English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill (Tenth sitting)
I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment. <em>Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.</em>
Showing every spoken contribution, including 142 under 12 words. Hide short remarks
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English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill (Tenth sitting)
I beg to move amendment 264, in clause 58, page 60, line 25, at end insert— “(e) requiring that local engagement activities under paragraph (d) meet minimum standards to ensure meaningful community participation, including— (i) the use of deliberative processes such as citizens’ panels, assemblies, or community conversations; (ii) the active inclusion of communities most likely to be impacted by the policy measures, and communities underrepresented in policy making; and (iii) reporting, and publication of resulting reports, on how community input has influenced local plans and decisions;<span id="438" class="column-number" data-column-number="438"></span> (f) providing existing local democratic bodies, including parish and town councils, with appropriate powers, funding and infrastructure to support and facilitate such participation.” <em>This amendment requires regulations on neighbourhood governance to set minimum standards for involvement, including deliberative processes, inclusion of underrepresented groups and transparency.</em> This is a really important amendment. It proposes a minimum standard for meaningful community involvement be added to this part of Bill on neighbourhood governance. It aims to put people at the heart of the new local decision-making structures by setting minimum standards so that community involvement is inclusive, uses deliberative methods and clearly shows how people’s views have shaped decisions. It would also give local councils the powers and funding that they need to make that happen effectively. The problem with the Bill as it stands is that “appropriate arrangements” is left undefined. That risks weak or inconsistent community participation. The amendment would ensure that the arrangements meet minimum standards and would make engagement consistent, inclusive and transparent. The Bill’s success depends on whether it achieves what the Minister has been assuring us of throughout these proceedings: a shifting of democratic power. It needs to ensure that decisions are made with people rather than consulting them or imposing on them. I am sure we are all aware of the ladder of engagement, where final decisions are simply waved in front of people for consultation. That is the bare minimum and, in many ways, the worst form of engagement with the public. People will often look at a big proposal and respond in great detail, only to then see that nothing has changed. That really undermines trust. We need to make sure that people can see how their voices are shaping outcomes at a local level. This amendment would enable us to rebuild public trust through the Bill. We need to ensure that we actively facilitate and enable community participation, and it is important that it is properly funded. Doing a consultation is a very separate thing to participation. We do know that people want participation. Demos polling from 2024 found that 63% of the public would very likely accept an invitation to take part in participation exercises of this kind, but 41% said that they would be less likely to take part if they believed that the Government would not listen to what they had to say. I recognise that the Bill presents the opportunity for secondary legislation to fill these gaps, but if the Government cannot support the amendment, it would be helpful for the Minister to put clearly on the record that those regulations would include deliberative processes, real involvement and reporting back on the ways in which decisions are changed, as the amendment would require.
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English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill (Tenth sitting)
I appreciate the detail of the answer that the Minister is giving me, but I would like some further reassurance that poorly performing councils will face some sort of redress under the system that she is talking about.
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English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill (Tenth sitting)
I am content with the Minister’s response, so I beg to ask to leave to withdraw the amendment. <em>Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.</em>
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English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill (Tenth sitting)
Amendments 312 to 314 aim to achieve the same thing: formally guarantee the introduction of the supplementary vote system, which is already being legislated for, at next year’s local mayoral elections, including the newly established combined authority areas of Greater Essex; Hampshire and the Solent; Norfolk and Suffolk; and Sussex and Brighton, in which my constituency lies. The Government have clearly admitted, accepted and legislated for the need to return mayoral elections to a more proportional system—in this case, supplementary vote, which achieves a majority vote for whoever wins. The Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government said on Second Reading: “We are backing the ambition and untapped potential of local areas with a more ambitious role for the mayors representing them. That must be underpinned by elections that command public confidence. Because of changes made by the last Government, mayors can be elected on just a fraction of the vote, despite serving millions of people and managing multimillion-pound budgets.”<span id="vol772_col185" class="cross-reference" data-house-id="1" data-column-number="185" data-volume-number="772" data-external-id="3D3A3F31-59BC-48CA-96C2-FD248974D5BF">—[<em>Official Report</em>, 2 September 2025; Vol. 772, c. 185.]</span> I will give a few examples of the election outcomes we might expect if we go ahead with next year’s elections under first past the post. I remind the Committee that the results will be baked in for four years in each case and have serious implications.
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English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill (Tenth sitting)
I want to clarify that I am talking about the supplementary vote for mayoral elections in clause 59. To return to some examples of mayoral elections under first past the post with results that are not optimal for democracy or public confidence: the 2025 Cambridgeshire and Peterborough mayoral election saw Paul Bristow elected on 28.4% of the vote, with a turnout of 32.9%. That gave 9.3% of the entire electorate a satisfactory result. In none of my examples am I saying that the result was wrong, but they are not results that clearly command the confidence of a majority of the people in the area —that may well have been the case had a second vote been counted, but no second vote was allowed. I do not think that is a good way to conduct things. The 2025 West of England mayoral election saw Helen Godwin elected on 25% of the vote. With turnout at 30%, that gave 7.5% of the entire electorate a satisfactory result. The 2025 Hull and East Yorkshire mayoral election saw Luke Campbell elected on 35.8% of the vote. With turnout at 29.8%, that gave 10.7% of the entire electorate a satisfactory result. In contrast, the last election held under the supplementary vote system in 2022 for South Yorkshire saw Oliver Coppard elected with 71.4% in the second round, up from a first round vote of 43.1%. That is a sea change in confidence and mandate compared with some of those marginal wins on a small turnout that we have seen in other areas.
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English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill (Tenth sitting)
I stopped reading out turnout results, but turnout was 42.8%—much higher than in previous examples. To be honest, I would prefer a ranking of all candidates down the ballot paper, but I believe that when people are able to use their votes to express both their first and second preferences they are not discouraged from turning out. When parties are not forced to put out leaflets all about who might win but leaflets are instead about the actual issues that might affect people’s lives, turnout goes up. It is really important that this change is made. On consistency, I want to raise an issue from Sussex. A motion passed by East Sussex county council makes a really good point: “When Sussex decided to join the priority programme there was no suggestion that there would be any democratic disadvantage from being at the front of the queue”. That is the problem: the areas that have stepped forward sooner are being forced to accept a substandard election system. I recognise that the motion at East Sussex county council was to delay the elections, and that is not my wish either. I absolutely recognise that there is a timetable challenge: if the amendments were accepted today, they would need to wait until the Bill was enacted to come into force. We cannot make changes to an imminent election, so I do not intend the press the amendments to a vote today. However, I call on the Government to fix the situation. I would like the Minister to go away and talk to colleagues about how she might be able to fairly resource all the areas holding mayoral elections, including those that have chosen to go first and should face no penalty, so that they can conduct next year’s elections under the supplementary vote in the way that other areas will benefit from later.
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English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill (Tenth sitting)
I would not claim that a turnout of nearly 43% is a triumph, but the hon. Member has to admit that it is a good turnout compared with that of most local government elections.
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English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill (Tenth sitting)
I will speak briefly on new clause 51. It is really encouraging that there is a cross-party effort to reinvigorate community ownership funding, which has lapsed. Although I am excited about the pride in place funding, which is quite extensive and goes into local areas in quite an intensive way, I think the community ownership angle of that is limited to the geographic area covered. Things such as sporting assets or community assets that serve a whole town may not be within that area. I would like to hear from the Minister that, if she will not accept new clause 51, something will be done for other parts of the country to ensure a fund to support community ownership.
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Strengthening National Resilience
The Government’s own advisers tell us that the climate and nature crisis poses a huge resilience threat to our country. Yet, in an answer to a question on wildfires, the Minister does not even reference that climate change makes them more frequent and severe. What are the Government doing to tackle this huge threat from climate change?
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Topical Questions
<Question HRSContentId="{404654C7-5A53-4F25-8702-EEBF95C5295D}">T5. <QuestionText HRSContentId="{842386BA-EA6A-4842-8670-0DF3C28FEDB7}"></QuestionText>Last week, it was reported that No. 10 may have blocked the publication of a new Joint Intelligence Committee report on the severe threat to national security posed by the climate and nature crisis. With the Government’s own advisers making it clear that we are in no way prepared for the effects of climate change that we are already seeing—such as wildfires, floods and storms, which we have heard about today—let alone the changes that are expected in the coming decades, can the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster please tell the House whether it is true that the Government are trying to block the Joint Intelligence Committee chief’s efforts to keep us all safe? When can we expect the report to see the light of day?</Question>
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Heathrow: National Airports Review
Britain wants to thrive, but all I can hear is this Government once again prioritising the needs of the wealthiest, most frequent flyers above those of us on the ground. Can the Secretary of State tell me what crumbs of our carbon budget will remain for the rest of us and our lives after the review is complete? After the fudge on Gatwick, if the tests say no, will she say no as well?
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Engagements
Given that the TUC has calculated that the wealthiest 10% of households in the UK hold more wealth than everyone else in the country put together, does the Prime Minister agree with me that it is inequality, not immigration, that is a threat to our country?
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Financial Inclusion
I thank the hon. Member for securing the debate and for highlighting the importance of addressing branch closures. In the market town of Halesworth in my constituency, the post office closed its doors for the final time last Saturday—I have been pressing the Post Office for a replacement facility as soon as possible—while Barclays, which is the only bank provider in the town, will cease its weekly facility at the library in the coming weeks. This reinforces his point about the importance of banking hubs as a potential solution for in-person support. Will he reiterate the importance of the Government speeding up the roll-out of banking hubs, particularly for rural communities?
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English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill (Seventh sitting)
It is a pleasure to have you back in the Chair today, Sir John. I support the clause and schedule 14. It is really important that we have devolved fundraising powers, and this is one of the ways in which that can be done. I have a question for the Minister about the rules for what mayoral CIL in different areas can be levied to fund. In London, the current regulations restrict spending by the mayor to funding roads or other transport facilities. Is the Minister making changes in the Bill, or will she do so through regulations?
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English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill (Seventh sitting)
I rise to speak to my new clause 29 and new schedule 1, which seek to replace clause 38 and schedule 19. They would replace local growth plans with inclusive economy plans, which, following an enhanced process of consultation and approval, would have the same prominence in terms of policy priorities as the proposed growth plans. While we have adopted much of the same drafting and general process, wherever the goal of growth appears, my new version says instead that our goal would be an inclusive economy or economic inclusivity. It is important to confront the harmful concept of growth for the sake of growth. Prioritising economic growth, wherever it may come from, above everything else is wrong. Growth may be the Government’s No. 1 mission, but what is the point if it does not serve the people? Growth alone is insufficient to address inequality and the environmental crisis. For example, gross domestic product has roughly doubled since 1980, yet the richest five households in the UK own more wealth than 13.2 million people. When it comes to jobs, growth has not delivered, with low pay and stagnant real wages the reality for most. A test of the Bill, and indeed the Government, will be whether it succeeds in moving beyond growth alone to creating an economy where everyone can thrive. That has to begin with clear intentions for the type of economy we want to build, not growth at any cost. In the case of local government and the new strategic authorities, how this is codified in the prescribed strategies for each area is important. That is the core reason why, working with the Centre for Local Economic Strategies, I have proposed this change to the core goals in the central economic strategy that each local authority will produce. Those comparing our new schedule with the original will see that, in paragraph (3), proposed new sections 107L of the Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Act 2009 and 32A of the Levelling-up and Regeneration Act 2023 add further steps to the process of developing a plan so that it can be tailored to each local area through appropriate local indicators of progress. Paragraph (4) of the new schedule would require mayors to bring the public into both setting local indicators and setting out how the plan will help to achieve the inclusive economic outcomes that cover the necessary ingredients for a good life in that area. That is because, if they are going to shape a local economy, they need to listen and deliver for the people who live and work in it.
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English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill (Seventh sitting)
That is a good question. Where there are opportunities to develop new industries and new jobs and create new economic activity, my new schedule enables local communities such as those in Cornwall to set inclusive economy indicators. In the examples given, that might mean that those new industries are owned and managed by the local people and the local community, rather than through outside investment from extractive industries that will take the profits elsewhere. Those are things for the local community to decide under the new schedule. I will just finish the quote from the report by the New Economics Foundation and its allies: “At a time of eroding trust in politics, this is a major problem for combined authorities elected to make the economy work better for people .” My new clause and new schedule will help authorities to become more purposeful about developing their own unique economies and economic opportunities in a way that truly builds a better economy that serves local people, and not just more production and profits that can be extracted away from them without improving everyday lives. It will bring more people more inclusively into the local economies that we want to develop. I will not press my proposals to a vote today, but I hope that the Minister has listened and will recognise that the current Government proposals could create the <span id="310" class="column-number" data-column-number="310"></span>wrong incentives and the wrong measures of progress, and might risk producing the wrong outcomes for the people who live in the areas that will be governed by these economic plans. I also hope that she will make improvements similar to my proposals before the next stage of this Bill.
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English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill (Seventh sitting)
Is the hon. Member really saying that that he is against asking the people of a local area what would constitute a good economy for them and making that the focus of the mayor’s economic indicators? Also, if all of these proposals are going to be put into manifestos at election time, how long does he envision the manifestos for these mayoral elections being?
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English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill (Seventh sitting)
On a point of clarification, I recognise that the Minister has set out that the local nature recovery strategies will have to be regarded, and also that local growth plans will be very important. Which does the Minister see as having greater weight in local planning and strategic planning decisions?
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English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill (Seventh sitting)
Apart from seeking views, there is a requirement in the amendment to share draft proposals and the evidence base. Does the hon. Member consider <span id="320" class="column-number" data-column-number="320"></span>that to be an important part of correcting errors in the evidence base and in the assumptions of the draft proposals, which only those councils might have information about?
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English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill (Eighth sitting)
I beg to move amendment 262, in clause 43, page 44, line 24, leave out “prosperity” and insert “poverty and socio-economic inequality”. <em>This amendment is linked to Amendment 263 which would ensure that the health improvement and health inequalities duty focuses explicitly on tackling poverty and socio-economic inequality, rather than using the broader term “prosperity”.</em>
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English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill (Eighth sitting)
I apologise, Dame Siobhain, for my temporary absence at the crucial moment. I would very much like the Committee to listen to my proposals for amendments 262 and 263. <em>[</em><em>Interruption.</em><em>]</em> Apologies, Chair—is there an issue?
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English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill (Eighth sitting)
I will be as quick as I can—it is a very short speech. Although the health improvement and health inequalities duty is very good, the determinants of health outlined in clause 43 are limited and lacking in consideration for the impacts on health from a wide range of activities <span id="350" class="column-number" data-column-number="350"></span>that these new authorities will be able to influence. My amendments aim to fix that. It is positive that the Opposition parties all immediately spotted the need for improvement to this clause, and that both Liberal Democrat colleagues and I have aimed to fix it, albeit in different ways. Amendments 262 and 263 would replace references to “prosperity” with “poverty and socio-economic inequality” in the clause. They would make clearer what causes and exacerbates ill health. I do not believe that “prosperity” on its own is sufficient. I will not repeat all my earlier arguments, but there is much supporting evidence for this from a range of organisations, including the Centre for Local Economic Strategies, the Reclaiming our Regional Economies programme, and the all-party parliamentary group on poverty and inequality, which I co-chair. This is just one of the ways that the Bill can make improvements, by focusing on reducing inequality and not simply creating growth within these new strategic authorities. I hope that the Government will accept my changes.
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English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill (Eighth sitting)
I will withdraw the amendment for now, but I hope we see some measures coming through from the Minister, particularly in regulations. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment. <em>Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.</em>
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English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill (Eighth sitting)
I beg to move amendment 257, in clause 43, page 44, line 29, at end insert— “(e) access to green space and nature, (f) exposure to environmental harms, including air pollution, water pollution, land pollution, and any other form of environmental pollution,”. <em>This amendment would expand the list of general health determinants for the purposes of the new health improvement and health inequalities duty as it applies to CCAs, so it includes access to green space; and exposure to environmental harm.</em>
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English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill (Eighth sitting)
I intend to speak at some length on the amendments—my apologies, Dame Siobhain, but this is a very important issue to me, as Members will hear from my speech. My amendments 257, 258, 259 and 260 would all add access to green space and nature and environmental pollution to the list of potential determinants of health. They would also define the terms “green space and nature” in the Bill, in terms of green and blue space, as well as natural features in general that deliver benefits in health and wellbeing. The amendments would not necessarily expand the defined scope of the new health improvement and health inequalities duty as it applies to combined authorities, but they would add clarity and support to strategic authorities that recognise the importance of those health determinants. My amendments would add what I would argue are some inarguable determinants of health that are particularly connected to economic and trade activity, transport <span id="352" class="column-number" data-column-number="352"></span>and land use, and so on. They would add air pollution, water pollution, contaminated land and any other forms of environmental pollution, as well as any that capitalism might invent and disperse in the environment in future. They are broad and helpful amendments. The amendments seek to strengthen the Bill’s provisions by explicitly recognising exposure to environmental harms as a general health determinant. They make it clear that the conditions in which people live—the air they breathe, the green spaces they access and the pollution they are exposed to—are fundamental drivers of health outcomes. I cannot see why currently the Bill completely omits environmental factors from its list of health determinants, despite overwhelming evidence that air pollution and green space profoundly affect health. The Minister commented in response to the previous amendment that the list is intended not to be exhaustive but to be broad enough, but in this case, by not including the environment at all, it is very much not broad enough. I have been working with the Healthy Air Coalition and the Wildlife and Countryside Link on the amendments, and there is so much evidence that makes it clear that, on the environment and health, the Government have left important gaps that we should fill today. I will be pressing the amendments to a vote today. The 2022 chief medical officer’s annual report was, I think, the first to highlight the link between health inequalities and poor air quality. According to the report: “Studies of hospital admissions and mortality show increased health risks associated with exposure to air pollution among those living in areas of higher socio-economic deprivation.” According to Asthma + Lung UK, people with lung conditions in the poorest neighbourhoods are seven times more likely to die from a lung condition than those in the richest areas. It was my honour earlier this year to present the Clean Air (Human Rights) Bill, alongside colleagues from across parties in the House. That Bill is also named Ella’s law, after Ella Adoo-Kissi-Debrah, whose death from asthma at age nine has helped to prompt a sea change in how we view the impact of air pollution on health and its close links to inequality. My Green colleagues in the other place are now working towards Zane’s law with the parents of Zane Gbangbola, who died at age seven when hydrogen cyanide was carried into his home by floodwater from a contaminated landfill site. It would have been Zane’s 19th birthday today. Including environmental harms in the list of health determinants would honour the goals of Ella’s law and Zane’s law. It would recognise that lives can be profoundly affected and even ended by environmental pollution and the harm it brings. My amendments would ensure that combined authorities embed both the prevention of environmental harm and the protection and enhancement of natural infrastructure at the heart of their work on health inequality. Even in their own terms, the amendments are fully aligned with the Bill’s wider objective of providing greater local prosperity, better public services and improved wellbeing. In brief, access to nature will deliver directly on all three by boosting productivity and skills through improvements to mental and physical health, by reducing NHS costs—if everyone had good access to green space, the estimated savings would be over £2 billion a year—and by attracting investment and supporting regeneration through high-quality environments.<span id="353" class="column-number" data-column-number="353"></span> The amendments would play a big part in ensuring that combined authorities take into account the well-established relationship between the environment and public health inequalities when exercising their other functions too, particularly in transport, housing, planning and regeneration. Strategic authorities are uniquely placed to consider risks from pollution and to plan at the landscape scale for natural benefits, connecting parks, rivers, floodplains and urban trees across boundaries. The amendments would provide a framework for joined-up, place-based decision making and good, popular place making—the kind of integrated governance that devolution is supposed to achieve. Embedding these goals on health inequalities into statute would also help to prevent local disparities, ensuring that clean air, water and land, and access to nature is a universal right, not a postcode lottery. In conclusion, recognising that access to green space and exposure to environmental harms are core health determinants is essential to tackling inequalities that persist across England. Devolution is about empowering local areas to act. These amendments would empower them to tackle the root causes of poor health, not just the symptoms. The Government should take them up, and today I will be pressing them to do so.
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English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill (Eighth sitting)
Will the Minister clarify how the list in clause 43 as it stands was put together? It is bizarre that the use of tobacco and those kind of lifestyle choices are somehow explicitly listed, when environmental factors as a whole are left out.
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English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill (Eighth sitting)
I thank the Minister for her comments. I cannot accept that a detail such as tobacco use was put in, and standards of housing as a result of Awaab’s law and the things have gone on there, and yet <span id="355" class="column-number" data-column-number="355"></span>environmental factors have not yet been included. I am determined that they should be, and I still intend to push this to a vote. <em>Question</em><em> put</em>, That the amendment be made.
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English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill (Eighth sitting)
I beg to move amendment 255, in clause 43, page 44, line 40, at end insert— “<strong>107ZC Health and Wellbeing in All Policies Strategy</strong> (1) A combined authority must prepare and publish a Health and Wellbeing in All Policies Strategy setting out how it will meet the duty under section 107ZB. (2) In preparing the strategy, an authority must consult with such bodies it considers relevant, including but not limited to— (a) directors of public health within the authority area; (b) Integrated Care Boards within the authority area; (c) NHS bodies providing services in the authority area; (d) representatives of the voluntary, community and social enterprise sector in the authority area; and (e) the Equalities and Human Rights Commission. (3) The strategy must— (a) include an assessment of the health and wellbeing impacts of all strategic authority policies and programmes; (b) seek to reduce inequalities with locally appropriate targets, set for— (i) the end of a 10-year period beginning on the day on which the strategy is published,<span id="356" class="column-number" data-column-number="356"></span> (ii) regular periods during the period to which the 10-year target applies, as the combined authority deems appropriate (“interim targets”); (c) consider the findings of any consultations conducted by the authority in relation to the strategy; and (d) set out the reasons why the proposed strategy has been adopted. (4) 10-year targets under sub-paragraph (3)(a)(i) must include consideration of— (a) life expectancy, (b) healthy life expectancy, (c) infant mortality rate, (d) rates of obesity and overweight, (e) rates of anxiety and depression, and (f) suicide rates within the authority area. (5) Interim targets under sub-paragraph (3)(a)(ii) should include consideration of— (a) household relative poverty rates, (b) employment rates, (c) relative child poverty rates, (d) educational attainment rates defined as five or more GCSEs at grades A*-C, (e) the proportion of people in the authority area meeting recommended physical activity levels, and (f) the proportion of people in the authority consuming five or more fruit and vegetables per day. (6) A combined authority must publish a report on its progress implementing the strategy and towards the targets set out under paragraph (3)(b). (7) A report under subsection (6) must— (a) be published one year after the day on which the strategy is published, and every year thereafter, (b) be presented by the Mayor of the authority at the authority’s annual general meeting, and (c) be made publicly available.” <em>This amendment requires mayoral authorities to develop a Health and Wellbeing in All Policies Strategy.</em>
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English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill (Eighth sitting)
Amendments 255 and 256 would add a health and wellbeing in all policies strategy to the requirements of the Bill. Life expectancy in England has stalled since 2010, something that has not happened for well over a century. According to Professor Sir Michael Marmot, that is a sign that society has “stopped improving”. The Government have committed to halving the gap in healthy life expectancy between the richest and poorest regions of England, but that cannot be achieved without concerted action from the strategic authorities. Good population health is the foundation of a thriving economy. The Government have committed to halving the gap, and amendments 255 and 256 would go further than the Bill does currently to achieve that, simply by requiring mayors and strategic authorities to have regard to health through adoption of a health and wellbeing in all policies strategy document. The amendments would also require consultation with relevant entities and create accountability through targets and metrics. I commend the amendment to the Committee.
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English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill (Eighth sitting)
I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment. <em>Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.</em> <em>Amendment proposed</em>: 259, in clause 43, page 45, line 25, at end insert— “(e) access to green space and nature, (f) exposure to environmental harms, including air pollution, water pollution, land pollution, and any other form of environmental pollution,”.—<em>(Siân Berry.)</em> <em>This amendment would expand the list of general health determinants for the purposes of the new health improvement and health inequalities duty as it applies to CCAs, so it includes access to green space; and exposure to environmental harm</em><em>.</em> <em>Question put,</em> That the amendment be made.
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English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill (Eighth sitting)
I have a broad interest in this group of measures. First, I will raise some issues with the clause as a whole; then I will speak to new clause 53, and then new clauses 32 and 33 on a separate topic. I hope hon. Members will bear with me as I work through those three parts. I support clause 49, which provides a way for mayors of strategic authorities to usefully request more powers, but the gap in the Bill highlights that we need the Government to make bolder policies in the areas of competence so that strategic authorities can request that they should be devolved to the lower levels. I will turn to the example of housing in a moment but, in general, it would be great to see strategic authorities working together to develop models of rent controls. As I understand it, however, because those powers do not currently exist centrally, strategic authorities cannot make requests for them under the clause. We need to be bolder at the centre to maximise the effectiveness of devolution on such issues. If a Bill is not the right place to create a new power that is usable only in a local area, what is? Can the Minister explain why the Government have not taken the opportunity of the Bill to allow councils or new authorities to request those kinds of powers in areas where the Government do not currently act? It is on that principle that my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol Central (Carla Denyer) tabled new clause 53, which I will speak to now. It does not do what I just suggested, but it does allow for clear reporting of the conversations between mayors and the Government on the use of clause 49 powers. That includes where authorities have made requests for powers to be created and devolved to them, even when there is no existing national power to devolve. If the Secretary of State’s goal is to make sure people take back control of their own destinies, it is only right that this power should be considered. Ministers need to pay serious attention to the full range of powers that mayors are already saying they need in order to make a material difference to people’s lives. As the Secretary of State for Housing said in his speech at the Labour party conference, communities have been held back because they do not have the power to make the changes they want. The new clause would at least help to keep track of the powers mayors are asking for under clause 49, as well as the additional powers they are telling Ministers to legislate for to enable them to do the best for their communities and, ultimately, to fulfil their areas of competence. The new clause is not prescriptive as to which policies and areas need to be considered, but as I implied earlier the area of competence that inspired it is housing. That is because we are in an acute affordability and evictions crisis, and mayors have been calling for rent control powers from Ministers for some time. For example, in 2023, the Mayors of Manchester, Liverpool and London wrote to the then Secretary of State calling for a rent freeze, in order to immediately relieve the pressure on millions of people in the private rented sector in their areas. Recently, the Mayor of London said that the <span id="376" class="column-number" data-column-number="376"></span>power to control rents was now at the top of his list in terms of devolution. His position follows many years of pressure and dialogue with politicians such as the Greens on the London Assembly—of which I used to be one—and with independent grassroots renters groups. That is just one example of the kind of power that would be involved. Rent controls are something close to my heart, and we heard new figures today showing that 172,000 children are now in temporary accommodation in the UK. On average, people spend 36% of their income on rent—in my constituency, it is 42%. This is a classic policy for that issue. The annual report the new clause requires would recognise the need for transparency over the discussions taking place about powers in the Bill—in the absence of the changes I have asked for in it—and also let us see what is going on in the conversations happening outside of the powers in the Bill. New clauses 32 and 33 do what I just talked about and what clause 49 does, but at the level of the strategic authority. This is about the strategic authority having a duty to have a plan for devolving more of its powers and duties to smaller local authorities in its area. I recognise that the aims of devolution can often be in tension, particularly in terms of the balance between scale and geography. It is correct to have some powers at the level of combined authorities, so that they cover sufficiently large populations and enable authorities to exercise strategic policy making. But large authorities will not necessarily empower local people to address issues that are unique to their area; they might not represent the diversity of things going on around that area, and issues that people really care about in local communities might be better addressed using deeper local knowledge. The new clauses do not prescribe a single model for this further local devolution. There is such diversity. We have discussed today the differences between coastal areas, rural areas, towns and larger urban areas. We have talked about areas with countryside and nature to protect, areas that need new investment, and areas with unique industries that could be developed locally. I do not think that we should be prescriptive in our new clauses; we should just put in place a legal duty that makes some kind of move towards subsidiarity across the whole of English local government. Under the new clauses, the strategic authority would have a duty to set out how it would devolve its own responsibilities to the lowest possible level for effectiveness—including, where they exist, district, town and parish councils. I think that would be a really positive thing that would please most Opposition Members on the Committee. I hope that the Minister will take that onboard and come up with some way of codifying the need for the new strategic authorities to avoid becoming too centralised and to make a plan for listening and devolving powers down to the right level.
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English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill (Eighth sitting)
Will the Minister take this opportunity to urge those mayors who are seeking greater powers to continue to do so, and to talk about it in the public sphere, as they have done?
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Topical Questions
I welcome the approval of plans for a new dental school at the University of East Anglia. What arrangements and incentives will the Minister put in place to keep dental graduates in the most poorly served areas, such as my constituency of Waveney Valley?
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Asylum Seekers: Support and Accommodation
Will the hon. Member give way?
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Asylum Seekers: Support and Accommodation
I must congratulate the hon. and learned Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Tony Vaughan) on an excellent, compelling and evidence-based opening speech of the debate. I declare my membership, alongside him, of the all-party parliamentary group on refugees. The petitions call for three main things. They call for asylum hotels to be shut immediately, for people in hotels to be deported, and for all support—including food, shelter and medical assistance—to be denied. Migration is a basic human thing to do. People move. Our earliest ancestors did it, and most of us have moved at some point during our lives, in search of work or a better life, or for love. Most of us, though, are lucky enough not to have had to flee for our lives, as many of those in asylum hotels have done. Whether we have travelled from Leicester to London or from Afghanistan to Aberdeen, moving is a part of life. Refugees, a small proportion of the total migration into this country, are forced to move. The chance for them to seek asylum is a lifeline at the heart of British values and democracy. Asylum hotels work for no one. The Government want to end their use, as they are hugely expensive. They are also completely unsuitable for men, women and children who have endured and fled unimaginable trauma. However, hotels are being used in the immediate term because the last Government deliberately created a massive backlog of destitute people when they stopped assessing asylum claims.<span id="274WH" class="column-number" data-column-number="274WH"></span> Successive Governments—sadly, including this one—have sought to make life needlessly difficult for people seeking sanctuary. Hotel accommodation for destitute asylum seekers is given on a no-choice basis. Rooms in hotels are often shared and cramped, with nowhere to cook and no privacy, and often leave vulnerable people isolated and depressed. Asylum seekers have no recourse to public funds, meaning that they are not eligible for mainstream benefits and, in most cases, are banned from working. They are trapped by a malfunctioning Home Office—a bloated institution that should be broken up, as recommended in a report that I commissioned a few months ago called “No Way Home”. Turning to the proposal to deport those seeking asylum: that is immoral. We have provided sanctuary for decades under international conventions, because protecting people from torture and death reflects core British values of generosity, compassion and care—values that our grandparents fought and died for in world war two. They are values that are upheld every day in my Bristol Central constituency, where we are proud to be a city of sanctuary, where our wonderful schools welcome everyone as equal and valued members of their school communities, and where the Bristol Refugee Festival and amazing organisations such as the Bristol Hospitality Network, Moveable Feast, Aid Box Community and the Dovetail Orchestra—to name but a few—work to connect, share and celebrate together. Far-right groups do not like it, but Bristol stands firmly for dignity, inclusion and hope. The real problem is inequality, not immigration. In billionaire Britain, 4.5 million children are growing up in poverty. Meanwhile, the top 50 richest families in the UK now hold more wealth than the poorest half of the population, which is over 34 million people. There are now over 172,000 children living in temporary accommodation, while wealth from property and inheritance has soared. It is patently not those destitute people who have fled for their lives, and who are now stuffed into inappropriate accommodation and forced to live on £9.95 a week, who are to blame for any of that. We need fairer taxation. We need wealth taxes so that those with the broadest shoulders can pay their fair share. We need a plan to make migration actually work for all of us. I urge the Government to act on the Refugee Council’s proposal that would allow Ministers to close asylum hotels within a year. It recommends a one-off scheme to give time-limited permission to stay, subject to suitably rigorous security checks, to people from countries that make them almost certain to be recognised as refugees. The system should also provide safe and legal routes for people to seek sanctuary, so that they are not pushed into the hands of people smugglers, and we must end the ban on asylum seekers working. Let them contribute. Those are the real ways to undermine the black economy and create integrated communities. Ending the scandal of poverty and inequality is critical, starting—please—with scrapping the awful two-child benefit cap and taxing billionaires properly. It is time to share out the great wealth that we have in this country to provide reliable and accessible public services that are run for the public good and that we can all benefit from. We must reject the politics of division and hate, and make hope normal again.<span id="275WH" class="column-number" data-column-number="275WH"></span>
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Asylum Seekers: Support and Accommodation
I have previously asked Home Office Ministers, and staff supporting them, whether they have any evidence for the claim that allowing asylum seekers to work while waiting for a decision would act as a pull factor. That evidence was not provided to me. Can the Minister provide it?
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English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill (Fifth sitting)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Stuart—my huge apologies for arriving late to proceedings. I want principally to talk about new clause 19, in my name, which sets out a duty on mayors to establish a citizens assembly. It would place on the mayor of a strategic authority a duty to convene, within the first year of their election and at least once annually after that, a citizens assembly consisting of local people. There would be an additional non-legally binding duty to take account of the recommendations of the citizens assembly. The new clause defines the term “citizens assembly”, and its account of the method of selection and the need to be representative of the local community are taken from descriptions of citizens assemblies that have already been commissioned by Parliament, including on climate change. A lot needs to be done to the Bill to help it live up to its title. There is a real need for this kind of empowerment.
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English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill (Fifth sitting)
I take the hon. Member’s intervention in good spirit. I will talk about the ability of a standing citizens assembly not simply to react—even voting, at the end of a mayor’s term, is a reactive act—but to consider and make proposals. Mechanisms for getting ground-up proposals from the local community are lacking in the Bill.
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English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill (Fifth sitting)
The hon. Member asks about the mayor meeting the citizens assembly, which misunderstands what a citizens assembly does. It does not ever have to see the mayor if it does not want to. It is there, in its own right, to consider things. I will explain more about how they work in a moment—