Contributions
869 recent contributions in Hansard
HANSARDPride in Place Funding: Glasgow North EastI would be delighted to visit Glasgow North East and am pleased to hear of the local enthusiasm for our Pride in Place agenda and my hon. Friend’s work in supporting this locally…24 Nov 2025HANSARDSupporting High StreetsAny economist will tell us that there is always a lag. What we are now seeing are the consequences of the last party’s failures. We are fixing the mess; we are fixing the…04 Nov 2025HANSARDSupporting High StreetsMy hon. Friend is completely right. Through our Pride in Place impact fund, we are providing a cash injection to 95 places across the country. That will be spent by local…04 Nov 2025HANSARDSupporting High StreetsMy hon. Friend is completely right. We feel that we are giving places the tools and levers that they need to turn around the legacy of the last Government.04 Nov 2025HANSARDSupporting High StreetsI beg to move an amendment, to leave out from “House” to end and insert “recognises the need to rejuvenate high streets following 14 years of decline under the previous…04 Nov 2025HANSARDSupporting High StreetsWhat has damaged the high street is 14 years of neglect. The Conservatives pretend that it was thriving for 14 years and that we did not see shops closing down, boarded-up shops…04 Nov 2025HANSARDSupporting High StreetsI thank my hon. Friend for mentioning that what we are doing is not peripheral—I was so incensed by that that I forgot to mention it. It is fundamental that we respond to the…04 Nov 2025HANSARDSupporting High StreetsI thank my hon. Friend for setting out all the failures and mistakes that we are now having to fix. We are very conscious of that. That is why, through our Pride in Place…04 Nov 2025HANSARDSupporting High StreetsI hope that when the shadow Minister stands up, he will respond to that question and say whether the Conservative party will return the money. In the end, we need investment in…04 Nov 2025HANSARDSupporting High StreetsThe right hon. Lady is absolutely right, and we are densifying. I return, however, to the 14 years for which the Conservatives failed on housing. Do they remember removing housing…04 Nov 2025HANSARDSupporting High StreetsWe understand that businesses across all sectors are under pressure. We are working with the tourism sector, because it is absolutely vital to the growth of the wider economy, and…04 Nov 2025HANSARDSupporting High StreetsWe understand the pressure that businesses are under with energy, but it is driven by our dependence on global fossil fuel markets. We can do sticking-plaster or short-term fixes,…04 Nov 2025HANSARDSupporting High StreetsMy hon. Friend is completely right—7,000 pubs. Statistic after statistic speaks to the Conservatives’ failure, so rather than being smug and providing fake solutions, they should…04 Nov 2025HANSARDSupporting High StreetsIt is incredibly telling that the hon. Member thinks that regulation consists of things such as protecting our workers, banning exploitative zero-hours contracts and ensuring that…04 Nov 2025HANSARDSupporting High StreetsI will make progress. Hon. Members have mentioned retail crime. We have scrapped effective immunity for low-value shoplifting, and we are taking action to protect retail workers…04 Nov 2025HANSARDSupporting High StreetsMy hon. Friend is absolutely right. We know that there is a fundamental link between public services that work and can support people across the economy and how well the economy…04 Nov 2025HANSARDSupporting High StreetsWe absolutely understand the pressure that businesses are under, but that pressure did not happen overnight; it is the consequence of 14 years in which we have not seen…04 Nov 2025HANSARDEnglish Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill (Eleventh sitting)No, they are not, but the auditing requirement at the moment is burdensome, as local authorities and, under the previous Government, the Select Committee have said. I think the…28 Oct 2025HANSARDEnglish Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill (Eleventh sitting)We are having the same debate over and over again. Ultimately—I have said this before and I will say it again—it will be for the accounting officer and the finance director to…28 Oct 2025HANSARDEnglish Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill (Eleventh sitting)The hon. Member for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner was dissatisfied by my pensions example. In part, I hope the clause speaks to some of the challenges that we are trying to get…28 Oct 2025