David Simmonds
MP for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner · Conservative · United Kingdom
“I welcome the Secretary of State back to the Dispatch Box, and I thank her for early sight of her statement. I am not sure that this was the triumphant return to the subject of devolution that she had in mind, because our councillors and the communities that they represent are looking aghast at yet another shambolic U-turn from this Gover…”
“Given that the Government have been banking on millions of pounds in savings—we have challenged them on those savings repeatedly across the Dispatch Boxes—to mitigate costs, which include the massive rise in national insurance that has driven many councils to the verge of bankruptcy, what assessment have Treasury colleagues made, and what…”
“Given the promises made and that all our political parties have selected candidates who have been campaigning for mayoral elections and new unitary authorities that the Government promised were coming into being, with elections to take place next May, will she give a categorical assurance that those new authorities will be in place, or pr…”
“Can she tell the House from the Dispatch Box why she is not satisfied that it was lawful, and will she place all the non-privileged documentation and correspondence relating to this debacle in the public domain and in the Library?”
“Finally, I appreciate that the Secretary of State has returned to the role after others have been stewarding it, but will she apologise to all those councillors, all those local government officials, all those political candidates and activists and all those businesses who have engaged in good faith with the Government’s process?”
“Planning permissions for new homes, of which there are already around 1.5 million, are one thing, but getting those units built is another. With Savills reporting that two thirds of London boroughs have seen net zero new housing starts under the Mayor of London, what proposals do the Government have to ensure that units with permission ac…”
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“Can the Minister set out whether the Government are giving any consideration, following the greater flexibility that we have around procurement following EU exit, to implementing the EU model of service concessions in the procurement of local authorities, which always gave a much greater degree of flexibility around procurement in respect of statutory functions? That is a provision that, historically, has never been open to local authorities in the United Kingdom. It is used as a means of achieving many of the same ends that the order seeks to work towards, but without anything like the level of bureaucracy that is inherent in some multi-stage competitive tendering processes.”
“There are already good examples, such as in London, where trading standards are delivered under a central contract operated by the royal borough of Kensington and Chelsea for all 33 London local authorities. We have the Kent commercial framework, which is an existing and established commercial procurement process that multiple different local authorities use. I want to ensure that there is nothing in the order that would frustrate existing and effective commercial arrangements that also support local economies.”
“He touched on that in his introduction, but it might be helpful for the record if we have real clarity about how the proposed statutory instrument ensures that the principles, which were agreed cross-party, continue to be enshrined in the procurement rules that local authorities have to follow. Could the Minister set out in a little more detail how the Government’s English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill, which is making its way through Parliament, envisages widespread reorganisation? The regulations will either be updated or are sufficiently flexible to enable the new combined authorities, and multiples of those combined authorities, to work together.”
“It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair this afternoon, Mr Dowd. The Opposition are supportive of the direction of travel outlined in the order, and we do not propose to divide the Committee. I have a couple of questions that I would like to put to the Minister, but as he has clearly outlined, the provisions build on the principles outlined in the Localism Act 2011 and the Public Services (Social Value) Act 2012 to enable local authority procurement to be used more flexibly to support local economies. It would be helpful if the Minister could set out the consideration the Government have given to previous debates and legislation on the issue of boycotts, divestment and sanctions.”
“Leaseholders, like renters and prospective homeowners, have been made big promises by this Government. What assessment has the Minister made of the impact of botched local government reorganisation, cuts to the budgets of two thirds of England’s local authorities, delays to elections and the wholesale abolition of housing and planning authorities in England’s shires on the delivery of those promises? This is just another promise that the Government are not going to deliver, is it not?”
“T5. London tube fares are due to rise by 5.8% this year. Despite that, my constituents, train drivers and station staff are frustrated by ongoing disruption with the tube services to my constituency. The Piccadilly line was out of action for weeks due to leaves on the line before Christmas, and the past 24 hours have seen a further extension of cancellations. What further pressure can the Secretary of State bring to bear on the Mayor of London to ensure a punctual and reliable service so that my constituents can get to work or school and go about their business?”
“A stage 2 decision by the mayor is required before any planning can progress on the site, and it is therefore important that the House is aware that the delay is attributable not to the London borough of Hillingdon, but to the failings of the Mayor of London. How can I ensure that the record stands corrected?”
“On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. May I seek your guidance? The provision of social housing by the London borough of Hillingdon is important to the two thirds of my constituents who are served by that authority. They are therefore concerned that the House may have been inadvertently misled by the hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Danny Beales), who said on 5 November, and I quote from Hansard , that one of the crucial sites the council is progressing had been “left derelict for years, with the council not determining the application”. —[ Official Report, 5 November 2025; Vol. 774, c. 401WH.] It is clear that the decision about this key provision of great concern to my constituents sits with the Mayor of London.”
“Will the Minister admit to the House that this is a tax-raising, job-destroying, housing-hobbling, rate-raising, service-slashing, community-crippling, election-cancelling settlement that fails even on its intended purpose of shunting resources to politically favoured areas?”
“They have been required to carry out their public budget consultations without having had sight of the impact of this settlement. Let me conclude with some straightforward questions. Will the Minister tell the House when our locally elected brethren will learn the net impact of this settlement on their council tax budgets? When will we debate the impact of the Government’s cuts to SEND capital funding? When will the House have the opportunity to scrutinise their decision to impose exceptional financial support or higher council tax rises to bail out the consequences of their decisions? When will they provide clarity on the impact of their SEND proposals on council budgets? How will the Government use the budgets allocated to the new devolution areas and now snatched back to mitigate the impact of their decisions?”
“Our rural coastal areas, and anywhere else with lots of retirees, face the high costs of adult social care but do not necessarily score highly on indices of deprivation, despite the costs being driven by statutory duties. The undertaker Prime Minister is ushering many councils towards their financial doom. As this Government hammer Wychavon and Stratford-on-Avon, they are also hammering Ashfield, Dartford, Burnley, Cambridge, Hyndburn, Lichfield and Bolsover, which are among the places worst hit by this financial settlement. The Government’s detachment from the consequences of their actions is striking, and all while the Prime Minister and the Chancellor dodge the new high-value council tax in their grace and favour accommodation. All this is behind the smoke and mirrors that disguise from our local authorities the financial impact.”
“It is a settlement that introduces new, higher taxes on hospitality—voted for by every party in this Chamber besides the Conservatives—bearing down on investment and opportunity. It brings in a homes tax on more expensive homes—money that goes to the Treasury, not councils. In the Red Book, that is estimated to cost the Government a net £335 million due to the damage it does to the housing market. Only this hapless Labour Government could bring in new taxes that actually cost the Treasury money—and here they go again. This settlement repeats the fallacy that poverty is the only driver of council costs. The average English local authority delivers more than 800 different services.”
“The settlement enshrines an assumption that taxes will rise to the maximum possible extent everywhere, with fees and charges for parking, libraries and everything else following the same trajectory. Even if the inflation target of 2% is reached—which seems unlikely given that it is currently at 3.6%—the increase represents a 1% uplift for local government during the whole life of this Parliament, and that sector was left £1.5 billion worse off by the rise in national insurance contributions alone. Resources at a local level are going backwards. This is a settlement that punishes efficiency, with those councils that deliver the best value for money being raided to bail out the more spendthrift—and I am sure we can guess which parties tend to run those councils.”
“It is no surprise that the Government sought to sneak this consultation out with the minimum level of attention, proposed, as it was, for simply a written ministerial statement at the last possible second. We can all see that poverty is rising, driven by a shrinking economy and rising unemployment, combined with inflation running at 3.6% and higher energy bills. Rising business rates are crippling our businesses, and local communities everywhere are feeling the pressure created by this Government’s choices. How does the settlement help our councils to deal with all that? First, it assumes that working people—all people—will pay higher taxes everywhere. We should not misunderstand the Minister’s words on core spending power.”
“In conclusion, while the whole Bill deserves to be scrapped—it is shocking to see the craven capitulation of the Liberal Democrats, rather than fighting the corner of British workers—let us at least vote to support this small change that has come from the other place. Let us show that somebody in this Chamber is on the side of jobseekers, wealth creators and those who will create future opportunities for our economy, our country and our people.”
“Imposing new measures like this that make it more expensive and harder for young people to get their first foot on the ladder is a dereliction of our duty to our economy. We must not forget that for our young people, many of whom we hope will end up as those high-paid professionals, getting and keeping a job is the thing that is most important in their lives—to their health, their mental wellbeing, their wealth and their long-term life prospects. In addition, it is our economy that pays not just for those people’s wellbeing, but for the public services on which so many other people depend.”
“A huge share of those 4 million new jobs went to younger people. Today, the number of young people not in education, employment or training has hit over 1 million. The Resolution Foundation said, on this issue specifically, that “young people are bearing the brunt of Britain’s jobs downturn”. Most of us will have heard from businesses in our constituencies that all the measures in the Bill are significantly raising the barriers to entry for new workers into the market at a time when there is a double whammy. Our demographics as a country make it much harder to recruit them compared with older, more experienced workers, simply because there are fewer young people in our population.”
“We are addressing the specific issue of the removal of a limit on the cap. Of course, while this will have a big impact on businesses, it will also have a huge impact on our public sector. Large organisations that employ significant numbers of high-paid professionals, such as the NHS, will see their insurance costs driven up significantly by this measure, so it is all the more surprising that no consultation or impact assessment is before the House when we are asked to make the decision this evening. We must reflect on the real-world impact of this measure, alongside the package of measures in a Bill that worthily deserves to be scrapped in its entirety. One of the proudest achievements of the last Conservative Government was that when we left office, youth unemployment was half what we inherited from the previous Labour Government.”
“Given the Minister’s previous comments about circumstances in which council elections would be cancelled and the looming deadlines that electoral officers face, when will she make a decision, and what process will she follow in determining whether the planned council elections will go ahead? When will the Government brief the House on the timetable for the elections of mayors, which they made central to their Budget last week? Will she ask the Office for Budget Responsibility to update its Budget forecast, given the massive impact that this dithering and delay will have on the Budget’s clearly set out plans for housing, infrastructure, the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill and NHS reorganisation?”
“—[ Official Report , 25 November 2025; Vol. 776, c. 322.] Given that we are all ready for and expecting the elections, having taken this Government at their word, the ambiguity that the Minister has created has caused a huge amount of doubt, significant cost and logistical challenges at a local level in changing the type of elections and the processes for nominating candidates, recruiting electoral canvassers and ensuring that we have the right polling station staff and that they are prepared to arrange that election on schedule. This is a huge waste of public money for elections that we are all ready for.”
“You and I both value local democracy, Mr Speaker. Last week, in response to a question from my hon. Friend the Member for Hamble Valley (Paul Holmes), the Secretary of State told the House that “the Government’s intention is that all the elections scheduled for next May will go ahead next May.” —[ Official Report , 24 November 2025; Vol. 776, c. 5.] The following day, the Minister told the House: “Labour is up for elections… our clear intention is to press ahead with elections next year. The decision to postpone elections is never taken lightly”. She went on to state the reason the Government were resisting the Conservative amendment to ensure that those elections went ahead: “It does not allow for extenuating circumstances at a national level, such as a pandemic, or for exceptional circumstances locally”.”
“On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. May I seek your guidance? When the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill was making progress in Committee, the Minister was very clear that elections to local councils would be considered for cancellation on request from the affected local authorities. She has told the House this morning that, in fact, it will be done only in a pandemic or exceptional local circumstances. There is clearly some risk that the House may be inadvertently misled on what the decision-making criteria for that cancellation may be. Can you give me some guidance as to how we can gain the necessary clarity on what the decision-making process for the cancellation of council elections will be?”
“You will therefore be concerned, as the Conservatives are, that a short while ago the Government put out a press release on their website saying that mayors will be given these new powers, before that was briefed to the House and after repeated comments to the House that Ministers would not answer that question. What further measures are open to you, Madam Deputy Speaker, and to Mr Speaker to ensure that these kinds of damaging leaks, which are undermining our economy and particularly hitting our tourism and hospitality businesses hard, can stop?”
“Members for Vauxhall and Camberwell Green (Florence Eshalomi) and for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Danny Beales), the Under-Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, the hon. Member for Peckham (Miatta Fahnbulleh), replied: “They have made an impassioned and effective case, but as I said in my opening remarks, I will not pre-empt the Chancellor. Tax decisions are for the Chancellor, and we will have a Budget in 48 hours.” —[ Official Report , 24 November 2025; Vol. 776, c. 155.] Madam Deputy Speaker, I know that you and Mr Speaker have been very exercised by the number of leaks, which the former chief economist at the Bank of England described as “the single biggest reason why growth has flatlined”.”
“On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. May I seek your guidance? I know that this issue has been exercising Mr Speaker. Yesterday, at topical questions to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, in response to a question asked by the hon. Member for South Shields (Emma Lewell) about a tourism tax, we were told by the Secretary of State: “My hon. Friend tempts me to venture into terrain that is properly within the decision-making jurisdiction of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. She only has to wait 48 hours to find out what the Chancellor has decided. I suggest that she ask the Chancellor on Wednesday, rather than me this afternoon.” —[ Official Report , 24 November 2025; Vol. 776, c. 19.] During debate on the Bill yesterday, when asked the same question by the hon.”
“They simply deferred those elections for 12 months, making the waste of taxpayers’ money and the concern of local residents even greater, while raising the prospect of a lack of accountability as this important process goes through.”
“We have heard from one or two Members that the retention of the committee system was democratically approved locally. Although measures adopting the Opposition’s proposals on councillors’ addresses make some minor improvements to the Bill, the cancellation of local elections is a clear example of a mess of the Government’s making.We support our local colleagues in making the best of the very difficult set of decisions that they have to take. However, having been told by Ministers—as the Opposition did when in office—that elections to local authorities that were due to be abolished would be cancelled, that was not what the Government then did.”
“All this green belt-grey belt nonsense, which has caused such concern and anxiety to Members and our constituents, is entirely irrelevant. They already have an entire Parliament’s supply of homes with planning consent ready to build. The jobs tax has left our local authorities worse off by £1.5 billion net. It has driven up the cost of almost every local government service, from the care of the elderly and vulnerable children to the day-to-day maintenance of our roads and our environment. Tonight, what we have before us is this Government’s botched and incoherent restructuring, with no clear vision of what local government in England is even for. When we consider the matters that we will press to a Division, new clause 69 on election cancellations and new clause 80 on statutory notices are among a very extensive list of options.”
“On the track record of my party in office, we saw local authorities using their discretion but for the most part seeking to keep council tax low, with the additional revenue from projects such as the new homes bonus, council tax freeze grant and the approach to business rate grant being implemented to support local businesses and local communities. Today, with few exceptions across the sector, we see local authorities facing the maximum possible council tax rises, the maximum possible business rate increases and the maximum possible increases in fees and charges, against a backdrop where housing delivery, supposedly the Government’s top priority, has collapsed, despite a legacy of 1.5 million new homes—their target for the whole of the Parliament—with planning permission already granted.”
“Councils empty the bins, recycle the waste, lend books and care for the elderly, but Governments rarely rise or fall based on what happens in the local government sector. It is not the most dramatic or glamorous part of our state, but day to day, as contributions from right hon. and hon. Members across the Chamber have reflected, it probably has the most important impact in our constituents’ lives. As we heard in Committee, and as we have heard in the amendments and in this debate, our local government is under unprecedented pressure due to this Government’s poor decisions.”
“I open by drawing the attention of the House to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. I hold some voluntary roles in local government. I place on record my particular thanks to my hon. Friends the Members for Hamble Valley (Paul Holmes) and for Broxbourne (Lewis Cocking), who served with such distinction on the Bill Committee. Local government is the most efficient part of the public sector. It is uniquely democratically accountable among our public services. It is also uniquely financial constrained by the requirement for council budgets to balance in-year. We know that the average local authority delivers over 800 different services, which range from public health and child protection to housing the most vulnerable, trading standards, markets, parking and road maintenance.”
“It devolves nothing of any significance closer to our constituents and seeks to make our elected local councillor brethren simply the hosts of talking shops, rather than decision makers for their local community. Worst of all, despite the Government’s occasionally lofty rhetoric, the Bill abolishes 90% of the representation of shire England at the stroke of a bureaucrat’s pen. Where is the voice for our constituents in local government under this centralising Labour Government?”
“For all of those businessowners in the hospitality and tourism sector who have been seeking to make decisions, relying on what they have heard Minsters tell the House, to discover in a press release that this new tax is due to be imposed on them despite the previous assurances of the Tourism Minister, is just one of the many nails in the coffin of the British economy represented by the Bill and this Government’s actions. In conclusion, when we look at the Bill, we see legislation that makes a complete mess of local democracy: elections cancelled and then deferred; announcements of new mayors that do not make it through to the final announcements about new structures. The Bill takes powers away from communities and gives them to mayors who, as we heard earlier in the case of Surrey, may not materialise at all.”
“The hon. Member puts to me whether it was simply a failure to get the Chancellor’s attention, but clearly the Chancellor has been busy at every possible opportunity briefing the press about things that may or may not be in the upcoming Budget. We have seen the impact that that has had: driving up Government borrowing costs; driving down business confidence; and driving unemployment up, every single month since this Government took office. Those political briefings have real-world consequences for our constituents’ livelihoods.”
“It cancels elections, it reduces local democracy, it centralises power with a swathe of new ministerial diktats, it raises taxes through an unwanted, unbriefed new tourism tax, and it opens the door to new unlimited mayoral levies that can be used at ministerial fiat, not on the say-so of local residents. It is a let-down for those who hoped to support it and a betrayal of the ambition of those who support our local democracy. We will oppose the Bill’s Third Reading. Question put, That the Bill be now read the Third time.”
“I will speak briefly. There is a high degree of consensus on some of the objectives that the Government have set out. We share the ambition to deliver more homes, and we share the ambition on economic growth and devolution. However, the alternative stimulants that the Government have chosen essentially involve more bureaucracy, more centralisation and new taxes, all of which will stand in the way of the delivery of those ambitions. We, as an Opposition, are very clear about this. The things that our communities, our constituents and our local businesses want and need are not contained in the Bill.”
“When we look at the statistics, we see that homelessness and rough sleeping are surging under this Government, with London and the south-east hardest hit where social housing delivery has collapsed under the current Mayor of London. Will the Minister commit to lifting the restrictions that this Government have placed on councils’ use of the homelessness reduction grant, and will she commit to funding councils for the growing impact that asylum seekers are having on homelessness pressures, so that Housing First can become more than just a slogan?”
“Thirdly—and most critically, we think, having undertaken many planning reforms during our time in office—does this get the market building the 1.5 million new homes that already have planning permission? The entirety of the Government’s target already has consent, with no further loss of green belt or environmental impacts.”
“As he surveys the bombed-out wreckage of that ministerial team and knows that he is the only one not to have succumbed to friendly fire, I am sure that he shares my sense of disappointment that, after a year of debate and discussion, we have not made the progress that the British people expect from us in the delivery of planning and infrastructure. The Opposition have three fairly simply tests to apply to the amendments and the Bill as a whole. First, does this deliver the required reform of our administrative state—the planning process, statutory undertakers, decision makers and all those who play a part—to ensure the swift delivery of infrastructure? Secondly, does this create the necessary incentives for host communities to support and embrace the opportunities that development offers?”
“The Opposition join the Minister in thanking our colleagues in the other place for their sterling work. I also thank my hon. Friend the Member for Hamble Valley (Paul Holmes), who has been our shadow Minister and contributed enormously to the debate in Committee. I welcome the Minister back to the Dispatch Box for a further discussion on planning and infrastructure, and congratulate him on being the last man standing from the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government team that was appointed in Labour’s golden summer of 2024.”
“The Government signalled before they even embarked on this legislation that their intention was to reduce green-belt protections, which raises the suspicion that this is not a holistic agenda; it is about making it as easy and cheap as possible to build on the green belt, without the strategic underpinning that delivers the homes and infrastructure that our nation needs.”
“It fails in the eyes of the developers, who are talking about packing up and taking their investment abroad because the UK market is so poor at the moment. It fails in the eyes of the builders, who see no measures in the Bill to address the shortfalls they all face. It fails in the eyes of the travelling public, who have watched this Government cancel projects such as the expansion of the A12, which was set to support the delivery of thousands more homes. And it fails in the eyes of lovers of nature, because for all that has been said, there is still a grave lack of clarity about how the measures in the Bill will support the ambitions we all have to balance the delivery of new homes and infra- structure with the needs of a nature-depleted country, to protect the natural environment that we all cherish.”
“Gentleman’s question. When we assess this Bill and these amendments against those tests, it is clear that whatever lofty ambitions some may have, this Bill fails in the eyes of the Office for Budget Responsibility, because it does not generate the level of growth and contribution that the Government promised. That is reflected in the hasty implementation of large-scale amendments in the Lords that were not even contemplated at the Commons stages. It fails in the eyes of homebuyers—the many people who aspire to get on the property ladder for the first time. It fails in the eyes of our farmers, who were hoping it would make it easier to create the infrastructure that would make our farming and food sector more efficient.”
“I am going to develop my answer to that, because that is the question we face as a country. We set ourselves a target in the last Parliament of delivering 1 million homes, and we fell just short of that, but when this Government set out their commitment to net zero, I do not think they intended 23 of the 33 London boroughs to have net zero new housing starts, according to a new Bidwells report on the housing market in London. They did not anticipate a 20% reduction in completions of new homes. They did not anticipate a 55.9% drop in the number of new housing starts here in our capital city or a Labour mayor delivering 4.9% of the target set for him by this Government, despite record levels of funding. The context, as we saw today, of growth in our country falling to just 0.1%, is a significant clue to the answer to the hon.”
“As the Leader of the Opposition said at Prime Minister’s questions, we would not start from here—we would not have made the mistakes this Government have made, which have led to the crash in house building that I outlined.”
“We spent a good amount of time debating that issue in Committee. “Use it or lose it” planning consent is one option. Application of council tax at different stages of delivery is another. We could also take a different approach to section 106, to the community infrastructure levy or to the way that local authorities interact with the housing market. All those measures that we either considered in government or have been debating—none of which has been taken up —have the potential to ensure that more of the homes that have planning consent get delivered.”
“As the Bill proceeds, pummelling our first-time buyers, hammering our homeowners, bashing our builders, and duffing up our developers, on behalf of the Opposition I simply say this to the Minister: there is an opportunity this afternoon to begin to change course, and to signal that he believes, and we believe, that a different course of action is possible that will deliver the homes and infrastructure that the British people expect. I always enjoy meeting the Minister across the Dispatch Box, and I always keep my spare Conservative party membership form handy just in case he should ever need it—his high standards of professionalism suggest that one day he will make the journey to the dark side. Minister, take the opportunity to say to your colleagues that it is time to add to so many poor U-turns, a good U-turn.”
“A number of Members have said, “Why is this happening, and what do you think needs to be done to address it?” The knockout blow to our housing market in the last 12 months has been delivered by the massive hike in national insurance introduced by this Government, which is leading developers, builders, the whole supply chain and local authorities to fear that they will have to throw in the towel, because it is simply not possible, under such a business-unfriendly Government, to deliver homes and infrastructure that require a pro-business environment.”
“Through the measures that are being implemented, the Government are using that majority to deliver a left hook of reducing community voice and community say in planning applications. They are following that with a right hook of reducing protections on the green belt and building on virgin land—as we heard from the hon. Member for Normanton and Hemsworth (Jon Trickett), who is no longer in his place—rather than previously developed land being recycled. That is followed by the uppercut of wholesale top-down council reorganisation, and then a jab demanding that local plans the length and breadth of the country be changed through the national planning policy framework changes, without there being remotely the capacity at the Planning Inspectorate to deal with those in a timely manner.”
“I declare for the record that the River Colne, which borders my constituency, is a chalk stream, the majority of which are in southern England. Given the work done by my party in government, we are determined to ensure that there is an appropriate level of protection enshrined in legislation. We would choose to develop brownfield first. We seek the swifter redevelopment of brownfield sites, including here in our capital city, rather than intruding on the green belt, which is critical for nature, is important for the health of human beings and for leisure and is often a site of sports facilities and agriculture, supporting the lives of our communities. That is another area where, sadly, this legislation falls far short. It is clear that this Government have a heavyweight majority.”