Commons statement and questions: Direction of Government

With permission, Mr Speaker, I wish to make a statement on the direction in which I will lead our country.

I come before this House having visited each of the regions and nations of the UK over the past six weeks, and Ukraine on the occasion of the 35th anniversary of its independence. The UK’s steadfast support has helped sustain Ukraine’s resolve over the past four and a half years, and particularly so in the last two. That was the achievement of my predecessor, and as he stands down from this place, I want to pay tribute to my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer). He has given this country a lifetime of public service, particularly for those fighting for justice. When he delivered in this House on his promise to the Hillsborough families and everyone involved in the Hillsborough law campaign, it was a moment that I will never forget. His leadership took our party from one of its worst defeats to its best victories, and created a platform to change this country for the better. We will use it well, and we wish his family the very best for the future.

The position that my right hon. and learned Friend took on Ukraine, building on the work of his predecessors as Prime Minister, is one that I will not change, whatever the threats that we face. We do not seek escalation, but instead will stand firm in providing what help we can to enable Ukraine to defend itself from this illegal invasion. Britain’s defence starts in Ukraine, and the defence of our nation will always be my first priority.

On public safety, I know that the whole House will wish to join me in expressing our deepest condolences to the family, friends and colleagues of PC Matthew Blades and PC Tom Clough, who were killed in the line of duty on the A66. We will do our best to support the Middlesbrough community, which is hurting and grieving right now, and we hear the call from the Members of this House who represent it for a discussion about investment in policing and police numbers.

I know that I also speak for the whole House in expressing my profound shock and horror at the devastating scenes on the Nepal-China border. My sympathies are with all those affected, including the families and loved ones of those missing in this appalling tragedy. The Foreign Secretary is doing everything he can to support the Nepalese Government and British nationals in the region. This is what the climate crisis looks like. We have just ourselves experienced what is likely to have been the hottest summer on record. This Government will meet the climate challenge, and I can confirm to the House that I will attend COP31 in Turkey in November.

I will build on the work of my predecessor in other areas. When I visited Dover in early August, staff from Border Force and HM Coastguard told me that extra police numbers on French beaches were beginning to deliver real results. I can report to the House today that that has continued throughout the last month, with the numbers arriving over the summer halved on last year, making this year, to date, the lowest for crossings since 2021. Tomorrow, when I welcome President Macron to the UK on the occasion of the opening of the exhibition of the Bayeux tapestry, I will thank him for the co-operation that has enabled us to prevent more than 48,000 people from crossing.

Where it is right to do so, I will build on what has been achieved. However, where necessary, I will not hesitate to make changes. One of the first things that I did after taking office was to review the plans to relieve pressure on prison places with the Lord Chancellor, who will provide a full update to the House following my statement. We took an early decision to exempt rape, grooming and serious child sex offences, and to fast-track work to see whether we could go further, after hearing the calls from the family of PC Andrew Harper and many others. As a result, we are now confirming that anyone convicted of manslaughter, death by dangerous driving or indecent assault will not see any change in their prison term. We will find additional prison places by deporting more foreign national offenders and finally grasping the nettle on an issue that the House has ignored for too long: indefinite imprisonment for public protection sentences—a now abolished policy, but one which to this day keeps people behind bars despite having already served more than their sentences.

None of this is easy, but I did what I always do: apply my values to a challenging situation and a care for people, which I spoke about in Downing Street. I believe the public will support me in recognising the clear difference between those who have served their time and more, and those who have not. We will bring forward legislation soon, but we can find a solution to end this injustice that balances public safety and basic fairness, and I urge colleagues on both sides of the House to help us do that.

This is politics done differently: problem solving over point scoring. It is what the country needs, it is what the public want more of, and it will characterise my time in office. I was pleased to begin cross-party talks over social care in the summer, and I thank the leader of the Liberal Democrats and the right hon. Member for Daventry (Stuart Andrew) for the spirit in which that endeavour began. I wish the latter well as he leaves the Opposition Front Bench.

When it comes to the biggest issues facing the country—the economy and the cost of living crisis—people are looking for much more substantial change, as promised in our manifesto, and that is what I will bring. Britain is not where any of us would wish it to be. Things are not working as they should. Life is too expensive and too hard for too many. That is why this Government’s first moves were to give businesses and people a little breathing space. On tax, in my first week in office we cut VAT on electricity bills and cut business rates for pubs, social clubs and live music venues. We reinstated the £2 cap on bus fares for the whole of 2027. These measures will provide some relief. They were funded by reprioritising within Government, as the bedrock of our approach will be grounded in fiscal responsibility. But in the long term, lifting growth and living standards will require much more.

What I bring back to the House after 10 years away is a clear diagnosis of what has gone wrong. Let me lay it out clearly, particularly for the right hon. Gentleman, since he asked.

From the 1980s, this country took a series of wrong turns. Political power was centralised, economic power privatised and the country deindustrialised. Austerity followed, hollowing out councils and depriving them of the agency to act to reverse any of it, and then Brexit compounded the damage, ushering in a decade of low growth and stalled regeneration. Change begins with honesty, and I am not hearing much of it this afternoon. Unless we are blunt about what went wrong, we will not turn things around. Far from “taking back control”, the combination of those policies took control out of the hands of communities up and down Britain.

For 40 years, too many places have been drifting. Too many British high streets tell the story of this decline. People yearn to see them restored to what they once were, as the Communities Secretary and I heard on our visit to Ilkeston in the summer, but they see no hope if we continue on the same path with a failed economic model, which does not trickle down much to places like theirs and instead allows wealth to be extracted and siphoned out. Britain’s water industry stands as a leaking monument to that approach—a country run in the private rather than public interest. That is now abundantly clear to voters of all parties, including the Conservative party.

The Government I lead will be relentless in giving people and places what they were promised 10 years ago: ownership and control. From that control over their destiny comes change and growth. I say this with confidence. I do, and let me explain why. It is backed by a decade of personal experience of turning around one of the UK’s former industrial heartlands and turning it into the fastest growing city region in the country, bucking the low-growth trend. It has given me a clear theory of growth and I will apply it to all parts of the UK, learning from what has been achieved in Greater Manchester. For a long time the country did not have ambitions for its regions outside of London. It even talked of the “managed decline” of Liverpool. It took the devolution of power out of this place to allow our big city regions the ability to set new ambitions for themselves. Now, I want every single place across our regions and nations to be able to do the same, creating the conditions for good growth in every postcode.

In that spirit, I was glad to meet the Liberal Democrat leader of Cornwall council, with my hon. Friend the Member for Truro and Falmouth (Jayne Kirkham), on my recent visit. I know, like many rural economies across the UK, that Cornwall lacks a basic level of infrastructure, which in turn harms growth and holds back living standards and life chances, and I heard the cross-party call for a devolution deal. I understand concerns in this House about the potential emergence of a two-tier England—those with devolved power and those without—and I will not ignore them. So, I have asked No. 10 North to begin work with Cornwall council and its six MPs on a devolution deal with or without an elected mayor.

I today extend the same offer to all parts of England without devolved power. The First Secretary of State, my right hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield Heeley (Louise Haigh) will today write to every Member of this House setting out how they can engage No. 10 North in the service of the places they represent. I extended the same offer to the First Ministers of Scotland and Wales, and the First and Deputy First Ministers of Northern Ireland when I met them over the summer. As they rightly pointed out, their situations are different, but there is interest in what a local model of devolution could look like in each of the home nations, and we will discuss that with them at a special meeting of the National Economic Council next month.

This Government will oversee the biggest redistribution of power this country has seen. In July, we published a statement on the next stage of English devolution. It will include powers long requested by mayors, such as: post-16 technical education; employment support; and fiscal devolution, starting with the ability to set an overnight visitor levy to commence towards the end of the financial year 2027-28. The driving force behind it all will be No. 10 North. It will oversee the rewiring of the British state, the rebuilding of resilience in our communities and the reindustrialisation of our regions. The creation of No. 10 North was one of the first acts of this Administration and I believe that in time it will be seen as one of its most significant. It is a clear answer to the question with which this country has long wrestled: who, in government, drives growth? My theory of growth requires it to be driven with the full authority of the very centre of Government, in close partnership with HM Treasury.

No. 10 North has been set up with that full focus; the single front door on which regions can knock to get quicker, joined-up decisions from Whitehall, and through which power and resources will be passed to them. Resources will include human resources. This is because a state that has grown too large at the national level now needs to redirect civil service capacity regionally and locally, repairing the damage of austerity and making the service of place the state’s first priority. We can already see what is possible. I am glad No. 10 North was able to stand behind Mayor Richard Parker when he took urgent action in August to prevent the collapse of bus services across the west midlands, and I congratulate Mayor Steve Rotheram who this weekend, after four decades of deregulation, will see the first buses return to public control in the Liverpool city region. Taking back control of essential services such as transport is an enabler of a more productive economy, because it allows local areas to grab hold of the levers of power for themselves.

But driving growth demands we go further. It is taking far too long for businesses to get grid connections and they are being quoted prohibitively expensive sums of money if they try to bring those dates forward, as I heard on my visit to a farm near Truro. Household energy bills are the highest in Europe, and the cost of energy is impacting business and inward investment. Too many areas have seen water supplies disrupted this summer due to a lack of reservoir capacity. Our tourism industry is damaged by too many sewage spills. “Why?” the Opposition say. It is a question they should ask themselves. This summer has shown us very clearly that water companies are failing to rise to the climate challenge. It cannot go on. Later in the year, our 10-year plan for Britain will set out plans for stronger public control over these essentials, making them work for people and places again.

Alongside that, we will empower all areas to expand the public housing stock, building on the first allocations from the social and affordable homes programme announced by the Communities Secretary last week. Bringing forward the biggest council home building programme since the post-war period is the Labour way to get the welfare bill down, as is reforming our education system, so that it balances academic and technical, and offers a path in life for all young people. Michael Gove calls this “bringing back stupid”, when in fact, for too many young people written off by his reforms, it is bringing back hope. Allowing mayors to shape technical pathways and provide work placements for young people, building back into colleges and schools from the needs of the regional economy, is the way to support more young people into work. So is prioritising more accessible, community-based mental health services, as we announced in the summer.

That will be a major part of our response to the forthcoming Milburn report, which will follow its publication in the autumn. For it to work, a more intentional approach to the reindustrialisation of Britain is required. We will support all parts of the country to take more public control over investment strategy, learning from the Greater Manchester model of a consolidated good growth fund drawn from their own funds, prudent loan borrowing and fragmented budgets held by Government bodies. We will back local industrial strategies—a policy of the Theresa May Government I am happy to revive—by identifying priority sectors and developing the triple-helix approach to economic development by entwining business, academia and Government behind the plan. This is the way we will build a pro-business culture and an innovation-led economy in all parts of the UK, finally capturing the long-term benefits of the invention that is in the DNA of our nation, backing our start-ups and scale-ups to stay in the UK where they were founded.

When I stood outside Downing Street six weeks ago, I said that Britain needs a circuit breaker after a decade of turbulence, negativity, point scoring and divisive politics. This is what I have outlined today: a clear, coherent and credible approach to growth that can unlock a feeling of positivity and possibility in every postcode in Britain. Our job here is to make it real by taking a place-first rather than a party-first approach. It starts with reasserting basic standards for Britain—that this is a country where no one sleeps rough and no community is blighted by an illegal waste tip—and, from there, working together to build a new sense of optimism around the country. We can make this next decade better than the last. We can lift the prospects of all our people and places. We can put more power into every postcode. We can let Britain believe again. We can bring back hope. I commend this statement to the House.

I thank the right hon. Lady for the welcome that she gave me and her kind words; I appreciate the tone of some of what she had to say. I do want to try to work with her across the Floor of the House where we can. She mentions my summer. I notice that she spent hers travelling all the way to Rome to be told by the Italian Prime Minister not to do a deal with Reform. If she had called me, I would have told her that and saved her the trip.

The right hon. Lady was right to start with Ukraine, as I did. I mentioned the work of previous Prime Ministers in setting the right tone. Boris Johnson, Liz Truss, Rishi Sunak—everybody played a role in setting that tone, and it has been carried on by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer). It is a very challenging situation, but I was there to send a very clear message that with a change of Prime Minister there does not come any change in Britain’s approach. I hope that I speak for the vast majority of Members of this House in making that completely plain.

The right hon. Lady said that the job of Prime Minister is different from the job of Mayor of Greater Manchester. I can vouch that I know that now, after six weeks in the role. She was wrong, though, to say that in that role I did not have to worry about national security. I did. Within two weeks of taking office, I had to deal with the appalling terrorist attack at the Manchester Arena.

I send all my best wishes to those who gathered last night at the Heaton Park synagogue to remember our friends who lost their lives and the incredible efforts of Rabbi Daniel Walker and others to hold the attackers at the door. We all send them our very best wishers and reaffirm again, hopefully from all sides of the House, that antisemitism is a scourge that we should work together to remove from our society.

The right hon. Lady mentions defence. She is right to, because it is a changing and challenging world in which we live, but I say to her directly: I appointed this Chancellor of the Exchequer precisely because of his commitment to the defence of our realm and the arguments that he has made. He will set out at the spending review the path to honouring our international commitments in full, as I said that we would when I was before the steps of Downing Street.

Those listening at home will find it hard to accept what the right hon. Lady said about the boat crossings, which are significantly down—halved on last year. She said that had nothing to do with anything that this Government have done. That is plainly not the case. I heard an Opposition spokesperson on the radio this morning trying to find any excuse to justify the numbers going down—the weather and all kinds of things. Can they not just accept that the action that we are taking is making progress? That includes the co-operation with the French that I mentioned. The Home Secretary and I will continue to look at all measures, and will be relentless in making sure that we continue to make progress, but the Conservatives would do well to recognise that significant progress has indeed been made.

On the early release of prisoners, I do not think there is any moral high ground for any party in this House. The Justice Secretary will shortly make a statement and lay out the timeline for the return of foreign national offenders. I hope that we can work together on the question of imprisonment for public protection sentences. Too often, issues in this House just get left. I left 10 years ago worried about this issue, and I come back to find that it is not resolved. Social care was something that I spoke about a lot when I left. I come back, and it is not resolved. We have to do better, don’t we? We have to find more ways of working across the House and not just leave issues unresolved with all the harm that that causes.

On growth, I cut tax twice in my first week. I say to the right hon. Lady that I am committed to bringing down the welfare bill not through crude cuts but in a way that provides the right support for people—particularly young people—whom, in my view, the education system has let down.

The right hon. Lady mentioned the 1980s, the legacy of which, I have to say to her, we are still struggling to reverse. It is the reason why—[Interruption.] Well, let us have the argument in this House. Why are people paying such high water bills, while the infrastructure is crumbling before our eyes? Why are energy bills in this country the highest in Europe? Why do Opposition Members represent constituencies where, year after year, bus services have been cut and the fares have gone up? They know the truth of what I am saying. Let us have some honesty so that we can deal with these issues properly.

The right hon Lady raised an ideological point. I noticed that yesterday she appointed a new shadow Cabinet, with a new shadow Chancellor—the hon. Member for Arundel and South Downs (Andrew Griffith); I welcome him to his position—who I believe was the author of the mini-Budget. I think at least half the shadow Cabinet supported the Liz Truss Government. The right hon. Lady said that I have been in my position for 43 days. Well, may I turn that around? In six days, this Government will have outlived the Truss Government, and we will be here for a lot, lot longer.

I will work with the right hon. Lady where I can—we should make that commitment to each other today—but I will still point out where she is wrong. We will not take lectures when the country is moving in the right direction. You can see that on the economy, on small boat crossings and on the cost of living. We will continue to do that to turn this country around.

I thank my hon. Friend. I look forward to my first appearance before the Liaison Committee. On the question of public land, she raises a really important issue. We have got to look at how we build as many council and social homes as we can to bring down the housing benefit and temporary accommodation bill, which is ruinous in London for London councils. We must find ways of doing that within the public purse. Public land is one way in which we can achieve that. I will be looking at a programme for the release of public land to build council and social homes, and I look forward to working with her on that.

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his contribution. There is plenty there that I can agree with and work with him on. Too much power in the wrong hands—that is what I was saying to the right hon. Member for North West Essex (Mrs Badenoch) a moment or so ago. Can anyone in this House say that the water industry is sufficiently accountable to their constituents?

Okay, Northern Ireland—[Interruption.] Scotland. My apologies. There are models elsewhere that we can follow.

Can anyone say, with water in England, that the money that is siphoned out in salaries and dividends is justifiable when the system could not provide a basic service to people this summer? When sewage spills out on to our beaches and into our lakes, can anyone justify that? I am surprised that there is not more recognition of that from the Conservative party. Thirty years of privatisation has not left the system in a good state.

Changing some of those big things will require the different approach that the right hon. Gentleman calls for. I was pleased that he came, while on his holiday, to the cross-party talks on social care. I give him a commitment that I will keep them going until Louise Casey reports next year with her options. I hope, even then, that we might be able to find a consensus option that we take forward. I do not want to leave this position without having put all my political capital into solving this issue. As Health Secretary 16 years ago, I could not defend leaving people to lose everything they had worked for, but often only getting in return care that was sub-standard and not good enough. I know from my own family experience that that cannot carry on any longer. Nor can we defend the poverty pay for those people who care for other people’s parents and give everything of themselves to those roles. We owe it to millions out there to fix that. This is a test for this Parliament—what remains of it—to see if we can do that. I will work with the right hon. Gentleman to do that.

On the right hon. Gentleman’s suggestion of a national commission, there is a democracy taskforce working out of the Cabinet Office and I could certainly involve him in the work that that is doing. I am interested in political reform. I am interested in looking at how we restore trust in politics. I am prepared to look at all those issues—alongside the voting system, too—and I think he knows that. I believe that this Parliament needs to be a circuit breaker for the country. I do not believe we can carry on as we are. We are losing the trust and faith of the public. We need to act together to turn it around, and I look forward to working with him, precisely on that theme.

I thank my right hon. Friend and agree with her very strongly that we need to restore trust, particularly when it comes to foreign donations that seek to influence our politics. I am pleased she recognises the amendments that have been brought forward to the Representation of the People Act, which will be debated in this House later this week. I mentioned the defending democracy taskforce, which has been set up in the Cabinet Office. It needs to continue to look at these issues, and this will not be the last chance. We can come back to these issues in this Parliament, such is their importance.

I thank the Father of the House for what he said about Ukraine. I saw the sincerity with which he said it, and I appreciate it. It was important for me to make the journey last week. I know it was appreciated by President Zelensky, and he asked me to relay to this House and beyond how much he and the Ukrainian people appreciate the support that we have provided. We will continue to do so for as long as it takes.

On meeting our defence commitments and bringing down the welfare bill, I cannot defend a position where too many people in their 20s are on benefits, but what I say is, “Why is that the case?” I do not believe we have an education system that is setting up all young people for success. There is more that we can do to give young people work-related opportunity at 16, and there is more support we can provide for their mental health. Those are the approaches that we can take, I hope with cross-party support, to set our young people up for life, invest in their success and bring down the welfare bill in a sustainable way.

May I thank my good friend the Member for Brent West (Barry Gardiner) and say to him that I am looking at every facet of the cost of living crisis and at where people face unfair charges that they cannot avoid? This area of leasehold is absolutely in that territory. I make a direct commitment to him today that it is my intention, and the intention of the Government, to bring forward the commonhold and leasehold Bill, so that we can finally reform this unfair system. We will do that in this Session.

I say to the hon. Member for North Dorset (Simon Hoare) that I am probably not renowned for spending much time on farms—I am more likely to be found in the northern quarter of Manchester— but I was on a farm in Cornwall in the summer, precisely to engage and understand the issues that they are facing. I heard very clearly the issues that have been presented by this very difficult summer for farmers up and down the country. I will focus on farming because, for me, farming and food production are part of this country’s sovereign production and manufacturing capacity, which we will need to strengthen in the years to come. We will need to depend upon it, and therefore we need to strengthen it more. That is a clear commitment.

To give the hon. Gentleman some sign that I mean what I say, I did not go empty handed to Colwyn farm. I took a commitment to allow more flexibility over Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs funding, so that areas that previously could not be used for grazing can be used for that, and to funding to build reservoir capacity on farms, so that summer ’27 will hopefully be less painful than summer ’26. That is my commitment. I look forward to working with him to improve measures for farming.

I thank my good friend the Chair of the Energy Committee for that contribution. In the words of the Chancellor, we need to focus on the cost of living but also on the cost of business. We need to address those two things together and bring down the cost of energy, which is ruinous for households but also for businesses. As I said in my statement, the cost of grid connections can be huge, and the long wait that businesses can face is damaging for inward investment. We need serious reform to deal with those issues, and I look forward to working with him on that.

I am listening carefully to what the right hon. Member is saying. All these issues are on the table at this moment in time, but particularly public procurement. I have been working with the First Secretary of State and the Chancellor to consider how we change British public procurement to support our own production and manufacturing base. I believe that there is so much more we could do to make sure that food grown on British farms is served in our schools, hospitals, prisons and beyond. I do believe that we can do a lot more through public procurement before we reach to protectionist measures, but I hear what he has had to say today.

I thank my hon. Friend. I was really distressed by what I saw in his community following the tragic death of our two police officers, and the seven lives lost in total. I know it has sent shockwaves through the community. I know from my previous role about the unfairness in police funding—or that is how it is felt in some parts of the country—and I know he and his colleagues feel that. We do need to look at that question as part of the Home Secretary’s wider police reform programme.

On the second part of my hon. Friend’s question, the manifesto commits us to the largest wave of insourcing in a generation, and my right hon. Friend the First Secretary of State is overseeing that work. Taking one example that I mentioned in my statement, if we bring in employment support, often delivered through outsourced contracts, and put it under the control of mayors and combined authorities, who can spend that funding through the community, voluntary and social enterprise sector, I personally believe that money would achieve far greater results than it currently does.

The right hon. Lady knows as well as I do the misery that her constituents have suffered on the west coast main line, particularly since her Government handed it over to Avanti West Coast. They should not be expected to put up with that. Manchester lost its services under her Government. We have to have a functioning railway line, and the agreement reached with the drivers will give that security of a good service to people in her constituency and across the north-west.

I thank my hon. Friend, who has been a doughty campaigner for improved services on our high streets, particularly pointing out the risks of the “aim to permit” regime, which has allowed the proliferation of adult gaming centres, for instance, in some of our more deprived communities. My whole approach will be to create an incentive regime that supports the businesses that are bringing good things to our high streets—hospitality businesses and others that give people a place to go and bring communities together—and to take action against those who do harm. In the summer we announced tougher action on vape shops, alongside adult gaming centres and other gambling venues. She deserves great credit for the campaign she has run, and I am pleased that she feels we can now begin to turn our high streets around.

I thank the hon. Lady, who I know well, for that question. She may have heard me speak before about leaving this place 10 years ago, standing for the first time under a proportional system and seeing how it changed the conversation on the doorstep, where all of a sudden there was an incentive to look for a point of agreement, rather than to score points, as I have been saying. That experience changed me. Where I disagree with her is in saying that we should do that ahead of any general election, because I believe there needs to be a mandate to make that change. There are different views in this House, but I believe that we will need to get a consensus at the next election, and if there is that consensus, a change can be made in the next Parliament.

I thank my hon. Friend—I was going to say leadership rival, but I do not think she was ever fully in that category. She is absolutely right to point to the role of the voluntary sector in the mission that I have launched to end rough sleeping, if we can, by the end of this year. I do not think public funds alone will get us all the way; we will need to rely on voluntary contributions and the work of our charities. In the end, they are doing the work to tackle rough sleeping across the country. I believe it is incumbent on all Members of the House to put their shoulder behind this. I am looking at the hon. Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman), because I remember the work he did and the private Member’s Bill that he brought forward. It should be a cross-party matter. In my view, nobody should sleep rough on our streets. We all have charities in our constituencies that are doing the most amazing work to support people. Any of us can find ourselves in that position, such is life these days. We should all get behind this drive. We should thank those organisations for their work, and let us see if we can give an offer to everyone in this country to come inside by Christmas.

The right hon. Gentleman’s point is characteristically clear and he makes a good suggestion that I will take up. I meant what I said when I thanked him for coming to those cross-party talks in the summer. I have always enjoyed working with him and wish him well in whatever comes next.

I strongly support my hon. Friend’s last point. I know from my experience in my previous role that when we electrified bus depots and the bus fleet in Greater Manchester, the running costs of the system came right down, which helped us to sustain the £2 fare cap that had been removed elsewhere. That is proof that action on climate can reduce the cost of living. Those two things should not be pitched as opposites—they can be causal. We can act on climate and we can bring down the cost of living. I will be at COP31, as he said. I recognise the importance of the rain forest, and we continue to provide support in the form of loans to support work to conserve it. I look forward to working with him on these issues and I hope to see him in Turkey.

I thank the leader of the SNP in Westminster for his very kind words, which my family will appreciate. When I left this place, I could relate more to what I used to hear from SNP Members than when I used to be here, particularly when I sometimes found frustrations, let’s say, with Westminster and the way it works, but that is precisely why we need to rewire the system and get power out of Westminster and into the country. In my view, we do that and we keep the United Kingdom together, because then all parts of it will feel that it is working for them in the way that perhaps they do not feel at this moment in time. When it comes to energy bills, I have acted already to bring in that VAT cut on electricity bills. I recognise that is just a start, but I hope the hon. Gentleman sees it as a sign of intent.

I will be a staunch defender of the Potteries in this House, if not their football clubs. I do not know whether the Potteries are the north-west or the west midlands, but I am certainly very fond of them and I know the crucial importance of the ceramics industry to that part of the country. I do think that there is much more that we can do with public procurement in Britain to support crucial industries; I do not think that we have done enough in the past. Social value weighting can be applied to all public procurement, which makes it more likely that contracts will be awarded to British-based entities. I do not think that we should allow the culture of sending everything outside this country to continue—this will be a big change under this Government.

It is good to see the right hon. Gentleman again, and I appreciate what he said in endorsing my criticism of the water industry. We need to find significant reform; if that can be done cross party, so much the better. I am not familiar with the planning situation and the issue that he mentions, but I will look out for him, have a word with him and see if I can do something to look into it.

I was really pleased to visit Port Talbot last week. I know the importance of the steel industry in my hon. Friend’s part of the world—the history of it. I came away with a clear sense of what is possible: carrying through an industrial transition that will set up steelmaking for the rest of this century. Industrial transition is definitely another one of the things I have spoken about today that this country has not done well—in the past, we have allowed deindustrialisation before trying to help industry into a new era—and we need to make it work this time in south Wales. I said it to the trade unions last week, I said it to the leadership of Tata and I will say it to my hon. Friend in this House: we will make that happen, and we will guarantee steelmaking in south Wales for generations to come.

I do not know if the hon. Gentleman was listening a moment ago when I was talking about how renewables can bring down the cost of living. I gave a very clear example in Greater Manchester: it costs £30 to charge a bus with electric charge, but it costs £200-plus to fill a tank of diesel. He really does need to look into the facts a little bit more before he makes statements like that in this House. Solar panels on people’s homes can bring down the cost of their energy. Yes, we need to be pragmatic—we will still need to rely on oil and gas for some years to come. The mistake he makes is saying that it has got to be one or the other, for political purposes; the truth is that it is going to have to be both.

I thank my hon. Friend for her work on this matter, and on apprenticeships in particular. What she has just said needs to be understood when we consider the Milburn report, because the decline in apprenticeships for young people lies behind some of the statistics that Alan Milburn has revealed. I give some credit to the Conservatives, because my experience in Greater Manchester was that the work placements that came with T-levels were a huge and positive innovation. Those 45-day work placements made a difference for young people. It was enough for them to feel that they could belong in the place where they were. I would like to work with Members across this House to see if we can turn a commitment of a 45-day work placement into a guarantee to all young people as part of our response to the Milburn report. The evidence I have is that those placements are hugely successful. Alongside that, we need more apprenticeships at 19 and more degree apprenticeships beyond that. That is how we give strong, structured pathways to our young people. The technical route is not bringing back stupid, but bringing back hope.

I meant what I said earlier in praising the hon. Member. He has done a huge amount of work in this area, and I recognise it. He mentions Housing First. I think he was one of those who persuaded Sajid Javid, when he was in the Communities Secretary role, to pilot Housing First in three big city regions: the West Midlands, Greater Manchester and Liverpool. Exactly as the hon. Member said, it was hugely successful. It was about prevention, rather than paying for crisis. What I have experienced in my career is that it is more expensive to leave somebody sleeping rough than it is to give them simple accommodation every night, because of the cost of many visits to A&E, long stays in hospital or time in police custody, which add up to be more expensive than the simple provision of a room. I will look at the Bill that he mentions, and I will speak to the Communities Secretary about it, but this is something we can fix. When issues are fixable, we should work across the House to fix them. We can end rough sleeping—we did it in the pandemic, and I see no reason why we cannot do it again.

I thank my dear friend for her question, and I will certainly look up the Select Committee report. In answer to her point about the middle east, before I became Prime Minister, I issued a statement saying that I thought we needed to look again at the approach that we had taken, and to be clear about our values and what we believe is right. Obviously, matters are changing quickly. We have seen the worrying statement about the E1 settlements extension and the fast-track tender process. I think that that would lead to decisions being made before the Israeli election, which I understand could imperil, if not end, the two-state solution. These matters are urgent and need to be confronted, and I believe that we will be updating the House on them soon.

These issues are very much at the forefront of my mind. As the father of two daughters, I think about them a lot, while remembering the change that we introduced in Greater Manchester following the appalling murder of Sarah Everard. It was a moment that created a powerful change in the conversation, challenging men, lads and boys for their behaviour and making it absolutely clear that violence against women and girls of any kind, including everyday harassment, is an issue with which they must be confronted and which they must address.

In recent days, I have met Georgia Harrison, who is doing amazing work in campaigning to protect women online and making the very reasonable request for any non-consensual explicit video to be taken down immediately rather than being removed after 48 hours, which is the current totally unsatisfactory approach. I can tell the hon. Lady that I will support her 100% in implementing that change, and also that we will think about the other points that she raised.

I know that this issue matters to my hon. Friend personally, as it does to me. The leader of the Liberal Democrats, the right hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Ed Davey), pointed out during our cross-party talks—and, powerfully, in the media—that family carers are often simply not seen, and sink slowly as the situation becomes more and more unbearable and unsustainable for them. I know that from my own family experience.

I give my hon. Friend my word from the Dispatch Box that social care will be a huge priority for me. We do need to support family carers, as the right hon. Gentleman said, and we also need to give much more support to paid carers, who, as I have said, are working on poverty pay. I will not leave this role until we have introduced a social care system that we can be proud of.

I appreciate that the Cunliffe report takes us forward, but it was to some degree limited in what it was able to consider, and I believe we need to look at all possible solutions for the water industry. I do not think we are in a position to say that what is being proposed will solve everything. It is very regrettable that the privatisation of water has left us in a position that we will find it very difficult to reverse. What has happened is that funding has left through salaries and dividends. Bills were kept low for a period of time, but it is the infrastructure that is suffering. Now, when we need to put those infrastructure problems right, it is bill payers who are being asked to pay 20%-plus on their bills—not those who siphoned the money out in the first place. It is an unsatisfactory situation. It is an industry where the shareholders never lose and the bill payers never win, and I say to the hon. Lady that it is simply wrong and unsustainable.

I say to my hon. Friend that I was truly appalled when I heard about what happened, and I feel for any family who was a victim of that despicable crime. Today I offer him a meeting, on behalf of those families, to listen and to see how we can build a programme of change that will meet what has been exposed by this terrible crime.

I thank the right hon. Member for making a point that I made myself in the Makerfield by-election. I do think that there is more we need to do to support our high streets. I have made a start with pubs and live music venues, but I do believe we need to go further, in exactly the way he describes. I think it is a case of rebalancing the system—some of the large entities and warehouses do not, in percentage terms, pay the same amount in business rates—so that we can support those businesses on the high street that are doing public good and they are able to get a reduction to enable them to survive. That is something that I am looking at. I think we need to get serious about our high streets. We need to take action on those that cause harm—I have mentioned vape shops and adult gaming centres—and we need to do more to support those that do good.

I recognise the importance of the issues my hon. Friend is raising, for the reasons I gave earlier. The Bill we will debate later this week is a start, but I do not think that anyone on the Government Front Bench is saying that that is the end of the matter. We do need to go further. I encourage her to engage with the defending democracy taskforce and, certainly, I have an open mind about what those further measures might be.

Yes, I have only just got back to this House and already my PPS is lobbying me from behind, which is obviously helpful. My hon. Friend is right to do so and the hon. Member for Brigg and Immingham (Martin Vickers) is right to raise this issue. I remember, as chair of the Rail North Committee in my previous role, the concern of people in his part of the world. The rail connections to my part of the north are nowhere near what they should be. I heard scepticism on the Opposition Benches. If he is interested, I will fix a meeting for him with the team at No. 10 North so that he can put his case. This is why we took public control of the railways: so that we can start to put services back. There is no point in having public control if it does not deliver public benefit. In my view, every area needs a basic level of connectivity if we are to connect people to opportunity and get growth going in every postcode.

I have had a number of approaches from colleagues in Glasgow on how we can support them to move the bus system forward. I was surprised to hear how expensive bus fares are in the city. I believe that there have been moves to put them back under public control, but I am not aware that they have been supported by the Scottish Government. I hope the Scottish Government will provide funding and support to enable the Greater Glasgow area to move in that direction. If I am wrong, I am happy to be corrected, but I did have a lot of people coming to me saying, “We’re not getting any support; can you help us move things forward?” A great city such as Glasgow should have public transport under its own control. From what I see in Scotland, there is something of the same problem as in England, where the capital city has a public transport system that is way beyond what anywhere else has. It is not that we are anti-London or anti-Edinburgh—it is great that they have those transport systems—but all parts of the UK need to have a level of infrastructure that is seen to be fair and, as I said before, connects all people to jobs and opportunities. Glasgow deserves that, too.

It was a serious offer that I made at the Dispatch Box earlier today, to say that there could be a devolution deal for every part of England with or without an elected mayor. I do believe that it will only work if it is based on unitary local government. I do not think it will work with a two-tier system, but that is why I said to colleagues in Cornwall that I am quite happy to see if a deal can be done for a single unitary authority. That is what I understand Members of Parliament for Cornwall to want, working with the leader of Cornwall council. If that is the settled view, I am not going to try to impose anything else—let us work with that. The same could be true in Shropshire, but it needs to be effective and functional, and to be able to stand on its own two feet.

That is entirely what the Hillsborough law is about. It builds on a duty of candour that was already there in the NHS, but will now go further to those running NHS organisations and all NHS bodies. I would be happy to meet my hon. Friend to discuss this in more detail, because I can see how much it matters to her. I hope that is a helpful commitment.

I think the hon. Gentleman has misunderstood what I said. I answered a media question on a visit to Northern Ireland before meeting the various parties. The question was whether a proposal was being put to the meeting about a border poll, and my answer was that the purpose of the visit was to get functional Government in Stormont, because in my view that would most serve the people of Northern Ireland right now, and that I was not there to distract from that to other issues. I am very aware of every word in the Good Friday agreement, and I will stick to it 100% as Prime Minister. I care about Northern Ireland, which I visit often, and—how do I put it?—that situation pre-empted the meeting we were about to have and I was not there to discuss that.

The Good Friday agreement—if the hon. Gentleman reads it, as I am sure he has—is quite clear on the circumstances in which that issue arises, and as I have said, I honour the words of the Good Friday agreement. However, our common challenge right now is achieving functional Government in Stormont, and I believe everybody should work together to achieve that. I have asked the Northern Ireland Secretary to support that process, and I recognise the concerns people have about the budget in Northern Ireland. Those are the issues to be dealt with first and foremost, and that was the answer I gave to the media.

I am happy to give my hon. Friend that commitment.

I am ready to work with the leader of the Greens in this place, because I carry from my last role into this one a clear commitment to a carbon-neutral future. I do not resile from that in any way; I am proud of what I have done on that front. What the hon. Member has said is almost the opposite of what the hon. Member for Boston and Skegness (Richard Tice) said a few moments ago, but the wrong approach here is to be one or the other. We are going to have to find a way to make a transition from oil and gas to a renewable future, and that does not mean that it is all one or the other. There has to be a process where we can make a transition and do it as effectively and affordably as possible.

I recognise the work of the former Prime Minister, my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Holborn and St Pancras, who changed the conversation with Europe when he came into office. I have had that played back to me from a number of European leaders. There is something to build on; good steps have been taken. The UK-EU summit is in front of us; it may be the month after next—we are still waiting to finalise. I hope we can make further progress there. There is no doubt that our growth has been hit in the last decade. There is no prospect of getting what we want for our farmers if we take an isolationist approach. We have to work more closely with Europe. That is the approach that I will take unapologetically. I hope my hon. Friend will have some success to celebrate soon.

I assure the right hon. Gentleman that No. 10 North will be as much at the service of Scotland and his constituency as it will anywhere else. Members of this House will get used to seeing what an improvement it might be in getting answers out of Whitehall on many issues, including the one that he has just raised. I will give the right hon. Gentleman an honest answer: I am concerned about those plans too. I know that some of my constituents in Makerfield rely on Freeview. There is perhaps an opportunity to look at that as part of the BBC charter renewal process. I cannot give him a final answer today, but I recognise that he has raised a genuine issue that is of concern to his constituents. Let me have a proper look at it.

I thank my hon. Friend for what she said; it is my intention to bring back a bit more optimism around the country, to give people the feeling that things can be fixed. That is my style—to face things and fix things. It is the approach I will take to water, too. I do not know whether those on the Opposition Benches were supporting the status quo—it sounded like it, to a degree—but it is not defensible, in my view, for precisely the reasons my hon. Friend just gave. We are looking at options. I believe that we need a strengthened response, particularly when it comes to legislation. I am happy to work with my hon. Friend and plot out a path to repair our water infrastructure, bring down people’s bills and ensure that it is not always the public who are expected to pay for everything.

It is good to see the right hon. Gentleman again. I thank him for his comments; I am bringing a problem-solving approach. There will still be the odd point scored here and there—it would be a bit dull if I did not do a little of that—but where we can find common ground, we should. The public expect it. I think they are fed up of watching the television when things are broken and seeing us playing politics with those things. Let us see where we can make progress, and score the points where we cannot.

The right hon. Gentleman raises a very serious issue. As I said a moment ago, I was in Northern Ireland last week, where I met his colleagues as well as colleagues from other parties. I know there has been a serious loss of trust in the commission, and I know it needs to be addressed. The Northern Ireland Secretary has taken some action, but I believe more is to come.

As I said to the right hon. Member for Maldon (Sir John Whittingdale), I believe we need to do more to support the businesses that my hon. Friend talked about, and there will be more to come. The cost of doing business is too high. As I have said this afternoon, energy bills are too high for businesses and households, and we need the determination to bring those bills down and lower the cost of doing business. There will be more to come on that. This will be a pro-business and pro-small-business Government. Nobody should make any mistake about that. The approach that I led in Manchester was all about the public taking control of what they need to do in order to make a place functional for businesses and people. That is Manchesterism, and that is what we will bring nationally. It is all about setting businesses up to succeed. I look forward to working with my hon. Friend to improve that business, and her high streets, too.

I will take on that challenge and ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government to consider what the right hon. Gentleman has said this afternoon. These changes do benefit from having the maximum consensus. On the Thatcher Government, we will probably have to agree to disagree, but I make one observation: we have a public housing stock that has 1.5 million fewer homes than in the ’80s and ’90s, and we now have 1.5 million people on housing waiting lists up and down the country. I would put it to him that that is a cause of further public cost, in terms of the number of people who are in a crisis situation. I think we can do better. I have been prepared to criticise the Government that I was in; maybe one day he might criticise the one that he was in, and then we will be able to find some solutions.

I agree wholeheartedly with my hon. Friend. I point to my record as Mayor of Greater Manchester: I had the back of all the thousands of officers who were out serving, keeping Greater Manchester safe, day after day. I pay tribute to the families of those officers we lost in Middlesbrough in the line of duty, sacrificing themselves for their community.

I also want to assure my hon. Friend that I heard the voice of PC Andrew Harper’s family before making my decisions on early release. Before I was here, this House passed Harper’s law. The spirit of that legislation really should have been honoured in that early release scheme, and it now will be. It always should be that this House gives the maximum recognition to those who put themselves at risk for our safety and that of everyone else.

I am ready to have a constructive conversation with the First Minister, as I did when I met him in July in my first week in office. I believe from my own experience that a form of local devolution in Wales and Scotland might further strengthen the economy and public services. That is the point that I am making in relation to buses in Glasgow and other services as well. Where power is too centralised and too remote, sometimes poor decisions are made. My agenda is all about putting power in the hands of people at the community level, so that they can drive changes that are right for them. There is a model of local devolution that could be made to work in Scotland, in Wales and possibly in Northern Ireland, and I am ready to support that, if that is what the right hon. Lady wishes.

I think I am right in saying that the Leader of the Opposition made strong statements early in the year—going back to January—on this very issue, and I indicated then that I supported the strongest action, recognising the damage to children’s mental health that social media has been doing. That is an example of how I work and how I will work in this role. Where something is obviously wrong and causing harm, particularly to children, it is incumbent on all of us to act. From my point of view, there is no watering down; we do need to take action. Those of us with children can sometimes see the damage being done, and we should not just accept it. I will lead from the front on this issue.

May I say clearly to the hon. Lady and to the country more broadly that I fully understand the pressure that businesses are under? The cost of doing business is higher it than it should be, owing to the pressures from energy costs and other things. I do not come into this position in any way in denial about that. We need to take further steps to reduce the cost of business, and I have indicated a direction of travel on that today.

These are matters that we need to give the utmost consideration to. We need to get growth up. The hon. Lady tried to give an analysis, but we have had a decade of low growth—these issues go back, and are much deeper—which is why, in my statement, I laid out the issues very clearly, and put forward a plan for growth. That plan requires us to be pro-business, and to provide what support we can.

If we are closing down digital space for young people, it is incumbent on all of us to open up more physical space in communities, and to repair the damage to youth services that was done 15 or so years ago. We will not get crime down without that. That is the other side of the coin to increasing police officer numbers. My hon. Friend has my commitment on that.

On my visit in the summer, I heard concerns about the availability of vaccine, and the time it was taking for farms to access it, so I am aware of the issue. I will seek an update from the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Secretary and, if necessary, I am prepared to meet the hon. Gentleman to discuss this.

As I said before, and I am pleased to give my hon. Friend this assurance, I want to ensure that we do not have a two-tier England in which rural and coastal areas feel in some way shut out or left behind. There is a devolution deal that can be done for everywhere; he has my commitment on that. I encourage him to look at the letter from the First Secretary of State about No. 10 North; it is about providing for practical areas. I also encourage Members on all sides to start being practical about agreeing a combined authority, where that can be brought through. That, in our experience, is the best way to secure a building block for economic growth and to sustain important services. I want rural areas to benefit from exactly the same.

My new constituency—in fact, it includes a good chunk of my old Leigh constituency, so I know it well—has been hugely developed over the years, and we have brought through significant new housing. Anyone who visited during the by-election will know that the infrastructure is struggling to cope with the number of houses that have been built in the constituency. All I am saying to the right hon. Lady is that I support taking a balanced approach where there has been significant development, but I do not think that it is sustainable to turn our back on all development completely. It is about a balance, and I will work in this role to find that balance with the right hon. Lady.

I thank my hon. Friend for that question, and we will absolutely work in the way that she has described. The commitment is real, and it is not a temporary commitment. The money that she mentions is, as far as I am concerned, ongoing. “Everyone in” should be and will be the permanent policy of the Government that I lead. I do not believe that we should accept that anybody sleeps rough on a British street at any time, but I also know that if we are to help people on a journey away from the streets, it requires a whole-person approach, with all Departments working together. It can be done and I look forward to working with my hon. Friend on it.

I have given quite a few commitments to meetings today, so I will say to the hon. Gentleman, recognising the seriousness of the issue, that I will ensure that the relevant Minister meets him at his or her earliest convenience, given the seriousness of the issue and the report that he has done.

It is a real commitment of mine to ensure that the right powers are held at local level to take action on issues that matter to communities. We have had similar issues with illegal waste tipping in constituencies that leave people feeling that there is no accountability—almost a sense of lawlessness—and we cannot allow that to continue. I absolutely will look out for my hon. Friend to discuss this further. We can do more to empower local authorities, and he will have heard something I said in my statement: it was a real commitment to taking resources from a national level and bringing them back down, particularly to support local councils, which have in recent times, I am afraid, seen themselves hollowed out and they do not have the enforcement capability that they once had. We need to find ways of putting it back so that the people who do these things in communities can be held accountable and councils can enforce their own laws.

I do recognise the need to fund education in exactly the way the hon. Lady describes. This goes back to the point I made about investing in success rather than paying for failure. We need to be serious about giving all young people a path to success, and therefore reducing the number of young people dependent on benefits in their 20s. This is a shift that we need to make. The Milburn report will hopefully lay out a way to do that, and I look forward to working with the hon. Lady on this important issue.

My hon. Friend is absolutely right to say that this should be a national mission. I talked earlier about a guarantee of a quality work placement between 16 and 18. We could look at doing more to support young people with transport costs, as we did in Greater Manchester. We need more youth apprenticeships—those went into decline, and we need to turn that around—and we need to see many more degree apprenticeships.

The point I am making is that we need to lay out a technical path from 14 for all our young people, so that we do not have a situation where it seems to them that the university route is the be-all and end-all—important as that is for those who want to go on it. Too many young people hit their middle teenage years, in year 10 and year 11, and cannot see where the path is going, and then they start to drop out. That is what I am determined to fix. I look forward to working with my hon. Friend on that.

I thank the hon. Lady for her question. We had a good meeting last week. I do not disagree with what she says, and nor do I disagree with the power with which she says it, because many people watching this will be saying, “It’s too hard now; we need help.” The VAT cut on electricity did lead to a funding offer to the Northern Ireland Government, but I would be the first to say that that is only a start; it is a small step, for the reasons that she gives. We can do more to bring down the cost of transport, and we are going to set out more plans in the Budget to help with the cost of living. She should keep that level of determination to support her constituents. We will make this country feel better, more contented and more united if we are dealing with these issues in a meaningful way for them. I want that to be the hallmark of this Government.

I will ask the Transport Secretary to work with colleagues at No. 10 North to see what can be done to bring forward a new way of delivering this much-needed infrastructure. I know how critical it is. I do not think any region of the country—certainly not the south-west and the north-east—has a level of infrastructure that is acceptable. This is something that has been long promised and not delivered. Let us see whether No. 10 North can make the breakthrough.

The right hon. Gentleman will be speaking for many people in his area, and I can see the passion with which he does so. I am not aware of the detail of the amendment at this point in time, but I will certainly ask the Health Secretary to take a close look. I do not like the idea of a postcode lottery in the national health service. There should be an expectation that services available anywhere should be available everywhere, particularly when it comes to an issue as important as this. I give him a commitment to look at the issue, but I will have to come back to him to let him know what we are able to do.

I will certainly work with my hon. Friend on this issue. I credit The Passage—I believe it is in her constituency—which is a wonderful charity that supports homeless people, and which I was proud to support on the morning I went into Downing Street. It focused me on what I needed to be focused on before I did that.

I agree with everything that my hon. Friend has said. If people are passed from pillar to post, they will not settle enough to be able to begin their journey of recovery —that was all my experience on this issue in Greater Manchester. We had it right in the pandemic, when people were given a settled place to stay. When people are in the same place every night, that is when they begin to recover. I do not believe that it is beyond us to provide now what we provided then. That is why my commitment to Everyone In is a permanent commitment. That should allow organisations such as The Passage, and others doing brilliant work in this area, to start planning for the long term, and to turn around what is, sadly, a tide of misery for so many people. We are wasting money on failure when we could be investing in recovery. That is what we should do.

I pay tribute to the hon. Gentleman; he was kind enough to invite me to a meeting of the all-party group when he was campaigning on that issue, and we did work on it cross-party. I was pleased to be able to make that change as Prime Minister. It is something that will benefit a huge number of disabled people, but he is right that the job is not done because many disabled people will say that they cannot go out and live their life without a companion, and sometimes they cannot afford to pay for that. There is further work to be done, but let’s celebrate—I was going to say, “let’s celebrate the small wins,” but I do not think it is a small win because it means everything to somebody who now can, or will soon be able to, get out whenever they need with that change. I pay credit to the hon. Gentleman; he ran a great campaign. It was something I did in Greater Manchester—I was proud to support him. And that is the thing I am saying today: let’s do more of that.

I could not agree more. The agenda of reindustrialisation goes hand in hand with lifting high streets, and I know that my hon. Friend has campaigned on both those things. I am serious in saying that we need quite a change in British public procurement to support our industries. As she will see as we go towards the Budget, we will talk more about what can be done to support high streets. Too many tell a story of decline. If we can turn them round, it could completely change the way people feel about the areas where they live. It could build that sense of optimism that can then make many more things possible. That is what I intend to do for her constituency and many others, working with her.

While I may have already outlasted the longest world cup match, I am sure that my right hon. Friend and I did a longer Q&A at a hustings in 2015—so this is just a small one.

I agree with what my right hon. Friend says about the change we need to see to the housing market. He mentions local housing allowance. It has been repeatedly frozen in recent years, and that has meant that the gap between benefits and rents has grown bigger and bigger. It is the biggest reason that London councils have a huge temporary accommodation bill, which I think has gone over half a billions pounds now. The freeze does not save money, because it just creates an unfunded pressure in council budgets. He may have seen that in our first allocations from the social and affordable homes programme, which I mentioned in my statement, London is the biggest beneficiary by some distance, particularly through the building of council homes in London. We have made a significant down payment there. I hear what he says about local housing allowance. We need a package of measures to turn the housing market around. Hopefully, some of what I have said today answers his concerns.

Every one of my generation went on a school trip to Jodrell Bank, and there is no way that we can see its demise—it will not happen under my Government. I know that changes have been made in relation to research funding, but Jodrell Bank is a heritage asset for the country as well as a research asset. I will indeed set up the meeting that my hon. Friend requires. There must be a way to save Jodrell Bank, and I give her a commitment today at this Dispatch Box: we will find it.

There have been too many tragic deaths this summer, and the best way to prevent that is to do exactly what the hon. Member said. Swimming should be an entitlement for young people on the curriculum, and I look forward to seeing how we can deliver that, working with her.

I will at some point—as soon as I can. In relation to shipbuilding, I worked with the Mayor of Liverpool, who was setting a contract for a new Mersey ferry and found that there was pressure to have it built overseas. Using social value commissioning, he and I worked together to ensure that the ferry was built at Cammell Laird in Birkenhead, and it will soon come into service in Liverpool. We need to see more of that. Too many buses are being bought from companies outside our shores, when we have Wrightbus in Northern Ireland and Alexander Dennis Ltd in Scotland and Scarborough. We should be doing more to back British business, and my hon. Friend can expect that fully from me, as well as commitments to the shipbuilding industry.

The right hon. Gentleman raises a crucial issue that matters greatly to me and to the Chancellor. We will meet all our international commitments, and we will set out how at the spending review.

That is an excellent suggestion. It is exactly the thing No. 10 North was set up to do, and I will pass my hon. Friend’s suggestion on to them.

I did intend to visit Devon at the same time, but I was diverted to Stourbridge—I hope the hon. Lady will understand why—because of the devastating fire in people’s homes that we saw in the middle of the summer. As I said before, I am prepared to look at local government reorganisation or ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government to do that. Where possible, we need as much consent as we can get. If the hon. Lady is telling me that we need to work harder to find that, I am always prepared to do what I can.

I do know Garry and Lesley Hoolickin well; I have met them many, many times. The murder of their son was something that sadly could have been prevented. It was, in some ways, caused by chaos in the probation system, as my hon. Friend knows. When I was leaving this House in the middle part of the last decade, probation services were plummeting into chaos, and only in recent times have we started to lift them back up again. Personally, I think there does need to be accountability for what happened to probation services in that period. It was a disastrous reorganisation that had real human consequences, and I have always supported the call for work to give answers to the families who lost loved ones—truth and justice.

I have not yet had a chance to read that review. I will, and I will then seek to speak to the hon. Gentleman, to see what we can do.

I thank my hon. Friend for that question. Again, I cannot give a time commitment, but I will at some point do exactly as she asks and have that meeting. I recognise that the cost of doing business is too high. We need to show serious intent to bring it down, and that is what we will do.

I will certainly look carefully at what the hon. Gentleman says. He will have heard me say in my statement that small boat crossings are down, and the number of people coming over is down, but we still have a challenge in relation to accommodation. I will look at the issue. I think Piddington is nearby, and I know there are concerns in that community as well. The only thing I would say is that it cannot be only the most deprived parts of this country that are asked to deal with the whole issue of asylum accommodation. A balance has to be struck, but it has to be fair for everybody. I of course recognise that large-scale institutions can put pressure on nearby villages. Let me look at the issues that he raises; I can see that they are genuine, but this is an issue that has to be dealt with as a whole country, and that is what I will do.

I will absolutely give my hon. Friend the commitment that I will ask the relevant Minister to meet them, and would he do me the favour of passing on my sympathies to Max’s family? That is devastating news. There is so much more we need to do on brain cancer. You can be sure, Madam Deputy Speaker, that I will always do that in the name of my good friend Tessa Jowell, whose family still work on these issues. There is so much more that we can do. I know that these issues have been in the media recently. There is encouraging research being done. We need to see a breakthrough. I will keep a close eye on that meeting, and I am happy to work with him further on this issue.

I always love visiting Northern Ireland, so who knows? On the hon. and learned Gentleman’s main point, I will probably disappoint him. Obviously, the arrangements put in place are about supporting the economy of Northern Ireland, because Northern Ireland can get the benefits of access to both markets. It is important that he sees the benefits of the arrangement that the Windsor framework brought as well.

I do not think I can go all that way from the Dispatch Box today, but I understand the point my hon. Friend makes. A council tax system based on 1991 valuations is not going to deliver fairness across the country. The first steps at reform were taken in last year’s Budget. We need to proceed with consensus on this issue, if we can. I understand what he is saying, but the more wholesale reform might have to wait for another day.

I have said to the Transport Secretary, and she agrees, that the performance of the railways over the summer we have just had has been nowhere near good enough. On a very hot day, passengers on a train from Edinburgh to London had no working toilets on the entire train, and coming back from Cornwall and Devon, the train that I was on was abandoned at Taunton—I think we have all had those kinds of experiences. The railways need to improve and public ownership of them needs to drive that improvement. I will be convening a rail summit soon to discuss the summer just gone—I would be happy for the hon. Gentleman to write to me with details of the service he mentioned—because we need to see significant improvement on our railways.

My hon. Friend is exactly right. The first stage of any social care reform should be workforce reform to create the foundation on which to build a new approach and a more preventive, higher quality service that actually keeps people out of hospital. I think it starts with people’s pay, terms and conditions, their prospects for progression and their ability to move towards the NHS. I have always favoured seeing this as a single approach across all care. I am happy to work with him on that, because from my point of view, he has articulated perfectly the first stage of social care reform.

There was nothing easy about reopening early release. I was listening to the British people when I made changes to exclude rapists, groomers and those guilty of the most serious sexual offences against children from the scheme, and then went even further to exclude manslaughter and other historic child sex offences. Regardless of what the hon. Gentleman might read on social media, I do take difficult decisions. I have done that for 25 years as an elected politician and it is what I will carry on doing. The proposals that the Justice Secretary will outline soon show that that is exactly the nettle that I have grasped.

It is so important that rural communities do not feel shut out from the drive towards devolution. That is why I have made that clear commitment today. I believe that rural communities can benefit from public control of bus services, possibly more than urban areas, because bus services in rural areas are so fragile, expensive and often intermittent. It is only moving to a regulated service that can put in place a decent, reliable bus service for people. That is something that we should support for rural areas, working through No. 10 North, and we should put it into effect for our rural communities as much as for our urban areas.

It is a very real offer and I am glad that it finds favour with my hon. Friend—I call him that because we have worked together over a number of years. I heard some groans from the Opposition Benches when I mentioned the overnight visitor levy, but bear in mind that many of us will have been on summer holidays where we have spent a few extra euros to recognise the benefit we get from using services in a local area. If such a power was extended as part of a devolution deal, it could be quite transformational for Cornwall because it could open up a new revenue stream to address infrastructure. That would be a choice for Cornwall, but I want to consider a devolution deal that gives real levers that can help Cornwall and other rural areas to start to improve their services. It might provide the revenue to sustain bus services, for instance. It is about fairness. We heard about the unfairness of council tax. It cannot be right to make residents pay for all the services when visitors should make a fair contribution as well. As British tourists, we pay it elsewhere, so I do not see why visitors to Cornwall should not pay a little extra. That is the type of discussion we need to have—it is not a fluffy discussion but a real discussion—about what can be done to move Cornwall forward. I am ready to do that and maybe make it a template for other rural areas across England.

I assure my hon. Friend that I am giving close consideration to that very suggestion.

I mentioned the Good Friday agreement earlier. It is important to deal properly and fully with all the issues that are still there and need to be addressed. I do not think it is a case of leaving anything hanging over anybody. The commission proposed in the Bill allows answers to be given for those who are still seeking answers. This is about the right protections for veterans, too. Amendments will be brought forward soon, and we can discuss them as a House then.

I can absolutely give my hon. Friend that commitment.

I do not think the hon. Lady was in the House at the time, but I did signal a change on Israel and Palestine when I came into office as Prime Minister. A further statement will be made to the House very shortly.

The Housing Minister has just assured me that we will look at the very issue my hon. Friend raises, so he may want to pursue that conversation with him.

I have been very clear that I will take a pragmatic approach, and the hon. Gentleman will see that in action soon.

It is certainly on offer from me to have a devolution deal that does precisely what my hon. Friend says and gets business, academia and local government all pulling together. Obviously it is a matter for the Scottish Government—I am not going to go round their back—but I hope that we can agree something at the National Economic Council next month.

I understand the last point, and I have hinted at it today. The Cunliffe review was too limited and should have looked at all options for the water industry. I do not want this issue to drag on, but I do not believe we have a water industry that is fit for the climate challenges of the future, for the reasons that the hon. Lady has given. We will come forward with our proposals soon; it will not be too long.

I think this House will need to have a very profound debate when the Milburn report is published. We need to make a generational change in the way that we support our young people, and I will engage my hon. Friend fully in that discussion.

Yes—this issue used to drive me mad as Mayor of Greater Manchester. Only the capital has had some of those powers, but everywhere should have them. I am in full support of what the hon. Gentleman says.

I fully agree with my hon. Friend. We need to provide the very best support we can to those who serve in our armed forces. I know that the Chancellor, in his previous role, did a lot to improve forces accommodation. There is more that we can do, and I look forward to working with my hon. Friend on that. I enjoyed my visit.

I do not want to steal the thunder of the Justice Secretary, but he will soon announce a much-enhanced licensing and tagging regime in which victims will be able to be given a say in the setting of the restrictions. We are moving for the first time to a system of restriction zones, rather than exclusion zones. That means that the victim is much more in control and we are not allowing people just to have places that they cannot go into; we are instead giving them a zone that is the only area they can go into. That completely alters the balance in favour of victims.

We will certainly look at that scheme, and indeed we are doing so. I have been in touch with the Canadian Prime Minister. There are other schemes in Europe. We need to be pragmatic about our defence commitments and look at all ways of collaborating so that we can save money, as my hon. Friend suggests.

I certainly have not in any way disrespected Scotland. I came to Scotland to support the opening of the Commonwealth games in my first week in office. I met the First Minister. He shared some of his concerns about the Council of the Nations and Regions. He felt it did not give due consideration to the nations, and I listened to that, as well as putting the proposals on the table about more local devolution. I have not done anything of the kind the hon. Lady describes. Similar to Northern Ireland, it is about when public support changes and the position changes. I do not follow all the polls in Scotland, but I am not aware that they are consistently showing a change and a need for another referendum.

It was brilliant to be at Alstom with my hon. Friend and to see all the apprentices that it employs, as well as those employed in its supply chain. It is a model for what we want to see elsewhere. We need to make a massive change in this area. It should be a big part of our response to the Milburn report, and I can give my hon. Friend a commitment that that is exactly what I will be seeking to do.

The hon. Member has worked hard at that question. Full marks for creativity. It must have looked great in front of the mirror, and it was still pretty good in the House. On the triple-helix model, perhaps he needs to speak to Baroness May down the corridor, because that was her theory in the local industrial strategies that I mentioned, and it has worked pretty well in Greater Manchester. I would not dismiss it quite so quickly. Greater Manchester had average growth for a decade of more than 3%; maybe there is something worth looking at there.

I completely agree. It was striking that people were pointing out the loss of the ferry service between his constituency and Tilbury. Sorry, between Gravesend and Tilbury—have I got that right? That type of connectivity is crucial to local communities, and I completely agree with my hon. Friend. No. 10 North is there to get that infrastructure back in, and I hope he will work with it.

I have already got Members on the other side of the House championing my achievements as Mayor of Greater Manchester. The hon. Member makes a good point.

I was sad to hear about Denby Pottery, and I know my hon. Friend’s part of the world fairly well. We are serious about making sure that where there are world-class sectors in our communities, we back them properly and help them transition to future technologies. We have not done that well as a country in the past; we will do it much better in the future.

The hon. Member sounds like he could be speaking from the Government Benches. I got a lot of jeers from the Opposition when I talked about public control earlier this afternoon, but that is precisely what he is calling for, and he is right to do so. It enabled me to reduce bus fares in Greater Manchester, and I do not see why it would not enable him to reduce ferry fares. Bring me a proposal—that is what I say to him. I will look seriously at it, because I understand completely how critical those transport links are to opportunity and growth, both on the island and on the mainland.

When we think of rough sleeping and homelessness, bricks and mortar is only part of it. In effect, what we are talking about is a journey of recovery. That was the Housing First philosophy that was discussed earlier. It is about giving people a firm base, and then giving them the support to move forward. Every person in my view is capable of recovery. We just need to give them the circumstances in which it can happen.

The climate commitments in our manifesto are not at risk. I have made clear today that we need to plan for a carbon-neutral future. I am not one of those who will pander to those going in a different direction. I was convinced as Mayor of Greater Manchester that our future lay in adopting renewables, and I am of the same view as Prime Minister. Where I differ from the Green party is on its ideological, rather than pragmatic, approach to getting there. That, I am afraid, might delay the transition that the hon. Member seeks.

This is a very serious matter indeed, and I believe that news has broken about it as we have been gathering a statement from the German Government about the incident at Leipzig. I want to leave the House in no doubt that the UK stands in full solidarity with Germany in the face of these egregious and unacceptable attacks. Russia’s attempts to undermine our united resolve and our willingness to support Ukraine are futile and doomed to fail, and we will be steadfast in the face of them. I am in touch with Chancellor Merz, and we are working closely with our allies to defend any threats to NATO and our allies, and to NATO territory. I am glad that my hon. Friend has raised this matter; it is a very serious development, and it requires the most intense European co-operation in response.

I happen to agree with the hon. Gentleman. I know that there have been moves to improve the regulation of bailiffs, but I would encourage the 10 councils in Greater Manchester to take a different approach to debt, because many people in the hon. Gentleman’s constituency and mine fear the sound of the letterbox opening or a knock at the door. Personal debt can be completely destructive of people’s mental health, and I think that there is a different and better way, which the hon. Gentleman has described.

I think that the evidence is undeniable when it comes to growth. I have mentioned Greater Manchester, and the Liverpool city region is now growing at a faster rate than the UK average, which, for most of our lives, was simply was not the case. It is not in managed decline; it is actually flourishing, and my hon. Friend’s area is, as well. However, it can go even further. The model of devolution in England is working, and I want it to be available to all areas. If my hon. Friend wishes to lead a delegation to No. 10 North, I will ensure that he receives the warmest possible welcome.

I am aware of that change. Obviously, the Greater London Authority was created by statute, and there are other voices in the mix, including those of London Members of Parliament. I will always respond to a change when it is brought to me with a clear consensus and cross-party support. I am not aware that that exists fully across London, but if such a proposal were brought to me, I would always look at it carefully.

I understand that there is a possibility of sustainable aviation fuel production at Grangemouth. I find that very interesting, and I keep coming back to it. Perhaps my hon. Friend wishes me to persuade No. 10 North to support him in the development of that proposal; I know that there is a financial commitment, but if we do reindustrialise, the money that we put forward to support that process can pay us back over many years to come, through a bigger and flourishing economy in all parts of the UK.

I do not know whether the hon. Lady is right about the full backing. I believe that an independent review of the Parades Commission and the process that it undertook has been announced. The Northern Ireland Secretary has already taken some steps, and the review of the process will go further. We will work hard to ensure that the trust of all communities—but particularly the communities that the hon. Lady represents—in the commission is restored.

I think there is a need for a resolution on what will happen from Handsacre to Manchester via Crewe, and a solution for the communities in between. This cannot be left where it is indefinitely. I understand the points that my hon. Friend has made, but given my past role, I hope he will be assured that this is something that I know a lot about.

I will ask the Education Secretary to look at precisely the issue that the hon. Lady has raised.

I have always said that we will not have a health and care system that is fit for the 21st century until it supports people with dementia as well as it treats people with cancer. We are some way from that, but it is the goal we should be working towards.

I am aware of the concern, and it is similar to the issue that was raised by the hon. Member for Mid Buckinghamshire (Greg Smith). All I can say is that I give the hon. Member for Bicester and Woodstock (Calum Miller) a commitment that I will familiarise myself with all the details of the planning application. I will happily report back from this Dispatch Box when I have done that.

That was put very well, and this is exactly the agenda that I have been talking about from the Dispatch Box today. All parts of the UK need to have control over basic services, and I look forward to working with my hon. Friend to support what he is saying.

I remember well visiting Musgrove Park in my days as a Health Minister. I did some work shadowing at the hospital, so I know how much it is in need of renovation. I will look into the issue. Across the NHS this summer, staff have been working in unbearable conditions, and it is the same for patients. I know that this is high on the Health Secretary’s agenda, and I will come back to the hon. Gentleman when I have had a chance to look at the latest status of that issue.