Speeches by Curtis.

“I do not want to go off scope now, but I have an important question on this. I assume your ICB, Paul, roughly crosses over with your local authority area, in which case how can you make those two things work closer together? Devolution and more powers are part of that. Do you have a vision for how that works better?”

“You are doing surveys, effectively, then. Do you make that data accessible? Is there a way of us seeing it?”

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

“Schools have come up a couple of times in B&Bs but also in temporary accommodation across the board. Apart from the free bus passes for children that you mentioned, is there any other support that local authorities or the schools tend to give to support children getting to school?”

“Would you say that temporary accommodation is always a safe environment for families with children?”

“When you say it is an allocation issue rather than a cost issue, what do you see as the barriers to accommodation not being allocated effectively as things currently are if it is not cost?”

“Most of the schools I seem to be dealing with, particularly secondary schools, are academies. As someone who works in a local council, how do you find working with them? Is it a mixed bag? Do you find that some are supportive? Do you find some groups do not want to engage on this?”

“Does anybody have any thoughts to add on schools and best practice? What are the limitations to ensuring best practice, ensuring that children have the support they need in schools and ensuring that children can get to schools? What challenges are faced there? What works? Why is everyone not doing what works?”

“What wider support services should local authorities provide for residents while they are living in temporary accommodation?”

“To Hannah Dalton, on the point about LHA going up, I see the pernicious impact that that has caused, increasing TA and your costs for TA. What response have you had when you have had conversations with people in the Government Departments? Following on from that, I suppose you would argue that it would be beneficial to…”

“Nobody has responsibility at that point?”

“At the moment, do you think that most local authorities are meeting their statutory guidance to ensure that temporary accommodation is suitable for families?”

“Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker.”

“I was wondering, given that there are now so few Conservative Members of this Parliament after the recent general election, what proportion of the House of Lords the hon. Gentleman thinks should now be made up of Conservative Members.”

“I rise to make a few brief points in this incredibly important debate. The most important point—one that we have still not spent enough time discussing—is the basic one that people should not be in this place on the basis of the hereditary principle. It is incredibly important that we move away from that for a variety …”

“We could say many things about hereditary peers, but their being representative of the country as a whole is certainly not one of them. Many of us Labour Members think that elections are certainly good, and I hope there will be a point in the future when we can look at introducing them to the House of Lords, but in the…”

“That is certainly true, and it brings me to my next point. This Friday, I will visit Watling academy, a fantastic new school in my constituency, and will chat to children of many ages who are getting their important education. I want to look them in the eye and say that if they work hard, they can have any opportunity …”

“I cannot remember the exact numbers off the top of my head, but they round down to a very low number. From what I have heard in this debate, it seems that people who believe in the hereditary principle are vastly over-represented in this Chamber. We have heard that some people think the legislation is moving too fast, …”

“I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention, and I agree. In my experience, the 29% rent hike was deemed justified because right down the road there was a property being advertised on Zoopla at that new price—but of course that property was newly furnished and had not been agreed by a landlord yet, so it was likely to…”

“Does the hon. Member think that the houses disappear when the landlords move out of the market? The bricks and mortar are still there. The problems in our housing market are caused by the lack of supply and by private landlords taking advantage. Such movement of homes in a fixed market is not going to cause the problem…”