Simon Hoare
MP for North Dorset · Conservative · United Kingdom
“The hon. Lady is making a principled argument that the House must listen to and respect, but she has spoken about choice and dignity, and the one thing I have never understood about this Bill is the importance of the specific time period—that it would apply to adults who have six months or fewer to live.”
“I am grateful to the hon. Lady for giving way a second time. This is the democratically accountable House; I think we would all agree on that point.”
“Against a backdrop of realism—things just go wrong, no matter how much money is invested in them, or how up to date they are—does it not seem slightly ludicrous that NATS has put all its eggs in one basket? There is no shadow, back-up or secondary scheme that can be used.”
“This creates a situation where important issues risk being overlooked and where residents feel they do not have a sufficient voice.” I have had a number of emails from across the country and from other constituents that effectively mirror and echo that point.”
“I agree with my hon. Friend and with his constituent, Alex Roll, who has been in contact with me via Facebook. I take the point that my hon. Friend makes on her behalf, and that she makes on behalf of countless others, which is that these companies are inclined to effectively hunt with the hounds and run with the hare at the same time.”
“The issues that Peter has raised with me on behalf of those residents, which are echoed by others, is the absence of management transparency—a key and important thing—and accountability of the companies involved, as well as a lack of clear communication that sets out in easily digestible form information that residents require and opennes…”
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“It will provide a time to pause and reflect, and to redouble our efforts and make again the solemn and precious vow: “Never again.” Those who make a visit to the education centre—hopefully many of our young, but not exclusively our young—will come away with a renewed determination to learn from the horrors of the past, to understand in some clearer detail the depths that humankind can plummet against members of its own species, to make again that eternal vow of never again, and to learn from the mistakes of the past. The synergy of the education centre and the memorial, juxtaposed to each other and adjacent to this sovereign democratic Parliament, is so important, as is the setting in a busy part of the city of Westminster, with bustling traffic, pedestrians and, as my hon.”
“Those opposed to the proposal, either in whole or in part, gave of their time to appear before the Committee, and in so doing they exercised the right to be heard without fear or favour and to be cross-examined fairly by elected democrats in this place. That is actually what all of this is about: the triumph of good over evil; of light over darkness. The challenge, real as it was, that the cloud of Nazism cast over the continent of Europe, and that the horror the Nazis unleashed against people merely because of their faith and belief, came so close to extinguishing those precious lights of religious freedom and democratic institutions, as well as freedom of speech, freedom of association and freedom of thought. The Holocaust memorial will stand as a testimony to that; a visible beacon to specific visitors as well as to casual passers-by.”
“It would be remiss of me not to thank Ed Balls and my noble Friend Lord Pickles for all that they have done to progress this idea. I also thank those hon. Members who so willingly and diligently gave of their time on the Bill Select Committee: my hon. Friend the Member for Carlisle (John Stevenson), who chaired it with his customary wit and professionalism, the hon. Members for Selby and Ainsty (Keir Mather) and for Kingston upon Hull East (Karl Turner), and my hon. Friends the Members for Guildford (Angela Richardson) and for Great Grimsby (Lia Nici). The House owes them all a debt of gratitude, as do the Government, and I repay that debt wholeheartedly and fully now. I also thank those who gave of their time in preparing their case.”
“I beg to move, That the Bill be now read the Third time. Mr Deputy Speaker, may I begin by thanking you and your fellow Deputy Speakers for chairing proceedings in Committee so expeditiously? I thank all right hon. and hon. Members, on both sides, who took part in the debate, which was informed, sensible, probing and proper. I thank the officials, who have worked diligently and with the efficiency and professionalism that anybody who has been a Minister now comes to expect, almost as a matter of course, from our wonderful civil service. I thank Paul Downie, Helen Jones, Ruby Hatton, Emma Morrison and Sally Sealey for all that they have done during the progress of the Bill. I particularly want to thank my private secretary, James Selby, for all that he has done to ensure that everything was in order.”
“I am grateful to the Clerks of the House, as always, for supporting the smooth running of the Bill, and to the Holocaust memorial team in my Department for their policy and Bill management support. I look forward to watching the Bill’s progress in the other place from this place. I commend it to the House.”
“We regret to recall that antisemitism is at record levels. The devastatingly clear speech delivered by the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, my right hon. Friend the Member for Surrey Heath (Michael Gove), just yesterday put that into very clear view. A great grandson of the survivor Lily Ebert has said: “When we no longer have survivors like Lily among us, this memorial will help to ensure that their experiences are never forgotten. We can create the next generation of witnesses.” We must do that to ensure that the pernicious weed of antisemitism can be grubbed up and that the stain that it is on some sections of society is removed. Let me conclude as I began, by expressing my thanks to Members for their contribution on Second Reading, in Committee and on Third Reading.”
“The design and the layout will take the right approach to respecting those existing monuments, particularly those which are listed. As I have said, the planning process is the correct way to consider these issues. It is not necessary—indeed, it would not be right—for debates on the Bill to become concerned with the minutia of planning matters. Let me say again, on Third Reading, that the Bill deals with a very narrow point in the London County Council (Improvements) Act 1900. That was the only issue that was found to be an obstacle to construction in Victoria Tower Gardens. Let me say again for the convenience of the House and for the certainty of those outside, the Bill creates no precedent in its alleviation of the clause within that Act. It sets no precedent elsewhere in Victoria Tower Gardens, or elsewhere.”
“In that case, I will not let the hon. Lady intervene. [ Interruption. ] Who was that? My hon. Friend the Member for Winchester (Steve Brine) chunters from the Back Benches up until the end. I think that we have lost sight of the fact that the proposals were considered at a detailed and independent planning inquiry. Set against the thorough work of the Committee and the time that has elapsed since 2015 when the proposal was first given voice, that fundamentally undermines the accusation of railroading by Government. The planning inspector considered a great deal of the evidence and looked in significant detail at matters such as the impact on Victoria Tower Gardens and, crucially, the Buxton Memorial and other existing memorials. The inspector concluded that any harms to heritage assets were outweighed the public benefits of the scheme.”
“I am just sorry that her party has not brought forward any ideas, but let us share those ideas cross-party in the next Parliament to ensure we have a robust settlement rubric that will meet demands: one that will be cost-effective and affordable, but will continue to deliver the quality of public services that so many in our communities rely upon and rightly deserve. Question put and agreed to.”
“She and I share many things, including a concern for making sure that our rural areas are well represented in this place. I will continue to do that on behalf of my constituents; I hope the hon. Lady will not take it ill if I say that I hope my party will represent North Shropshire after the general election, but it has been a personal pleasure to work alongside her over these past several months since I have been dealing with local government. She has brought a lot of engagement to the process.”
“It is important that every year, councils take the opportunity to learn from others, peer review, and engage the Local Government Association to help them modernise and seek savings through shared services and other initiatives. I know that many councils do that, but not all do. As we know, Shropshire went unitary and gleaned a huge amount of financial benefit from so doing, as did my council area of Dorset. There are things that local authorities can be doing to reduce expenditure and to use the money from the savings they make to continue to deliver those services that, increasingly, people look to their local council to deliver. In conclusion, I am grateful to the hon. Member for North Shropshire for raising this issue.”
“The settlement represents an increase in core spending power of up to £25.1 million, or 8%, making available a whopping total of £340.2 million in 2024-25. That is not small beer for Shropshire Council. I also recognise, as the hon. Lady does, the additional cost pressures and challenges of delivering quality services in a rural environment with a sparse population and longer travel times, which is why we have set such enormous store by the rural services delivery grant. As she knows, because Shropshire ranks within the top 25 sparsely populated areas in England, her council received an additional £9 million through the RSDG for 2024-25 on top of the other moneys I have spoken of, in order to assist with the importance and the difficulties of serving dispersed populations. Is it enough—is it ever enough? Who knows? We always need more.”
“The local government finance settlement for 2024-25 makes available up to £64.7 billion—an increase in core spending power of up to £4.5 billion, or 7.5% in cash terms, compared with 2023-24. We listened to the views of local government, and many colleagues from across the House, including the hon. Lady, who knows how grateful I was that she took part in the parliamentary level of the consultation that I undertook, which was the highest level of take-up that a Minister has delivered. As a result of listening to what we heard, the Government announced additional measures for local authorities in England worth a further £600 million, including £500 million of new funding for councils with responsibility for adult and children’s social care. What does that represent as far as the hon. Lady’s council is concerned?”
“I find that very strange given that Opposition parties really have nothing else to do than beaver away on policy to put before the electorate in just a few weeks’ time. Although the hon. Lady was right to point out that she has no idea, and no more do I, of what the result of the election will be, it is very much my hope that I may be standing at the Government Dispatch Box setting out the plans to which we have committed on the fundamental review and rewriting of local government finance. I shall leave that to the electorate of North Dorset to decide, and I hope that they put their faith and trust in me, as they have done on the past several occasions. Let me turn briefly to some of the figures. I have said them so many times now that I get slightly bored of them, but I think it worthwhile to read them into the record.”
“Lady has spoken in this Chamber and in Westminster Hall about local government finance and local government issues more generally, and I have answered on many occasions her questions and those of Labour Members, and it suddenly struck me early this morning—I do not know why it struck me then—that although they may identify a problem, I have yet to hear their solution. I have yet to hear the genesis of an idea from the Opposition parties. The Labour party has had 14 years to think about it, and the hon. Lady’s party has had the past nine years, but there is absolutely no idea. She told us—I jotted down her words contemporaneously —that we need to give consideration to “how we fund social care, and indeed how we collect council tax.” I agree with her, but she gave no suggested solution to those pressing problems.”
“As she will know, I have not committed on behalf of the Government to a root-and-branch review of the local government funding formula, because my assessment is that it is all but broken—an analogue proposal for a digital age that needs reworking from the bottom up. I have always asked for certainty and clarity from the local government sector, and as a Government, we have always been keen to deliver them. In the next Parliament, they could best be delivered by having, in the short term, a multi-year settlement to give that security, and then by Parliament using that time—and I cannot overstate the value that I see in this—to provide a cross-party sustainable solution for delivering on these issues. I do not say this flippantly, because I have thought about it, but the hon.”
“I am pretty certain that should her officers in Shropshire reach out to those in Dorset, they would be happy to provide some advice or guidance—call it what you will—on safeguarding the future delivery of those important services. The hon. Lady is right that I have acknowledged—the Government have acknowledged—the challenging financial circumstances of local government, brought about in whole, or certainly in very great part, by pressures on adult social care, special educational needs and disabilities, and home-to-school transport. Around about 80% of an upper-tier council’s budget is spent on 10% to 15% of its population. We just have to watch that balance to ensure that council tax payers feel that they are getting something for their money.”
“I want to place on the record my thanks to all the councillors and officers of Shropshire Council, and indeed to local government across the country, for all that they do and strive to do. They get out of bed in the morning to achieve for their communities, to deliver change, to make place and to improve opportunities and living. The hon. Lady referred specifically to libraries. Libraries is a topic very close to my heart, both as a keen reader and, as a child, an avid attender of our local library. Dorset Council has done the most phenomenal work with its libraries in similarly challenging circumstances, being a rural council and the like.”
“I thank the hon. Member for North Shropshire (Helen Morgan) for instigating this debate. I am only sad not to see the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) in his place—this may be the final Adjournment debate of the Session, and I feel personally hurt that he has not been here to intervene and to give Strangford’s take on Shropshire. However, I am sure he is somewhere thinking of us and kicking himself that he is not here. The hon. Member for North Shropshire was right to say that all politics is local. She is also right to echo something that I have said on many occasions: most people’s exposure in our communities is to the facilities and services provided by local councils for their communities. We agree absolutely on that.”
“Those upper-tier authorities—be they borough, district or county councils—can be capped, and when there has been pressure on local government finances and close collaboration between the constituent parts of the local government family, some burdens have been passed on to lower-tier authorities. My right hon. Friend is right to point out that there are some standards lacunae—I put it no more firmly than that. As he set out in some detail, there is a clear and growingly compelling case for having a look at this issue again. I would be more than happy to continue the conversations that I have had with NALC since I was appointed last November. I would include the ALCC and the SLCC, and I am more than happy to include my right hon. Friend in those discussions to try to find a common-sense route to go through.”
“As my right hon. Friend has noted, there are rules that apply. I am concerned that we still occasionally think of our town councils, and especially our parish councils, as some sort of quaint, Edwardian and Vicar of Dibley-like institutions where people quibble about whose turn it is to do the biscuits or whatever. Instead, they are doing incredibly important work. As my right hon. Friend will know, there is no cap that we in central Government can place on the precepts of town and parish councils; we merely rely on their good common sense. We know that many town and parish councils across the land have been asked to take up roles and responsibilities—the management of public loos, for example—on behalf of their upper-tier authorities, and they willingly do so.”
“Councillors’ decision making should be honest, demonstrably transparent, fair, objective, and in the best interests of all whom they serve. There is no place in our systems and structures of local government for bullying, intimidation or harassment. My right hon. Friend’s remarks focused on bullying, intimidation and other inappropriate behaviour on the part of councillors. As he will know, there have been incidents where council clerks have effectively been charged with such offences, so it can go both ways. It is important to nip it in the bud and cut it out as quickly as possible—not just for the standards in public life set out by Nolan and reiterated this afternoon, but because it fundamentally sours the working environment of public service when people abuse their position, bully, cajole, intimidate and so forth in council meetings.”
“Friend’s point is particularly important because the councillors elected last week are being welcomed to their new authorities and being inducted—for the first time, in some instances—into the rules and conventions of public life. We all know that vibrant local democracy flourishes where the reputation of the local authority is held in high regard. It is an honour and a privilege to serve as a community representative, and all those seeking and achieving public office should be holding themselves to the highest standards of conduct in recognition of the trust placed in them. The electorate have a right to expect councillors to behave well and respectfully in all their interactions—with each other, with members of staff, and with the public.”
“The debate is timely, because it comes just a week after elections to many of our town and parish councils up and down the land. I want to take the opportunity—as I have on previous occasions when I have met parish councillors—to put on record our sincere thanks for their service to their communities. They are always unpaid and usually unsung heroes, working to deliver change and improvements to the towns and villages in which they live and serve. I suppose I should declare a slight interest, having started my political career as a parish councillor before migrating to the district council, supposedly moving upwards to the county council, and then fetching up here. With the exception of membership of the other place, I have the full set of badges. My right hon.”
“I am grateful to my right hon. Friend the Member for New Forest East (Sir Julian Lewis) for raising this important subject, and also to the hon. Member for York Central (Rachael Maskell) for her helpful intervention. I look forward to her Bill. I have been urged to be brief. As a fellow Welshman, Mr Deputy Speaker, you will know that that can sometimes be quite tricky, but I understand from my hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover (Mark Fletcher), the Whip on duty, that he is keen to rush home to start making his cheese and pineapple hedgehogs in preparation for his Eurovision Song Contest party; we all look forward, of course, to his extended invitation. So I want to be serious but also to be as brief as I can, in respect for the House.”
“Friend the Member for New Forest East who, with his usual calm, methodical logic, put forward a compelling case that only a perverse Minister of the Crown could seek to resist. Question put and agreed to.”
“We would do so not to be unduly heavy-handed, or to impose the dead hand of Marsham Street on our vibrant town and parish councils, but because we hold dear, and view to be important and precious, those values of civility, transparency, decency, common sense and collegiality in all the fora in which elected or appointed people discharge public duties. That is an expectation that the public rightly place on all of us, and it is sometimes a challenge, but it is one to which we are all capable of rising. I look forward to furthering the discussion with my right hon. Friend. I close by again thanking the hon. Member for York Central for her contribution, but I particularly thank my right hon.”
“I began my working day with an official visit to Croydon Council, followed by a visit to Slough Borough Council. Both were hugely enjoyable and rewarding, and the offer of being seized by my right hon. Friend during this Adjournment debate is an invitation I cannot resist. He makes a very important point, and I should have made that clear in my remarks. There is considerable and compelling merit to meeting the three bodies together. There is some overlap and some divergence of views, and different organisations will have different ways of seeing and identifying solutions to a problem. Let us have a roundtable, if one wants to call it that, or a meeting in the Department to try to identify the issues, and to try to deliver the simplest, easiest and most straight-forward solutions.”
“Having set out the background to this statutory instrument, I hope the Committee will appreciate the need to make swiftly this straightforward legislative amendment to remove the risk of confusion among applicants and unnecessary burden for electoral administrators.”
“The instrument defines a relevant EU applicant as someone who is a citizen of an EU member state, is not a citizen of an EU member state that has a treaty with the UK and/or is not a British citizen, a qualifying Commonwealth citizen or a citizen of the Republic of Ireland. That will provide an enduring resolution to the issue, with the dual nationals I referred to earlier no longer being legally required to provide immaterial information as part of their application to register to vote. Until this instrument comes into force—which I hope it will with the support of the Committee this afternoon—measures have been put in place to minimise the extent of the issue, but this instrument is needed to fully remedy the problem.”
“In practice, this issue creates the potential for confusion among applicants, who could reasonably object on the grounds that being asked to indicate that they fulfil retained rights criteria is unreasonable. Worse, this confusion could even result in people abandoning an application to register, disenfranchising themselves—something I am keen to avoid. It also creates the potential for an increased administrative burden on electoral registration officers. Today’s statutory instrument amends the definition of a relevant EU applicant in the England and Wales regulations, as well as the equivalent term used in the regulations pertaining to Northern Ireland.”
“For example, an individual with British and French dual nationality would have the same voting eligibility as someone with single British nationality, making it unnecessary to make demands that are relevant only to French applicants. While this issue exists in law, if an application to register to vote from a relevant dual national is received by an electoral registration officer and the applicant has not indicated that they fulfil the retained rights criteria, that application would technically be incomplete. As such, the administrator would have to get in touch with the applicant to require this information, even though the answer to the question would make no difference to the outcome of their application.”
“The current legal definition of a relevant EU applicant means that citizens of the 19 relevant EU countries who also have another nationality that is British or Commonwealth, excluding Cyprus or Malta, or have citizenship of a treaty partner state, are legally obliged to indicate that they fulfil retained rights criteria, as part of their application to register to vote, even though that answer is irrelevant to determining their eligibility. Retained rights criteria are immaterial because the eligibility of an individual with more than one nationality to participate in elections is established based on whichever of their nationalities grants them the greatest voting rights.”
“However, due to an oversight, the requirement for applicants to indicate that they fulfil retained rights criteria unintentionally applies to particular applicants with dual nationalities—that is the key point here—even though their answer to those criteria requirements will have no bearing on their eligibility to register to vote. In essence, the drafting error forces people to prove twice, rather than only once, their right to vote.”
“Relevant EU applicants were intended to be defined as individuals who are citizens of the 19 EU member states with which the UK does not have a reciprocal voting and candidacy rights treaty and who are not citizens of Ireland, Cyprus or Malta—for which exemptions exist because Irish citizens’ UK voting rights long predate the EU, while the voting rights of Cypriot and Maltese citizens derive from their citizenship via the Commonwealth. The five countries with which the UK has voting and candidacy treaties are Spain, Portugal, Luxembourg, Poland and Denmark. Citizens of those countries will not lose their voting rights in the UK.”
“A primary intention of the two current instruments was to allow EU citizens who chose to make the UK their home prior to the end of implementation period—that is, before the UK left the EU—to continue to have the right to vote and to stand for election. That group of electors is referred to as “EU citizens with retained rights”. People applying to register to vote under the retained rights criteria, referred to as “relevant EU applicants”, must make a legal declaration that they meet the criteria of an EU citizen with those retained rights, have been legally resident in the UK since the end of the implementation period and are from a country with which the UK does not have a voting and candidacy rights treaty.”
“They made changes to the voting and candidacy rights of EU citizens in England and Wales and Northern Ireland. They provided for a new registration requirement for applications from EU citizens and set out a process requiring electoral registration officers to conduct a one-time review to determine the eligibility of all registered EU citizens. One instrument applied to all local elections in England and to police and crime commissioner elections in England and Wales. A separate statutory instrument applied franchise changes to local government and Assembly elections in Northern Ireland. The majority of the changes came into effect from 7 May. We are bringing forward this instrument to amend a drafting oversight in both of those sets of regulations.”
“I beg to move, That the Committee has considered the draft Representation of the People (England and Wales and Northern Ireland) (Amendment) Regulations 2024. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hosie. May I start with an apology? We have had to bring the draft instrument forward as a tidying-up and housekeeping exercise. It is nothing to set the world alight, but it is an important thing to do, and I hope it will be supported across the Committee. The Elections Act 2022 introduced measures to, among other things, amend the franchise to reflect the United Kingdom’s new relationship with the European Union and to protect the rights of UK citizens living in EU countries. Last year, two statutory instruments were passed that flowed from that aspect of the Elections Act.”
“The changes will ease the burden on electoral administrators involved, because they do not require any going back to check on details. I do not say this in any way to be flippant, but this is a housekeeping, tidying-up point. I am grateful for what I think I heard the hon. Lady say was her support. She and I share an annoyance that we have to be here in order to do these things, but I thought it better to get them done than to leave them hanging. With that, I close my remarks. Question put and agreed to.”
“I was very struck, as I am sure everyone else here was travelled to their polling stations last Thursday, that people were there with their voter ID. Again, I pay tribute to the work of all the political parties, civic society, local authorities, the commission and the Government on promoting and raising awareness of that requirement, which does ensure that our electoral system is as robust and reliable as we can make it. If I missed anything that the hon. Lady raised with me, my apologies, but she can drop me a line and we will reply in writing. I hope I covered the main thrust of her argument. This is a tidying-up point, which will make things easier for those who apply, while those who have applied and qualified will not have to do anything else.”
“Lady made, perfectly validly, about the need to maximise the numbers of people on the register who duly qualify and to secure their participation in the ballot. The hon. Lady referenced—I hope I quote her correctly—the “flawed photo ID system” but, truth be told, I do not think that that bears scrutiny. Yesterday, I had one read-out from officials on the electoral events of last week; this morning, I was with the Electoral Commission, and I will see it again next week. We, and the commission, have said that we will review each event in these relatively new times since the Elections Act has come into play, to ensure that things are working as we envisaged they would. If they are not, we will tidy up where appropriate.”
“We will of course continue to seek other treaties such as those we have with Spain, Portugal, Luxembourg, Poland and Denmark—that is an organic and iterative process, and something to be welcomed. No one qualified to be on the register under the double qualification-proving requirements we are seeking to tidy up today will have to reapply; there is no additional burden for them or, indeed, for the administrators. I am not convinced that that requires a huge information campaign. When we have talked to the people affected, they have not realised that they have been having to answer the same question, but through two different routes. However, we will of course keep this under review, to address the point the hon.”
“One is the Elections Act and the determination to tidy up our electoral system and to make it as resilient and robust as possible looking forward. That is tied up with the obvious knock-on implications of leaving the European Union, which meant that certain rights had to change and so on. I will not describe that as a perfect storm, but those two things—which would have been big and chunky pieces of work in themselves—have, when added together, been a test for our administrators, although I have to say that they have risen to the challenge magnificently. The whole purpose of this exercise is to ensure that the system is as transparent and as easy to use as possible.”
“To pause there for a moment, Mr Hosie, I want to put on record—I think this would be echoed in all quarters of the House—our thanks to all the staff who delivered what were peaceful and calm elections last week. They do a huge amount of work, not just on election day, as we all know, but in the weeks and months spent preparing the registers, the paperwork and everything else. I agree fundamentally with the hon. Lady that we want to maximise the number of people who qualify not just to be on the register but to participate in our electoral processes. The requirement of the beating heart of democracy is that that beating heart be exercised, and it is exercised through the ballot. We want to maximise that. We have seen a collision of two things.”
“I thank the hon. Lady for the tone and tenor she adopted in her remarks. I would say to her that to err is human; to forgive, divine. I did start my remarks by issuing an apology to the Committee: no Minister of the Crown likes to have to come back to this place to tidy up a legislative oversight. It is embarrassing and a nuisance; it wastes colleagues’ time and the time of the House. If there had been another way we could have done this, we would have, but it required the draft regulations. We thought there were two options: one was just to pretend it had not happened and to keep the burden there, with a double qualification; the other was to fess up, to put our hand up and to tidy everything up to make things easier for the administrators—the hon. Lady is absolutely right that we do not want to overburden our administrators.”
“That is why we listened carefully and closely to those who made representations to us during the evolution of the local government funding settlement. Pausing for a moment, I have made the point before to the hon. Gentleman that a record number of Members of Parliament from across the House came to see officials and me during the official consultation process, to advocate in the strongest possible terms on behalf of their areas. My hon. Friend the Member for East Devon (Simon Jupp) was one of them, but the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton was not. I politely say to him that if one is serious about trying to effect change, an Adjournment debate is an interesting platform on which to do it, but engagement in the proper channels of communication and consultation can often bring forward better results.”
“I am grateful to the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Richard Foord) for bringing forward this important Adjournment debate about his area. It might be helpful if I set the scene with a few facts and figures. I understand entirely the difficulty, the tensions and the problems for coastal and rural councils in delivering services. There is an additionality to cost that is often triggered by a heightening of the age demographic, as the hon. Gentleman said, and by the sparsity of communities. These are not great dense conurbations but small, picturesque villages and hamlets. They are attractive and they support our environment and make an area a lovely place in which to live, but it is not without challenge to deliver public services there. That is being experienced by a lot of councils in those areas.”
“Mid Devon District Council saw an increase of 5.9%, making available a total of £11.6 million, and the county got an increase in core spending power of 7.8%, which is an additional £56.8 million, making available a total of up to £788.8 million for Devon County Council in 2024-25. We have invested £15 billion in a suite of complementary levelling-up projects to help grow the economy, create jobs, improve transport, provide skills training and support local businesses. Perhaps more powerful than even those things, as powerful and efficacious as they are, is the civic pride that the investment lights up in areas such as his—a pride in seeing what can be done, and starting a process that, if successful and guided and managed well, can provide no end of opportunities.”
“I now quiver slightly when my telephone rings and I see his name flashing, because I know he will ask for further things for his part of Devon and the wider county. He advocates at the heart of Government to ensure that his constituents and others, including those of Tiverton and Honiton, see the benefit of the UK Government’s commitment to levelling up. We listened to local government and offered an additional £600 million in the local government finance settlement; I know that the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton is aware of that. East Devon District Council saw an increase in core spending power of 5.9%, making available a total of £17.4 million for 2024-25.”
“If one talks to those in communities that are benefiting directly from the levelling-up initiative, the shared prosperity fund, the future high streets fund and others, there is a real sense of excitement about what can be done in partnership with the local authority, local businesses and the Government to deliver beneficial change. Although I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for East Devon for setting out with such clarity the projects that have been delivered or part-funded, I am slightly annoyed, because he has stolen quite a lot of my remarks. He was a very distinguished local journalist, whose calls I used to relish taking—anything to get my views and thoughts on some local issue on the record.”