Sam Carling
MP for North West Cambridgeshire · Labour · United Kingdom
“In a contribution to the King’s Speech debate last month, I listed a range of regulators: the MHRA, NICE, the Health and Safety Executive, the Human Tissue Authority, the Health Research Authority, the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority, the Animals in Science Regulation Unit, and so on.”
“I, too, thank the Chair of the Select Committee, the hon. Member for Oxford West and Abingdon (Layla Moran) for securing this debate, and I, too, wish we had more time. I also thank my hon. Friend the Member for North Somerset (Sadik Al-Hassan), who made some difficult, but really important points.”
“That is why I am so pleased to see increasing confidence from the private sector in the UK as an environment in which to do impactful research. Last month, we saw AstraZeneca commit £300 million in investment across the UK, after this Government’s work to agree a pharmaceutical deal with the US enabled that investment.”
“Why do we not create a single front door for study approvals: a unified application process that collects all the information that different regulators might need, so that researchers can fill in one form, and a team of recruited staff whose job it is to liaise with all the regulators, establish who needs to approve the individual study i…”
“I have regular engagement with research scientists, universities and professional bodies through my work as chair of the all-party parliamentary group known as the Parliamentary and Scientific Committee.”
“The Secretary of State knows that I have concerns about the enforceability of a platform-based ban, but I welcome the news about tackling infinite scrolling, which affects people of all ages.”
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“The hon. Gentleman moved an amendment specifically to rule out trade unions. The Bill does not rule them in, in any way. I am slightly concerned that he might be misleading us—inadvertently.”
“I say to Opposition Members that their relentless politicisation of the issue is no doubt making it much harder to find a chair because it will be putting candidates off. As the inquiry gets under way, we must keep up progress on implementing the recommendations of the Jay IICSA inquiry. I raised concerns on Report during the Crime and Policing Bill that the Government’s proposals to implement mandatory reporting of child sexual abuse do not go quite as far as IICSA wanted, and those concerns were raised again in the other place last week by Baroness Grey-Thompson. Will the Minister ask her colleague Lord Hanson to meet me and Baroness Grey-Thompson to discuss how we can remedy that in a way that works for everyone and that protects children?”
“A constituent has written to me to highlight that they have successfully completed a level 3 BTEC diploma in musical theatre. To go on to university, they need an extended diploma—a third year—but their college will not let them do it because they have not achieved a grade 4 in GCSE maths, which their university course would not require anyway, so my constituent is being held back from a degree and a career as a result of not passing an exam in an unrelated subject. How can we break down these barriers so that young people are not held back in life?”
“On the subject of local partners, could the Minister confirm that the intention here is to include private sector organisations as local partners? I am keen to see mayors make the most of this power, being able to use it to ensure that conversations can take place with, for example, large local employers or anchor companies to create economic alignment, or developers and utility companies to deal with issues during development.”
“On page 139, schedule 8 requires that for the mayor to designate a key route network road, the combined authority has to pass a resolution approving it. However, when the mayor comes to give directions, proposed new subsection 23A of the Levelling-up and Regeneration Act 2023 does not require the passing of a resolution, and the power is vested in the mayor alone. That could create a loophole whereby a mayor could get the combined authority to pass a resolution to designate a road for some reason, and a future mayor with different plans could use the designation for a completely different purpose without the combined authority board having to vote again. One option for solving that could be that when they create a designation, the mayor has to set out its purpose and broadly what powers they envisage exercising.”
“That could seriously undermine councils’ ability to bring in such schemes, very much against the Government’s commitments to active travel. The group’s concerns are based on a local situation, as that is exactly what is likely to happen in Cambridge if the incumbent mayor gets his way over Mill Road, which is semi-pedestrianised through the use of a bus gate. Will the Minister consider introducing safeguards to prevent such issues by more clearly defining what criteria a road should meet to be eligible for designation as a key route network road? Should it perhaps have to be an A or B road, or else be subject to more detailed justification? On a related note, has the Minister considered requiring the designation of key roads to be for a specific purpose?”
“The schedule contains comprehensive provisions around the designation of key route network roads, but I am conscious that we have not defined key route networks in statute. I am a little worried, therefore, about the potential for mayors to designate inappropriate roads as key route networks for political purposes. I was struck by the evidence the Committee received from Mill Road 4 People, a Cambridge-based campaign group I was familiar with when I was a councillor there, although I was not involved with them in any way. The group is concerned that mayors could use key route networks to undermine or remove bus gates or low-traffic neighbourhoods that councils have introduced, in an attempt to gain votes by whipping up tensions around the so-called war on motorists.”
“Thinking of my own combined authority in Cambridgeshire and Peterborough, where local transport plans require a two-thirds majority, I wonder whether the Bill could create legal ambiguity that could lead to judicial reviews or legal challenges. According to clause 6, setting out the general arrangements of boards, the existing arrangements stand once this Bill comes into force, but according to schedule 9 they are overturned. Will the Minister clarify the Government’s intention there? Then we can find a way to remove that ambiguity.”
“I have a brief, technical question. I might be mistaken in my reading of the provision, but I seek clarification about the arrangements for local transport plans. On Tuesday, the Committee agreed to clause 6, which amended the Levelling-up and Regeneration Act 2023 and the Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Act 2009 to introduce a standard of simple majority voting on combined authority boards. However, we included a grandfathering provision to allow some distinctive governance arrangements at existing authorities to continue. Schedule 9 makes a similar amendment to the Transport Act 2000, specifically for the adoption of local transport plans, as we have heard, but this amendment does not have the grandfathering provision.”
“My hon. Friend is giving a powerful account of the inadequacy of SATs. Does he agree that the fact that so many secondary schools retest their pupils when they arrive shows that they do not have trust in SATs either?”
“During my first year here I have had a lot of discussions around the importance of strengthening critical thinking skills earlier in the curriculum, as has been mentioned, particularly in this age we live in of online misinformation and the need to be able to tell truth from fiction from a much younger age than has perhaps been critical in the past. An ambitious and modern review would tackle these problems head on. Although the interim report gives a nod to critical thinking, I would like to see more of a focus there. To conclude, we have a real need to balance assessment, which is necessary to achieve high standards, alongside a curriculum that gives children the freedom to build a curious and inquisitive relationship with learning.”
“This is a key concern of teachers and parents who lament that a focus on spelling, punctuation and grammar tests does nothing to encourage students to think creatively about reading and writing. We need to be clear about what exactly we are testing across the different stages of education. Are we focusing too much on detailed knowledge in some areas when we should be increasing our assessment of broader understanding and skills instead? We now have a Government willing to properly look at the shortcomings of curriculum and assessment, and I really look forward to the outcome of the review. The interim report talks ambitiously about empowering teachers to foster a love of learning. I hope to see more of that thinking in the final report.”
“In four—sometimes five—out of seven years of primary school, children are taking statutory exams. The results of those exams, as we have heard, are important to schools as they are used for accountability. Department for Education officials can use key stage 2 performance data when setting criteria for allocating additional funding, which leads to teaching to a test, focusing on a narrower curriculum with the hope that it leads to better scores for the kids, which schools—strapped for funding for years under the last Government—really need. There is a real danger that the exams will put kids off learning for life. Cramming a student’s head full of fronted adverbials and the like is not a recipe for a love of literature and language, funnily enough.”
“The spelling, punctuation and grammar exams are stuffed to the brim with questions such as “What is a fronted adverbial?” and “Circle the modal verb”, and questions about subjunctives, determinants, inverted commas, prepositions and past progressives. We all use these grammatical structures automatically, and of course children need to be able to use them in reading and writing, but these are things that intelligent, hard-working adults up and down the country have trouble identifying, and understandably so. Do we really need such an intensive focus on labelling these devices instead of using them? No one is saying that we should not have high standards, nor is anyone saying that grammar is not important, but there are serious questions about whether that is the best way to teach it.”
“Before the summer recess, I hosted a “Truth about SATs” parliamentary drop-in with educational reform group More Than a Score. It was a great event, with MPs from all sides of the House sitting down to take some mock SATs exams themselves. Lots of colleagues sat there quite relaxed, chatting to others and evidently fairly confident that these exams for 11-year-olds would not be too taxing. Then the worksheets arrived, and faces fell. That is why I hosted the event in the first place; I saw at first hand why over three quarters of parents think SATs harm children’s mental health, and why 93% of headteachers want the Government to review the entire system.”
“I wonder whether the Minister has the same experience as I do. When I speak to employers in North West Cambridgeshire, I hear time and again that young people do not have the skills for the workplace and that the education system has not left them with the right mindset and abilities. Is something going direly wrong with the metrics that the Conservatives have left us with when they talk about how we have had one of the best systems in the world?”
“I note that amendment 293, which we will discuss later, relates to allowances, and I can imagine that the Government want to allow flexibility so that local areas can do what is best for them, which makes perfect sense. Within my area, if commissioners were paid at director level, that could cost well over £1 million. Senior officers can earn in excess of £100,000, which is a significant sum, and it is more than mayors themselves or many Government Ministers earn. That may well be appropriate in London, where it works and seems to be doing a great job, but London is a lot bigger than some other authorities. I thank the Committee for listening to those thoughts, and if the Minister could give some clarity on how we can deal with some of those issues, I would be really grateful.”
“Similarly, the Greater Manchester combined authority has 3,500 staff—or 4,600 if you include Transport for Greater Manchester—while Cambridgeshire and Peterborough combined authority has 139 employees, according to a freedom of information request from March 2024. The difference in scale is significant, and obviously the amount of work for commissioners to oversee is therefore significant. I do not want to put the Minister on the spot now, but could she write to me at some point to give context on whether the Government have considered modifying the number of commissioners that a combined authority mayor can appoint with respect to that variance in size, or perhaps the allowance payable to those commissioners, so they would be more part time in smaller authorities?”
“We have a Conservative mayor now, and we previously had a Labour mayor, but under both there was a lot of game-playing going on and a lot of difficulty, so I think it would be helpful for the mayor to be able to appoint commissioners just to get on with delivering their strategy. They are directly elected, and although I disagree with my mayor on a lot of things, I accept his mandate. It may well be helpful for mayors across the country to be able to deliver the strategy that they have stood on. My concern relates to the relative sizes of combined authorities in a uniform approach to commissioners, and whether we can look at how to deal with that. To give an example, Greater Manchester has 3 million residents; Cambridgeshire and Peterborough has around 1 million.”
“With your permission, Sir John, I will make some references to schedule 3 as well as clause 9, just to do it all in the same place. I will start by responding to some of the hon. Lady’s points. She raises some valid concerns. I will just give the perspective of someone who lives in quite a fractious combined authority area. I think my combined authority board currently has two Conservatives, two Lib Dems and two Labour—that is not enough people, so it must be 3:3:2, but I cannot remember which way around. We also have the Manchester system at the moment, whereby different people hold different portfolios, which has led to a lot of politicisation.”
“We have just heard the Minister speak about having statutory guidance on this issue. Does the hon. Member agree that one way of making this change, rather than through these amendments, would be for the guidance to include some clear indications to the remuneration panels about what roles they should consider comparable for mayoral commissioners. That might be council leaders or cabinet members rather than senior officers; or it may be senior officers, where appropriate.”
“I encourage the Minister to consider either altering the clause or making other provisions as the Bill progresses to allow combined authorities, if they wish, to pay an allowance to their board members for that role.”
“A lot of the time, it is the leader of the council who does so, and it is often considered to be part of their portfolio, but it is not always leaders who sit on the board. That can lead to people taking on a very significant commitment without any financial support, despite potentially having to reduce hours at work and the like, if the councillor in question has a job, as many do. That is not conducive to having a diverse range of elected representatives to do these jobs. Following local government reorganisation, if we have fewer leaders on boards and more holders of other portfolios and councillors, we may see this problem increase.”
“I have some more thrilling financial commentary, so I hope the Committee will forgive me. First, I welcome what the Minister has just said. Exactly this situation happened in Cambridgeshire and Peterborough, where our mayor went on medical leave for some time. His deputy, Councillor Anna Smith, who is a good friend of mine, ended up taking on the deputy mayoral role, so she had to drop hours at work and faced a significant loss of income. Our council took the decision to pay her as essentially a cabinet member, but it was not ideal. Clause 10 will resolve so many issues. I want to highlight a discrepancy in that, at present, there is usually no allowance for members who sit on the combined authority board.”
“I am really lucky in North West Cambridgeshire to represent a whole variety of heritage sites of different sizes, including Burghley House, which I visited recently—a 16th century stately home that welcomes thousands of visitors each year to the house itself and the gardens—and smaller sites such as John Clare Cottage, where the famous poet lived, the surroundings of which inspired so much of his poetry. As well as welcoming the local, national and international tourism to those sites, does the Minister agree that it is important that we support the educational work they do in respect of local history, agriculture and the natural environment?”
“I would say that the majority of mayors feel that that is a solution to some of the problem, where we have seen cowboys from way outside people’s patches, not necessarily with the same expectations on their vehicles or safety and so on, and we do not know who they are. It is important to have that clarity for the safety of the public.”
“Q I have a question for the whole panel, but first I would like to come on to something Mayor Brabin just said. I was really pleased you raised the issue of taxi licensing. We have a border problem around my area of Cambridgeshire and Peterborough, where taxis register in certain councils because they have laxer standards. Do you think there is a case for adding something to this Bill to give mayoral authorities a role in that licensing process, or at least for making it one of the first things brought forward under the right to request? Tracy Brabin: Thank you for that question; I know your mayor has raised that with me. The strategic overview is really helpful, because some councils might have different processes. Uniformity across mayoral strategic authorities can only be helpful.”
“Whether it is the night tsar or someone else—I apologise; I forget the one you said was appointed in Peterborough—ultimately, it is for the public to decide whether they are happy with how the mayor conducts matters and uses the powers given to them via the Government and Parliament.”
“You are in effect appointing a board that the mayor appoints—nobody else appoints it; it does not have to be democratically elected, with the exception that there has to be a councillor from the authority where that development corporation is established. We have had some experience of that over the last couple of years in Teesside, as I am sure you are aware. Ultimately, if you are not happy with that, or with the strategic direction that the mayor is setting for the board to follow, while individuals are not necessarily directly elected, the mayor is accountable. Therefore, if people are not happy with the commissioner, that can be shown through the ballot box at a mayoral election.”
“The strategic authorities could then have the right to call in or set some strategic licensing powers that the licensing authorities beneath them have to implement. That could be a way to address it. Ben Houchen: On the commissioner point, I echo what Tracy says: ultimately, the democratic power of that is vested in the mayor. It is for the mayor to appoint, or not. That goes further than just commissioners, with the changes in the Bill around the establishment of mayoral development corporations, the appointment to the boards of those and the fact they can, if they choose, take planning powers, compulsory purchase order powers and so on.”
“We were a growth area for it on the south coast, but I think its registered office and its licensing for drivers was up in Wolverhampton or somewhere, so it was miles away and had no bearing on what I was trying to deliver in Portsmouth, in terms of signage on taxis and the uniformity we were trying to achieve. On safety, and the point Tracy made about what we have been calling for as police and crime commissioners, I was calling three years ago for CCTV to be mandatory in taxis. What you could do, through Parliament, is to mandate that through separate taxi licensing regulation and law. Strategic authorities could play a part, if the licensing authorities remain, like local planning authorities, at the lowest level with the unitary authorities—as it will be after local government reorganisation.”
“The outcomes from that individual will reflect on the impact that the mayor is having, good or bad, so that is about public scrutiny as well. It is also helpful, if you are a strategic or combined authority, to have a good mix of partners. In West Yorkshire, we have three opposition members, so we are open to scrutiny and to challenge; that is where you can get the clear water of what is going on. Donna Jones: On licensing and the taxi point, when I was leader of Portsmouth city council 10 years ago, we were one of the areas where Uber exploded first.”
“Q Thank you; that is really helpful. On to my main question: in Cambridgeshire and Peterborough, our mayor announced that he intends to appoint as his planning commissioner a former leader of Peterborough city council, who is still a councillor, although currently in opposition. We have a democratic problem, where we have a commissioner who was denied a mandate, but has been brought in anyway. Is there a question here about how we ensure commissioners are accountable both to the public and to councils? Tracy Brabin: I suppose the same question could be asked of the police and crime commissioner. The deputy mayor for policing and crime, Alison Lowe, is not directly elected by the public; she is accountable to me. I am the one directly elected, and we hold the chief constable to account. That is democracy.”
“I would worry at the moment about whether there is enough capacity in local audit to support a public accounts committee. At the moment we have just enough of us to do the job that we are doing.”
“Q We have talked a lot about governance and the need to safeguard how financial procedures work on audit committees. I am interested in the flipside of that—in how we can protect taxpayer money through measures such as those in the devolution White Paper, including local public accounts committees. Could you give us your view on that? Mark Stocks: That is a good question. There is a remit for a local public accounts committee, but only one, if we do that. The NAO provides all the information to the national Public Accounts Committee, so it is then about how you co-ordinate that across local auditors to deliver the information for a public accounts committee to hold local government to account. Personally, I think that should be a long-term aim and aspiration.”
“I agree that to delve down into each one for an authority would be enormous, but looking at things in terms of thematics—how councils are coping with children’s social care, adult social care, regeneration or some of the Government policies—would I think be possible at a national level. Again, if you started to push it down into local committees, it is about who provides the information. That is always going to be the difficulty in having those committees.”
“Q That is useful. You talked about potentially having only one that perhaps has quite a big remit across the whole country. Do you think that would have enough time to do the work it would need to do, or is there a kind of midway point where perhaps you have regional committees or some other mechanism? Mark Stocks: I think it depends on how you view it and how much detail you want to get into. The contentious parts of local government are where things like regeneration schemes go awry, or where there are management decisions that lead to claims against the council in some form or another. Those tend to be national issues.”
“Q This is a question for Councillor Chapman-Allen about the balance of powers between councils and strategic authorities in the licensing space. A number of our district and unitary councils, including Peterborough and Huntingdonshire, in the area I represent are grappling with problems of taxi licensing, where taxis are potentially registering in nearby authorities with laxer regimes to avoid standards—”
“Sorry. Would you favour adding provisions to the Bill for strategic authorities to take over licensing powers to deal with that issue? Sam Chapman-Allen: None of my 169 members has ever asked for taxi licensing to be removed from a local principal council up to the strategic authority. If that is the Government’s intent, I am not hearing it. The most important bit is that those principal councils are constituent members, so that they can pull that respectable, responsible lever to get done what needs doing.”
“I recently met a police officer in Cambridgeshire who told me that that force had a policy requiring all footage from stop and searches to be reviewed by a more senior officer. Due to this, they feel discouraged from doing proactive patrols due to the extra work that it adds for already stretched supervisors. Will the Policing Minister write to Cambridgeshire’s Conservative police and crime commissioner and urge him to be more proactive on challenging these issues so that our frontline police can spend as much time as possible out in our communities?”
“I have been supporting constituents living in ex-military housing on Embry Road in Wittering, in my constituency. The Ministry of Defence sold the homes years ago, but my constituents have been left in limbo because their properties remain wrongly classified under MOD commercial energy contracts. Despite repeated attempts, many have been unable to set up domestic accounts and are now suddenly facing backdated gas and electricity bills of up to £6,000. Does the Leader of the House agree that the issue of billing errors deserves a debate in Parliament? Will he ensure that Ministry of Defence officials contact me so that we can get those homes reclassified, which would allow my constituents to access fair tariffs and avoid further financial distress?”
“Last week, I visited RAF Wyton in Huntingdonshire, which employs many of my constituents. Under the new cyber and specialist operations command, Wyton provides a critical part of our defence intelligence, and the plans to expand the work of the base will provide significant career opportunities for my constituents in northern Huntingdonshire. [ Interruption. ] Yes, the hon. Member for Huntingdon (Ben Obese-Jecty) was there, too.”
“Thank you, Mr Speaker. Does the Minister agree that developing the defence industry in Huntingdonshire will unlock local growth and prosperity? Can he outline how we will support skills development to ensure my constituents can access these opportunities?”
“In January, the sewer on Church Street in Northborough, a village in my constituency, collapsed. After several attempts by Anglian Water, it still has not been fixed eight months later. This means a risk of contamination, and because of road closures, it is causing huge potholes on surrounding roads. Householders on Church Street are even reporting cracks in their homes. Does the Leader of the House agree that we should have a debate in Parliament on significant infrastructure damage by water companies and the impact that that has on residents?”
“At Fletton Quays in my constituency, managed by Gateway Properties, leasehold residents are reporting that service charges have increased by as much as 150% in the last two years. Flats are under warranty and faults should be fixed by Weston Homes, which built the property, but instead are being fixed by Gateway, which has increased the service charge and, I understand, has even been sending separate bills on top. I know that the Government have been keen to address issues relating to high service charges and the need for financial transparency for leaseholders; can the Secretary of State provide an update on that work?”
“Under the Bill as drafted, there is no sanction for that. Those elders are not mandated reporters; even if they were, the proposed offence in clause 73 of stopping someone else from making a report—an offence I very much welcome, for the record—applies only to other mandated reporters. If, therefore, someone pressures a victim or their parents not to make a report, that will not be illegal. That offence needs to be broadened, too. The National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children is calling for the Government to consider a broader offence of concealing child sexual abuse, to which I urge the Government to give serious consideration. I will give more detail on that later, if there is time.”
“Schedule 8 does include a definition of religious leaders, but requires such people to have “regular unsupervised contact” with children to be subject to the duty. That qualification will allow virtually any religious leader—be they paid clergy or a volunteer elder, like in the Jehovah’s Witnesses—to escape the duty, as very few have regular unsupervised contact with children, despite being in a significant position of power and influence. I personally know at least one person who was sexually abused as a child in that organisation. When they went to speak to religious leaders about it, in the presence of their parents—not unsupervised—they were advised that going to the police would mean bringing reproach on God’s name. So no report was made, by either the victim or their family, or by those religious elders. That is commonplace.”
“IICSA recommended that the duty should apply first to anyone working in regulated activities with children under the Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Act 2006, and the Bill uses that criterion—tick. However, IICSA also recommended that it should apply to anyone in a position of trust over a child, as defined by the Sexual Offences Act 2003, which the Bill does not include. Amendment 22 would make it so. The Bill sets out a list of relevant activities in part 2 of schedule 8, which replicates about 90% of what is in the Sexual Offences Act. However, that missing 10% is critical; for a start, it includes sports coaches and teachers, which schedule 8 does not. Going back to my earlier example, section 22A of the Sexual Offences Act includes a very effective definition of religious leaders.”
“Many other countries—France, Australia, parts of Canada and so on—have introduced mandatory reporting, and many have done so with criminal sanctions of this kind. While the Government will likely say that criminal sanctions could have a chilling effect that would stop people going into professions that work with children, the international evidence clearly shows that this does not happen—in the Australian state of Victoria, for instance. Professor Ben Mathews has done extensive research on mandatory reporting laws and their efficacy, which I thoroughly encourage the Minister to ask officials to examine. The second gap relates to those who come under the duty to report.”
“I will cover the three gaps in turn. First, there are no criminal sanctions if someone does not comply with the duty. I understand that the Government are proposing professional sanctions, such as a referral to the Disclosure and Barring Service and to relevant professional regulators, but that is not set out in the Bill and would apply to only a fraction of people under the duty. It would not, for example, do much in religious settings, where so many of the failings are happening, and where the duty would, if constructed properly, help immensely to protect children. IICSA was clear that failure to comply should be a criminal offence, and amendment 10 would make that the case. It proposes a fine as the appropriate sanction, which is in line with best practice overseas.”