Alistair Strathern
MP for Hitchin · Labour · United Kingdom
“I think the Conservatives are being slightly cheeky in skirting the fact that the plans we inherited from them would have seen a huge cliff-edge increase in business rates. The many financial pressures that we have had to juggle since coming into government have meant that it has been challenging to balance things.”
“I am grateful for the protestations from the Front Bench. Those jobs were also crucial in starting to form my politics. In both settings, I was incredibly lucky to work with some fantastic colleagues.”
“I am very proud to have supported the Government’s jobs guarantee, and of the wider work that we are doing to ensure that employers in my community and right across the country are practically and financially incentivised to bring young people into the world of work and supported to train them up, so that those young people can benefit fr…”
“That is why, many years down the line, I am proud to be part of a Labour Government who are delivering a record expansion of workplace rights through the Employment Rights Act 2025, and why the fundamental vision of protecting workers and ensuring a minimum social contract for those working hard for their families and doing right by their…”
“Maybe it is because, much as they like to complain about the implications of our policies, they begrudgingly recognise that in the incredibly difficult circumstances that we inherited, both those choices may well have been right. I look forward to a Conservative Member proving me wrong.”
“It reflected how they felt in their communities, and how they felt they were treated at school. Putting that right requires a continued focus on curriculum reform and place-based investment, but I would like the Government to go further in embracing the recommendations of the recent review on white working-class underachievement at school…”
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“We saw very little action in this area under the last Government, but I am delighted that this Government are wasting no time in widening that obligation, and therefore widening the scope of the corporate parents who have the back of some of our young people in care throughout the country. I am also glad to see the Government amendments that strengthen information sharing. I have had to read a great many difficult serious case reviews involving young people all over the country, so I know that there has been tragic incident after tragic incident owing to failures in information sharing, and the failure of agencies to work together effectively.”
“However, it is clear that acting in isolation cannot be good enough, and that without clear legislation requiring more local stakeholders to take on that important role, we can never involve all the partners who can have such a transformative impact on young people in care at that crucial early stage. No parent would think of caring for a child as just a narrow subset of his or her role, and the state, and our obligation as a corporate parent, should be no different. I am very glad to see these amendments; many in the House and beyond have been campaigning for them for some time, including my hon. Friend the Member for Whitehaven and Workington (Josh MacAlister), who recommended some of these measures in his report on social care a few years ago.”
“In the face of that, their resilience and their determination to better themselves should inspire us all. As guardians of the country’s collective obligation to young people in care, we owe it to them to fulfil our side of that corporate parenting role. I am therefore extremely happy to see Government amendments 18 to 22, which widen the role of corporate parenting to other local stakeholders. As a local authority lead working with the care-experienced campaigner Terry Galloway, I was happy to take on some of that work locally. I worked with fantastic local stakeholders to broaden our obligations as corporate parents, and to bring other local government bodies into the sphere of those who were trying to do best by the young people in our care.”
“It is a pleasure to speak about some very important amendments and new clauses, but also about a body of work that moves forward the country’s protections and support for some of the most vulnerable people in society, which has not been done for a long time. Before becoming a Member of Parliament, I had the privilege of being the children’s lead for the local authority on which I served. Many Members here may be the grandparent or parent of a handful of kids, but as any local authority lead will know, we are a corporate parent to many hundreds. In that role, it is impossible not to be moved by the testimonies of the young people with whom we are working. They have often undergone real moments of trauma and difficulty that would knock any of us for six.”
“I think the right hon. Gentleman will find that the Minister did not just commit to do some research; he committed to bring forward a statement on some really important aspects of online health on which the Government had not formally commented before. I gently suggest that if the Opposition are so clear—”
“What I simply will not do is indulge this attempt to turn the issue into an opportunity for the Conservative party to posture, because it had so long and did so little on this work. In conclusion, I am very glad to be supporting a Bill that delivers step changes in protections for young people, steps changes in support for care leavers and a step change in support for kinship carers. For too long, we have not done enough to look after some of the most vulnerable young people in our society, and I am glad that this Bill and some of the Government amendments underline our commitment to ensuring that we do far better on this front than the last Government did.”
“I thank my hon. Friend, who could not have put my next point better. I completely recognise that this is a really important topic—it is important for parents and schools right across my constituency, too—but I am afraid the idea that, having had 14 years to bring this forward, the Conservatives have suddenly had a damascene conversion to the idea that this is something that cannot wait and must be delivered now, at a time when there is not a clear consensus among educational professionals or parents about the best way to bring such a ban into effect, feels disingenuous at best. I share lots of their concerns and, over time, I hope to be able work across this House to bring forward good protections to that effect.”
“Opposition Members have commented on the pace at which the Government are moving on that issue. We would not have to move at such a pace if they had done more.”
“I draw the House’s attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests and my trade union membership. For far too long, our economy has been stuck in a low-growth, low-wage, low-aspiration situation. For far too long, we have allowed some of the best employers and businesses in the country to be undercut by more unscrupulous employers that, as they are unable to compete through competitive advantage or productivity, do so only by levelling down working conditions. That simply cannot be right. We have heard in Committee, in the House and in headlines over many years some heartbreaking examples of the worst scandals that that has enabled. Truthfully, there is not a person in our society who is not losing out as a result of our failure to tackle this issue.”
“I am proud that this Government are standing up for my constituent and many people like him across the country, and I am proud to support the Bill today.”
“The Government will be conducting a review of parental leave later this year, and I know that Members across the House will be keen to engage with the Minister on how we can go further, not just in allowing fathers to have that crucial early time with their child but in breaking down the very gendered nature of parenting, which is currently baked into our statutory provision on parental leave. There are so many important measures in the Bill and so many important areas where we know we will need to go further. Fundamentally, I am full of pride to see a Government finally, after inaction by the Conservatives for far too long, taking seriously the issues of workplace security, productivity and the wellbeing of people across the country in some of the most vulnerable forms of employment.”
“I can do justice to very few of them in three minutes, so I want to focus on just one: clause 14, which is about ensuring we remove some of the barriers to new dads taking up paternity leave early on in their employment. It is a well-recognised fact that we have some of the worst paternity leave entitlements across Europe. Although shared parental leave sounds great as a concept, we do not have to look far to notice that its uptake is shockingly low and shockingly skewed to the highest earners. I am glad that we are taking a small but important step in the Bill to recognise that we need to do more to boost access to paternity leave.”
“I was glad to hear such warm words from the Minister in his opening remarks about the very important amendment tabled by my Bedfordshire neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Luton North (Sarah Owen). It is impossible to hear her testimony about bereavement or to speak to parents who have gone through bereavement and not recognise the simple reality that to be bereaved is not to be sick, and that our leave system should recognise it as such. I was very glad to hear from the Minister that the Government will work with my hon. Friend and others across the House who have campaigned on this issue for a long time to ensure we recognise that reality. There are a number of important measures in the Bill.”
“For that reason, I am so glad that the Government committed in our manifesto and in the Bill, which was introduced some time ago now, to taking on zero-hours contracts and giving people the right, where appropriate, to request a fixed-hours contract. However, without new clause 32, my constituent would have been missed out, because although he works at Royal Mail, he is employed through an agency. Without the extension of protections in the new clause he would, like many others across the country, have lost out. I am very glad that we are being complete in our approach and ensuring that we do not miss out from that important protection the very many employees who are currently working for agencies. There are lots of other important amendments to the Bill.”
“The literature on the harms of zero-hours contracts—their impact not just on productivity but on poverty and on workers’ conditions, health and mental health—is compelling, but if we do not acknowledge the human impact, we miss half the story. At my constituency surgery two weeks ago, I was joined by a gentleman who had been working for four years on a zero-hours contract at Royal Mail. For four years, he had not known what hours he would be working week to week, month to month, year to year. For four years, he had not been able to plan his daily life—his other commitments, and the further education that he was trying to do to build out his skills and better himself. For four years, his life had been narrowed by the precarious reality of the exploitative application of zero-hours contracts by those who should haven know better.”
“I could not have put it better myself. Research is clear about the strong link between good working conditions and good productivity, and the wider economic benefits that they bring. That is why I am grateful to everyone who has played their part, including the Minister and members of the Bill Committee—I have sympathy for those who had to endure some of the tropes that we have heard today—in ensuring that we had such a big and comprehensive package before us today. We are debating some strong amendments today. I will focus on new clause 32 in particular, as it affects a constituent who came to my surgery recently.”
“From the rise of Andrew Tate to the re-emergence of Tommy Robinson, lots of young people I speak to are concerned about the extremism and conspiracy theories that they are encountering online. Last month, an important report from Public First and the Pears Foundation highlighted the need to do more to empower schools and teachers to tackle those things in the classroom. How will we use the curriculum review to make the most of this moment to empower young people to feel safer in online spaces?”
“Does he agree that, as well as being ambitious about gathering evidence, we will need to become more comfortable with the idea of legislating in this area with the same precautionary principle that we apply in every other aspect of children’s lives, to ensure that we protect them from the harms they are expressing to us?”
“It would be remiss of me not to start by thanking my hon. Friend for the leadership he has shown on the issue. He has started a big conversation not just in this Chamber, but right across the country. That is certainly true in my constituency, where we have a fantastic local Smartphone Free Childhood campaign group, and lots of the young people I meet on my school visits and in campaigning conversations across the constituency have real concerns about this topic. As always, the views of parents and young people on these things tend to lead the way.”
“Right across my schools, young people are concerned about the conspiracy theories and extremism that they encounter online. A really important report recently by the Pears Foundation and Public First highlighted the need to do more to empower schools to tackle those issues in the classroom. Can we have a statement from the Education Secretary on how we can ensure that the upcoming review of the curriculum delivers on exactly that issue?”
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“Church of Scotland (Lord High Commissioner) Bill: Allocation of Time Ordered, That the following provisions shall apply to the proceedings on the Church of Scotland (Lord High Commissioner) Bill: Timetable (1)(a) Proceedings on Second Reading and in Committee of the whole House, any proceedings on Consideration and proceedings on Third Reading shall be taken at today’s sitting in accordance with this Order. (b) Proceedings on Second Reading shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion four hours after the commencement of proceedings on the Motion for this Order.”
“I am very excited to introduce the Bill today to start to tackle at source the root causes of the fleecehold stealth tax that is affecting thousands of homeowners across the country, who are paying millions every year in unjustified service charges. I look forward to working with the Government to do right by those affected right across the country. Question put and agreed to. Ordered, That Alistair Strathern, Emma Foody, Abtisam Mohamed, Yuan Yang, Connor Naismith, Amanda Hack, Ben Coleman, Tom Rutland, Callum Anderson, Mr James Frith, Luke Murphy and Mrs Sarah Russell present the Bill. Alistair Strathern accordingly presented the Bill. Bill read the F irst time; to be read a S econd time on Friday 13 June , and to be printed (Bill 190).”
“It puts them back in the driving seat and part of those adoption conversations, hopefully to get their estate to where it needs to be, so that the inequity can finally end. I am so excited about this Government’s housing mission, and to see the number of people in my constituency and across the country whose lives will be transformed by our commitment to stable homes. However, for a long time now we have failed to appreciate the extent to which fleecehold becoming a default model for new home delivery in this country is undercutting the very sense of security and prosperity that new home ownership is meant to bring. I hope that the Government will act with the pace that this issue deserves.”
“Friend the Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Matthew Pennycook), in the last Parliament to give freeholders on private estates the ability to enact right to manage. This would put them back in the driving seat, give them the power to fire unaccountable management companies, ensure that they have a choice, and drive up service levels, responsibility and, hopefully, the performance of those undertaking management work. The Bill is far from a panacea. Many homeowners will want adoption to be the end state for their estate, but it is an important step forward to drive down the ability of management companies to be exploitative and extract unjustifiable fees from new homeowners.”
“However, giving certainty over the direction of travel in the adoption of estates and creating clarity about the minimum standards for estates to be adopted would create the conditions for local authorities to be able to assess, negotiate and condition through the planning process any value that they need to extract, to ensure that they can cover the maintenance costs of that estate. Hopefully, that will enable us to undercut that iniquitous persistence of two tiers of council tax payers at source. Alongside that, it is important that we do not walk by those who are already in these estates, particularly because until we have a solution, they will only grow in number since they are now the default model for housing provision across this country. The Bill also looks to build on amendments tabled by the then shadow Housing Minister, my hon.”
“My Bill looks to take several important steps forward to address this. First, it looks to build on some of the recommendations in last year’s CMA report to cut off unadopted estates at source, mandating minimum adoptable standards that all developers would have to reach as part of their works and laying out minimum adoption timelines that local authorities would be accountable for delivering on. All that would ensure that unadopted estate limbo can finally be a thing of the past. Given the perilous state of local authority finances, I am aware that this could create some financial burden.”
“I have spoken to homeowners whose sales have fallen through when crucial management pack information has not been provided by management companies in a timely way or who, when they have looked to move, have not been able to because their credit score has been decimated by exploitative charges when they have not been able to pay steep increases in their service charge in what the management company viewed to be a timely manner. I welcome the Government’s commitment to trying to do something about this, but it is important that we address it at pace. Hopefully, we will be building 1.5 million homes over the course of this Parliament, but those homes will not deliver security or prosperity for the families who take them up if they trap them in fleecehold relationships and on fleecehold unadopted estates.”
“Indeed, one estate had been subdivided to such a level that the vast majority of the bill that every household was paying was simply the fee for how they were audited each year. That cannot be right. Alongside that, it is not just the cost that is the problem, but the way that this is undercutting the very nature of the stability and prosperity that home ownership is meant to bring with it. By being on the hook to these management companies, residents often have to fight for years to get bare-minimum works and services and responses to their queries. They also often find that when they look to move away from this exploitative relationship, they are unable to do so because of the risk created by that fleecehold system.”
“Part of the issue is not just the injustice of paying twice for something, but the fact that this delivery mechanism is structurally designed to maximise the costs that these households bear. The management companies are not directly accountable to the homeowners—to the people to whom they are providing service. There is no incentive for these management companies to keep bills down. Indeed, I have had correspondence from people who have been charged upwards of £250 just for having one lightbulb changed on their estate. Moreover, the small size of some of these estates, or the extent to which they can be subdivided, means that the bulk of the high fees can often just covers management and professional services fees, and bear no relation to any actual service delivered on the estate.”
“They are often forced to pay hundreds of pounds each year for services that every other homeowner would get as part of their council tax. Typically, these bills are around £350, but that is a significant amount in a cost of living crisis. However, the bills are far from limited to that. I have had correspondence from constituents who have been hit by bills running to thousands of pounds. Again, very short notice is often given for steep increases. Across the whole country in 2022, the CMA found that more than £260 million was spent by households on exactly these charges. In that time, given the growth that we know has happened and that needs to continue to happen in our housing supply, that amount will only have grown. That cannot be fair and it cannot be justified.”
“There was once a time when local authorities would typically adopt housing estates when they came forward, but that simply is no longer the case. Indeed, a Competition and Markets Authority report into this issue last year found that up to 80% of new housing estates now go unadopted, with no end in sight. Indeed, many in my constituency have gone unadopted for well over a decade after completion. In the meantime, these householders are on the hook to a private management company that they never expected to be stuck with and for a length of time that they had never considered. The impact of that relationship has many facets. First, these householders are hit with what is in effect a new homes stealth tax.”
“Their estate had gone unadopted for many years. There was no end in sight to this situation. In the meantime, they were paying hundreds of pounds each year for basic services that the rest of their neighbours were receiving through their council tax. But that was not the worst of it. When they missed one bill, which had gone up quite considerably at a week’s notice, rather than giving them any tolerance, their estate management company used the contractual powers that it had to go straight to their mortgage lender to have the amount added to that family’s mortgage and to drive a wrecking ball through their credit score in the process. This injustice cannot be allowed to persist, but for far too many people, this situation is becoming the norm.”
“Fleecehold arises when homes are not adopted by local authorities, leaving new occupants exposed to fleecehold stealth taxes and paying money to a private management company for services that others receive as part of their council tax. They are on the hook to an estate management company, which is often unaccountable to them and often seeks to exploit them with every available power. I know from lots of conversations that I have had with other Members across the House that I am far from alone in experiencing this issue. It is growing in my constituency, and also right across the country. Indeed, when I am away on holiday, I cannot escape it either. Over recess, I was up in Scotland visiting my family. A family friend took me to one side to raise the issues that they have had, which is quite typical.”
“That may be due to the following: the broken state of the house supply system, which prices far too many people out of home ownership; the lack of affordable social rented homes or insecure private rented sector accommodation, creating precariousness for families who just should not have to face that in their lives; or the broken leasehold system, on which we announced some really important measures yesterday that I know many Members across the House will have welcomed. Today, I wish to address a slightly less appreciated issue, but one that is no less important. Fleecehold housing estates are really growing right across the country.”
“I am incredibly proud to be here as a member of a party that recognises, in some of the best traditions of this country, the importance of a secure home in which people can build stable and prosperous lives. Indeed, as a Labour MP, I am probably contractually obligated to remind the House that one of the defining missions of this Labour Government is to get Britain building again. When it come to the state of the housing market that we inherited, it is clear that far too much simply is not working for far too many people.”
“I beg to move, That leave be given to bring in a Bill to make provision for a right to manage for freeholders on unadopted private or mixed-use housing estates; to set minimum standards for public amenities on new housing estates; to make provision about the enforcement of those standards; to make provision about the adoption by local authorities of public amenities on new housing estates; and for connected purposes. In perhaps less parliamentarily precise language, but in words that might be a bit more relatable for those watching at home, the Bill will make sure we are finally tackling the fleecehold stealth tax that is affecting far too many new homeowners on new estates right across the country.”
“There is a lot more we will need to do, and I have no doubt that the curriculum review—that is a separate matter—will be important in making sure we are playing our part in empowering young people to feel more confident and safe in these spaces. I am very glad to be doing this work in a Parliament where there are so many strong voices on this issue. Given its urgency, I really do hope that we can make progress between now and the upcoming children’s code to ensure that we are meeting the need of this moment fully.”
“Alongside that, Internet Matters and many other groups have been really clear in pointing out that the current approach to age appropriateness—the flattening when it comes to people over and under 18—and the weak guidance on age verification risks not doing justice to Parliament’s very clear steer in section 12 that content and features should be considered from a risk-based perspective right across the age range. Again, that is a clear area where I think Ofcom could and should do a lot more. As others including the IWF have pointed out, while some consideration of technical feasibility is obviously needed, the carve-out, as currently drafted, risks being an opt-out and a dilution of the ambition of tech companies in stepping up to the plate and making sure they are playing their part in keeping young people safe online.”
“The foundation set up in her name is very clear on the role that algorithms, doom spiralling, and young people consistently being pushed towards some of the most harmful content for them at their age played in what happened to her, and to far too many young people right across the country. In section 11(6)(f) of the Act, Parliament very explicitly made it clear that those features should be considered. Ofcom needs to make sure that that is brought forward, and that the code explicitly considers how technology companies can ensure that safety of features and design is considered right across the age range.”
“We must ensure that we have the strongest possible implementation of the Act, which means that the strongest possible children’s code from Ofcom will be front and centre. As other colleagues have highlighted, there is a whole host of ways in which Ofcom has been far too conservative and limited in its interpretation of the powers that Parliament has given it in bringing forward the children’s code, as well as its wider approach to the Act. As 5rights and others have highlighted, the approach of focusing purely on content, rather than on design and features, means that a whole host of harms, which are explicitly called out in the Act, are not affected. There is nothing more tragic than the story of Molly Rose.”
“It is impossible not to be moved by the testimony of parents who have gone through some of the most heartbreaking tragedies as a result of our historical inaction, just as it is impossible for me not to be stirred to act when I visit schools and pupils of all ages consistently raise their own fears and concerns about what they are being exposed to online and its impact on them and their mental health. Other Members have rightly highlighted some of the shortcomings of the Online Safety Act, but, as the right hon. and learned Member for Kenilworth and Southam pointed out, it is important to note the urgency of using the tools available to us now, given our historical inaction.”
“I hope hon. Members will not mind me highlighting that, for many of us, the online world was not quite such a big presence in our lived experience growing up. Therefore, when it comes to legislating for the online world, the more recent nature of some of the developments means that the evidence base is inherently slightly more limited. We have to be confident in the principled, risk-based approach to acting, and act when we know it is right to do so. We have to know that more urgent action in this space is the right thing to do.”