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Category: Speeches

  • Gillian Keegan – 2023 Speech at the Local Government Association Conference

    Gillian Keegan – 2023 Speech at the Local Government Association Conference

    The speech made by Gillian Keegan, the Secretary of State for Education, in Bournemouth on 5 July 2023.

    Thank you, Kevin.

    It is a great pleasure to be here to address the LGA conference for the first time.

    I know how important the work, and the voice, of local government is.

    My first step into public life after a long business career was as a local councillor where I was also trained by the LGA.

    And now as an MP, a Minister, a Secretary of State, I see every day the hard work that councils up and down this country do.

    I often get asked what a “good” or a “great” start in life is for children and that looks like.

    Every child, every family, is different. But to me, there is a common thread.

    Every child needs stability plus parents or carers around them that are fully engaged, so that they can grow, they can learn, and they can thrive.

    This is something that we all worry about, how can we make sure that all children get the stability they need to set them up for life?

    You are often the first line of defence for children in your area and I want you to know that I know how vital your role is.

    What you do changes lives. You can’t ever be thanked enough for this.

    I want you to know that I am right behind you in your efforts.

    It is not lost on me that I am addressing you today while children and young people in schools across the country face disruption from industrial action.

    This disruption is undermining the stability we have been working so hard to recover after the pandemic.

    Let me be clear, we should not be having these strikes. In general, but certainly not now.

    Children have been through so much in the pandemic; I can’t think of a worst time to be willingly keeping them out of school.

    And we know that it’s critical to ensure children spend as much time in school as possible.

    Because we know that time spent in school is time well spent. School provides stability, it provides education, it provides support, it provides community.

    But there are significantly more children missing school than before the pandemic.

    Sadly, tragically, too many children are not attending school regularly, are persistently absent or, are missing education altogether.

    Some have labelled these “ghost children” – but I don’t like that label – they are real children, and their potential is being cut short.

    I’m determined we fix this, and I am grateful for the work you have already done with schools and families to ensure that they and their children get the right support.

    We are clear that the system needs to work together to improve attendance, focusing on a “support-first” approach.

    When we can we will put these new expectations on a statutory footing. Because this really matters.

    In the meantime, we continue to support you in your efforts.

    Our new data tool means you can respond quickly to trends in near real time, our attendance advisers are already working with around 115 local authorities, and our Attendance Action Alliance, which I chair, and which includes the Children’s Commissioner, the President of the Royal College of General Practitioners and the Children’s Mental Health lead from NHS England. Championing good attendance is top of our agenda.

    I’m delighted to say that bit by bit, little by little, our approach is working.

    And this is critical in the next few months as we know that children who miss the first few days of the new term, without good reason, are much more likely to miss long periods of their schooling than their peers.

    This is a critical period, but it is also an opportunity.

    By September we want to be welcoming as many children back to school as possible.

    I believe, truly, that not only can we get this right, but that working together, we will get this right.

    By supporting children, and families, to get kids into school, to get them learning.

    To get them the support they need, and the stability the deserve.

    Of course, there are children who face bigger challenges than others.

    When you look at vulnerable children, whether it’s because of their home life, a disability, or a previous experience, it’s often the same children, who are being counted and treated as vulnerable in three, four, five different systems.

    Nearly half of our children in need also have special educational needs, as do 57% of children who were looked after for at least 12 months.

    Those children, they are just as smart and have just as much potential as their peers. The only difference is that they got dealt a tougher hand in life.

    We all know that they need the support, the stability, and the help that will allow them to reach their potential.

    The reality is that for children with more complex needs, support often takes too long to arrive – and when it does – it is not always of the quality or consistency that they deserve.

    Families have to jump through hoops to get their children what they need, and providers and services are under increasing pressure to deliver.

    That’s why we’re investing, doubling high needs funding in the past four years, so that it now stands at a record £10 billion, and putting £2.6 billion into special and alternative provision school places.

    But it’s not just about funding. It’s about how we use this and that’s why our SEND and Alternative Provision Improvement plan outlines a mission to transform the system so that all children, whatever their needs, can fulfil their potential.

    These children face many challenges, not just one. This creates more need for support, even though they have less to draw on.

    That is why we are working with you to deliver consistent high-quality support, providing more social workers, more educational psychologists, and more support staff.

    We are going to deliver new national standards and practice guides, that will not only show what excellence looks like, but will provide a benchmark of support that every child with special needs can expect.

    We will set out clear roles and responsibilities across the system and end the bureaucratic battle that prevents families and children getting the support they need.

    A standardised EHCP template and national digital requirements will mean families can get the support your teams and partners provide, more simply and quicker.

    We will work with you, and with families, to develop and test these resources over the coming months.

    We will also announce details of how we will work together on testing our reforms through our Change Programme and the establishment of new Regional Expert Partnerships.

    So the good news is, we are definitely going in the right direction.

    But there will always be more to do, and I’m so grateful for your support on this journey.

    That brings me to the second area of partnership I want to speak about – and that’s our work together supporting families.

    You may well have heard the Prime Minister speak about how central family is to our vision of the future.

    But it’s hard for young families to balance both their children’s education and their own careers, especially with financial challenges and especially in the early years.

    Parents in 2022 were paying nearly 6% more for childcare for under 2s and 6.4% more for 2-year-olds than they were the previous year.

    This is why the Chancellor pledged the single biggest investment in childcare this country has ever seen, and why by 2028 we will have doubled spending on childcare with more than £8 billion every year on early years education. But I know you need extra support to deliver this.

    I know you want precise figures, and I’m pleased to say we’ll be confirming funding allocations for each local authority later this week.

    We have also announced £289m of investment to help you set up and deliver wraparound childcare, available from next year. And we’ll be seeking your views on how we make this scheme work effectively.

    This investment will make a real difference to families up and down the country, so that they can balance their lives and support their children.

    This is the support I would like every child to have. But the reality is, family life is often complex. Sometimes there are challenges, and families need extra support.

    In February this year, we set out how we will provide this and ensure children are kept safe and stay happy.

    We called it ‘Stable Homes, Built on Love’, because love and stability are what every child craves and what they deserve.

    Our strategy sets out how we will work with families to help them manage challenges.

    We’ll shortly be announcing which local areas will participate in the first wave of our Families First for Children pathfinder.

    These areas will provide a vision of the future system, supporting families through new Family Help services and an expert child protection response, to ensure frontline workers have the knowledge and expertise to support children and their families. Where children need protection, we will ensure that services, we will give staff the skills and support to take decisive action.

    Where children cannot stay with their parents, we should look first at wider family networks and support them and care for the child.

    And, where a child needs to enter the care system we will provide the same foundation of love, stability, and safety.

    There are 82,000 children in care. They are in our family, they are in our care, and we owe it to them to ask ourselves everyday – are we doing the best we can?

    We must always be ambitious for children in care and care leavers and I’m proud of what we’re doing in Government to help these children thrive and achieve their potential in adulthood.

    One of my most rewarding parts of this job is seeing this first-hand and chairing our cross-government Care Leavers board.

    And I am proud to work in a Government that care so deeply about this and it is great to be working with my colleague Johnny Mercer who is working on taking the lessons we have learnt about supporting veterans, and joining-up support for care leavers in the same way.

    We have increased the leaving care allowance from £2,000 to £3,000 and have consulted on expanding our corporate parenting responsibilities, so that more public bodies provide the right support to care leavers and also businesses.

    These young people need support when they start out on their own. Our Staying Close and Staying Put programmes will enable young people to  stay with their foster carers or close to their children’s homes when they leave care.

    Working together is a huge part of the making sure that all children get the future they deserve.

    I have seen this myself whether through Family Hubs and Start for Life, working with 87 councils in England; or the Supporting Families programme which has helped over 650,000 families already.

    When we get it right, and work together, it leads to incredible outcomes.

    Let me take fostering for example.

    I know first-hand the role foster carers play because many of my aunties fostered children.

    I have also been privileged to meet plenty of inspiring people who open their homes and their hearts to children.

    People like Marites. Marites is a dedicated foster carer – like many other across the country.

    She told me about one of the children she fostered. A seven-year-old boy.

    When he first arrived with her, he didn’t say a word. In fact, he didn’t speak for weeks. They didn’t know what he had gone through in his short life, but his silence spoke volumes.

    But Marites never gave up in the time she supported him. She gave this silent little boy the love and care he needed and slowly he began to recover.

    Years passed and then by chance she caught up with him walking through her borough. Her silent little boy was now the mayor.

    What a story, and what a life changed because one person took a chance on one child.

    You will all have had similar rewarding stories.

    Our job is to make sure every child gets the stability and foundation in life they deserve.

    A child, wherever they are, should be able to feel safe with unconditional love. They should be supported so that they know anything is possible.

    I know we ask a huge amount of you; I know that you wrestle with difficult decisions and pressures every day.

    But let’s just think about the prize. Together, we can create a world where all children, regardless of where they come from, can get the start in life they really deserve.

    Where it truly doesn’t matter where you came from, only where you are going.

    Together, we have started to make that future possible. But there is a lot more work to do.

    Work we must do. Because those children deserve nothing less.

    For me and many of your I know this is personal and I know we’re doing this for the right reasons, and together we can change lives.

    And I promise you, when we see those children grow up, thrive, and deliver that same love and support to their own families.

    We will know that all of the effort we have put in will have been worth it.

    Indeed, it may be the best thing we ever do.

    Thank you.

  • Michael Gove – 2023 Speech to the Local Government Association Annual Conference

    Michael Gove – 2023 Speech to the Local Government Association Annual Conference

    The speech made by Michael Gove, the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, at the Local Government Association Annual Conference held in Bournemouth on 5 July 2023.

    Thank you Kevin for those incredibly kind and inspiring words, and thank you Shaun also for welcoming us to the conference here in Bournemouth.

    And thank you all for being the backbone of our public service.

    Before I go any further, I want to add my own personal tribute to those you have already heard to Bob Kerslake. The LGA family has lost one of its own, and the country has lost a true public servant.

    Bob began his career in government with the Greater London Council, with roles in transport, finance and education. He ended it running the Civil Service.

    Along the way, he was chief executive of the fourth biggest council in England – Sheffield City Council. He also spent 7 years as chief executive at the London Borough of Hounslow, having previously been its director of finance.

    The move into central government saw Lord Kerslake become chief executive of the Homes and Communities Agency; permanent secretary of what was then called the Department for Communities and Local Government, and then of course Head of the Civil Service.

    My colleagues and I most recently valued his work on homelessness at the Kerslake Commission, just as you valued the 6 years he spent as a dedicated LGA President before handing over the baton to Baroness Grey-Thompson.

    On a personal level at the Department for Education I benefitted hugely from Bob’s kindness, his thoughtfulness and his wisdom.

    He was, also, an avowed supporter of devolution – and the flexibility it brought councils during their COVID-19 response. “The vital importance of local government to people’s lives has been very evident throughout this time,” he wrote.

    “If ever there was a practical argument to be made that greater devolution would bring great benefit to the country, it was made over the last year.”

    Bob’s commitment to local government – his belief that power should be exercised as close to the communities we serve as possible – is a continuing inspiration and we honour his memory.

    And in honouring his memory, the first announcement I’d like to make today is quite simple – thank you.

    Putting yourself forward for elected office in local government is an act of selfless public service. Acting as an officer in local government is a noble profession and every one of you deserves our gratitude.

    Especially given the testing times through which we have been living.

    Coping with an unprecedented global pandemic, facing increasing pressures on adult and children’s social care, supporting our Ukrainian guests and others fleeing from Hong Kong and Afghanistan, dealing with inflationary pressures, and always seeking to put the vulnerable in our communities first – we all owe a debt to local government and its leaders.

    And few have been finer leaders than my friend, and your retiring chair, James Jamieson.

    Energetic, always over the detail, persistent, persuasive, a natural team player, a conciliator when required and a fighter for local government always – James: I want to, on behalf of all of us in government and everyone in the hall, say a heartfelt thank you.

    Of course, James, we will stay in touch personally – I hugely value your counsel; I know you will have many future roles to play, not least in the realm of housing policy – and also my diary manager tells me I will be a regular visitor to mid-Bedfordshire in the weeks ahead – a very regular visitor…

    I also want to congratulate your new chair of the LGA. Shaun is the youngest ever chair of the LGA and has racked up a number of achievements at Telford & Wrekin Council since 2016. The LGA noted his ‘outstanding and inspirational’ leadership during COVID-19; while in children’s services, his is the first council outside London to progress from ‘requires improvement’ to ‘outstanding’ status.

    Shaun, I look forward to working with you in the months, and I hope years ahead, to deliver the effective and efficient local services our citizens deserve.

    We will not always agree on the best way forward but I know  that we agree that we can serve the public best when government and local government work closely together. Shaun, congratulations again.

    I personally and this government believe in devolution, decentralisation and driving power down to local communities.

    We want to give local communities more tools – the strongest ones – to make a difference on the issues that matter to residents – from countering anti-social behaviour to revitalising high streets, enhancing the environment to securing more of the right homes in the right places.

    We also believe that with greater power we should also ensure sharper accountability, celebrating the superb work so many councils do and helping to identify where local authorities need additional support.

    We believe that it is by empowering local communities that we can best address the regional economic inequalities which have held us back in the past.

    Local government is at the heart of levelling up. And we also believe in innovation in the delivery of public service – especially when it comes to securing economic growth, delivering beautiful new homes and supporting those most in need.

    I know it is only through listening and learning from you that together we can make progress.

    And the progress that we have made in DLUHC recently has all been down to what we have learnt from you.

    It was your experience in dealing with building safety in the aftermath of the Grenfell tragedy that helped us to bring relief to leaseholders and tenants.

    Your experience in supporting tenants in social housing to secure decent homes which has enabled us to bring in better regulation and higher standards.

    Your knowledge of what works, and what doesn’t, in the private rented sector has shaped our reforms.

    And your experience of the planning system – its strengths and weaknesses – has enabled us to bring forward improvements.

    Your amazing work in supporting Ukrainian refugees has enabled Homes for Ukraine to be such a success – with more than 150,000 Ukrainians benefiting.

    And even now you are helping us to find homes for Afghans to whom we have offered sanctuary, and are working constructively to deal with the pressures, undeniable pressures, that other refugees and asylum-seekers place on communities.

    The wonderful work so many of you do in adult social care is too often underappreciated but I and my ministerial team – and the ministerial team at DHSC – hugely appreciate not just the work you do daily but the expertise that you bring to reforming the sector and helping the most vulnerable.

    On education, supporting children with special needs, and safeguarding children at risk of abuse and neglect – your work, and wisdom, are invaluable.

    In enhancing our environment, dealing with waste, supporting nature to recover and dealing with climate change, you are in the frontline, and we all benefit from your leadership.

    In so many ways local government is the champion of what works, the indispensable ally.

    So much so that when I was told there was a new movie called Everything Everywhere All at Once, I thought it was a fly on the wall documentary about local government.

    Thank you for all you do – and know that it is because you do it so well that we want to empower you further.

    It is our priority, as you know, to go deeper in every area that is keen to pursue further devolution – and I am delighted that devolution deals now cover over 50% of England.

    The LGA has welcomed our commitment to offer all of England the opportunity to benefit from devolution deals by 2030 – and to engage with councils of all sizes.

    Before 2010 the only meaningful devolution within England was to London. Since then, we have allowed more and more communities to take back control of more and more power. Most powerfully through the model of mayoral combined authorities. But also through our programme of county deals and our freeing of districts and boroughs from historic restraints. And the Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill gives them – and all planning authorities – more control over the future shape and character of their communities.

    The government’s ambition is to see devolution extended further across England, beyond just the areas named in the Levelling Up White Paper. And we are taking inspiration from the trailblazer MCA model: I can confirm today that these deals will act as the blueprint for other Mayoral Combined Authorities to follow.

    As well as the trailblazer devolution deals signed with the Greater Manchester and West Midlands, we have also agreed to create a new Mayoral Combined County Authority in the East Midlands, a new Mayoral Combined Authority in York and North Yorkshire, we have expanded the North-East deal and we have also announced devolution county deals with Norfolk and Suffolk.

    I was excited to discover earlier today from the wonderful Anne Handley, the new leader of East Riding, that East Riding and Hull are working together on another potential new devolution deal. We want to be with you every step of the way.

    I am an enthusiast – as you all know – for the mayoral model. But of course, one size rarely fits all. And I want to ensure that counties, district and unitary authorities also enjoy greater powers, greater freedom and greater resources.

    So even as we make sure that our drive for devolution is in keeping with the best traditions of local government, we continue to respect existing structures. Indeed, we seek to strengthen them.

    And we wish to ensure also that a light is shone on the great work local government is doing.

    It is to improve accountability and transparency, and help all councils succeed, that I am today officially launching the Office for Local Government (Oflog).

    By providing targeted data and analysis, Oflog will champion the very best in local government and also help us to identify where councils need targeted support to deliver.

    And Oflog will of course work closely in partnership with the LGA’s Innovation and Improvement board, so ably now chaired by the hugely energetic Abi Brown.

    And we want to make sure that Oflog ensures there is wider appreciation of the innovation and excellence displayed every day by local government.

    Swindon Borough Council, for example, now takes an average of 4 days, instead of 11, to clear up fly-tipping after developing AI software to process reports submitted by residents and then work out the most efficient way for street teams to tackle them. It is also saving around £28,000 a year in fuel and staffing costs.

    And the use of machine translation, another manifestation of AI, by its paediatric therapy team has cut the time to process documents from 3 days to 14 minutes, and the average cost per document from £160 to just 7 pence.

    The technology is now used by the council to support Ukrainian and Afghan arrivals, and by their adult and children social care teams when working with people whose first language is not English. The council has made the tech available for use free of charge to other government bodies and institutions, with hospitals, schools, courts and the Welsh and French governments taking it up.

    Where Swindon leads, the world follows.

    At Stockton-on-Tees Borough Council, we’ve also seen innovation. Far more children have an education, health and care plan (EHCP) that meets their needs after those putting the plans together started using a new digital tool to guide them. The percentage of their EHCPs audited as ‘good’ has risen from just 15% to 88%, while those rated ‘inadequate’ have fallen from around 29% to just 1.7%.

    Delivery on the ground from a council putting innovation first.

    And also City of Wolverhampton Council with its Digital Wolves strategy is supporting our key levelling up mission to enhance connectivity by extending 5G coverage.

    Wolverhampton goes all-out to improve broadband connectivity among residents and it has taken full advantage of being among the first cities to host a commercial 5G accelerator.

    These are just 3 of many examples of innovation and excellence in the public sector being pioneered by local government and I want to see it celebrated.

    Oflog is there to celebrate that ingenuity and imagination.

    As you will know, I confirmed in January that Lord Morse will be the first chair of Oflog. We have appointed Josh Goodman, a brilliant civil servant who set up the highly successful Covid Shielding programme, as interim chief executive and have launched a recruitment campaign for the permanent role today – I want to make sure we get a wide range of excellent candidates so anyone here with a CV they want to send, I look forward to seeing it.

    Oflog is about supporting you to get on with the job of running local government and delivering for residents and communities.

    And we will work with you to establish the best indicators of performance that will be upheld via Oflog.

    And Oflog should also support us and the department in another vital way. And that is identifying potential problems in councils earlier.

    We all know that there have been local authorities where problems have arisen – notably Thurrock, Liverpool, Croydon, Slough and most recently Woking.

    A handful of cases, the exception…but the problems did not happen all at once – they were there for some time, and they worsened over time.

    We, collectively and in the department, I think, need to be able to respond to the warning signs.

    These failures are felt most acutely by taxpayers and residents in higher costs and worse services. The reputation of local government as a whole and the many excellent officers also suffers. As does the cause of devolution for which we all want to be making such a strong case.

    Where government intervention is needed to deal with these problems – in the most serious cases – we must be able to take targeted action. The Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill strengthens our ability to act to protect taxpayers where trouble is brewing.

    But we must also remember that these are a small minority of councils – outliers of concern in a sector characterised by excellence – but we must reflect seriously on what these exceptional cases tell us about how core parts of the framework work in practice. But we must also ensure that framework is designed in a way to support our delivery of services. We need in order to ensure that we both identify problems early and free you to do you even better to reform the external audit system.

    It’s just not working at the moment. We need to tackle the delays in external audit and are talking to firms, council representatives and others on concrete steps that will get us back to a system where we all have faster and more effective, swifter and less bureaucratic reassurance in the way money is being used and my colleague Lee Rowley is leading on this work which has long been overdue.

    Where we do intervene, we need to ensure it is rooted in a clearly understood and agreed framework. That is why we are announcing a consultation on new statutory guidance around responsibilities for Best Value.

    I’d like to thank everyone who contributed to the draft. In setting out the expected standards of good practice by 7 themes, and describing the characteristics of a well-functioning authority, it serves to highlight how many councils are doing an excellent job for their communities.

    I know how much we all want to drive prosperity at a local level and in our services – and we are using every tool we have to drive economic development and opportunity that will benefit everyone. And that must include at this point, specifically, critically, centrally, rising to the many challenges of the housing market.

    The government remains committed absolutely to achieving 300,000 homes a year by the mid-2020s and delivering one million homes over this Parliament – we set it out in our manifesto and we are absolutely committed.

    You don’t need me to tell you that all of us who want to see more housebuilding – and greater homeownership – nevertheless face challenges in a world of rising interest rates, inflationary pressures and tight labour markets. These challenges are very far from unique to the United Kingdom. Talking to colleagues in government in Ireland, exactly the same issues affect their housing market and their home ownership ambitions.

    My colleagues, the Prime Minister and Chancellor, are using every tool to meet and master these inflationary pressures and in DLUHC we are determined to work with you on the ground to expand opportunity in the housing market.

    We need to build more homes of every tenure. We need more social and affordable homes. And councils of course have a critical role to play. I want to see all of us – central government, Homes England, housing associations and councils – working together to build more homes for social rent.

    That’s why I announced last month that local authorities should be allowed to keep 100% of the receipt from a right-to-buy sale for 2 years. I know that the LGA championed this move, with James Jamieson making his customary compelling case and Shaun supporting him in this work, and we look forward to working with local authorities to capitalise on the additional money, freedom and flexibility.

    As well as building more social homes we also need to work with the private sector to deliver more homes for rent and more homes to buy.

    And here again I must thank James and the LGA team for their leadership.

    They helped us craft the reforms to the planning system in the Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill. Those reforms are designed to address the weaknesses in our current planning system and to rebalance incentives so more communities can be involved in plan-making, more plans can be adopted and more houses built.

    We know at the moment there are many local authorities without plans in place, and many communities concerned about the wrong type of development in the wrong places.

    Through the reforms in the Levelling Up Bill, we will strengthen the place of neighbourhood plans, we give local authorities the power to protect areas of environmental importance, we strengthen the place of design codes and give authorities more control over the character, the quality, the beauty of development.

    We also give local authorities more power to tackle land-banking to ensure planning permissions are built out.

    Crucially, we make it easier to use compulsory purchase powers and cheaper to acquire land through compulsory purchase order by tackling hope value. And, importantly, we also ensure that local authorities capture more of the land value uplift when planning permission is granted with the new Infrastructure Levy.

    Making new developments beautiful, ensuring they are accompanied by the right infrastructure – roads, schools and GP surgeries.

    Strengthening democratic control over where new developments go.

    Making sure the environment is protected and biodiversity is enhanced.

    And strengthening neighbourhood plans to create liveable, walkable, human scale communities.

    That is, I believe, the way to incentivise and support new development.

    The principles I have outlined – beauty, infrastructure, democracy, environment, neighbourhood – B, I, D, E, N – spell BIDEN.

    And if I say I am unashamedly pro-BIDEN I hope none of you will take that amiss…

    One more thing – if the planning system is to work it needs more resource, more expertise, and more planners.

    That is why we are surging additional planning resource to the frontline. I have asked the department and Homes England to look at plans to go even further. I hope to be able to update you all on progress shortly.

    And of course whether it is planning or in any area, if councils are to be empowered to deliver, then we need to help make funding simpler, more rational and predictable.

    The 2-year blueprint for local government finances published last year should help support long-term fiscal planning, as will the settlements for trailblazer deeper devolution.

    Over the last 3 spending reviews, local government has seen real terms increases in core spending power – with up to £59.7 billion available in England, an increase of up to £5.1 billion on the previous year.

    Over the last 12 months the DLUHC ministerial team has, rightly, sought to ensure that the funding system that will deliver certainty and stability for the remainder of this Parliament.

    For this I want to thank Lee Rowley – a former councillor himself – Dehenna Davison, Rachel Maclean and Felicity Buchan and, most of all, our wonderful Lords minister, Jane Scott, who was an outstanding leader of Wiltshire Council.

    As a team, we are committed to hearing from you about what works best and also critically what more is needed.

    And we know that while we have made progress on devolution, on accountability, on housing and planning and in other areas, there is still more to be done on the reform of funding to local government.

    The system we have now doesn’t work everywhere.

    It is out-of-date.

    There desperately needs to be a fairer, more rational allocation of resources across authorities.

    Also, there need to be fewer ringfences and individual funding pots.

    There need to be more rewards for councils that transform their communities: in the form of incentives to drive meaningful local growth.

    And I believe we will find the solutions together. Moving from complexity to a simpler set-up is in itself a significant undertaking.

    That is why we will engage and consult with you to create a system that both meets the needs of all of our citizens and can withstand economic shocks and inflationary pressures.

    And I look forward to updating you all on the progress of the work that we make.

    But where we can take action quickly, we will. We know the sheer number of funds has become difficult to navigate and deliver.

    The billions of pounds allocated so far through the Levelling Up and Shared Prosperity Funds are, I believe, genuinely transformative but we are always looking for ways to improve how that money and money from other funds reaches you.

    Today, we are publishing the government’s plan for a new, simpler, landscape for local authorities, in line with our white paper commitment.

    That will change how not just DLUHC but how other departments deliver funding.

    We have a commitment to a new digital service that will let you access and monitor your funding flows more easily.

    And we are planning other measures to ease the admin burden – streamlining data and paperwork requirements that you face  to make the most of the money being invested in your communities.

    Ten pilot local authorities will be able to spend their existing funding pots – allocated through the Towns, Levelling Up and Future High Streets programmes – more flexibly.

    And all local authorities that have Towns, Levelling Up and Future High Streets funding will also have more flexibility over their projects – I can confirm that they will be free to make output, outcome and funding changes up to a threshold of 30% without needing to seek any departmental approval.

    We will also change how government provides local growth funding to local authorities, and we will increasingly move towards the use of allocation rather than competition.

    I do believe that an element of competition in the allocation of funds can help encourage innovation, but you can have too much of a good thing.

    From next year, all departments must consider whether they can use existing funds to deliver new money or can use an allocation methodology to distribute it rather than launching another new competition. This must be done before any new fund is launched.

    And where we can improve existing fund allocation we will. So we will take a new approach to the next round of the Levelling Up Fund. We have heard your concerns and will announce further details shortly.

    Listening, learning, reforming, improving – governing is a journey…

    All of us, whatever our political backgrounds or traditions, go on that journey, travelling hopefully, because we want to improve the lives of others.

    One of the great privileges of working in the job I have is seeing how much you all do for the greater good in the jobs you do.

    Strengthening your hand is my mission –

    Working with you is my duty –

    And delivering for everyone is our goal.

    Thank you.

  • Wendy Chamberlain – 2023 Speech on the Privileges Committee Special Report

    Wendy Chamberlain – 2023 Speech on the Privileges Committee Special Report

    The speech made by Wendy Chamberlain, the Liberal Democrat MP for North East Fife, in the House of Commons on 10 July 2023.

    The initial Privileges Committee investigation into the former Prime Minister, the then Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip, has set a clear and fundamental precedent. If a Prime Minister deliberately misleads this House and, by extension, the public, there will be consequences. I put on record my thanks to the hon. and right hon. Members who served on the Privileges Committee. Considering the weighty matter of whether a former Prime Minister misled the House was clearly a significant task, and it is regrettable that, as the report outlines, the actions of some hon. and right hon. Members made the task harder for Members serving on the Committee. As we have heard, that was not without personal consequences for those Members.

    As the Leader of the House pointed out in her opening remarks, there are ways and means of raising issues of privilege. We should remember that the investigation had its genesis in a motion that was passed in this House without Division; not a single Member named in the report voted against the motion. Not only is the Committee cross party, but it has a Conservative majority. It is worth pointing out that there is no Liberal Democrat on the Committee, but I accept as an individual MP that the current process involves a cross-party group of MPs, and they are trusted by this House to investigate with impartiality and to make their findings available for consideration by the House. Those recommendations are then to be approved or rejected by this House. Had Boris Johnson been suspended from Parliament for more than 10 days and chosen to remain an MP, it would have been up to the people of Uxbridge to determine whether they wanted to re-elect him as their MP. Members from all parts of the House must make it clear that we will not tolerate attempts to undermine or attack the vitally important work of this Committee.

    We were promised integrity, accountability and professionalism at all levels of government, and I have to note, like the shadow Leader of the House, the hon. Member for Bristol West (Thangam Debbonaire), the current Prime Minister’s steadfast refusal to declare where he stands on this issue, let alone to engage with the substantive content of this report and the previous one. That is an abdication of his duty not only as Prime Minister but as an individual MP. It is unfortunate.

    The hon. Member for Wallasey (Dame Angela Eagle) said she was pleased that the report was not amended, but there is a sign of weakness from the Government, where they have said “no, thank you” to the offer in the Privileges Committee’s report. It stated:

    “It will be for the House to consider what further action, if any, to take in respect of Members of the House referred to in this special report.”

    I would go as far as to suggest that had the Government taken the opportunity to make some process clear following today’s report, they might have seen off some of the accusations of lack of due process that we have heard today from Members named in the report and those supporting them. Today should have served as an opportunity to set another precedent and to make it clear that there are consequences for those who seek to obstruct the important work of a cross-party, independent Committee. It is a shame that the Government have not done so. That is why I tabled my amendment.

    I accept that my amendment has not been selected, but the clear route forward would have been for the Committee to consider whether contempt had been committed and to return a verdict and, if necessary, a sanction. As the right hon. Member for Witham (Priti Patel) said, that could have given her an opportunity to make her case in relation to what has been reported. The same process was used for the Committee’s report into the former Prime Minister, Mr Johnson. I also point out that today’s debate does not shut the window on that opportunity. The Government could bring forward such a motion if they wished at any future point; they could bring it forward tomorrow, and I hope they do so.

    This place is still suffering from the Owen Paterson decision, because that was the point where the convention of this House to accept Privileges Committee and Standards Committee reports on the nod was broken by the Government. Now is the time for a reset.

  • Priti Patel – 2023 Speech on the Privileges Committee Special Report

    Priti Patel – 2023 Speech on the Privileges Committee Special Report

    The speech made by Priti Patel, the Conservative MP for Witham, in the House of Commons on 10 July 2023.

    I have found the debate thus far more than interesting for a number of reasons. A great deal has been said and commented upon in terms of parliamentary procedure and respect for one another, both of which I absolutely support, but also in terms of some of the selective quotes in the report, which have been echoed today, and how they are ascribed to certain Members who have been named in the report. Some of it has been taken out of context, and I will reflect on that point. I do not think that it is healthy for this wonderful Parliament to end up making generalised assumptions and assertions about individuals based on the annex to the report. That is why I wanted to speak today.

    Clearly, I am named in the annex and referenced in paragraph 14. As someone who has had claims made about their actions in the report, and who has been named and had judgments passed on their conduct both by the Committee and so far in the debate—totally inaccurate judgments, if I may say so—I think it is right that I get, at least, a right of reply. I am incredibly respectful of process, not just because I have served in Government, but because being a parliamentarian is the greatest honour we all have, and upholding our traditions, our democracy and parliamentary standards is absolutely right. However, although I appreciate that right hon. and hon. Members may disagree with me, including the Chair of the Committee, who is entitled to do so, I feel that the assertions and claims made in this special report are wrong and cannot be substantiated by the so-called evidence that has been produced and published.

    Sir Desmond Swayne

    Did my right hon. Friend collude in any way with any of the persons listed in the report, or with anyone else, to place pressure on the Committee?

    Priti Patel

    That comes back to the evidence and the point that I was about to make. The answer is: absolutely not. I just do not think it appropriate that, unless the evidence is provided and published, there is an absence of process by the Committee. I do not know if the annex is an exhaustive list of Members of this House—the Chair of the Committee is very welcome to respond to my comments—but it seems quite selective and exclusive. That is why it is important to have this debate and discussion.

    Allan Dorans

    On 16 March 2023, during an interview on GB News, the right hon. Lady said:

    “the lack of accountability…I think there is a culture of collusion quite frankly involved here.”

    Can I have some evidence of that please?

    Priti Patel

    I will come to that particular quote, so the hon. Gentleman will hear what I have to say then.

    I come back to my point on whether the annex is conclusive. Should other individuals in the House have been included in it? On what basis were decisions made? At the outset I put it clearly on the record that it is wrong of Members to seek to place undue and improper pressure on any Members investigating matters at a Committee level. There are processes in place, and it is right that they should be respected. I believe that there is a case for looking at how the processes of this Committee can be clarified, and how the members of that Committee and the persons who are subject to inquiries are protected. From my experience of the handling of all this, I can say that to be named in a report having had no notification—no correspondence or anything of that nature—that I was being investigated for prior conduct—

    Thangam Debbonaire indicated dissent.

    Priti Patel

    The shadow Leader of the House shakes her head, but I just do not think that that is acceptable. We have heard great speeches on having respect for one another, and I agree completely. We must treat each other with civility: if we intend to name another Member in the Chamber, we let them know beforehand. That is an important part of the process.

    We have heard about lobbying and collusion. As one who has served in government, as Home Secretary, I have been involved in all sorts of quasi-judicial policy and decision making on high-profile and complex issues, day in, day out, much of which was the subject of quite active lobbying by Opposition Members. We live in a democracy, and we should be able to have these discussions. All Ministers know that orchestrated campaigns and lobbying are absolutely day-to-day things that go on; that is part of a democracy—the values and safeguards of free speech and freedom of expression. A democracy recognises the value and the importance of challenging and questioning processes and decision making. That is one reason why we are all here as elected Members of Parliament: we do this on behalf of our country and our constituents, and because we have a democratic responsibility to do it.

    In doing that, we raise uncomfortable questions all the time. That is what we do, day in, day out. To silence and cancel out the comments and voices of individuals carries great risk, and I am very worried about that. It causes me grave concern. That is why the decision on the motion must be taken carefully.

    Lloyd Russell-Moyle (Brighton, Kemptown) (Lab/Co-op)

    The right hon. Lady is making a good case that we need to treat each other with respect. Is claiming that a Committee has been involved in collusion, as she did on GB News, part of that respect?

    Priti Patel indicated dissent.

    Lloyd Russell-Moyle

    Well, it is what is written here. Does the right hon. Lady deny that she said it?

    Priti Patel

    I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention.

    It is important that there is due process, and it seems to me that the report does not deliver the guidance and the processes that would be helpful to the House when dealing with matters that have been considered by the Privileges Committee. That is because the report is not concerned with establishing or recommending new processes and protections, and we should not sit here pretending that it is. This report has been used by the Committee to criticise and censure individuals. The House should reflect on that in the light of my comments.

    The House will set, in my view, a dangerous precedent if it approves a report that censures and passes judgment on Members of the House without granting due process—fair due process, I should add—to the Members it makes allegations about.

    Andy Carter (Warrington South) (Con)

    My right hon. Friend knows that I was a member of the Committee. Along with every other member of the Committee, I was clear that there is no censure in the report. Will she clarify what she means by censure? That was certainly not what the Committee intended.

    Priti Patel

    By that, I mean cancelling out views and opinions. That is totally different—

    Dame Angela Eagle indicated dissent.

    Priti Patel

    Would the hon. Lady like to intervene? She is very welcome to. She has spoken. With respect, she also asked for civility in the Chamber and in the way in which we engage with one another. Everyone has strong opinions and, with that, it is right and respectful that we listen to each other.

    Andy Carter rose—

    Dame Angela Eagle

    Will the right hon. Lady give way?

    Priti Patel

    I will give way to my hon. Friend first and then I will come to the hon. Lady.

    Andy Carter

    I think every member of the Committee firmly believes that every Member of Parliament has the right to share their opinions in this House, but the 2019 House of Commons code for Members is very clear: Members must not lobby the Committee, or the Commissioner in a manner calculated to influence their consideration of issues related to conduct. The current Members’ code of conduct does not mention that the Privileges Committee should be included in that. This report suggests that that should be amended so that Members serving on the Privileges Committee are also afforded those rights. I do not want any Member of Parliament to be prevented from saying what they believe once a report is published, but not during the process of producing a report.

    Priti Patel

    With respect, I have heard what my hon. Friend has had to say, but if he had listened to what I have had to say, he would know that I am worried that this will set a dangerous precedent.

    Dame Angela Eagle

    I was going to make a very similar point to the one that the hon. Member for Warrington South (Andy Carter) has just made. Does the right hon. Member agree that this is not about criticising a report once it is published? It is about not trying to nobble it while it is going on.

    Priti Patel

    With all respect to the hon. Lady, in her remarks today, she used a range of phrases, which she scatter-gunned around the Chamber, in an accusatory way about what individuals have said or may not have said. She cannot apply that to all of us, so I think she should have been careful in some of the phrases that she used.

    If I may, I will comment further about my concerns with the process. My hon. Friend the Member for Great Grimsby (Lia Nici) touched on an important point, about which Mr Speaker is also very clear—he is a strong proponent of the concept that important matters should come to the House first, before they are published in the media. As she pointed out regarding the publication of Committee reports, paragraphs 15.10 and 38.56 of “Erskine May” refer to the premature publication and disclosure of Committee proceedings as being in contempt. Cakeism is a phrase that has already been used this afternoon by my right hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg). We cannot have it both ways.

    I recognise the Committee’s frustrations that the report was leaked, and I know that comments have been made when the Government did not come to the House before announcing things in the media. However, we have to be concerned that details contained in the special report were published by a particular newspaper at 7.20 pm on Wednesday 28 June, some 13 hours and 40 minutes before the special report was published, and before people named in its annex were informed.

    Frankly, given how this has all been conducted—individuals were not contacted in advance and there was no right of reply—is the House not concerned that that newspaper, The Guardian, knew of the report’s contents before the rest of us did? Surely that should be a matter for investigation as well. If the Committee is so concerned with cases of contempt of the House, investigating how the report or its contents were leaked to The Guardian before it was published is something else that should feature in due process.

    Would any members of the Committee or its Chair like to explain why that newspaper knew in advance, before the rest of us? What action is going to be taken? We have already heard talk about restoring parliamentary democracy and integrity to Parliament. Again, that would give confidence to Members that due process was being followed, but it would also give confidence to the public, who also expect standards across the board to be upheld.

    We have a report from the Committee that names Members and peers, but it did not inform us in advance. We have discussed already the House’s rules on behaviour and courtesies. I personally think that Members should be given notice; that is respectful. During my time serving on the Front Bench, or on the Back Benches, as I am now, I hope that I have never offended a Member of this House by being so discourteous as to name them without informing them in advance. That is a good standard that we should all live up to.

    Not only has there been a lack of courtesy shown to Members named in the report, but the absence of due process concerns me a lot. Until this was published, I and colleagues had no idea that we were being investigated, or that there were references to us as individuals in the annex in relation to the inquiry into Mr Johnson.

    Mr Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)

    Will the right hon. Lady give way?

    Priti Patel

    I did not see the Member appear at the start, but I will give way.

    Mr Perkins

    I have been here for all of the right hon. Lady’s speech and, over the 14 minutes of it,, I have been desperately hoping she was going to get to the point she really wants to raise. She does not disagree that she said the things that are in the report, but she thinks it is discourteous that she was not told in advance. She thinks other people may have said things that were missed out of the report. What is actually the main point of what, over the last 14 minutes, she has been saying?

    Priti Patel

    If the hon. Gentleman had the courtesy of listening, the point is actually due process. As he would know, if he had listened to my opening remarks, I also said that I was sure not everyone here would agree with what I was about to say, but affording the courtesy of debate in this House was exactly why we were here. If he does not want to hear what I am saying, he might actually want to leave the Chamber, rather than carrying on in this way. It is important in the debate to have a right of reply. Again, I appreciate that he and other Members will disagree with this, but I think it is right that the basics should be put on the public record. The country is watching. Well, some of the country is watching, if they are not watching Wimbledon right now, but this is an insight into how we engage in our business, and what right of reply Members do or do not have. Quite frankly, this will affect all Members; it is not just about supporting those today, because there will be others in the future and that is important.

    Some of the language that has been used is important as well. I personally think that it simply cannot be right or fair for a Committee to make claims or assertions without giving notice in advance, or the chance to at least respond to allegations. I am going to go as far as to say, if I may, that I found some of this deeply secretive and I just do not think that Select Committees operate in this way; they really do not. I have had the great privilege of serving on a number of Select Committees and I think the way in which we conduct ourselves is very important.

    I notice that the Leader of the House said that this is deeply unusual. It is all deeply unusual, and not just because of a lack of process. My office, supported by the House of Commons Library, undertook some research to see if there was any precedent for MPs being named, and effectively or potentially sanctioned or censured in a report by a Committee. [Interruption.] No, I am giving an example. I hear what the hon. Member for Wallasey (Dame Angela Eagle) says, but I am just giving an example—colleagues might learn something from this, too. Even the Library said that it could not think of any Committee on Standards, Privileges Committee, or former Committees on Standards recommending anything of this nature without the opportunity for those named to make their case. Today is a chance at least to give that a bit of an airing and to make the case as well.

    I will conclude my remarks. Again, in the light of what I have said thus far, there are so many issues here that I think will have wide implications for Parliament, if I may say so, and for Members of Parliament. I have touched on process. The evidence issue—the lack of evidence that the Committee has presented—has been touched on as well. Paragraph 14 makes serious allegations that I and other Members were part of a co-ordinated campaign of interfering with the work of the Privileges Committee, so one would expect those claims to be backed up with some serious volumes of evidence, but they are not. While the Committee may obviously disagree with Members, the fact that people can now freely express views about the inquiry is obviously part of living in a healthy democracy, with free speech and freedom of expression. However, the Committee has not explained in this report how the expression of an opinion or a view that some people shared could in itself undermine the work of the Committee or could be co-ordinated.

    The hon. Member for Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock (Allan Dorans), a member of the Committee, touched on my remarks quoted in the annex. Those remarks came from an interview on Budget day that covered a range of issues: the economy, taxation, the Budget, migration—lively issues that I think all Members in the House like to discuss. We also discussed Mr Johnson, and the activities of a Mrs Sue Gray and the Leader of the Opposition. It is not at all clear from the Committee’s report why it believes that a reference, in a lengthy interview covering multiple issues, to questions over transparency and accountability constitutes interference in its work, could be disturbing, or could be part of a co-ordinated campaign. Those are areas on which we should get clarity.

    So far, the suggestions have been one-way; we have been told that we should go to the Committee if there are issues, but the Committee could have raised any issues with us. The Committee could have done that if it had any concern about comments I made. I am not someone who hides behind the sofa in Parliament; many colleagues will recognise that. I would welcome lively engagement, as I am sure other Members referenced in the annex would have done. I certainly would have welcomed the Committee contacting and engaging with me in good time. That is quite important. Frankly, I think the public will still reach their own conclusions about all this.

    I appreciate that I have detained the House for a lengthy period—I thank hon. Members for listening—but given the tone of the accusations made, the contents of the annex, and the lack of a prior opportunity to respond, it is important that we have this discussion and that colleagues listen. I hope that the Committee will reflect on comments made about process. I really do not think that there is evidence to substantiate the claims that have been made and, if the motion is agreed to, there will be the ongoing matter for the House of what that means for MPs.

    I might be boring for Britain right now, but I believe in transparency, accountability and due process, particularly having sat on the Front Bench; today we have also heard about holding Ministers to account. I believe in all that. Woe betide the Minister who misleads Parliament. Sometimes there is not enough scrutiny of the details of what Ministers say, and not enough challenges. That is why it is important that we have this debate about accountability, transparency, due process, and sometimes correcting the record. I believe, as do other hon. and right hon. Members, in transparency, freedom of speech and Members facing fair and due process when allegations are made about their actions. That should be dealt with properly. I urge Members to think about the impact that the report will have on our parliamentary democracy and our freedoms. I fundamentally believe that, without freedom of speech, there can be no democracy; it is something that we have to preserve, stand up for and respect in this House.

  • Angela Eagle – 2023 Speech on the Privileges Committee Special Report

    Angela Eagle – 2023 Speech on the Privileges Committee Special Report

    The speech made by Angela Eagle, the Labour MP for Wallasey, in the House of Commons on 10 July 2023.

    Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker—Madam Deputy Speaker, sorry. I think I got my pronouns mixed up. I rise to support the motion before us today. I am glad that there are no amendments to it, because it is the motion that the Privileges Committee asked to be put before the House in its special report. It is very important that

    “this House notes with approval the Special Report”.

    For us to do that will give us the best chance as a democratic House to put what has been an unprecedented period behind us. It is not usual, as we all know, for a Prime Minister to agree that a Privileges Committee report into what he said on the Floor of this House be sent to the Privileges Committee, as happened in April 2022, with the unanimous support of the House. It is not usual for a Privileges Committee report to involve such high stakes as the one that the members of the Privileges Committee—many of them are sitting here listening to this debate—had to cope with. We have never in my experience—I am not sure that it is even in the history books—had a Privileges Committee of any Parliament put in quite that position. It is therefore to the credit of this House—

    Craig Mackinlay

    Just while we are discussing semantics —I am referring to the interaction that we had on what “impugn” might mean—the right hon. and learned Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman) mentioned the words, “with approval”. My interpretation of “with approval” is that every word in this motion is absolute and correct. I have to say that, having heard the evidence, on the first occasion that my hon. Friend the Member for Workington (Mark Jenkinson) has been able to speak as part of this evidence, he raised doubts about what has been published as supposedly coming from him. Am I getting this wrong? My interpretation of approval is that it is all absolutely correct. If that is the case, I am afraid that I have doubts on that front.

    Dame Angela Eagle

    I am sure the hon. Gentleman will do what he thinks is right—I think we can all guess what that will be—when we vote. I note that the way in which this House has traditionally worked is that there are Standing Orders and there is Erskine May, but there are also unwritten assurances about how this House should behave when these issues are before it. Certainly, the Leader of the House was correct to ask, rather philosophically, at the beginning of this debate what had changed to cause the emergence of behaviour that I would not have expected to see when I first came into this House 31 years ago. I would not have expected to see people’s integrity being impugned in quite the way that it has been while they were doing duties that this House had unanimously asked them to do. But, of course, social media did not exist when I first came into this House, and neither did GB News. Before things get any more heated, we need to stop and think about the consequences of allowing the behaviour that we have seen in the past few months, as the Privileges Committee has done its report, to continue.

    It is to the credit of this House that the Privileges Committee’s original report—its fifth report—was debated and carried by such a majority. That puts a line in the sand. It enables us to begin to rebuild the reputation of this House and to use the Privileges Committee to ensure that this House can police itself on the Floor in the Chamber and bring Ministers to account by insisting that they tell the truth.

    The special report, again as the Leader of the House pointed out, is unprecedented, because people have never behaved this way in the past when a Privileges Committee was attempting to carry out the duty that was given to it by a motion that was passed unanimously by the House. It is important, given that similar rules apply to the Committee on Standards, that, in what I hope will be the rare occasions in the future when the Privileges Committee may have to meet to do its job and be convened, it will be allowed to do so.

    As I said to my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman), if we cannot restore the respect that the Privileges Committee must have to do its job in future, we will have to create an outside body to do it. That would be a very profound constitutional change, with far greater implications for the freedom of people to speak in this House than simply abiding by decency, courtesy and proper rules when the Privileges Committee is meeting.

    Justin Madders (Ellesmere Port and Neston) (Lab)

    Why on earth would outside individuals want to serve on such a body, if they are to be subjected to the kinds of public abuse that we have seen in this case?

    Dame Angela Eagle

    That is the problem, and I think the special report has done us a service by bringing it to the attention of this House. It is something we have to think about as we consider the motion.

    We have been living through febrile times. We have seen two Members of this House assassinated in the past few years while doing their jobs. There is a lot of anger and controversy out there, wound up and heated up by the way social media works. I think everybody in this House, especially those who have been subjected to some of those outside pressures—there will be many Members of this House who have—needs to think very carefully about how they conduct themselves and the kinds of words they use.

    If there is no respect in this House for the Privileges Committee and the things that we try to do to maintain good behaviour and decency in this House, there will be even less respect outside, and that will damage our ability to ensure that our democracy works properly, because without truth there is no democracy. Although this looks like quite a small report, it is a very significant one, and it is important that Members on all sides of the House, whatever faction they are in, consider seriously the implications of not voting for the motion tonight.

    I have to say that, now that a little of the heat has gone out of the situation, I would have liked to see the Members mentioned in the report have the good grace to stand up and apologise to the House for some of the language they have used, such as kangaroo courts, marsupials and comments about “calibre, malice and prejudice”. The House voted for the members of the Committee to be tasked with a very difficult job. Nobody in their right mind would want to find themselves in that position. It is not a nice way to spend parliamentary time—much less attending 30 meetings, under enormous stress and with the outside social media pressures coming in at them from all angles.

    As someone who stood against the leader of my party, I can tell hon. Members that I have had some experience of how that works out. I have also had experience of how what one does in here can translate out there into threatening behaviour and difficulties—[Hon. Members: “We all have!”] Yes, and I said that earlier in my speech, if Conservative Members were listening.

    Therefore, no matter how high the stakes, it is extremely important that when Members comment, they do so within the Standing Orders and the rules of this House, and that they save comments about witch-hunts, kangaroo courts, malice and the rest of it for when the Committee has reported. One unique thing about this House is that while a report is being compiled and evidence is being collected, that Committee cannot respond to what is being put to it in a 24-hour news cycle. It must wait and let its report do the talking.

    I suspect that those Members who tried to blacken the names of those compiling the report, and unleash that kind of process against them, knew exactly what they were doing and knew exactly the pressure they were trying to bring to bear. It is absolutely shameful that some Members named in the report indulged in that kind of behaviour, including two ex-Cabinet Ministers, members of the Privy Council and an ex-Leader of the House—the right hon. Member for North East Somerset —who knows better, and who knows that he knows better than to behave in that way.

    When I came to this House, I never thought that I would see such behaviour. It is to the great detriment of Conservative Members that we have seen such behaviour. I ask them, one last time, to have the grace to get up during the debate and apologise to the House for the way in which they behaved prior to the Privileges Committee publishing its report, and give us an assurance that they will not do it again.

  • Harriet Harman – 2023 Speech on the Privileges Committee Special Report

    Harriet Harman – 2023 Speech on the Privileges Committee Special Report

    The speech made by Harriet Harman, the Labour MP for Camberwell and Peckham, in the House of Commons on 10 July 2023.

    I thank the Leader of the House for tabling the motion, which arises out of the special report of the Privileges Committee.

    When it approved with an emphatic majority the report of our inquiry into Boris Johnson, the House made it clear beyond doubt that honesty in our Parliament matters, that Ministers are required to be truthful and that there will be consequences for any Minister who is not. The House was endorsing the outcome of the Committee that it had mandated to undertake that inquiry.

    The present motion asks the House to give its approval to our special report, because we want to make sure, if the House ever again mandates the Privileges Committee to undertake an inquiry into a Member, that there will be Members who are willing to serve on the Committee, and that the Committee and its processes are protected while an inquiry is under way so that the Committee is able to undertake its work in the way that the House wants. The motion makes it clear that when a Privileges Committee inquiry is ongoing, Members should not lobby, intimidate or attack the integrity of the Committee. They should not try to influence the outcome of the inquiry or undermine the standing of the Committee, because that undermines the proceedings of the House.

    No Member needs to feel disempowered by this. On the contrary, Members own the entire process. Any Member can object to a Member being appointed to the Privileges Committee. Any Member can speak and vote against any reference to the Privileges Committee or the terms of any reference. Any Member can give evidence to the Committee. Any Member can debate and vote on the report of any inquiry.

    This is not a process imposed on the House by the Privileges Committee. The opposite is the case: it is the House that imposes this responsibility on the Privileges Committee. It is the House that chooses the members of the Committee; it is the House that decides on an inquiry and its terms of reference; and it is the House, by its Standing Orders and precedents, that lays down the processes that will apply.

    Our special report makes it clear that it is not acceptable for Members, fearing an outcome that they do not want, to level criticisms at the Committee so that in the event that the conclusion is the one that they do not want, they will have undermined the inquiry’s outcome by undermining confidence in the Committee.

    Mark Jenkinson (Workington) (Con)

    As the right hon. and learned Lady knows from our exchange of letters in recent days, I was named in the annex to the report for a tweet that did not refer to the Committee. The context of the Twitter thread is clear. She talks about hon. Members being able to give evidence to the Committee, but we had no prior notification that we might be named. I was alerted to my presence in the report by the press. I just wonder how she considers that Members like me might be able to seek redress in such circumstances.

    Ms Harman

    The hon. Gentleman named himself on Twitter by calling the Committee a “witch hunt”, and that was in the public domain. The thread ahead of his tweet was quite clear, so we simply put it in our report. We took what was in the public domain and put it in our report.

    Our special report makes it clear that it is not acceptable for a Member of this House who does not want a particular outcome to seek, by pressure or lobbying, to influence the Committee’s decision.

    Mark Jenkinson

    On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I fear that the right hon. and learned Lady may have just inadvertently misled the House by suggesting that I called the Committee a “witch hunt”. There was no reference to the Committee, and the four-part Twitter thread is quite clear that it was not in relation to the Committee or its investigations. I wonder how I might seek redress on this matter.

    Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)

    I thank the hon. Gentleman for that point of order. I do not know whether he was here at the beginning but, if he was and if he wishes to speak later, he can catch my eye. He has already made his point, and I think the right hon. and learned Member is addressing that point.

    Ms Harman

    Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. If the hon. Member for Workington (Mark Jenkinson) is saying that he does not believe the Privileges Committee’s inquiry into Boris Johnson was a witch hunt, I warmly welcome the fact that he has said so. I thank him for putting it on the record that he does not believe our inquiry was a witch hunt.

    Michael Fabricant

    Does the right hon. and learned Lady not think it would have been courteous of the Committee to warn those listed in the annex that they were going to be listed? If a mistake had been made, it would have given those people an opportunity to make their point before the Committee’s report was published. Would that not have been fairer?

    Ms Harman

    The points and issues that we included in the annex to our report were put in the public domain on Twitter. Indeed, the hon. Gentleman himself put into the public domain that, in relation to the Committee, there was a question of “malice and prejudice”. He felt it was important to put that on to the public record.

    Michael Fabricant

    Will the right hon. and learned Lady give way?

    Ms Harman

    I think the hon. Gentleman will be making a speech.

    Michael Fabricant

    On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. It is totally—

    Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)

    Order. I have not called the hon. Gentleman to make a point of order. If the right hon. and learned Member does not want to give way, which is her right, it is detrimental to the debate if Members who cannot get their own way then make a point of order.

    Michael Fabricant

    But I am making a point of order.

    Madam Deputy Speaker

    Make your point of order.

    Michael Fabricant

    My point of order is that it is also discourteous to partly quote something, actually. And what it clearly—

    Madam Deputy Speaker

    Order. The hon. Gentleman must resume his seat. That is not a point of order. He is addressing it directly to the right hon. and learned Lady, not to me. No more of that, thank you.

    Ms Harman

    Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. If the hon. Member for Lichfield (Michael Fabricant) wants to say that he does not believe the Committee was motivated by malice and prejudice, we would warmly welcome that correction.

    Our special report makes it clear that it is not acceptable for a Member of this House who does not want a particular outcome to seek, by pressure or lobbying, to influence the Committee’s decision. The House, by supporting this motion tonight, will be making it clear that, in such an inquiry, the Committee’s responsibility is to gather the evidence, and that it is the evidence that must prevail. That is the only basis on which a decision should be made. Members must not try to wreck the process by pressing Committee members to resign.

    If members of the Committee are not prepared to undertake such inquiries, the House would have no protection from those who mislead it. I have nothing but admiration for my colleagues on the Privileges Committee, particularly the Conservative Members. Despite the pressure they were subjected to, they were unflinching. They came to each of our more than 30 meetings and persisted to the conclusion of the inquiry with a complete and total focus, which was a credit to the House. They gathered the evidence, analysed it and based their decision on it, exactly in the way that the House requires them to. That was then put to the House.

    By supporting this motion tonight, the House will be making it clear that when it appoints members to the Committee, those members will have the support of the House to carry out their work. They are doing a worthy thing by serving on the Privileges Committee.

    Brendan Clarke-Smith (Bassetlaw) (Con)

    I appreciate what a difficult job the Committee has—I fully respect that—and, of course, the original Chair did recuse himself from the inquiry. When the original report was put before the House, the right hon. and learned Lady stated that she had received assurances from the Government that she would remain in that position, but she did not elaborate on that at the time. Will she therefore use today as an opportunity to inform the House as to what assurances she had been given and by whom?

    Ms Harman

    Is the hon. Gentleman, in what he has said, withdrawing what he said on Twitter, which was that the Committee was a

    “witch-hunt which would put a banana republic to shame”?

    That is what he actually said.

    Committee members are entitled to the support of the House, because it is the House that has asked them to undertake this work.

    Dame Andrea Leadsom (South Northamptonshire) (Con)

    As a former Leader of the House, and having both spoken for and voted for the report by the Privileges Committee, which the House did commission, I am afraid that I do not accept the premise that the right hon. and learned Lady, for whom I have a great deal of time and respect, is putting forward today, which is that the Committee, as a result of being asked by the House to look into the behaviour by one of its Members, should therefore be absolutely immune from any form of free speech whatsoever. I cannot agree with her on that basis and will not be supporting the Committee’s report today.

    Ms Harman

    Perhaps I may reiterate that we are not saying that the Committee is immune. We are saying that it is evident that any Member of the House can challenge the appointment to the Committee of any member of the Committee, which frequently happens; that any Member of the House can challenge a reference to the Privileges Committee, and that, too, does happen; and that Members can challenge the terms of reference to the Committee and raise concerns about the procedure. But what Members cannot do is say that something is a witch hunt and a kangaroo court, and that there is collusion; impugn the integrity of the individual members of the Committee; and also undermine the standing of the Committee, because that is undermining the proceedings of the House. If hon. Members are not sure what “impugn” means, they can look at “Erskine May”, which goes into it in great detail—

    Sir Jeremy Wright (Kenilworth and Southam) (Con)

    I am sorry that the right hon. and learned Lady is being continually interrupted, but may I ask her for some clarity on the point she is making? She has mentioned impugning the integrity of members of the Committee in part of the motion, with which I have considerable sympathy. I just want to understand this point. I do not suggest that this has happened here or at any time in the past, but she will recognise that it is conceivable that it would be right to impugn the integrity of a member of the Committee, or of more than one of its members, if there were evidence to do so. May I just be clear that what this motion should be taken to mean is that someone should not impugn the integrity of members of the Committee while an inquiry is ongoing? If there is evidence to do so later, there are mechanisms by which we can do so. We should be clear, should we not, that what this motion means is that while an inquiry is ongoing, it is wrong to impugn the integrity of any member of the Committee?

    Ms Harman

    That is absolutely right, and that is so that the Committee can do its business properly, as mandated by the House, as is the case with the Standards Committee. We cannot have a situation where Members are reluctant to serve on the Committee because, as soon as they undertake an inquiry, it is open season on them. We cannot have a situation where the outcome is based on pressure and lobbying, rather than the gathering and consideration of the evidence.

    The motion does not create any new categories of contempt, nor does it extend what can be regarded as contempt. It simply makes it explicit that the focused, time-limited protection that the House has already made explicit for standards cases is the same for privilege cases.

    Dame Angela Eagle

    Does my right hon. and learned Friend agree that if the motion were not to go through, and it was to be open season on all future members of the Privileges Committee during inquiries, the only recourse for this House to ensure that it was not lied to in future would be to have an outside system to assess that, which would be constitutionally novel and—I think—highly dangerous?

    Ms Harman

    My hon. Friend makes an extremely important point. If this work of the Privileges Committee is to be done in-house by Members of this House, this House must support them in that work. If the House is not prepared to do that, and it is open season on Members who are put forward for the Committee, we would very quickly find ourselves with an independent, outside process. Most Members of the House want us to keep the process in-house, but to do that we must all respect it.

    Lia Nici

    The right hon. and learned Lady talks about collusion and lobbying. Can she explain how it was that Guardian reporters were briefed before Privileges Committee reports were published for us in this place, and, if she knows who had sight of those reports, who was doing the collusion with those journalists?

    Ms Harman

    Again, this is very unfortunate. I say to the hon. Lady that hon. Members are given a task to do on behalf of the House. They do it to the best of their ability, with integrity, and they should be supported in doing that. Although the hon. Lady was very much against the outcome, which came about on the basis of the evidence, it is not acceptable then to criticise the process, except through the channels and in the ways that I have set out.

    Our special report draws upon “Erskine May”. I invite hon. and right hon. Members to read paragraphs 15.14 and 15.16 of “Erskine May”, which make it crystal clear that it is not acceptable for a Member of this House to seek, by lobbying or arousing public hostility, to influence the decision of members of the Committee, or to undermine the Committee’s credibility and authority. All this is about protecting the House from being misled, by ensuring that there is a strong and fair Committee that will, on behalf of the House, undertake an inquiry, and that there are Members prepared to serve on the Committee and able to do that work without interference.

    Mr Rob Roberts (Delyn) (Ind)

    We heard his name mentioned earlier, in respect of the previous report, but will the right hon. and learned Lady confirm that Sir Ernest Ryder was still in place for the preparation of this special report, that he agreed with the findings of the Committee, and that he found that there was nothing improper about the work of the Committee in this report?

    Ms Harman

    Yes, Sir Ernest Ryder, who provided us with advice for the fifth report, which was the substantive report into Boris Johnson, also provided us with advice for this special report, for which we are grateful. We also had expert advice from the Clerks, including at the most senior level, so that we could be absolutely certain that we were complying with all the rules and processes laid down by the House.

    The objective here is not to protect members of the Privileges Committee. It is even more important and fundamental than that. The objective is to protect this House and thereby to protect our democracy, so I commend this motion to the House.

    Sir Charles Walker (Broxbourne) (Con)

    The motion before the House is proportionate: it seeks only to provide the Privileges Committee, once it is established and sitting, with the same protections enjoyed by the Standards Committee. That is all it does. All colleagues respect the Standards Committee when it is sitting. I hope that we can extend that respect to the Privileges Committee and that the motion is carried.

    I was struck by what the Leader of the House said in her speech. I wrote three or four speeches for this afternoon’s debate—some reflective, some angry and some defensive—but I have put them all aside.

    You will know, Madam Deputy Speaker, that my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May), the former Prime Minister, was a great friend of mine—one of my greatest friends in politics. I fought tooth and nail, with every fibre in my body, to keep her in No. 10. I turned up whenever I was needed, to do whatever needed to be done, but we lost—that battle was lost.

    I see my hon. Friend the Member for Altrincham and Sale West (Sir Graham Brady), the chair of the 1922 committee, in the Chamber. Very quickly, the late Dame Cheryl Gillan and I were thrust into being acting chairs of the 1922 committee, and we oversaw the contest for the new leader of the party. The former Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Boris Johnson) was successful; I was one of five people, including my hon. Friend the Member for Altrincham and Sale West, present when, de facto, he became leader of our party and, de facto, the following day, Prime Minister. That was 24 July 2019.

    That day, or shortly afterwards, I was in the Tea Room having supper with my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead, the former Prime Minister, when in bounced the then Secretary of State for Transport, my constituency neighbour, my right hon. Friend the Member for Welwyn Hatfield (Grant Shapps). He has been my political neighbour for 18 and a half years. Sometimes we are the best of friends; sometimes we are the best of enemies. When we fall out, we normally find an accommodation that allows us to become friends again.

    You may recall, Madam Deputy Speaker, that in 2018, my right hon. Friend the Member for Welwyn Hatfield was the first to call for the then Prime Minister, my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead, to stand down. So when he bounced into the Tea Room, the day she ceased to be Prime Minister, or a few days later, and sat down with his supper, I thought, “Oh my word. This is going to be pretty tasty”—not the supper, the conversation. I thought there would be fireworks, because my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead, unencumbered by the office of Prime Minister, could really have a go at my right hon. Friend the Member for Welwyn Hatfield, my next door neighbour in Hertfordshire. The former Prime Minister fixed him with a steely eye and said, “Now, Mr Shapps, I have a small station in my constituency that needs some investment. What are you going to do for me?”

    In this place, we are judged not by how we handle our successes, but by how we cope with our disappointments. In that Tea Room exchange, I learned so much about character, courage, humility and dignity. To return to the motion, I hope that it is passed tonight. There is a lot of upset and grievance on the Government side of the House, but eventually we have to cast that to one side and move forward.

  • Chris Philp – 2023 Speech on Police Stations

    Chris Philp – 2023 Speech on Police Stations

    The speech made by Chris Philp, the Minister for Crime, Policing and Fire, in the House of Commons on 10 July 2023.

    Let me start by congratulating my right hon. Friend the Member for Chipping Barnet (Theresa Villiers) on securing this important debate and for speaking with such passion and eloquence on this topic. I agree with her sentiments about how important police stations are for our constituencies and our local communities. I say that having visited Chorley police station just a few days ago, Mr Speaker.

    As my right hon. Friend said, police stations in our local communities are close to the people they serve. They help officers stay in touch with the local community and connected to it. Their ears and eyes are on the ground picking up information, and they can serve local residents. They are also visible and reassure the public that the police are close to where crimes may be committed. It shows that police are available and accessible, and they can often respond to crimes a lot more quickly if they are deploying from a police station close to the local community, rather than one miles and miles away. My right hon. Friend set out a whole number of reasons why police stations as a physical location are so important.

    In relation to police stations in London, I completely agree with my right hon. Friend that Mayor Sadiq Khan should look again at the closure plan he set out in 2017—I think it was for a total of 37 police stations—and reverse it. Some of those closures have happened already; others have not. He demonstrated with his rather opportunistic and cynical U-turn on Uxbridge just a few days ago that he could look at this issue again, and he should. We should keep in mind that decisions on opening and closing police stations are for police and crime commissioners—in London, that is Sadiq Khan—not for the Government. I join my right hon. Friend in calling on the Mayor to reconsider and reverse the swingeing cuts that he announced back in 2017.

    It is worth reminding ourselves as we make that call that plenty of resources are available. The Metropolitan police have the highest funding per capita of any police force in the country by some margin, and that is excluding the national and international capital city grant and the counter-terrorism money they receive. On a straightforward territorial policing basis, the Met gets more per capita than any other police force. It receives some £3.3 billion a year. That figure went up by £102 million this compared to last year.

    It is also worth reminding ourselves that the whole policing system across the country gets £17.2 billion a year, and the part of that spent by police and crime commissioners on local policing—the vast majority of it—went up by £550 million this year compared to last year. So the resources are there, and we expect police and crime commissioners to use them wisely—unlike Mayor Sadiq Khan, who is not doing so.

    This might be a good moment to congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for West Bromwich West (Shaun Bailey), who is in the Chamber this evening. His tireless campaign has saved his local police station in Tipton from the planned cuts. I am sure the whole House will want to congratulate him on his successful campaign to overturn a decision originally announced by the police and crime commissioner in the west midlands.

    My right hon. Friend the Member for Chipping Barnet made excellent points about why police stations are so important and why the Met’s decision should be reversed, one of which was about the extra police officers that we have recruited across England and Wales. Across the jurisdiction as a whole, we now have record police numbers—149,572 to be precise, which is 3,500 more than at any other time in the history of policing. The Metropolitan police also have record numbers—about 35,000 more than ever before—and, as she said, they need to be accommodated somewhere.

    It is worth mentioning that the Metropolitan police could have had even more officers—an extra 1,000 officers —if Mayor Sadiq Khan had used all the money that was available. It is a great shame and a great disappointment to me as a London MP, as I am sure it is to colleagues, that he failed to do so. I therefore completely endorse the points my right hon. Friend made about police stations in our community.

    There are some things that can be done to try to mitigate Sadiq Khan’s terrible police station closure plans. In my constituency of Croydon South, we have a fire station in Purley—there is no police station in my constituency—and following some work between the local police and the London Fire Brigade, we have managed to move local patrolling neighbourhood officers into the fire station. They now patrol from the fire station around the neighbouring area, which helps a little towards faster response times. It is also more convenient for officers, and they can share information with the firefighters based there. That is helpful, but it is not as good as having a police station.

    Given the lateness of the hour, I will conclude. I thank my right hon. Friend again for her tireless campaign to save Barnet police station. The Mayor of London has record levels of funding; I only wish that he would use that funding a little more wisely and reverse his shocking closure plans.

  • Theresa Villiers – 2023 Speech on Police Stations

    Theresa Villiers – 2023 Speech on Police Stations

    The speech made by Theresa Villiers, the Conservative MP for Chipping Barnet, in the House of Commons on 10 July 2023.

    The hour is late, but we still have an important issue to discuss this evening: police stations. In November 2017, the Mayor of London announced the closure of a substantial list of police stations around the capital, including Barnet police station. Ever since, I have been campaigning to save it. A key justification given for the Mayor’s decision was that the number of crimes reported at police station front counters has fallen. It is true that the way people report crimes has changed in recent years—it can, of course, now be done by phone or online—but being able to attend a police station front counter and talk to someone face to face is still an option valued by many, especially the elderly or those who may not be comfortable in the digital environment.

    Moreover, police stations perform other vital functions in addition to front counter services. Crucially, they are a place to locate officers, but they also provide facilities such as evidence and equipment storage, police vehicle parking, and custody suites and cells. As such, what is even more worrying than the loss of a front counter is the loss of the physical presence of the police in a particular locality. In the six years since Mayor Khan announced the closure of Barnet police station’s front counter, that police station building has thankfully remained in use by officers, both neighbourhood police and other teams.

    Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)

    Will the right hon. Lady give way?

    Theresa Villiers

    I will.

    Mr Speaker

    I thought you would at least allow the right hon. Member to get under way. I call Jim Shannon.

    Jim Shannon

    Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. The right hon. Lady is right to mention community policing—it is about not just the buildings, but the community officers and the contact with their local communities. She made a very helpful intervention in the debate on the Northern Ireland budget that referred to that issue. I echo her request to ensure that not only the buildings, but the community policing is there, because it is the eyes and ears of the community. It is about making policing better.

    Mr Speaker

    I am sure that the right hon. Member, if given time, would have got to that.

    Theresa Villiers

    I absolutely agree that community policing is vital. As I will explore in my speech, the presence of police stations is an important part of keeping policing close to communities. If we shut them down or retreat into a handful of buildings around the capital, we make it more difficult to deliver genuine community policing. Closing Barnet police station altogether and selling it off for redevelopment would leave officers with nowhere at all in my constituency from which to operate. That would be disastrous, not least because it could mean ward officers having to undertake long and complex journeys to and from the only remaining police station in the borough, which is in Colindale.

    At engagement meetings linked with the 2017 closure announcements, I remember City Hall representatives indicating that one of the reasons police stations were now less important was that officers would be given iPads for processing paperwork, which they could use anywhere. Frankly, it is wholly unrealistic to expect a police officer sitting in Starbucks with an iPad to be an adequate substitute for a functioning police station. Apart from the noted reliability problems with many such devices issued by the Metropolitan police, that approach would violate confidentiality and data protection obligations. There is also the concern that a number of the Met’s IT upgrade programmes have yet to be fully delivered, as highlighted in the Casey report. Moreover, officers would undoubtedly be approached by members of the public, making it harder for them to focus on the work they need to do. Their office time would inevitably become advice surgery time.

    In February last year, I secured a promise from Sophie Linden, the deputy mayor for policing, that Barnet police station’s building would not be disposed of until a base was found for ward police teams that enabled them to reach their areas in 20 minutes by walking or cycling. That was of course welcome, and it amounted to a partial reprieve for the station, but it is not an adequate substitute for a properly functioning police station.

    Mr Louie French (Old Bexley and Sidcup) (Con)

    On this point about the connection with communities, particularly in Greater London, does my right hon. Friend agree that the basic command unit model that the Mayor has adopted since 2018 is having a negative impact on the ability of police to connect with communities, but also to respond to crimes in a timely manner?

    Theresa Villiers

    I am very much aware of the concern felt in many parts of London about the tri-borough policing model, and I think it is important to review it.

    I turn back to the idea that new bases for police officers could be found. There is still real uncertainty about where these would be and what they would involve. The suggestion remains that a new base for police officers could be in a corner of a library or the backroom in a high street shop, but providing a base for police officers is not a straightforward matter. Officers have access to highly sensitive personal data, and they hold evidence from cases for which it is vital that they keep rigorous and reliable records of custody. Moreover, some police equipment is potentially harmful, such as tasers, and it would be dangerous if this kind of kit fell into the wrong hands. Special storage facilities would need to be built in new alternative accommodation. They could not just set up a few lockers in a local library. Flogging off existing police stations could end up being a false economy if multiple new premises for ward teams in different areas need to be bought and fitted up to replace them.

    I also want to highlight the sense of confidence that the presence of a police station gives people—a sense that would be entirely lost in the areas where police stations are currently under threat. For example, the East London Advertiser reported that people felt that police station closures in Tower Hamlets meant that the area felt less safe. Complete loss of the remaining police presence in Chipping Barnet town centre would inevitably leave my constituents feeling more insecure. Serious concerns have been reported to me about crime, thefts and antisocial behaviour in Barnet High Street, including what appears to have been a serious assault that took place recently outside McDonald’s. The sale of the police station and its complete closure would make it harder to grapple with the existing crime issues in the local area.

    These worrying local crime problems were discussed recently at a meeting I attended of the High Barnet police community action panel, under the chairmanship of my constituent Mahender Khari. I take this opportunity to pay tribute to him, and to everyone who chairs or takes part in police action panels in my constituency. They do a vital job. That includes Councillor Jennifer Grocock, who has done excellent and innovative work on making neighbourhood police teams more visible by involving them in Barnet Council’s community safety hubs, which were pioneered by the previous Conservative administration in Barnet.

    I am also worried about the impact of police station closures on the viability of our high streets. We all know that town centres have suffered in recent years for a range of reasons, particularly the big shift to online retail. It has become harder and harder to get footfall to high streets, and I fear that losing police stations could lead to a further hollowing out of our struggling town centres, adding to the list of vacant buildings.

    Richard Foord (Tiverton and Honiton) (LD)

    I thank the right hon. Member for her speech and for giving way. Last November, Devon and Cornwall police launched an online poll using SurveyMonkey, and invited the public in Devon and Cornwall to vote to reopen three front desks out of a list of 44. I was pleased to help promote that poll and to attend the reopening of Tiverton police station—and I hope to attend that of Honiton later this year—but does she think that we should not have to fill in SurveyMonkey polls to get to speak to a human being?

    Theresa Villiers

    The hon. Member makes the important point that much of what we are talking about is the ability of the police to maintain appropriate contacts with members of the public. That distance from members of the public is one of the problems that the Met is grappling with, and I think it is useful to hear his point of view about police stations and police services elsewhere in the country.

    During this difficult era for high streets, we should try to enhance the visible presence of public services, not scale it back. That is another good reason to maintain the police station estate, both in Barnet and in other towns and cities. In her report on the Met, Baroness Casey highlighted that station closures are likely to have affected efficiency, with police spending more time travelling, and longer police response times. Recent research by Elisa Facchetti, published by the Centre for Economic Policy Research, pointed to a correlation between reduction in police stations and poorer crime clear-up rates. That suggests that the capacity to collect the evidence needed to solve crimes might be impeded by police having to travel increased distances, although I acknowledge that many other variables could be relevant, and it is difficult to establish a clear causative link.

    Four important recent developments make this debate very timely, and mean that the Mayor of London should reverse his closure programme. First, the Government have delivered on the Conservative manifesto pledge to recruit 20,000 additional police officers. That means that the Met now has more uniformed officers than at any time in its history—and we need somewhere to put them. That radically changes the situation we faced in 2017, when the Mayor wielded the axe against Barnet police station and others.

    Secondly, Baroness Casey’s damning report on the Met cited the closure of 124 police stations as one of the reasons behind what she describes as “eroded frontline policing”. She concluded that the combined impact of various efficiency measures, including police station closures, had led to

    “a more dispersed and hands-off training experience for new recruits and existing personnel, which gives them less sense of belonging to the Met…greater distances for Response officers and Neighbourhood Policing teams to travel”,

    and

    “fewer points of accessible contact for the public”.

    At a time when culture and conduct at the Met have come under huge scrutiny, we should not persist in making disposals from the police station estate—disposals that are calculated to make officers less connected to one another, more isolated and more distant from the communities they serve.

    David Simmonds (Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner) (Con)

    My right hon. Friend is making a speech that will entirely resonate with my constituents. Does she agree that the Mayor’s U-turn on the closure of the Uxbridge police station, which serves my constituents, as well as those in Uxbridge and South Ruislip, demonstrates that the argument that there was simply no alternative but to press ahead with the closures no longer holds water? Does it give her a stirring of hope and optimism that other police stations, such as that in Northwood, already closed and disposed of by the Mayor, will be replaced with operational police stations, or that other stations closed by the Mayor will be reopened forthwith?

    Theresa Villiers

    I agree entirely. The Mayor’s U-turn on Uxbridge should be a lifeline for police stations across the capital. That is one of the reasons why I am delighted to have the opportunity to make this speech.

    I come to the third reason why the Mayor should change his approach. As part of the big changes that he is taking forward, the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, Sir Mark Rowley, has asked his team to carry out a review of the list of police stations earmarked for closure and sell-off. I have made the case strongly for saving Barnet police station in a number of meetings with senior police officers, including Sir Mark. That includes at a meeting in May, at which Sir Mark acknowledged how important it is for the police to be close to the communities they serve. He also accepted that whether physical premises are retained or closed inevitably has an impact on whether officers can genuinely be close to the community.

    I understand that that is one of the reasons why the review, expected to report at the end of the summer, was set up. I sincerely hope that it provides a lifeline for Barnet police station and other communities experiencing the same closure threat. That includes Sidcup, Notting Hill and Wimbledon. My hon. Friends the Members for Old Bexley and Sidcup (Mr French), for Kensington (Felicity Buchan) and for Wimbledon (Stephen Hammond) have all fought hard for their local police station, as has my hon. Friend the Member for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner (David Simmonds).

    Until a few days ago, the places where police stations were in jeopardy and teetering on the brink of sale and redevelopment included Uxbridge. That brings me to my fourth and final point. Uxbridge was on the same closure list as Barnet in 2017. When the Mayor announced its shut-down, Conservative Hillingdon Council offered to buy the site at the market rate, and to provide a £500,000 revenue contribution and a leaseback arrangement, so that the community could keep its police station and the services it provides. At the time, the Mayor rejected this plan out of hand. Undeterred, Hillingdon Conservatives campaigned energetically to save their police station, led by Councillor Steve Tuckwell, the excellent Conservative candidate in the by-election.

    For years, those efforts fell on deaf ears at City Hall, and then there seemed to be a Damascene conversion. Suddenly, out of the blue, the Mayor announced that he had

    “written to the Met Commissioner saying that the case for now retaining more police station sites across the capital is strong”.

    He is yet to specify exactly which police stations may escape the axe he threatened them with six years ago, but this looks suspiciously like a by-election stunt to take credit for a plan to safeguard the police station put together by Hillingdon Council and Steve Tuckwell. It would be massively cynical if the Mayor’s U-turn were confined just to Uxbridge. I therefore take this opportunity once again to call on Mayor Khan to remove the threat to Barnet police station and confirm that its future is secure, along with other stations under threat around the capital.

    In conclusion, when the plan to close Barnet police station was first floated in 2013, I fought successfully to stop it. I saved our police station back then, and I am doing all I can to save it again. I have raised this issue in Parliament many times, including twice at Prime Minister’s questions. The online version of the petition for this issue, which I presented to Parliament last year, now has more than 1,600 signatures. I assure the House and my constituents in Chipping Barnet that I will continue to do all I can to resist the Mayor’s threat to our local police station so that my constituents are safer and more secure and can have the visible police presence in their local town centre that they rightly believe is so important.

  • Alex Chalk – 2023 Statement on Rape Review Action Plan and Operation Soteria

    Alex Chalk – 2023 Statement on Rape Review Action Plan and Operation Soteria

    The statement made by Alex Chalk, the Lord Chancellor and the Secretary of State for Justice, in the House of Commons on 10 July 2023.

    My right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State for the Home Department (Suella Braverman) and I are pleased to announce that the Government are today publishing a progress report two years on from the publication of the end-to-end rape review action plan. This is the fourth six-monthly progress report on implementation, and demonstrates the Government’s ongoing commitment to be transparent and accountable to the public on our progress in delivering the ambitions of the Rape Review.

    The data in the report provides clear evidence of progress to drive up police referrals, charge rates, and Crown court receipts. We are making sustained progress towards the rape review’s ambition to return volumes of cases being referred to the police, charged by the Crown Prosecution Service, and going to court, to at least 2016 levels. It is well documented that the charge rate and volume of convictions for adult rape dropped drastically after 2016 due to a range of factors, not least a lack of join-up across the system, and the criminal justice system overcorrecting following a small number of high-profile disclosure failures. A return to 2016 levels is ambitious, marking a year where adult rape convictions were 30% higher than in 2010. The latest data shows that we have hit two of our ambitions already, and remain on track to hit the other:

    Adult rape cases referred by the police to the CPS—for either early advice or a charging decision—continue to increase, with 1,079 total police referrals in the fourth quarter of 2022, exceeding our ambition of 766 and up by 134% from the quarterly average in 2019, when the Rape Review was commissioned.

    Adult rape cases charged by the CPS have been increasing, with 472 suspects charged between October and December 2022, close to our ambition of 538 and up by 93% from the quarterly average in 2019.

    The number of adult rape Crown Court receipts continued to increase in the first quarter of 2023 with 605 Crown Court receipts, exceeding our ambition of 553. It is also up by 162% from the quarterly average in 2019.

    And despite the barristers’ strike impacting court action in 2022, adult rape prosecutions continue to rise, up 44% in the last calendar year, almost double what was achieved during 2019, and higher than the volume achieved in 2010.

    Key achievements over the last six months include:

    Introducing the landmark Victims and Prisoners Bill to Parliament in March, bringing forward measures to better serve victims and the public.

    Legislating through the Victims and Prisoners Bill to ensure requests for third party material, such as therapy notes, or medical, educational and social service records are necessary and proportionate.

    Recruiting 20,000 additional police officers, having brought in a net increase of 20,951 officers across England and Wales since the launch of the recruitment campaign in 2019, ensuring the police have the resources available to dedicate capacity to priority issues such as rape.

    A second round of Government funded procurement—with a value of £4.2 million—of technical capability to retrieve digital evidence—when it is the least intrusive means to do so—from mobile phones at a time and place convenient to the victim has been completed and is being deployed to forces.

    The Law Commission publishing its consultation into the use of evidence in trials involving sexual offences.

    Today we are also announcing that through the specialist sexual violence support project, we will ensure that any adult rape victim at Newcastle, Leeds or Snaresbrook Crown court who needs it has the option to remotely observe the sentencing hearing for their case, through video link, subject to judicial agreement. This will give victims the opportunity to see justice done without the distressing experience of attending court alongside the defendant’s family or supporters. This builds on other work to improve the victim experience at court, including legislation to permit the remote observation of sentencing hearings and allowing victims to pre-record their evidence and spare them the trauma of attending court in person.

    Operation Soteria is an ambitious joint Home Office and CPS programme to transform the way that rape investigations and prosecutions are handled and progressed, with a focus on investigating the suspect rather than the victim. Through close collaboration between frontline policing, prosecutors and academics, the programme has developed new national operating models for the investigation and prosecution of rape and serious sexual offences. All police forces in England and Wales have committed to implement this new approach and will be supported to do so by the Home Office, the College of Policing and the National Police Chiefs’ Council, who are establishing a joint unit to oversee implementation and monitor progress. In addition, His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire and Rescue has been commissioned to conduct a thematic inspection on forces’ implementation of the model.

    While strong progress has been made, we made clear in our last progress report that the rape review action plan is a start and must remain dynamic and continue responding to the challenges that victims face. We recognise there is still more to do, which is why we are setting out our action plan until December 2024, ensuring we continue to deliver improvements to the criminal justice system’s response to rape.

    These publications form part of the Government’s ambition to ensure access to justice, improve the experience of victims and make our society safer for everyone.

  • Therese Coffey – 2023 Statement on Canal & River Trust – Future Funding

    Therese Coffey – 2023 Statement on Canal & River Trust – Future Funding

    The statement made by Therese Coffey, the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs on 10 July 2023.

    Today, I am notifying Parliament of our intention to provide additional grant funding from 2027 to the Canal & River Trust. The trust is a charity responsible for 2,000 miles of waterways and associated historic industrial infrastructure in England and Wales. The trust is responsible for maintaining navigability and safety of its waterways including reservoirs, embankments and other infrastructure.

    An open and well-maintained Canal & River Trust inland waterways network delivers broad benefits aligned to our nation’s priorities. In January 2023 the Government published our ambitious environmental improvement plan (EIP). The Government recognise that the Canal & River Trust has an important role to play in contributing to the EIP, alongside other Government priorities.

    Since it was first created in 2012, as a private charity independent of Government, we have been very clear that the trust would have to increasingly move towards alternative sources of funding. We have been discussing this with the charity for some time and have been offering support on how it can increase income from other sources, alongside continued Government funding, which countless charities across the country do very effectively.

    While there is no obligation for Government to fund the Canal & River Trust beyond 2027 I can confirm that, subject to certain conditions being met, Government will offer a new long-term funding package of over £400 million to the trust. To date we have awarded it £550 million funding and, with this further commitment, are now supporting the trust with a further total £590 million between now and 2037—a significant sum of money and a sign of the importance that we place on our inland waterways.

    I look forward to continued enjoyment of our local waterways.