YouSaid · the spoken record
Steve Barclay
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On the record 2012–2026
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“I fear that Ministers now need to look at the accountability to democratic control of not just the Environment Agency, but Natural England—not least given the three interventions we have heard from colleagues across the House.”
House of Commons4 June 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“As in the King’s dyke fishing example, as a constituency MP one chases on behalf of constituents to get them some answers, yet organisations feel they are unaccountable. That brings me to my final point. It will not surprise the Minister that, as a member of the last Government, I quite frequently raised my constituency concerns—before I was in the Department—with relevant Secretaries of State, and I know that they raised those with the EA; yet, as we see with Saxon Pit, it still failed to take prosecution action over seven years while saying to people locally, “It is a priority case.” As Secretary of State myself, I found the organisation so unresponsive that I had to take the unusual step of issuing a ministerial direction. In fact, I issued two in my six months in the Department, where none had been issued in the seven years before.”
House of Commons4 June 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I do share them. Just for the Minister’s benefit, the hon. Gentleman’s constituency will be materially affected by the Wisbech incinerator in terms of transport; when the developers doubled its size in order to take it out of the local planning process, they created a different problem of how to get sufficient waste to run it. Therefore, it has to take in waste from further and further afield. As Wisbech is a market town, accessed by single carriageway roads—the A47 is single carriageway into Wisbech—bringing waste through my neighbour’s constituency will cause huge traffic there, as it will in many other constituencies across the eastern region. A BBC report highlights the severe environmental damage that would be caused by the proposed incinerator, but the hon. Gentleman also highlights a wider point about lack of transparency.”
House of Commons4 June 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Irrespective of that, as we heard in interventions from across the House, the EA’s lack of transparency and accountability on its operational performance needs to be addressed. I encourage the Minister to focus some time in her busy schedule on doing that.”
House of Commons4 June 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It does need fundamental reform. I became Secretary of State very close to the general election, but one of my first acts was to issue an instruction to take more rigorous enforcement action more generally on water pollution. I know that current Ministers want to see a more robust set of actions. I come to my final point. Not least given the Government’s majority and where we are in the parliamentary cycle, there is an opportunity to look at the Department’s relationship with its arm’s length bodies. The Department of Health and Social Care is going through that exact process with NHS England. I encourage the ministerial team to reflect on that, not least for when in some years’ time they are explaining how, if there is lack of action, that sits with some of their priorities.”
House of Commons4 June 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I thank my right hon. Friend and constituency neighbour for giving way. Does he agree that this concern about the high levels of immigration is also an issue of democracy and the sense of people not being heard? I noted the hon. Member for Hartlepool (Mr Brash) expressing support for deportations of foreign-born criminals, but unless the Government use levers—restrictions on visas for those countries not taking people back—we will again see too many foreign-born criminals in our prisons instead of being deported back to their native country.”
House of Commons21 May 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I wonder whether the case study that is being presented to officials and the information that comes to Ministers properly reflects known concerns raised by Ministers, which appear to have been routinely ignored.”
House of Commons21 May 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“As one of the ex-Ministers who is still here, perhaps I can contribute in a spirit of helpfulness to the current Minister. My right hon. Friend and I have discussed this issue many times. I was so concerned by this proposal as Secretary of State for Health and Social Care that I visited Porton Down and gave a very clear steer—not least when I found, to my huge surprise, that the nursery was being closed, which I thought was the wrong decision. He, like me, was Chief Secretary to the Treasury. As Chief Secretary to the Treasury, I gave a very clear steer that I was concerned that this move did not represent value for money, that times had changed and that the proposal was in error.”
House of Commons21 May 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Having had the opportunity to be involved in spending reviews, I would be interested to know the current provision for this scheme in the budget over the next three years, because alongside assessing the benefits, there will be the simple question of what is affordable. The NAO has set out an estimate of over £3 billion for the overall cost, but what has the Department provisioned for the spending review period?”
House of Commons21 May 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“This announcement is a further illustration of why this House should legislate to remove all impediments to the deportation of foreign national offenders. In his reply to the shadow Justice Secretary, the Minister said that victims who are affected by this policy should be kept informed about release, yet he refused to say whether the Department has conducted an impact assessment. What new information is he today willing to commit to publishing each month, so that victims are indeed kept informed?”
House of Commons15 May 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I join the Leader of the House and the shadow Leader of the House in their tributes to Sir Roy Stone, further to those in the House on Tuesday. He was the most exceptional civil servant and his loss is deeply felt by many. Can we have a debate in Government time on any legislative and wider changes needed to deliver value for money in the restoration and renewal programme, particularly given Government statements on wider pressures on the public finances and the fact that so many Members of the House were newly elected last July and therefore have not had an opportunity to give their views and shape the programme?”
House of Commons15 May 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I appreciate that the stock answer is, “We do not comment on individual enforcement cases”, but could the Minister tell us the average cost of a successful prosecution for a sanctions breach, and how many there have been since the Government came to office?”
House of Commons15 May 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The right hon. Member for Islington South and Finsbury (Emily Thornberry) and I do not agree on many issues, but she is absolutely right to focus on enforcement. Before coming to this place, I was head of sanctions and anti-money laundering at a financial institution, so with respect, I found it a bit naive for the Minister to say in his statement that avoiding sanctions does not pay; these are often very profitable accounts. He also referenced the issue of compliance in his statement, but institutions often say that they are complying by filing suspicious activity reports, safe in the knowledge that insufficient action will be taken.”
House of Commons15 May 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Indeed, there is an irony here, because we still have the ongoing covid inquiry. I was Chief Secretary to the Treasury at the time of covid, and it was clear to me that at a time of national crisis, value for money changes; there is competing demand across nations for scarce resources. I assure Members that, at such a crisis point, food security becomes an issue of national security, which is why the carelessness of the current Government on their manifesto commitment matters so much.”
House of Commons15 May 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“To understand this Government’s approach to solar farms, one should start by re-reading the Labour manifesto —page 59 of the Labour manifesto to be more precise. I know that it was only a year ago, but in its solemn promise to the British people, it said: “Labour recognises that food security is national security. That is why we will champion British farming”. That may now seem a long time ago, because a succession of announcements from this Government have made it clear that there is no commitment to farming or to food security. Indeed, that applies to many of their other commitments—smash the gangs, council tax bills will not go up, or energy bills will come down. On food security and its importance to national security it is clear that it was a fake promise.”
House of Commons15 May 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Sir John Hayes) would point out, in areas of the best food production. We are seeing a gaming of the system, where the developers bring in consultants to grade the land in ways that sit at odds with historic knowledge of the value of that land.”
House of Commons15 May 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“When I warned at the election about Labour’s farm tax, the now DEFRA Secretary of State said that it was complete nonsense. Well, we have seen the Government introduce that tax and watched while the Treasury rode roughshod over the Department. We have a Department that is completely sidelined in the Government and failing to speak up not just for food security and farming, but for the very commitments that were made in the Labour manifesto. We see a theme running across a whole range of policy announcements that shows the instinct, the values and the priorities of this Government, who always believe that top-down knows best. They do not believe in localism. The implication for solar farms can be seen in how the delivery of the policy is happening on the ground. We are seeing clusters in the east of England, as my right hon.”
House of Commons15 May 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“We see the Prime Minister announce things such as the compulsory purchase of farmland in order to support infrastructure schemes; we see the former Labour leader, the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, make a whole raft of decisions in his first few weeks of office on massive solar farms, overriding DEFRA; we see the Deputy Prime Minister riding roughshod over the DEFRA Secretary of State on housing schemes; and we see the Chancellor phoning officials at DEFRA the night before to say that the sustainable farming incentive had been reduced so quickly that the Government have now had to concede in a legal case that their approach was wrong and allow a further 3,000 farm applications to proceed—and that is without any clear commitments in this area.”
House of Commons15 May 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Indeed, the Government are creating an incentive to do the exact opposite of own manifesto pledge, which is why I started with that point. Let me come on to the second place where we can see Labour’s approach—in the Cabinet. Of course, we cannot witness the Cabinet in action at first hand, but it is very clear—certainly to someone who has had the good fortune to sit in Cabinet—how marginalised the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has become.”
House of Commons15 May 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“This matters because it is related to wider trust in our politics. A clear commitment was given to rural communities by Labour in its manifesto that is being broken. I will close, conscious that many colleagues want to participate in this debate, with this comment for Labour Back Benchers. It may be that Nos. 10 and 11 have simply decided that, with their majority, they can afford to sacrifice a number of their rural MPs who had not been expected to win the election, and it may by that they decided that those MPs were not essential, but it is baffling that there is so much silence. These MPs are voting for measures that are having such a harmful effect in rural constituencies, and those measures are so short term that they are putting our food security, which does indeed matter to our national security, at risk.”
House of Commons15 May 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“My right hon. Friend is completely right; the issue is hiding in plain sight. When I was in the Government and sought to strengthen the protections for farmland, changes to the guidance were made, including bringing forward independent certification for agricultural land classification in soil surveys. We know at a constituency level that malpractice is going on and is not being challenged. The point is that that is not by accident. This is not an error of delivery. This is by design, and we can see that design in the raft of decisions made by the Energy Secretary in his very first weeks in office. Indeed, close to our constituencies, just near to Cambridge, there was an important announcement on a mega farm, which was made by the new Secretary of State against official advice.”
House of Commons15 May 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“One reason for getting the Bill through, one would hope, is to deliver on things like content credentials, which firms like Adobe have championed, to show who has produced a file, where the ownership sits and whether artificial intelligence has been used to edit it. Can the Minister confirm whether the Bill will deliver on that commitment on content credentials, and if not, why not?”
House of Commons14 May 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“My point is about AI being used to change photographs, and having the ability to see that through content credentials or the digital fingerprint. The point I am raising is that the Government themselves have still not adopted that, in terms of their official communications. Will the Bill deliver on that, and if not, why will the Government not adopt that best practice?”
House of Commons14 May 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Does my hon. Friend recognise that there is an issue of democracy here? Successive Governments and Ministers have said that they want to toughen up the regime, but that is undermined by activist judges. That is a further reason to support the new clauses that he mentions.”
House of Commons12 May 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The Minister has just set out once again, as the Prime Minister did earlier today, her steadfast commitment to the ECHR. Does she not accept that that means that the legislation is not watertight and that those who have committed serious criminality will continue to be able to stay in the United Kingdom, because of the ECHR?”
House of Commons12 May 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I join colleagues in welcoming this debate. The hon. Member is making some constructive suggestions, but a simple thing that the Government could do, because they have sole control of it, is look at the British Business Bank, which is sector-agnostic. That would be persuasive to international partners and would fit with the arguments he makes. Why are Ministers not willing to give a steer to the British Business Bank?”
House of Commons7 May 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“In other words, our existing capacity, at over 20 megatonnes, is more than we will need in just nine years’ time. My first question to the Minister is whether DEFRA will commit to publishing analysis assessing the environmental damage of building incinerators, such as the huge incinerator at Wisbech, against the fact that they will be surplus to requirements in as little as nine years’ time. In other words, it will three years to build the incinerator, and after six years of operation it will be additional capacity to what we will need. We therefore need to assess how those two things compare.”
House of Commons3 April 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“One can understand why so many people share my concern with the proposal. I do not want to repeat the very good points that colleagues have made. I want to highlight two new points that the debate has not highlighted so far, which I hope will help Opposition and Government Members and support my own case in empowering the Minister. First, I will cite the Government’s own figures. On 30 December —quite recently—the Government’s own analysis showed that as of 2024 there was already 20.6 megatonnes of residual waste infrastructure capacity in England, of which 14.3 megatonnes was incineration. To put that in plain language, we already have enough incinerator capacity today to deal with the amount of waste that was projected in 2023 to arise by 2035—19.4 megatonnes of residual municipal waste.”
House of Commons3 April 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Lewell. I welcome the debate called by the hon. Member for Derby South (Baggy Shanker); it highlights the cross-party consensus in opposing further incinerators. In terms of the Wisbech incinerator, it is remarkable that an application to build an incinerator half the size was rejected in the local authority next door, so the response of developers was to double the size in order to make it a nationally significant infrastructure project, to get out of the local planning rules; to put it next to the biggest school in the district—only 700 metres away; to take waste from six different counties, all on small roads in a rural market town; and to have a chimney bigger than Ely cathedral in the flat landscape of the Fens.”
House of Commons3 April 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn) pointed out, the predominant waste now going to incineration is plastics. It is the burning of plastics that drives the environmental damage, and that is why the hon. Member for Derby South correctly pointed out that it is the dirtiest way that the UK generates power. My second question is whether the Minister will commit to publishing a composition analysis study of the residual waste treated at energy recovery facilities, as I asked for in a written question on 16 October. DEFRA has confirmed that it is undertaking a composition analysis study, but it was not published with the December analysis. Will the Minister commit to publishing that, so that we can see where the waste is going? Again, that fundamentally changes the environmental case around incineration.”
House of Commons3 April 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“We need to look at the respective merits of building huge incinerators and the damage that they will do compared with the short-term bridging options. The second point is that the waste mix has changed. That was a feature of the BBC report that the hon. Member for Derby South highlighted. Burning food waste produces less CO 2 than putting it in landfill, but burning plastics produces 175 times more carbon dioxide than burying it. The reason that that matters—to my first point about bridging—is that the mix going into incineration has fundamentally changed from when the planning rules were initially put in place. What we have seen, and what the BBC highlighted, is an increase in food waste being dealt with through anaerobic digestion. As the right hon.”
House of Commons3 April 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“That is a fair point, which is addressed in DEFRA’s December paper. But as my hon. Friend the Member for Huntingdon (Ben Obese-Jecty) highlighted, there are two at Huntingdon, another at Peterborough and two at Boston. There is already a concentration, so I do not accept the point about the east of England in that paper. My point is that we need to see analysis from DEFRA around the bridging issue for the next few years as the Government meet their legal target to reduce the amount of waste by 50% between 2019 and 2042. The amount of residual waste is coming down and we already have sufficient capacity, but there is a bridging issue. There will be short-term options around landfill refuse-derived fuel exports.”
House of Commons3 April 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Just to follow the logic of the Minister’s point, if more recycling is being promoted by the Government, which is what she has set out, self-evidently both the composition of waste and the existing capacity for incineration will be sufficient. In their December paper, the Government said: “While there are a number of waste incineration facilities that are consented, but not yet under construction, it is highly unlikely that these will be brought forward.” If that is the Government’s expectation, and if the Minister is increasing recycling and the capacity is sufficient, why not give clarity to the public and her own Back Benchers by saying, “No more incinerators”?”
House of Commons3 April 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The Secretary of State and the hon. Member for Rochdale (Paul Waugh) are both right to praise the important work that rugby league and indeed rugby union clubs do in their communities. What steps is the Secretary of State taking to better balance that with the Public Accounts Committee’s cross-party criticism of how her Department is managing its covid loan book?”
House of Commons3 April 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The Active Learning Trust is closing the sixth-form Neale-Wade Academy, which will be harmful to social mobility in Fenland. Given that the hon. Member for Lichfield (Dave Robertson) raised a similar point, may we have a statement on what action Education Ministers and the regional schools director can take to ensure that the Active Learning Trust, about which there are serious questions, puts in place a recovery plan and is much more transparent about how its decisions are reached?”
House of Commons3 April 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“What was missing from the Secretary of State’s statement, and from his reply to both Opposition Front-Bench spokespeople, was the Government’s estimate of the cost of the tariffs, particularly in the context of the Chancellor’s fiscal headroom. Will the Secretary of State update the House on that specifically?”
House of Commons3 April 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The Minister seemed to be saying that, having stamped his foot and intervened, he has fixed the data issue, but colleagues have been saying that they are concerned about data. Could he clarify—is he still concerned about gaps in data, or is he saying that the gaps in data have now been addressed? Could he also write to the Members attending the debate to confirm the data issue?”
House of Commons2 April 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The Minister did say that. I welcome the fact that he has just corrected what he said. I think this is a debate in which everyone has a common purpose—particularly relating to the vulnerable and those with medical devices when there are storms and other crises—which is how we can arrive at a solution. Hopefully, we can work on that together. What came out of many of the interventions we have heard was a concern about gaps in data. For those of us who, as Ministers, have attended Cobra, one of the first things that is almost always found is a concern over the quality of data. In covid, we had to get the Information Commissioner to change the rules for the clinically extremely vulnerable because we did not have enough data.”
House of Commons2 April 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The Minister said a moment ago that all the money will stay in the sector. I assume he means the farming sector, but is that correct if some of the money goes to nature schemes or well-respected nature charities, which by nature are not part of the farming sector? Will he confirm that he is assuring the Committee that all that money will remain within the farming sector?”
House of Commons26 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“My hon. Friend is, as ever, making an excellent speech. One of the uncertainties is that there is no sense of when the scheme will open and what the budget will be. Briefings from Government insiders—particularly in the Treasury—say that non-protected Departments will be subject to significant cuts in the forthcoming spending review. Does he share my concern that it is very difficult for farmers to plan when the Government’s approach gives them 30 minutes’ notice and no clear information on these issues?”
House of Commons26 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It sounds like in one week my hon. Friend has seen more farms than the Secretary of State has since the general election. I draw his attention to the story in the Farmers Guardian that suggests the Secretary of State has been to only four farms since the general election. On a more serious point, that story also draws attention to the 84% of farmers who feel that their mental health has been affected by the autumn Budget. My hon. Friend is correctly setting out the financial implications of the changes, but does he share my concern about the mental health issues as well?”
House of Commons26 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The Bill is a missed opportunity on things like incinerators, as it will make it easier to get planning permission to burn plastic, which is damaging for the environment and damaging for nature. And yet the farmers, who are the people we need on side, will have their land confiscated by an undemocratic quango that is being given more control, and there is nothing in the Bill to address that. Given the shortage of time, it would be helpful if, in closing, the Minister could clarify some of those points.”
House of Commons24 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“When the Secretary of State was challenged on that, she said that the democratic controls were being maintained but streamlined. I do not think that is how Natural England will interpret it. Let me give the House a practical example. In the David Fursdon review of Dartmoor, there was conflict in interpretation regarding sites of special scientific interest between Natural England and farmers who had farmed the common for many years. There was huge tension, which David Fursdon skilfully managed to resolve, but that will not happen if the powers in the Bill are enacted. Finally, there is a paradox. The people we need on side to support nature restoration are the farmers, who are the ones who care most about nature.”
House of Commons24 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Either the power is needed—in that case, what is the impact of clause 72 on farmland and farm security?—or not much land will be taken as a result, in which case why do we need this power now? In the shadow Secretary of State’s opening remarks, he pointed to the number of Cabinet Ministers who have objected to development schemes in their own constituencies. That is a challenge that we all face, as Members of Parliament, when constituents raise concerns. Certainly, my experience of dealing with Natural England —not least as Secretary of State for DEFRA—was that once things were in primary legislation, it would often take a gold-plated interpretation. It may just be that Ministers are being bold, but it would be helpful to understand why they think that granting further powers to seize land will not weaken democratic control.”
House of Commons24 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The Secretary of State talked in her opening remarks about the Bill unlocking land for nature and energy schemes, so we have one part of the Government consulting on the land use strategy while another part is legislating to seize land that is in the scope of that ongoing consultation to use for its schemes. It would be helpful if the Minister told us why he is ignoring the consultation that the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs is conducting. Perhaps we will just have a slew of Government amendments. If the new powers for Natural England are indeed necessary, that suggests that a significant amount of land will be taken for nature restoration schemes. We know from the land use strategy that about 12,000 farms will be lost over a generation.”
House of Commons24 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Last week, they said that they were scrapping a big quango, NHS England, because they wanted to ensure more democratic oversight, yet this week they are giving huge new powers to another quango, Natural England, so that they can seize land at below market value with little democratic oversight. Indeed, the hon. Member just mentioned the bat tunnel. It is a strange paradox to criticise that while supporting giving Natural England more powers to make similar decisions. There is not just a lack of consistency, but a lack of co-ordination across Government. The Government are currently consulting on the land use framework—the consultation is open and does not close until 25 April—but Ministers seem to be ignoring that.”
House of Commons24 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“To pick up the comments made by the hon. Member for Milton Keynes North (Chris Curtis) on reservoirs, I also have a reservoir proposed for my constituency. I noted that the Secretary of State refused to be drawn on specific schemes, including when challenged by her own Front Bench. Perhaps the Minister can tell us in winding up how much more quickly a typical reservoir will be constructed as a result of this Bill and what the percentage of savings will be from that. That sort of detail is currently lacking from claims such as those made by the hon. Member. [ Interruption. ] I note the Minister’s wry smile. Let me start by picking up what the Government said last week and what they are saying this week.”
House of Commons24 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The Home Office reimburses councils for their spending on children under 18, at a rate of between £114 and £143 a day. On 15 February this year, councils reported that the payments from central Government do not cover all the costs. The risk is that rural communities, which have been hammered by this Government on farming and in so many other areas, will have to pick up the police costs, the health service impacts and the other impacts on public services that come from more distant regional commissioners, which is exactly what clause 9 risks doing. It would be helpful if the Minister could say a little bit more about that when he comes to close the debate.”
House of Commons17 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“An example of that are the requirements on the police when a child goes missing, which is rightly an issue of significant concern. Of course that is something for which the police should prioritise time, but having a concentration of care homes in rural communities can require significant additional resource. Clause 9 fails to address supply and demand. What will be done about the fact that it is further divorced from the rural communities where commissioning is often placed? Given that the Government are hammering rural communities in so many areas—not least farming—how will they reassure my constituents in Fenland that the failure of the money to follow looked-after children sufficiently is going to be addressed? I will finish with one example from the recent data coming from councils.”
House of Commons17 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Because Cambridgeshire has had significant population growth but the police funding is based on the population in 2012—that is how the police grant is calculated—commissioning does not pick up the additional pressures that the Cambridgeshire force is facing, particularly in its rural communities. Those pressures are exacerbated where we have looked-after children with a troubled history interacting with the criminal justice system, and where there are challenges around unaccompanied child migrants. Nothing in this Bill says how regional commissioning interplays with the formula for police funding, even though the data I have from Cambridgeshire police is very clear that a significant proportion of their time is spent as a consequence of this policy.”
House of Commons17 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗