Speeches by Curtis.

“Just picking up on the Chair’s previous comments, the broader question was that we are not aware of any evidential basis for the number. The response was, to paraphrase slightly, “Look, it is always going to have some level of subjectiveness to it,” which I accept. Both of those two things can be true at the same time,…”

“One thing that it feels to me would help square this circle is if, while you are moving powers from districts up to these slightly larger unitary authorities, you also looked at powers that would be potentially moving down from those district councils to parish councils. Most rural areas, and a good chunk of this count…”

“This is a final question from me. I am passionate about the policy. It is great to see the direction of travel on this. You have talked about lots of workstreams that are moving very fast that we hope to be getting going quite quickly with. There is a concern, or at least I certainly have a concern, that, while we are …”

“On the direction of travel as well, across lots of areas there are lots of public sector‑owned buildings, which are often owned by an eclectic mix of national organisations here. NHS Property Services is one that we have been talking about recently. Do you see a move—again, direction of travel and appreciating t…”

“There are a large number of Government arm’s-length bodies that put funding in place for different areas of the country. Take Homes England, for example. Do you see the direction of travel being that that is devolved down and combined authorities are taking on the power to dish out Homes England or Arts Council England…”

“Currently, the West Midlands, Greater Manchester and Glasgow have innovation funds. Would you consider rolling out innovation funds to mayoral strategic authorities?”

“I am Chris Curtis, Labour MP for Milton Keynes North.”

“If we accept Clive’s point that it would be good to have some more of this and that the tinkering is not going to work, and if we also accept the premise that pigs will fly before the Treasury accepts the radical option, what is the middle ground? A tourist tax is not radical. Devolving powers to combined authorities t…”

“David, you shook your head.”

“I am Chris Curtis, Labour MP for Milton Keynes North.”

“No, go on—do revaluation.”

“I quite liked Will’s introduction: be radical. We will go with that. Will the decision by the Government to allow certain local authorities to raise their thresholds for increasing council tax before triggering a referendum help these councils to close existing funding shortfalls? I will ask Charlotte first.”

“There is a way through this. You do the revaluation so we know the numbers that local authorities could potentially raise. That solves the grant funding problem. You then allow combined authorities to make the decision on whether they adopt those or keep the old system.”

“Stuart, broadly, everyone accepts that property prices from when Gorbachev was in charge are not a sensible way to do this and so we should change it. Do you have any views on how practically we might go about that without running into issues? Specifically, is it quite difficult to do at a national level? Could you giv…”

“We will go to David for the modelling and then we will come back to revaluation.”

“It would be easier to get it through if it was—”

“I will take a moment to thank the many council leaders and staff from across my area who have worked tirelessly to remove barriers and blocks in order to get a deal for Bedford, Luton, Milton Keynes and Central Bedfordshire. Unfortunately—and possibly proving the argument for why we, more than any other, need devolutio…”

“Chris Curtis, Milton Keynes North.”

“Okay. Final question from me. I will try to word this carefully. Over the time when these debates were happening—so let’s say 2013 to 2024—was there any communication between the previous Government and the Electoral Commission that any reasonable person would have considered as pressure being applied by the previous G…”

“It would be good to have confirmation that that was not the case over the entire period as well.”