Vikki Slade
MP for Mid Dorset and North Poole · Liberal Democrat · United Kingdom
“That appears to conflict with rule 5.3, which states: “No politician may be used as a newsreader, interviewer or reporter in any news programmes”, and rule 5.9, which says that “presenters must not use the advantage of regular appearances to promote their views in a way that compromises the requirement for due impartiality.” The hon.”
House of Commons29 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I am glad that the hon. Lady intervened because that is apparently the root of the problem with my church. BT Openreach sent out an installer who was able to deal only with copper, but that is all being turned off in January, so he went away again.”
House of Commons29 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The vouchers have been suspended in Dorset for at least the last two years, and even when they are available, no commercial provider will provide internet to six properties if the UK Government-sponsored provider does not feel that it is viable either.”
House of Commons29 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The hon. Member is absolutely spot on. We know that the Minister is raising our concerns, but we need Ofcom to have the right powers, and we need to know what powers the Minister is seeking to give Ofcom if the situation persists. I have to share one other example to do with the post.”
House of Commons29 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Although the media landscape has become more complex, any organisation wishing to operate on television or radio must be subject to Ofcom regulation. The Ofcom broadcasting code is not optional, and it exists to protect the public from harm.”
House of Commons29 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The hon. Member comes to my point about whether Ofcom is fit for purpose and needs to be broken up. He mentions the fines for people getting their bills late and missed hospital appointments, yet there is no real compensation scheme for customers.”
House of Commons29 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
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“Allotments also offer an opportunity for intergenerational activity. I wonder whether the hon. Member for Broxbourne would like to spend some time at an allotment, because it does not look like something he would like to do.”
House of Commons28 October 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“(2) Meeting under subsection (1) must occur at least every 12 months.’ (3) After section 40B of GLAA 1999 (inserted by section 21 of this Act) insert— ‘40C Mayoral duty to convene meetings with local public service providers and government (1) The Mayor must convene regular meetings with— (a) principal local authorities within their area, (b) public service providers in their area, and (c) town and parish councils within their area. (2) Meeting under subsection (1) must occur at least every 12 months.’”— (Manuela Perteghella.) This amendment would require mayors of combined authorities, mayors of CCAs, and the Mayor of London to regularly convene meetings with local government actors within their area. Brought up, and read the First time. Question put, That the clause be read a Second time.”
House of Commons28 October 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“(2) Meeting under subsection (1) must occur at least every 12 months.’ (2) After section 103B of LDEDCA 2009 (inserted by section 21 of this Act) insert— ‘103C Mayoral duty to convene meetings with local public service providers and government (1) The mayor for the area of a combined authority must convene regular meetings with— (a) principal local authorities within their area, (b) public service providers in their area, and (c) town and parish councils within their area.”
House of Commons28 October 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“We will not push new clause 41 to a Division, but my hon. Friend the Member for Bath may wish to table it again on Report. New Clause 42 Power of mayors to convene meetings with local public service providers and government “(1) After section 17B of LURA 2023 (inserted by section 21 of this Act) insert— ‘17C Mayoral duty to convene meetings with local public service providers and government (1) The mayor for the area of a CCA must convene regular meetings with— (a) principal local authorities within their area, (b) public service providers in their area, and (c) town and parish councils within their area.”
House of Commons28 October 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time. I will speak on behalf of my hon. Friend the Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Tom Gordon). I am sure that in doing so I will also speak on behalf of other Members, in areas such as Cornwall and Yorkshire—my hon. Friend the Member for North Cornwall (Ben Maguire) in particular, but I suspect there may be others, even in this room, who support the intent of the new clause. In short, the new clause would push devolution a step further.”
House of Commons28 October 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The provision is embryonic, so that it allows for a lot of work and consultation to be done in the areas where it would apply. This is an opportunity to signal a direction of travel towards genuine devolution for places with special characteristics—I would argue that the Isle of Wight might have such special characteristics—or national minority status. We hope that the Minister will take the opportunity to embrace this change.”
House of Commons28 October 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“We hope that those will be effective in securing the support of the Minister. This new clause is hugely important in relation to the people living in these areas. It would introduce greater protections and rights for local populations in those areas, devolving more decision-making powers and granting more freedoms from decisions made in Westminster, which are less applicable to these distinct areas. It would advance on the Bill’s power for collaboration across areas by providing an assembly structure through which multiple councils and mayors—although I recognise that if it was Cornwall, it would be a single council, probably with no mayor—could work together at scale to drive coherent change for a given region. Clearly, the measure would need to be developed through the regulations listed in the new clause.”
House of Commons28 October 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. I did a little research on the national minority status introduced by the former Liberal Democrat Chief Secretary to the Treasury, Danny Alexander, back in 2014. This is fundamental. Cornwall has national minority status and it is critical that no Bill, including this one, should undermine that position. Other areas with strong regional identities and commonalities could potentially benefit from the new clause, which would allow for a degree of regional governance, across a number of mayoral regions, through the creation of regional assemblies. The clause includes protections: the Secretary of State would be required to assess the local appetite and need for a body, and Parliament would have to approve the creation of such an assembly.”
House of Commons28 October 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Unfortunately, the two Liberal Democrats who represent Cornwall—my hon. Friends the Members for North Cornwall and for St Ives (Andrew George)—are not on this Bill Committee, but they have put their names to the new clause, as has a Yorkshire Member, my hon. Friend the Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough.”
House of Commons28 October 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“No, I am not going to withdraw the new clause. If the Minister reads it, she will see that I am not conflating the issues at all. I simply gave Cornwall as an example of where it might work. The new clause does not mention the word “Cornwall”. It allows for “a regional governance body in any part of England, where in the opinion of the Secretary of State there is demonstrable local support for such a body”, so it does not undermine the role of the strategic authority. Let me give the Minister another example. Whether Cornwall is or is not included is up to the people of Cornwall, but Wessex, we presume, will come forward in the next wave of devolution deals. Wessex may be a functional geography in terms of our connectivity, but the south-west of England is the place that most of us identify with far more.”
House of Commons28 October 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I refer the Minister to the fact that I gave Cornwall as an example of a place where people may want to set up a regional governance body. The new clause was tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Tom Gordon), initially in reference to Yorkshire, which has a number of mayoral authorities that want to work together. The people of Yorkshire feel that they have an identity as Yorkshire, and they want a regional assembly. If the Minister would like me to withdraw my comment about the fact that that may work for Cornwall, she should feel free to ask, but I know for a fact that my hon. Friend the Member for North Cornwall (Ben Maguire) believes that the new clause would benefit him in Cornwall, so I will not withdraw it. It is important to give people the opportunity to have something that they feel works for them.”
House of Commons28 October 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I would like to thank all the Committee staff, yourself, Dame Siobhain, and all of the other Chairs, and all the Members on the Committee. I also thank the staff in our offices, who have had to work really hard and stay quite late into the evening to ensure that everything gets put into the Public Bill Office for the next stage. I pay tribute to all of them.”
House of Commons28 October 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“T7. On Saturday, I joined CAFOD and my constituents Karl, Harry and Jo on a deadlift challenge. We—and yes, Mr Speaker, that includes me—collectively lifted more than 100 tonnes, the equivalent of five aid planes to Gaza. CAFOD also works in the west bank, where Palestinians are being treated as second-class citizens living under military, not civil, law. What diplomatic actions is the Department taking to ensure an end to violence against Palestinians and to improve their rights while a two-state solution is negotiated?”
House of Commons28 October 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Can the Secretary of State update the House with a bit more detail on the progress of airspace modernisation in relation to noise? Residents in my constituency who are on the flightpath for Bournemouth airport have no night-time restrictions and are seeing massive increases. In places such as Dorset, people are being disturbed in their homes and in their sleep. If regional airports will not be included, can the Secretary of State explain when we can get something further on them?”
House of Commons22 October 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Last Monday in the Chamber—I believe you were present, Sir John—two Conservative Members raised cases from their own constituencies. A previous Minister said that a series of households had been badly hit. It is clear that the CIL regulations are not intended to operate in this way. We do not believe our new clause would create a significant new burden on the Secretary of State; it is there to assist, and we would be grateful for a commitment that its provisions will be rolled into the legislation.”
House of Commons21 October 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“We know that CIL is supposed to be charged on additional dwellings for commercial use, not on self-builds or extensions, but that has happened in a number of councils around the country. There are a couple of councils in Surrey—Waverley in particular has a huge problem. The new Liberal Democrat council in West Berkshire had to pay back £300,000 in total to 18 different constituents who had all been incorrectly charged. In my own county of Dorset, there are cases where people have been incorrectly charged. In some instances, people have been building their own home and suddenly had a notice put on the path outside. Some have been chased down for huge amounts of money, and some for tiny amounts of money, and have had court charges applied to them. It is a problem that needs solving.”
House of Commons21 October 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“That is one of the reasons why we have tabled new clause 1, although the Minister may say we do not need part of it. The first part of the new clause states that the Secretary of State must, within six months of the passing of the Act, prepare and publish guidance on the implementation and administration of community infrastructure levy charges—tt may be that that is going to happen anyway. More importantly, there is the issue of error and incorrect charging. I have been speaking to my hon. Friend the Member for Newbury (Mr Dillon), who has been involved with the CIL Injustice Group, where there have been miscalculated charges, with councils charging up to £100,000 for the community infrastructure levy completely incorrectly.”
House of Commons21 October 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It is a pleasure to have you back in the Chair, Sir John. I welcome the introduction of MCIL. We have spoken before about how these authorities will be funded, and this is another tool in the toolbox. I am slightly concerned about how it will sit alongside strategic CIL and neighbourhood CIL. I would be really concerned if this took away the portion of money that is available for local neighbourhoods through neighbourhood forums or town and county councils to spend on hyper-local infrastructure, which can otherwise never be funded. I am also interested in the pieces of infrastructure that currently are funded through strategic CIL by an upper-tier authority. Will those responsibilities pass in full across to the mayor, so that we do not end up with a situation where the mayor gets the CIL, but the council gets the responsibility?”
House of Commons21 October 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Will the hon. Member comment on the fact that, according to the CIL Injustice Group, £1.65 million has been incorrectly charged. The Minister for Housing and Planning said: “It is very clear to us that the CIL regulations in question are not intended to operate in this way. We are giving very serious consideration to amending them to ensure that no one else is affected in this manner.” Will the hon. Member join me in asking why the Minister would not take the opportunity to put that provision in the Bill, when it has a clause specifically about community infrastructure levy?”
House of Commons21 October 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It is absolutely right that there should be expertise, strategic people, and perhaps people from other sectors with skills, talents and experience from other places or sectors, but the organisation needs to be locally led. That is why my amendment 60 simply states that a majority of members of an MDC should be “elected members of relevant councils”. We think that that is a minor amendment that would benefit and broaden trust, and lock it in to local decision making.”
House of Commons21 October 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It is important that people trust the organisations that are doing such large-scale development, which can potentially make enormous changes to the landscapes around them, whether on credible brownfield sites or, as others have said, through new towns or greenfield development, about which people are far more sensitive. The Bill states that a mayoral development corporation must have at least one member from each constituent authority and that there must be no fewer than six members, but it does not give a maximum number. There is a real risk that if there is simply one member from each authority—some of these authorities are fairly large to start with—the majority of a corporation may be made up of people who are not connected to the community.”
House of Commons21 October 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I beg to move amendment 60, in schedule 17, page 195, line 23, leave out from “that” to end of line 24 and insert “the majority of members of an MDC are elected members of relevant councils”. This amendment would require that the make-up of Mayoral Development Corporation boards must have a majority of members from constituent councils. We welcome the introduction of the mayoral development corporations across the country. Some good successes have been achieved in London; not many miles from here, the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park continues to grow and expand, and it has some incredible facilities, including a new arts hub. The one small thing that we would like the Minister to consider is the make-up of the corporations.”
House of Commons21 October 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I beg to move amendment 54, in schedule 19, page 200, line 17, at end insert— “(d) comply with any Land Use Framework issued by the Secretary of State, and (e) comply with any local nature recovery strategies applicable to the area covered by the authority. (2A) The Secretary of State must take steps to support a mayoral combined authority in complying with the provisions of paragraphs (2)(d) and (2)(e) of this section.” This amendment requires mayoral combined authorities to ensure their local growth plans comply with any overarching Land Use Framework and relevant local nature recovery strategies.”
House of Commons21 October 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“––[Official Report, Planning and Infrastructure Public Bill Committee, 29 April 2025; c. 94.] Fundamentally, there is a real risk of a failure to think about the needs of rural economies such as Cornwall’s, which are reliant on the way that we use our land. Those may not be traditional uses of the land—they may be ancient industrial ones—but those need to be considered.”
House of Commons21 October 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The amendments would ensure that the local growth plans schedule makes reference to, and considers in some reasonable depth, the needs of nature. I have gone back through the schedule, and I cannot see any reference to nature, nature recovery, or anything that suggests that the Government understand the rural economy. It feels very much like a schedule that is written with towns in mind. My hon. Friend the Member for Taunton and Wellington (Gideon Amos), the Liberal Democrat spokesperson for housing and planning, spoke in the Planning and Infrastructure Bill Committee—I am sure some colleagues in here were also on that Committee—about the importance of bolting in the land use framework to the planning system. I think he described it as otherwise being “an expensive waste of time”.”
House of Commons21 October 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I recognise that the Minister has not yet accepted any of our amendments, so I recognise that getting this one through may be a real struggle, but it is so important, particularly given how, as the shadow Minister has already explained, the Planning and Infrastructure Bill has really squeezed out nature. I say to the Minister, “Please put nature back in and recognise that the land use frameworks and nature recovery strategies matter.” In many places they already exist and already have local buy-in, and we would not want to see mayoral authorities ride roughshod over what is already there.”
House of Commons21 October 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“We underestimate the power of that at our peril. We have huge areas of countryside where farming is becoming a marginal activity. Rather than being the driver, it is almost becoming something that people are doing because they love it—but they are losing money hand over fist. If we do not bake in that land use framework, which already pre-exists the local growth plan, it will be much easier for farmers to “get rich quick” by moving land out of its existing use and into what the economic development plan sees as the latest, greatest new thing—losing that land forever—rather than complying with a land use framework that explains why it is so important to keep that land in use, and helps to retain the value of that land for farming, or ancient industry, into the future.”
House of Commons21 October 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The National Trust is also buying land that is no longer commercially viable and restoring it for rewilding, ensuring that it is there for generations to come. Failing to think about that as part of the local economic strategy is a missed opportunity, and it risks subverting development that is already there. Economic development is not independent of our lives. People move to places because they have nature around them. Those places may have great shops, town centres and theatres, but people will also move there because of the great quality of life. A lot of people will say that being in nature is a part of making their lives better and happier. If times are tough and people do not have a lot of money in their pocket, being close to nature is something that they can still enjoy and that restores their mental health.”
House of Commons21 October 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The shadow Minister is exactly right; that is why so many people are so worried about the Planning and Infrastructure Bill. My inbox has been filled with people asking how they can block it, because of the damage it will do to so much of our nature. The piece missing from this measure is that economic growth in rural areas is fundamentally entwined with nature recovery. In my area in Dorset, Purbeck Heaths is a new national nature park, and nature tourism is actually one of our growth industries. We have incredible charitable businesses, such as Birds of Poole Harbour, that have brought back species to Dorset—species that have been missing for generations and are now thriving—and we now have a whole industry growing around that.”
House of Commons21 October 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Local nature recovery strategies matter not only in rural areas. If someone lives in the most urban part of the country, the local nature strategy is critical to those tiny pockets, so I would argue that it is as relevant in cities as it is in rural areas.”
House of Commons21 October 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I recall a similar argument being made last week to my hon. Friend the Member for Stratford-on-Avon, and a reference to “nascent” organisations. My hon. Friend pointed out that by the time the Bill comes into play some of the land use frameworks will be up and running, so they predate the legislation that will form the local growth plans. It feels completely pointless and a waste of money for local authorities to spend all that time putting in place the land use frameworks only for this legislation to come along and say, “Well, they haven’t really been tested.””
House of Commons21 October 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I beg to move amendment 364, in schedule 19, page 200, line 17 at end insert— “(d) identify the plan’s contribution to targets set out by— (i) sections 1 to 3 of the Environment Act 2021, (ii) Part 1 of the Climate Change Act 2008, and (iii) the Air Quality Standards Regulations 2010.” This amendment would require combined authorities to have regard to targets set by the Environment Act 2021, Climate Change Act 2008, and Air Quality Standards Regulations 2010 in developing local growth plans.”
House of Commons21 October 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Interestingly, schedule 19 provides that the local plan must include all the economic factors and list their impact. Adding environmental factors would be a minor change. We will press the two amendments to a vote.”
House of Commons21 October 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“If a local authority is going to drive economic growth by, for example, creating a large industrial estate that will damage air quality or create incredible congestion, it is not paying attention to the environmental factors. I am sure that the Minister will tell us that all those things form part of a decision on a planning application. However, if this Government are genuinely committed to their international and national obligations on climate change, and if they are committed to reducing health inequalities, in which we know air quality is a major factor, it seems a small thing to make these amendments, which would assure that mayors—who may not have the same commitment as the Government to protecting air quality and our environment—must identify the contributions.”
House of Commons21 October 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I am a little confused, Dame Siobhan, because amendments 352 and 353 are in the same grouping. I am assuming that you will return to 353. I am grateful for the support of the hon. Member for Brighton Pavilion who has also signed amendment 364, along with my hon. Friend the Member for Stratford-on-Avon and my hon. Friend the Member for Guildford (Zöe Franklin). Amendments 364 and 365 are a simple pair of amendments; they are identical in wording, but one applies to a county combined authority and one to a combined authority. It really is quite straightforward: economic growth should not be off the back of public health and environmental damage.”
House of Commons21 October 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“There is a big difference between what has been done by mayors who have gone before and creating mayors across the whole country. The new mayors will have very different backgrounds and landscapes, both geographical and political, to deal with. The word “hope” has done a lot of heavy lifting today, and although I also hope that all these mayors are as great as some of the mayors who have gone before, the Minister has more confidence in them than I do. Legislation is there to ensure that we are not reliant on the good will of hard-working people in political posts, and to protect us from people who may achieve political office and then seek to create something that we will have to undo, at great cost to our economy and health.”
House of Commons21 October 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I am minded to press the amendment to a Division, so that our commitment to this is on record. I hope that the Minister will take onboard that this is done in good faith. Question put, That the amendment be made.”
House of Commons21 October 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“(2) In discharging the duty under subsection (1), the Secretary of State must regularly review the financial and administrative needs of mayoral combined authorities in respect of functions relating to local growth plans, taking into account the— (a) strategic importance, and (b) complexity of any such plans.” This amendment creates a requirement for regular reviews of the needs of mayoral combined authorities with regard to local growth plans.”
House of Commons21 October 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I beg to move amendment 52, in schedule 19, page 201, line 6, at end insert— “107MA Funding and support relating for Local Growth plans (1) The Secretary of State has a duty to ensure that mayoral combined authorities have sufficient financial resources and adequate administrative support to discharge effectively any functions relating to the— (a) preparation, (b) publication, and (c) delivery of local growth plans.”
House of Commons21 October 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“These amendments are really about probing to ask whether these growth plans will be coming with the money attached to them so that local areas, wherever they are in the country, have a fighting chance of producing a really good growth plan that benefits every resident within their area. That is why I have tabled these amendments: to try to draw a bit more out of the Minister.”
House of Commons21 October 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“These amendments are designed to make that point, to probe the Minister and to ask for further consideration about how the Secretary of State can assure local communities, who will be paying for these authorities, that there will be sufficient financial resources and adequate administrative support to discharge the functions involved in the preparation, publication and delivery of the local growth plans. There is no point in having a fantastic plan if it cannot be delivered, or if the organisations beneath the strategic authority have just gone bust. I have said it before: the money is coming either from levies, from precepts, or potentially from grant funding through central Government.”
House of Commons21 October 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Amendments 52 and 53 are about funding strategic authorities for the local growth plans. I apologise to Committee members—they are going to get bored of hearing me say the same thing—but the point I am trying to make with these amendments is that we are pushing huge amounts of responsibility, cost and activity into a space that does not yet have clarity about how that will be paid for. As we all know, our local authorities are at breaking point, with many of them expecting to make section 114 declarations within the next 12 months. I am deeply concerned that additional responsibilities to help to fund a strategic authority above them—they will have to pay in through a levy but they will have only minimal involvement in the decision making coming back down—will put them under more pressure.”
House of Commons21 October 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“For clarity, at the point of the spending review when Departments are given their spending powers, are we to expect the strategic authorities to be separately and directly given a settlement each year, or will that be over a three-year period in the way that local authorities are given that settlement? I just want clarity that it is a separate pot of money from local authority funding, because I would not want to see them have to fight like rats in a sack with the mayoral authorities above them.”
House of Commons21 October 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I did not table an amendment on this, but might there be a drafting error in not allowing the strategic authority to pay a grant to an organisation associated with a constituent council? There is an opportunity there to use our town and parish councils in this way.”
House of Commons21 October 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I welcome this provision. It is hugely important that money can flow in both directions, but there is one glaring omission, and the Committee will know what it is. The clause gives the strategic authority the power to pay a grant to a constituent council, but not to a town or parish council. It may be that a town or parish council is fulfilling one of the areas of competence for the strategic authority. For example, under clause 2(g), public safety, a town council might be running CCTV or paying for community safety accreditation team officers. Under clause 2(e), environment and climate change, that parish or town council might be delivering solar insulation or be rewilding.”
House of Commons21 October 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I thank the Minister for that assurance. I simply want the opportunity not to be denied. Town and parish councils often say, “Well, we are not allowed to access that,” but there may be an opportunity here, and to exclude them would be a shame. Perhaps use of “may” would give that opportunity for grant funding. I would welcome a tiny amendment at some point in the future. It is something to reflect on. Question put and agreed to. Clause 39 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill . Clause 40 Encouragement of visitors and promotion of visitors”
House of Commons21 October 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Does my hon. Friend agree that it is now quite common for a town council to run the tourist information centre? The only two places in my constituency that have a tourist information centre are Wareham and Wimborne. Often, the tourist information centre might be in a museum that is run independently, but it is not the local authority that runs it any more; it is the town council.”
House of Commons21 October 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“On that point, Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole council did attempt to introduce an accommodation levy. Unfortunately it failed on a technicality, but it may well come back. The amendment asks for a review into a visitor levy, but what is important is that, if one is implemented, it does not end up going back to the Treasury. There would be no benefit to a local community whatsoever if money collected from a visitor paying £2 a night to stay in a hotel ends up going back to Government, when it is the local economy that is damaged and the local economy that can benefit—”
House of Commons21 October 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“A couple of amendments have been tabled on that issue. I think they were supported as a coalition by the Opposition, but not by the hon. Member for Camborne and Redruth.”
House of Commons21 October 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I wonder whether the hon. Member has a situation in Hampshire similar to ours in Dorset, where we have the DAPTC—the Dorset Association of Parish and Town Councils. Nothing in the amendment states that the strategic authority would have to engage with each and every town and parish council; it just says, “with town and parish councils”. That could be through their associations and through clusters of town and parish councils, such as the DAPTC.”
House of Commons21 October 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗