Order. We have many colleagues to get through. I can see that some Members are holding bits of paper with far too many sentences on them—cross them out and ask a question in one sentence. I call Sharon Hodgson.
I do not think I have ever been publicly invited and dismissed from a date in one sitting. I call Euan Stainbank.
6. What progress she has made on the review of arm’s length bodies.
There are actually over 400 quangos in existence, which spend over £390 billion a year—that is £1 in every £3 spent by the Government. Last year, Ministers promised a full review of those quangos; as an accountant, we would call that zero-based budgeting. Will the Minister tell the House how many of those bodies have been scrapped and how much has been saved?
On behalf of the shadow Defence team, I would like to take this opportunity to welcome the new Defence Secretary—Labour’s third in three months—to his place and to thank him for advance sight of this important statement. On a personal note, we have a mutual friend in Labour councillor Gareth Barrett, who I know would be very proud to see his long-time friend standing at the Dispatch Box and representing the Ministry of Defence. It is over four years since Russia’s brutal and illegal full-scale invasion of Ukraine, but as the Ukrainians reminded me when I visited Kyiv in February, the Russo-Ukrainian war has actually been raging for 12 years, because Putin’s Russia illegally annexed Crimea and parts of the Donbas in 2014. That is longer than both the first and second world wars combined. I am sure that I speak for the whole House in paying tribute to the Ukrainians for their fierce and determined resistance. They are fighting for the values of freedom and democracy, which this House has represented for centuries, so when we say, “Slava Ukraini!”, we mean it. On my trip to Ukraine, the Speaker of the Rada said something that I will never forget: “When you go back to London, tell them we know the Russians better than anybody, and if we fall, you’re next.” My hon. Friend the Member for South Shropshire (Stuart Anderson), who is joining our shadow Defence team, has just returned from Kyiv overnight. He reports how the Russians cynically suspended missile strikes on the capital while those on the American delegation were present, but resumed the strikes almost immediately after their departure. Tragically, a number of innocent civilians were murdered in Kyiv last night. On supporting Ukraine and brave President Zelensky, there has been absolute solidarity between ourselves and the Labour party. When I served in the Ministry of Defence following the 2014 invasion, we began training Ukrainian troops on Salisbury Plain via what was then known as Operation Orbital, and that continues today via Operation Interflex. Between them, they have trained over 50,000 Ukrainian troops on British soil. The House will no doubt recall the very powerful footage of columns of Russian tanks being destroyed in 60 seconds in highly co-ordinated anti-tank ambushes north of Kyiv in February 2022, which were carried out by Ukrainian troops using UK-manufactured NLAW anti-tank weapons. Had it not been for that kit and the training that accompanied it, the Russians would likely be having lunch in Kyiv today. We all want to see a ceasefire in Ukraine but, as the Ukrainians themselves would tell us, not at any price. The Government’s policy is to participate in a “coalition of the willing” in order to help maintain a ceasefire—I hope the Secretary of State can confirm that again. However, were we to deploy the British Army into Ukraine, our troops would need to be adequately trained and equipped. A few moments ago, the Defence Secretary invited the House to hold him to account. Taking him at his word, I must press him on some extremely worrying reports—first published in The Times on 3 September, and amplified in the Defence Eye journal on Tuesday—that British Army training is being seriously curtailed in order to provide in-year efficiency savings— “cuts”, in pub English— at the Treasury’s behest. For the financial year 2026-27, the MOD has been given a ridiculous efficiency savings target of over £3 billion, with much of it to come from operational spending such as training exercises. The Army’s share of that is reportedly £1.2 billion. Given the seriousness of this situation, I wish to ask the Defence Secretary three very important questions. First, is it true that training in both the regular and the reserves is being materially constricted to save this money at the Treasury’s behest? Secondly, what actions is he as Defence Secretary, no doubt in consultation with the Chief of the General Staff, taking to push back against these pernicious in-year funding cuts imposed by the Treasury? What discussions has he had with the new Chancellor, who, ironically, resigned as Defence Secretary in June because Labour would not commit to spend 3% of GDP on defence by 2030? The Government cannot keep kicking this can down the road. Thirdly, in which year specifically will Labour now commit to spend 3% of GDP on defence, as the Conservatives are now pledged to do by 2030 at the latest? We will not deter the likes of Vladimir Putin by capping bus fares. In summary, we are four-square with the Ukrainians. We support the Government in supporting them, but they must support our troops, so what are they doing to train them?
On housing numbers, there is no Reform MP present this afternoon, but Reform-led Rochford district council has just published its regulation 19 local plan. During the May elections, Reform made a great thing of defending the green belt, and in the intervening period its councillors intimated to lots of local campaign groups that, when the plan came out, they would be all right. Yet we now find that nearly every single one of those green-belt sites has been recommended for development. Does my hon. Friend agree that if they do not really mean to defend the green belt—clearly they do not—they should never have said that?
My hon. Friend will be aware that the Mayor of London has been in power for over 10 years, and that London’s housing starts have fallen through the floor. Over 300,000 Londoners are estimated to be on housing waiting lists, the majority of them in Labour boroughs. Does he find the rhetoric today somewhat confusing, given that even though the Government have cut Sadiq Khan’s affordable housing target by 22%, he continues to miss it?
Despite dedicating their lives to public service through long careers in the civil service, many of my constituents have faced severe delays with their pension payments, causing them anxiety and financial hardship. How will the Minister ensure that her Department gives my constituents the support they need, that this crisis is resolved and, just as importantly, that it does not happen again?
Flooding during severe weather incidents is often predictable, because those same areas suffer from low-level regular flooding throughout the rest of the year. The issue affects multi-council areas, up and downstream, and covers multiple Government agencies. Bodies such as flooding boards that cover those areas are a great way of co-ordinating agencies and councils, but we do not have them across the whole UK. Would the Minister consider rolling out flood boards in every part of the UK?
T6. Upon her appointment as First Secretary of State, it was widely reported in the press that the right hon. Lady’s responsibility for fraud in the Cabinet Office was removed from her. I wonder whether the First Secretary of State could outline why there was such speculation, and if she struggles with that, perhaps she can use the phone-a-friend option.
On 17 June 2025, my constituent’s four-month-old puppy, Teddy, sustained a serious leg injury during an introductory puppy grooming appointment. Upon complaining to the staff, they dismissed it as just a bruise, but later veterinary imaging confirmed blunt force trauma, resulting in three fractures to the dog’s leg. Instead of addressing the complaint transparently, they ultimately offered partial compensation, but only if my constituent signed a broad confidentiality clause. I raised this matter with a Minister from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, and received a response on 27 November 2025, but the response missed the nub of the issue that my constituent was raising. I also requested a meeting. I have since emailed and written to them on 12 January, 14 March, 16 April and 26 August, but have not even received a response from the DEFRA Minister. Will the Leader of the House use his good offices to seek a response?
We have heard again what we have had in response to a number of written questions. The Minister either does not know or will not tell us how much No. 10 North will cost, how many people work there and how many of them actually turn up to work—it is almost as though this has not been properly thought through. Does the Minister understand why, with so little information and so little transparency, so many people feel that this is a gimmick rather than a strategy?
We would not have had to table so many written questions if Ministers had actually answered our first question, instead of expecting us to come up with precisely the right form of words to leave them with no way of getting out. Surely it cannot be right that it requires a freedom of information request to discover how much it costs for a replica door at No. 10 North, but the Minister refuses to answer legitimate parliamentary scrutiny. Will the Minister at least—if he does have this information, which the Department surely does—finally commit to publishing the total budget for No. 10 North, the number of staff and special advisers who are going to work there, and attendance statistics?
It is a pleasure to speak opposite the new Minister, with whom I very much enjoyed working on the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee. Now that she is on the Government Front Bench, I suppose it is left to me to ask the tough questions. The Government have said that the Bill has been designed to encourage social housing providers to invest in the building of new socially rented homes. They want to encourage councils to build by restricting right to buy. That is the wrong approach. Yes, waiting lists for councils homes are far too high, but making it harder for tenants to get on in life and escape the clutches of the public sector is not the right solution. Instead, Ministers should look at what their policies are doing. Despite their promises, Labour is going backwards on house building. As our reasoned amendment states, last year there were “12,810 fewer net additional dwellings delivered in England compared to the previous year”. Why are the Government not pledging to take on the developers, who are sitting on thousands of unbuilt planning applications? The Institute for Public Policy Research—Labour’s favourite think-tank—has found that 1.4 million homes have been left unbuilt since 2007, despite planning permission being granted. The figure of 1.4 million homes sounds rather close to the Government’s challenging target of 1.5 million new homes. People are fed up with the eyesores in their neighbourhood—levelled ground left abandoned, surrounded by hoardings. I can show the Minister many examples in my Broxbourne constituency, and I am sure that hon. Members from right across the House can do the same. Taking on the land-banking developers would have widespread public support, but this Government only seem interested in making it easier to build on the green belt. We are still waiting for them to reveal what action they are taking to speed up building following the consultations held more than 12 months ago, so there is clearly no urgency. The Government should also consider who should be eligible for the help of a social home. People who come to this country and wish to live here should not rely on the generosity of taxpayers. Making Britain your home should be earned by working hard and integrating; it should not come with a free ride on the benefits system. That is why the Conservative party will end social housing tenancies for foreign nationals. Ensuring that only UK nationals can access social housing would free up 230,000 homes for British families. That change would make an immediate and significant difference to those stuck on council house waiting lists, but the Government would prefer that they sit around waiting for the Bill. Sadly, this Government, and especially their Back Benchers, are blinded by their ideological dislike of right to buy. It is clearly—[Interruption.] A number of Members have asked where Conservative Members were today. As I said in a Westminster Hall debate, Members of Parliament have a lot to deal with. When we do surgeries in our constituencies and people say, “When I turn on the TV, I see hardly anyone in the Chamber,” we all explain why that is. I suspect there will be times when all hon. Members cannot make it to important debates that their constituents want them to attend. It is clearly the view of Labour Members that if we had no right to buy, social housing waiting lists would disappear, but where do they think the 2 million families that have utilised the scheme would be without it? Well, I can tell them: they would probably be in the same home, but it would be subsidised by the taxpayer rather than privately owned. Abolishing right to buy is not the silver bullet that they think it is. The Government are placing huge burdens on social housing providers to help Ministers meet their own net zero targets. The cost of complying with new energy regulations is causing significant pressure, and getting 713,000 homes up to minimum energy efficiency standards is estimated to cost £4.5 billion. The Chartered Institute of Housing told the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee that housing associations do not want to buy properties with gas boilers because they know that it will cost them more money to strip them out and make properties energy efficient. That is pushing up council house waiting lists. The National Housing Federation is clear about what that means: spending billions to comply with net zero regulations will make it harder to build new homes. Ministers already know this, as they reduced energy efficiency targets for social housing in January on the basis that providers could not build new homes because of the financial burden of upgrading their existing stock. If Ministers want councils to be incentivised to build, entirely getting rid of those expensive regulations would be a good place to start. What is positive in the Bill is the review of the shared ownership scheme, and I hope the Minister, when she gets to her feet, can confirm that the Government intend to keep that review in the Bill. This obligation was added by the Government only due to the diligent work of the Conservative team in the other place. I have lived in a shared ownership property, and I know that—as for other forms of ownership, such as leasehold—reforms are desperately needed to fix the many problems residents face. The Opposition agree that the provisions to protect victims of domestic violence are needed, but a separate legislative measure would have been the right way to bring those forward. I gently say to the many hon. Members who have made impassioned speeches that, when I was a council leader, I had a number of meetings with housing providers and housing associations, and not once in the hundreds of hours of meetings I had with social housing providers did they say to me that they could not build new social homes in Broxbourne, or in fact across the country, because of the right to buy. It was never mentioned as a reason why housing associations are not building social homes.
The hon. Member has intervened on me quite a lot, and we have had quite a ding-dong in this Chamber. I say gently to him that when I speak to housing providers, they tell me that one of the reasons why they cannot build new social homes is the Government’s increase to employer national insurance contributions, which means that they spend more money on taxes, rather than on building new social homes. In summary, this Bill is the wrong approach, and it is fundamentally built on the wrong beliefs. It will not build a single new social home, but it will deny many families the opportunity of ever owning a home of their own. The Conservative party will always be on the side of aspiration and opportunity, and that is why we will vote for our reasoned amendment.
12. What estimate she has made of the cost of setting up No. 10 North.
I thank the Minister for that answer, but of course for my constituents it is not No. 10 North, but “No. 10 Midlands”. According to a freedom of information request, tens of thousands of pounds have already been spent setting up No. 10 North, including £10,500 on branding, £1,700 on crockery and nearly £1,000 moving a replica Downing Street door. Does he think that this represents good value for money, and will he commit to publish annually the full cost of running No. 10 North, including staffing, travel and security?
Will the Leader of the House give us the forthcoming business of the House?
I am grateful to the Leader of the House for outlining the business and, of course, the recess dates. It is always good to look forward to the next recess. Tomorrow marks the 25th anniversary of the appalling terrorist attacks on the United States. We remember the thousands of innocent people who went to work that morning, boarded aircraft or reported for duty in the emergency services, and never returned home. We remember their families and all those whose lives were changed forever. Earlier this year, I had the privilege of visiting the 9/11 Memorial in New York. Standing where the Twin Towers once stood, it is an incredibly moving experience and a powerful reminder of both the terrible events of that day and the courage and resilience that followed them. A quarter of a century on, we should never forget the victims, nor should we ever waver in our determination to confront terrorism and defend the freedoms and values that those responsible sought to attack. I turn now to matters closer to home. The Leader of the House has announced that the Northern Ireland Troubles Bill will be rushed through the House over a couple of days in October, with no separate Report stage. That is very little time to consider such a complex Bill, particularly as the Government are reported to be preparing to table over 100 amendments. Will the Leader of the House ensure that the Government amendments are tabled before the House rises on Tuesday, and will he explain why the Government are not providing a separate Report stage? There seems to be growing chatter on the Government Benches about an early general election, with some Labour Members apparently wondering whether the new Prime Minister might even go to the country before Christmas. The Leader of the House is of course a man right at the heart of Government decision making and will know better than most what is being discussed in Downing Street. So for the benefit of increasingly nervous Labour Back Benchers, can he give the House a simple assurance today: will this Parliament run its full course, or will the new Prime Minister already be running away from difficult decisions? Turning to Scotland, last week the SNP Government published their latest programme for government. After nearly two decades in power, Scotland was promised renewal. Instead, as Russell Findlay put it, we got more “meddling” and “gimmicks”—more centralisation, more bureaucracy and yet more attempts to distract from the SNP’s dire record in office. This was on full display when the PISA school results were published recently, showing that Scotland’s once world-class education system is now considered to be just average. Of particular concern to my constituents is the extraordinary proposal by the SNP Government to abolish Scotland’s 14 territorial health boards and replace them with just two. This means the abolition of NHS Borders as we know it. People in my constituency in the Scottish Borders have already experienced the consequences of SNP centralisation with Police Scotland and the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service. They do not want vital healthcare decisions taken further away from the communities those services exist to serve. Will the Leader of the House join me in paying tribute to the hard-working staff NHS Borders, and call on an increasingly centralising SNP Government not to forget rural and remote communities in Scotland? Finally, farming is the backbone of communities across the Borders and across rural Britain. Despite the enormous concern expressed by farmers and farming businesses, Labour’s family farm tax is now in force. Ahead of the Budget next month, will the Leader of the House convey a very simple message to the Chancellor: listen to our farmers, recognise the damage this tax is doing to confidence and succession planning, and finally do the right thing—scrap the family farm tax?
I recently met my constituent Stan, whose father died as a result of contaminated blood. Like many families, he is facing an endless delay through poor administration of the scheme. It feels as though a scandal within a scandal is unfolding as mistakes are made and further stress is caused to families. What steps is the Minister taking to ensure that the scheme is administered properly and mistakes are cut out, and would she consider meeting me to explore the issues raised by my constituent’s case?
17. What estimate she has made of the cost of setting up No. 10 North.
Can the Minister be really specific? How many civil servants and special advisers are due to be permanently staffed at No. 10 North, and once they are all in place and working there, will the Government publish statistics for their attendance at the office?
(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for Transport if she will make a statement on the failure of the United Kingdom’s air traffic control system and the resulting disruption to flights and passengers.
Over 2,000 flights cancelled, with more than 150,000 passengers affected; delays, disruption and pain; embarrassment for Britain—what an absolute mess! As you said, Madam Deputy Speaker, there was no offer of a statement from the Government, hence this urgent question from the Conservative Benches. Nothing sums up the situation facing real people this week better than Martin Brundle’s scathing post on Tuesday: “Nine hours and counting sitting on a plane which has travelled nowhere. At a remote parking bay, no food throughout, and mother/baby and a person with a medical condition desperate to get off. As is everyone else. Toilets no longer available as blocked. No sign of steps or buses. And that’s before the wait for luggage. Pathetic and dangerous lack of corporate contingency and responsibility.” Is the Minister not embarrassed? A report by 16 September, which takes us into recess, and six months then to fully diagnose the problem—that is not good enough. A third failure deserves immediate action, not delaying tactics. The Government have a considerable say in how NATS operates. Ministers cannot suddenly discover the virtues of arm’s length government when something goes wrong in an organisation of which the taxpayer owns 49%. Passengers have heard before that lessons will be learned, reviews commissioned and improvements made; they do not want another sorry story of apologies and assurances while everyone waits for the next failure. A cyber-attack has been ruled out, so exactly what did happen? Was it a software failure? Were sufficient engineers available on site? Were previous recommendations actually implemented? If they were, why on earth are we back here again? Why are airlines and airports lacking suitable contingency plans for when NATS fails—when Government fails—and there is no Government support on the ground? The Secretary of State needs to take responsibility, get a grip of this mess and ensure that this time lessons are not simply learned but acted upon.
I beg to move an amendment, to leave out from “That” to the end of the Question and add: “this House declines to give a Second Reading to the Social Housing Bill [Lords], despite supporting the measures in the Bill to protect victims of domestic abuse, because the Bill will effectively abolish Right to Buy, destroying the aspirations of social tenants who wish to one day purchase their own home; because the Government is failing to build the homes required, as in 2024-25 there were 12,810 fewer net additional dwellings delivered in England compared to the previous year, and the Bill does nothing to promote much-needed housebuilding; and because the Bill does not ensure that social housing is used effectively and is reserved for British citizens.” We come to the House, as we have done many times, to find that the Government are still failing to build more homes and still failing to support home ownership. This Bill is no different; indeed, it is a failure par excellence because for a Bill supposedly concerned with housing, it does nothing to build any new homes. The Bill does nothing to support the aspiration of home ownership; in fact, it goes out of its way to diminish it. It does not even free up any social homes for the 1.34 million people on the waiting list. It is a dud Bill and an ideological red herring. Most egregiously, however, the Government have taken a much-needed reform—the need for a new and effective framework to enable landlords to take possession action against perpetrators of domestic abuse—and surrounded it with unnecessary, damaging and punitive reforms to right to buy. We agree with the Government that it is vital that anyone stuck in an abusive household receives the urgent care, support and access to legal pathways they need, so His Majesty’s Opposition support this aspect of the Bill, but it is a shame to find the Government wedging it uncomfortably alongside the ideological and anti-aspirational measures that make up the majority of this counterproductive Bill.
Sorry—I missed that comment from a sedentary position. This Bill does not contribute to building a single extra social home. I agree that people who are victims of domestic abuse should be rehoused—I said that in my remarks. We do not agree, however, that this Bill is the way to do it. Let us come to the main thrust of the Government’s policy: the effective end of right to buy as we know it. In 1980, Margaret Thatcher’s Government offered millions of people a hand up on to the property ladder by extending the opportunity to own property to hard-working, aspirational people living in social housing.
I will make some progress. Ever since and right up to the present day, Labour MPs have called for restrictions on the scheme. They have essentially called for an end to the opportunity to exercise the right to own one’s own home for around 5 million households. When owning one’s own home can bring such pride and such a sense of community, and can offer security and safety, one might wonder why on earth anyone would seek to lock millions of social housing tenants out of doing so. Aside from ideology, which of course is a major part of the problem for Labour Members, the Government seek to do this because they have misdiagnosed the problem. In their mind, it is somehow acceptable to lay the blame at the door of right to buy, as 1.34 million households—children, families, the elderly, the disabled and others—wait for a social home, while every year approximately 33,000 new social tenancies, funded by British taxpayers, go to households where the lead tenant is not a British national.
I agree with the hon. Lady that building more social homes is part of the answer, but I will address the central point of her question a bit later in my speech. Right to buy is not the reason for the diminishing available social housing, nor the reason for our current shortage of social housing. Indeed, as my noble friend Lord Jamieson pointed out in the other place, the Government’s own impact assessment shows that in 2026-27, the pre-November 2024 baseline was 8,050 right-to-buy sales leading to 5,450 replacement homes. The document goes on to show that if this Bill were to pass and the legacy impacts wind down in the period 2031 to 2035, annual right-to-buy sales would fall to around 1,100 a year, with around 1,450 replacement homes. That means that by their own analysis and admission, the Government would oversee a housing system in which there would be 4,000 fewer new social homes funded every year.
The point I am making, as my hon. Friend the Member for Hamble Valley (Paul Holmes) says from a sedentary position behind me, is that there will be even fewer new social homes under this Bill. It is not the answer to the problem. The Government’s own data is not the only data available that disproves the justification for restricting right to buy. The Government have argued that the Bill will mean that around 3,000 additional homes are retained a year, but research conducted by the House of Lords Library shows that only a net 3% of social homes become available each year to new tenancies. That means that about 90 additional homes will be available for a new tenant every year, instead of 5,000. The very premise that right to buy is taking homes away is a fallacy. The only people who qualify for right to buy are long-term tenants, and Government data has shown that 78% of new lettings remain lifetime tenancies. That means that in three quarters of cases, we are looking at social homes that are unlikely ever to be available to a prospective tenant when they need it. All of that clearly demonstrates that right to buy is not the issue—it is part of the solution. That is not the only available avenue that the Government could take to support those on the waiting list and get more people into the housing they need. I hope that you will not mind, Madam Deputy Speaker, if I offer two key areas in which progress could be made. First and foremost, it could be made through house building. The Government put forward clear and definite promises to voters in 2024. We were told that by the end of this Parliament, the Government will have built 1.5 million new homes, including “the biggest increase in social and affordable housebuilding in a generation.” The new Prime Minister—a self-proclaimed opponent of 1980s policies—has similarly committed to a social housing revolution, albeit without a defined target or an idea of what that looks like. But now, halfway through this Parliament, after the slog of the Planning and Infrastructure Act 2025, multiple updates to the national planning policy framework and the publication of this Bill, we are left without a clear route to building more homes, and projections from the Government themselves show that they have managed to build just 26% of their target in nearly 50% of the time. The Bill does nothing to prioritise building. It will not add a single social home to the housing stock.
The Opposition will be very happy if the Government hit that target, but the point is they will not. The target was not nuanced in the way the hon. Gentleman sets out in the manifesto, nor was it nuanced straight after the election. We were told that 1.5 million homes were to be built by the end of this Parliament. There is no chance that the Government will hit that target.
On the contrary, it was the last Conservative Government who in 2023 introduced 100% receipts going to councils to rebuild the homes that had gone. Although Government Members like to pretend that history only began in 2010, I point out to them that successive Governments since the 1980s could have changed that and did not; it was the last Conservative Government who did so.
I share my right hon. Friend’s shock that no Reform MP is present in the Chamber. I am similarly totally taken aback that Reform would say one thing and do another. Of course, Reform councillors should not have said that if they did not mean it.
That is very well put by my right hon. Friend. The Government do nothing to prioritise building. The Bill will not add a single social home to the housing stock. The Government are seeking to heal an illness before they have properly diagnosed it, and are offering a solution to a problem to which there is already an answer. If they were serious about reforming the right to buy and building more homes at the same time, perhaps they would look at how proper management and effective reinvestment of receipts could lead to an increase in housing supply, especially on brownfield sites. As my colleagues in the other place noted, it is better for everyone and for the economy if we make two homes out of one. Through efficient, productive and successful management of right-to-buy receipts, we can both sell a family home and support a family on the waiting list into another one. As homelessness peaks at record levels and the number of children in temporary accommodation reaches a dizzying summit of 178,000, it beggars belief that the Government are not looking at that more closely. However, I recognise that house building is not an overnight fix; it takes time, but for many families on the waiting list, that is something they simply do not have. We must therefore consider how best to free up existing stock to support those most in need.
I listened to what the hon. Gentleman said. Of course, one of the things we do not get from Government Members is any commentary at all about the state of the economy in 2010, after 13 years of their party being in power. The public finances had to be right-sized—the country was heading towards bankruptcy. They are happy to disown their record and criticise everybody who followed, but perhaps it would be slightly more honest if they prefaced their arguments with an acknowledgement of that.
My hon. Friend knows of what he speaks. The Mayor of London’s record on housing is, of course, execrable. It is totally mystifying that at a time when London’s population and housing need is the highest it has ever been, the Government have simultaneously reduced the housing target for London and massively ramped up the target in outer London, where most of the green belt is. That tells us everything we need to know about their intentions, both for housing and for the green belt. To the Opposition, two answers seem too obvious to miss, yet the Government wilfully ignore this part of the puzzle. The first answer is efficiency of stock management. Many councils and housing associations are well-run and proactive organisations, but too many remain plagued by poor stock utilisation, improper management and under-occupation. A proper understanding of national stock will go some way towards creating a fairer and more efficient system, in contrast to the failures we witness now. For example, up-to-date figures from the English housing survey suggest that around 186,000 social housing households have incomes above £50,000, while approximately 389,000 households are under-occupying social housing. That is clearly an inefficiency worth fixing, and it is not beyond the realms of possibility for many suppliers and managers to fix it, yet that does not feature in the Bill. Again, the Government look at the breadth of the issue and give a narrow and ideological legislative response. The second answer is this. Too many struggling families are understandably frustrated to find foreign nationals in homes paid for by the British taxpayer. To be clear, we are not talking about just anyone—after all, until recently, British taxpayers were funding the First Lady of Sierra Leone’s central London pad, which was a British social housing flat. There are other egregious cases—more precisely, another 127,000 cases. Official figures show that 72% of those who identify as Somali in England and Wales live in social housing.
No. If the hon. Lady will listen to the remainder of my speech, she will hear what I have to say. It is understandable that as more and more people watch more and more of their salary slip away from their pockets and into the hands of the taxman, they begin to ask why they bother, and to question the fairness of the system. If the Government are not going to build enough social homes, they could follow our example, as laid out in our alternative King’s Speech: end all new social housing tenancies for all foreign nationals, as well as current tenancies for couples in which neither person is a UK, Irish or EU citizen, and free up those homes for British families. To be clear about the scale of what we are talking about, this would add 228,144 homes to the social housing sector—more homes than the Government built in the whole of 2024-25. Finally, I turn to the problems around shared ownership that could be fixed—an issue raised by the hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Rachel Blake), who is no longer in her place. My noble Friends in the other place worked hard and successfully to bring this issue to the attention of the Government and see it added to the Bill. For far too long, and for far too many people, what should have been their first and proudest step on to the housing ladder instead became a logistical, legal and financial nightmare. I am proud of the Opposition’s work in the House of Lords to force the Government to finally realise that this has become a national issue, and to obtain a welcome commitment from the Government to reviewing shared ownership practices. I call on the Minister to reiterate that promise, and not to seek to remove any such commitment or obligation from the Bill in Committee. It is clear that this Bill fails the British people. By effectively destroying the right to buy, it does nothing to increase available social housing stock. It merely keeps people trapped in the system and not in control of their own life. It fails to provide more homes, to support aspirations of home ownership or to free up existing stock. Most crucially, it undermines the very essence of what makes for a successful and viable housing system. In such a system, people are supported to get into housing when they need it, and to own housing when they aspire to do so. This Bill, this Government and the Secretary of State—who is absent for reasons I think we all probably understand—not only fail but refuse to create such a system. That is why the Opposition tabled our reasoned amendment. We believe that the Bill is so lacking in ambition, so ideological in its motivation and so punitive in its measures that it should not proceed beyond this stage, or get anywhere near the statute book. I say that with great sorrow for the helpless victims of domestic abuse and violence, who deserve everything that the Bill promises on those issues. It is a shame that the Government have wedded such necessary support to such punitory legislation. I hope that the Secretary of State will reassure the House that if the Bill makes it to Committee and beyond, it will be amended to make it fit for purpose for those in need of housing, in need of escape from abuse, and in need of shelter.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship this afternoon, Dr Huq. As the hon. Member for Glasgow South West (Dr Ahmed)—I call him my hon. Friend—pointed out, I have a particular interest in this subject. It is a number of years since I held a licence to practise, but the debate has taken me back to clinical days. Even worse, it took me back to vivas for Royal College examinations—I am still a member and am proud to support that community. I start by thanking the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) for securing this debate. I congratulate him and the APPG on vascular and venous disease on their work. As has been noted, vascular disease perhaps does not attract quite the same attention as cancer or heart disease. However, that does not make it any less serious. The consequences for patients can be extreme. We have heard about pain, loss of mobility, prolonged hospital stays and, in the worst cases, amputation. What makes this particularly frustrating is that a great deal of this harm is avoidable. The problems identified by the APPG are not especially complicated. There are delayed diagnosis and treatment, inconsistent referral pathways, variable access to specialist care and fragmented services. The result is that patients who might have retained their limb and their independence do not always do so. The APPG’s report therefore makes five fairly practical recommendations: the national foot attack pathway, with same-day or next-day triage; community-based foot protection services in every integrated care system; maximum waiting times for vascular assessment and revascularisation, with national reporting; commissioning that rewards outcomes rather than simply activity; and faster adoption of proven innovation. None of those propositions strikes me as particularly revolutionary. Indeed, much of the thinking behind them is not new. The “Getting it right first time” programme established under the previous Conservative Government produced a vascular surgery report in 2018, which recommended a hub-and-spoke model to improve early diagnosis, specialist decision making and timely intervention. The NHS long-term plan subsequently committed to universal access to multidisciplinary foot care teams. In 2022, NHS England introduced a two-year commissioning for quality and innovation scheme intended to encourage timely revascularisation for patients with chronic limb-threatening ischaemia. The Government have said that they welcome the APPG’s report. They have said that the Department of Health and Social Care and NHS England have engaged with stakeholders, and that recommendations will be considered as part of the cardiovascular disease modern service framework. That sounds encouraging, but there is a rather obvious difficulty: although it is welcome that the modern service framework, which was published in July, contains considerable material on cardiovascular disease, it contains no specific reference to vascular or venous disease. If the Government accept that vascular disease is an important part of the cardiovascular picture, why does their new modern service framework not specifically address it? If the answer is that the framework is intended to cover vascular disease through its wider approach to cardiovascular risk, that poses a second question: where precisely are the specific standards against which vascular services are to be judged? The APPG has given the Government some specific proposals, and it would be helpful if the Minister could tell us which of the five recommendations the Government accept and, perhaps more importantly, which they reject. The question then is who will deliver the services? The Government have embarked on a major reorganisation of the NHS, including the abolition of NHS England, and a substantial reduction in the size and cost of integrated care boards, with the Government saying that ICB budgets are to be reduced by 50%. How does the Minister expect ICBs to deliver these additional responsibilities at precisely the point when their budgets and staffing levels are being substantially reduced? Has his Department assessed the effect of those reductions on the commissioning of vascular care and foot protection services? I am far from opposed to reducing bureaucracy in the health service, but the test of any NHS reform has to come down to patient outcomes. I hope the Minister will also address the question of clinical leadership in this area. Currently, although there are clinicians with huge experience and expertise in the field, including vascular clinical leads for GIRFT, there is no national clinical director specifically responsible for vascular and venous disease. The Government have previously said that national clinical directors play an important role in policy development and implementation, which is right, but we know that the future role and responsibilities of national clinical directors are being reconsidered as part of NHS reorganisation. Could the Minister set out the Government’s position on future clinical leadership for vascular and venous disease after NHS England has been abolished? Will a clearly identified senior clinical voice continue to be responsible for that important area, and if not, who will have responsibility for ensuring that the specific recommendations on vascular care are implemented? It is helpful that the national vascular registry already collects data on major vascular procedures, including bypass surgery and major lower-limb amputations, and there has been some improvement in the proportion of vascular providers meeting the relevant CQUIN framework, but we need to be careful not to confuse the mere collection of data with improvements in care. Will the Government therefore introduce national maximum waiting times for vascular assessment and revascularisation? If they do not propose to do so, why not, and if they do, when will it take place? Returning to the national foot attack pathway proposal, the principle behind it seems difficult to argue with. Where a patient presents with a potentially serious foot problem, particularly in the context of diabetes or vascular disease, as we have heard, they should have a clear route to an appropriate specialist assessment. Will the Government commit to establishing such a pathway nationally? Will the Minister ensure that data on performance against that is published? The same principle applies to innovation. The NHS has no shortage of good ideas, but it has traditionally lacked a reliable mechanism for taking an idea that works in one hospital and making it available elsewhere. Therefore, the APPG’s recommendation to make greater use of mechanisms such as the NHS innovator passport is sensible. However, what happens at the other end? If a technology is demonstrated to be clinically effective and cost-effective, does an NHS organisation have an obligation to consider adopting it? How will the Government prevent another postcode lottery, where an effective treatment is available to patients in one part of the country but not in another? In this debate, there is not much disagreement on the broad objectives: we all want to see earlier diagnosis, faster treatment and fewer amputations, as well as better use of NHS resources. Any disagreement is about whether the Government have set out a sufficiently specific plan for achieving those objectives. It is easy to welcome a report or publish a framework; it is much harder to deliver it. The Government have a genuine opportunity to take the practical recommendations of the APPG and turn them into measurable outcomes. That is the test: will they do that, or will they just allow vascular services and vascular disease to remain a subsidiary issue within the much broader context of cardiovascular disease and hope that local services are simply able to deal with it?
Last weekend, I visited Cornerways in my constituency, which provides supported living for vulnerable adults. The Friends of Cornerways have spent the last year clearing the garden so that it is now a workable space for residents. Will the Leader of the House join me in congratulating them and other community groups that do so much for our local areas, and will he grant Government time to debate the importance of community projects for societal good?
I applaud the hon. Gentleman for raising this topic. Although he and I are in different parties, we have long been on the same page about how important it is to have male role models and about the role of men and boys. Under the previous leadership, we were making progress, with a men and boys summit due to take place this summer. Unfortunately, it did not happen, but I am keen to see the Government bring it forward again. I hope he shares my ambition for it to happen, because for all the reasons he has talked about, it is imperative that the new leadership—the new Administration—keep grasping the nettle and take this forward. Does he agree?