Andrew George

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1. 2 Nov 2026·Parliament·Andrew George

   Budget Resolutions

   The right hon. Lady has said that she wants to ensure that there is good growth in every postcode and has referred to the business rating system, but in the Budget the Chancellor extended the tax loophole available to holiday lets in postcodes in Cornwall and other tourist areas. Is the right hon. Lady aware that billions of pounds are handed out to second-home owners who flip their properties to holiday letting in order to take advantage of a tax loophole? Would it not be far better to invest that money in social housing for local people in desperate housing need?

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2. 2 Nov 2026·Parliament·Andrew George

   Budget Resolutions

   It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for South Derbyshire (Samantha Niblett). She refers to the fact that this is a Labour Budget, but I want to highlight how it does not contribute as I would hope it would—of course, good growth in every postcode is a good thing—to combating widening inequality. I am not sure it lives up to what I believe the Labour party argues for. I submitted early-day motions 939, 940 and 963, which provide constructive proposals to the Chancellor on addressing widening inequality. They were constructive proposals, as one would expect me to provide. The Conservatives want to focus on the benefits bill, and of course we should, but they do not seem to want to focus quite so much on the benefits bill of tax benefits for the wealthy. It is that area that I wish to concentrate on most. Some 23% of the Government tax take—£217.5 billion —is available in tax reliefs, as Treasury Ministers know full well. The Treasury Committee has identified that 80% of those tax reliefs have never been publicly costed or evaluated. I hope the Government will look at these matters. I will come on to one on housing in a moment. The Secretary of State referred to my private Member’s Bill, which is up for debate on Friday 13 November. It addresses both the need for first homes before second homes, and need before greed in the planning system. I hope that Labour Members will come along to support the Bill. What concerns me in particular is the business rates relief system. The Red Book, on page 130, refers <span id="664" class="column-number" data-column-number="664"></span>to the availability to small businesses of rates relief for the retail, hospitality and leisure sector. That includes, of course, holiday lets. The problem is that, because holiday lets have invariably been second homes, people have flipped their property from council tax to business rates, applied for small business rates relief and then paid nothing at all. The Government have extended the valuation from £12,000 to £18,000, which has then made a larger group of people, who are wealthy enough with their second properties, now able to take advantage of this particular loophole. In areas like mine, with large numbers of second homes, we would like the half a billion pounds that has gone from the taxpayer into the pockets of second home owners, to be put into social and affordable housing. It is driving inflation in the system and creating further inequality. I do hope the Government will look at this issue again, think again and address it.

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3. 29 Oct 2026·Parliament·Andrew George

   Topical Questions

   My constituents are not demanding a multibillion-pound, high-speed answer to the five-and-a-half-hour journey time from Penzance to London, for example; they want just a fraction of that amount, to improve the comfort, reliability and punctuality of the service. My hon. Friend the Member for North Cornwall (Ben Maguire) mentioned that £57 million has been allocated for wi-fi on trains. That is a fraction of the money spent on high speed policies. We understand that the money is being held by the Treasury at the moment; when will it be rolled out? It is desperately needed now.

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4. 27 Oct 2026·Parliament·Andrew George

   Council Housing

   Thank you, Sir Jeremy. I warmly congratulate the hon. Member for North East Hertfordshire (Chris Hinchliff) not only on securing the debate but on the powerful and thoughtful way in which he commenced it, as usual. I also congratulate the other 15 hon. Members who contributed. I cannot disagree with any of the points made powerfully by them, and I hope that the Minister is listening. I declare an interest as a member of the Cornwall Rural Housing Association and as a past chief executive, now volunteer board member, of the Cornwall Community Land Trust, which is a registered provider of affordable homes across Cornwall and on the Isles of Scilly. I noticed that we were not only debating the issue of council housing but straying into questions about the integrity of the planning and development system. That system is of course critical to delivering the big house building programme that the Government have promised. It is clear that in many parts of the country house building, particularly of social and affordable homes, has stalled.

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5. 27 Oct 2026·Parliament·Andrew George

   Council Housing

   Indeed. There are many ways in which Ministers need to look at our whole housing planning system. It operates almost as if local needs were an inconvenient afterthought. Despite tinkering at the edges of the planning system, successive Governments have left it so that it still rewards land value speculators more than council or charitable housing providers; puts developer profit—which can be set at a level of 20% when valuation of developments is undertaken—before affordable homes; and turns a blind eye to the transfer of thousands of homes intended for permanent occupancy into property investment portfolios as second homes for recreational and holiday use. I want to reflect on the speeches of my two constituency neighbours, the hon. Members for Truro and Falmouth (Jayne Kirkham) and for Camborne and Redruth (Perran Moon). I put on record my strong support for the case they made for investment in Cornwall’s desperately needed social and affordable housing stock. This week’s announcement of further investment in social and affordable homes—I am sure the Minister will repeat it—is of course welcome. It is on top of the £39 billion in the social and affordable homes programme that was announced last year. However, those investments are dwarfed by the billions of pounds of taxpayers’ money gifted through various tax reliefs and loopholes, and by private capital that, in my part of the world, drives investment into holiday lets created when local tenants are evicted to make way for that investment. It is bad enough that such tax subsidies are granted at all, but not all those subsidies—which local authorities are obliged to grant—are compensated for by the Treasury. That contributes to a growing black hole in local government finances and leads to cuts in essential local services. I am bound to take this opportunity to draw attention to the fact that I was fortunate in the private Member’s Bill ballot. My Homes and Planning Bill will come before Parliament again on Friday 13 November. I hope that all those who spoke in this debate and their colleagues will come along to support the Bill, as it stands a good chance of being enacted. It provides the tools with which the Government and local communities can deliver the kind of affordable homes that we have been talking about, which are desperately needed. Our housing system is a shameful display of just how wide the growing inequality is in this country. We need to understand better why the planning and housing policies of successive Governments have failed. As the hon. Member for North East Hertfordshire articulately put it, planning policies are based on house building targets, but they have not delivered. Policy designers seem to have overlooked the fact that house building targets are merely a means to an end—the end being, of course, to meet housing need. My own area of Cornwall is a classic example of an area where planning policy has failed. It is one of the fastest growing places in the United Kingdom; indeed, in the last 60 years, it has almost trebled its housing stock. And yet over that same period the housing problems of local people have got worse, as we have already heard from my constituency neighbours, the hon. Members for Truro and Falmouth, and for Camborne and Redruth. So we know that simply having house building—particularly if it is building the wrong type of housing, which is simply for wealthy people or for investment purposes—does not actually help to meet housing needs.<span id="101WH" class="column-number" data-column-number="101WH"></span> The housing policy of this Government—like, to be fair, the housing policies of successive Governments—is based on a delusion that private developers are prepared to collude with Government to drive down the price of their finished product. Local authorities should be given the option to set targets to meet local need, rather than simply being told to go out and build homes, and to allow those homes to be built. Indeed, what the Government have done has made matters worse, although I am sure that it was done with the best intentions. As the hon. Member for North East Hertfordshire implied, perhaps Ministers became so sidetracked or distracted by, or even obsessed with, facing down anti-development nimbys—rightly; of course they should do that—that they did not consider that imposing unachievable house building targets overnight on local authorities might become counterproductive, because 18 months ago local authorities suddenly found themselves unable to demonstrate that they had carefully identified and consulted on a sufficient five-year land supply. As a result of that, development opportunities on the edges of our communities, instead of being delivered under a rural exceptions policy for affordable homes, are now being granted by planning inspectors, because there is not a five-year land supply for unaffordable homes. So, we have lost that opportunity and the policy has been totally counterproductive. The purpose of my private Member’s Bill is to give communities the right to buy, so that a community asset becomes land or buildings that could help a community to deliver affordable homes. This is community-led housing of the type that my hon. Friend the Member for South Devon (Caroline Voaden), for example, has talked about. Also, there should be new planning limits on second homes and holiday homes, so that someone would have to apply for planning permission to convert a property from a permanent home to a holiday home or second home. I hope that Government Members will come along on 13 November to support my private Member’s Bill, because the Minister for Housing and Planning, the right hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Matthew Pennycook)—he is obviously not here in Westminster Hall today because he is engaged with the Social Housing Bill, which is very relevant to our debate today—has indicated that he is unable to support my Bill. Consequently, we have a debate on our hands. The Liberal Democrats would increase the building of new and affordable and social homes, and we would make sure, on a number of fronts, to make homes warmer and cheaper and easier to heat, with a 10-year emergency upgrade programme to ensure that all new homes are zero carbon, as well as giving control of right to buy to local authorities, which will be enabled to vary discounts based on local need, or—as a last resort—to suspend the right to buy all together. In view of the short time I have left, I will not list all the policies that would deliver the utopia that a Liberal Democrat Government would undoubtedly deliver as far as housing is concerned. However, I will urge the Minister, particularly as we have the vehicle of the Social Housing Bill in Committee at the moment, to take heed of what his colleagues have said to him this afternoon and to accept amendments to improve that Bill.

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6. 22 Oct 2026·Parliament·Andrew George

   Equitable Life Policyholders: Compensation

   It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Brentford and Isleworth (Ruth Cadbury). I congratulate the hon. Member for Leeds North East (Fabian Hamilton) for the way in which he brought the issue forward and articulated the case, which I thoroughly endorse. I could repeat the points made by all speakers so far, but I will not—there will not be time anyway. All I will say is that I was engaged on debates on this issue prior to starting my nine-year sabbatical from this place in 2015. At that stage, I thought we were making progress, particularly after the Government had at least accepted the ombudsman’s case, although they did not provide sufficient compensation at the time. I assumed that, by the time I came back nine years later, the matter would be resolved and there would no longer be an issue. However, we are no further forward than we were in 2015.

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7. 22 Oct 2026·Parliament·Andrew George

   Equitable Life Policyholders: Compensation

   Perhaps we should form the nine-year sabbatical club, and compare this issue with others that have simply not moved forward. As the hon. Member for Leeds North East explained, the situation is entirely down to regulatory maladministration and failure. It is Government failure. The hon. Member <span id="480WH" class="column-number" data-column-number="480WH"></span>for Brentford and Isleworth implied that there were crooks involved; certainly money was taken improperly, and there was a failure on the part of Government to protect investors in the way that they should have done at the time. I say gently that I remember at the time that the then Labour Opposition complained that the announced package of £1.5 billion was insufficient—Oppositions do this, and I am not making a Punch and Judy point, but here is an opportunity for a Labour Government to stand up to the criticisms they raised at that time and to address the issue. As the hon. Member for Leeds North East rightly said, there is still money in the pot. If more than a third of the £4.1 billion that was identified as needed in compensation was provided through the £1.5 billion package from the Government, why is it that my constituents who I talk to and who are still very embittered, understandably, about this situation, are only getting 22.4%? The sums do not add up. As the hon. Member for Leeds North East explained, it is because of the way this particular cake has been cut up. The Minister responding to the debate also replied to my hon. Friend the Member for North Shropshire (Helen Morgan) in March this year, saying that the scheme is “on track to distribute the remainder of the £1.5 billion as planned” in annual payments to eligible policyholders. If that, at least, could be done, that would be great, so that those who should be receiving compensation actually receive it—although, again, it is insufficient. In my view, it is best to humanise the situation. For the many constituents who brought their cases to me, the situation has caused a strong sense of embitterment. My constituency has a large number of people who are self-employed but still live on the margins, and they have scrimped and saved to invest in their pensions and future. They looked for a reputable company, thought that Equitable Life was one and invested through it. One such person is Howard, who in 1978, started to save with what he understood to be the best company he could find: Equitable Life. He told me: “I was self-employed living and working in a Cornish village where I was born and brought up and still live after 86 years with my wife, who has dementia and is registered blind. We pay for and rely on others to do everything for us like food, cleaning, driving...even twice every day carers come attending both of us...THIS IS SHOCKING, THIS IS ROBBERY BY OUR GOVERNMENT!!” In 1995, Teresa opened an Equitable Life personal pension plan with a small monthly payment, as well as a separate bond. She told me: “When Eq. Life ceased business, I transferred the small pension amount to link it with a work pension I had.” She is supposed to be retired, but she now has to work part time to make ends meet. She said: “I have always endeavoured to save as best as able, which all governments encourage us to do. However, after all this time I don’t think we will ever receive what is owed to us.” Surely we can reassure people that they will get what they are due. I congratulate the hon. Member for Leeds North East and all other Members who have engaged with the issue; I hope that the Minister is listening and will address it.<span id="481WH" class="column-number" data-column-number="481WH"></span>

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8. 22 Oct 2026·Parliament·Andrew George

   Fly-tipping

   Local authorities will be looking to the Environment Agency to set standards as far as enforcement action is concerned. Trevoole Moor in my constituency is the fifth largest illegal dump in the country, affecting a nature reserve, but the Environment Agency has decided not to take enforcement action. When I discussed this with the Environment Agency, it said that it deals with these matters on a case-by-case basis. Will the Minister ensure that the guidance the Environment Agency uses is published, so that we can properly understand where and why it makes these decisions?

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9. 21 Oct 2026·Parliament·Andrew George

   E-scooters and E-bikes: Regulation

   My hon. Friend is making an excellent point. Surely, the answer is relatively simple: if a scooter or bike operates purely through an electronic motor and not human propulsion, it should be taxed, insured and subject to an MOT like any other motorbike.

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10. 21 Oct 2026·Parliament·Andrew George

    Housing Costs: Government Support

    I beg to move, That this House has considered Government support for housing costs. I am delighted to have the opportunity to raise the issue of Government support for housing costs—in other words, local housing allowance and the way that it is part of universal credit and the calculations made therein. The hon. Member for North East Hertfordshire (Chris Hinchliff) has let me and the Minister know that he would like to make a short speech, and I understand that others wish to make interventions. This is not the first time that I have raised this issue. I was looking back at the records, and I even had a debate in this Chamber on a related matter on 9 November 2010—if anyone wishes to check the records. I will start on a sombre note and give a couple of examples from my constituency of recent casework where I have met constituents who have had difficulties with their benefits. One constituent has a history of undiagnosed neurodiversity and mental health problems and struggles to hold down regular employment, although he is quite capable. He has been rejected for personal independence payment and receives approximately £900 a month in universal credit, but must pay what is pretty much the average for his private rent in the constituency, which is £850 a month. That leaves him with £50 to live on for the whole month—to cover all his bills, feed himself, travel and do everything else. That makes the point about the difficulties and the poverty trap in which people find themselves. A mother and three children have been benefit-capped, despite the mother paying almost £1,200 a month in rent out of the approximately £1,500 a month she receives in universal credit. She is in debt to her utility providers and cannot afford to work because of the high cost of childcare. Those are just two examples of what it means to families to have to live on the current rates of local housing allowance.

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