Speeches by Paffey.

“T2. I was delighted recently to see civic and business leaders in Southampton join the Labour council in launching their Renaissance Vision, setting out an ambitious agenda for regeneration and house building in the city. What steps will the Government take in the upcoming spending review to support and enable house bu…”

“Many leaseholders in Southampton Itchen who are still waiting for fire remediation work to be done are now being clobbered by extortionate service charges. In one case, a constituent went from paying £800 a year to £3,300 a year, with next to no clarity that that money is being spent well. Despite my recent meetings wi…”

“20. What steps her Department plans to take to limit excessive service charges imposed on leasehold properties.”

“I thank the Minister for her answer. A constituent of mine in Southampton Itchen suffered horrendous domestic and sexual abuse while she was a serving police officer, but inexplicably the rules did not allow her to take her complaint to the Independent Office for Police Conduct, and made her a victim of the very system…”

“3. What steps she is taking with Cabinet colleagues to help tackle violence against women and girls.”

“We obviously welcome those good signs. I assume you will be monitoring retention of them. Having higher numbers is great but we want to make sure that they are staying in post. Do you have a plan for monitoring that and taking action if anything changes?”

“On that point about caseloads, almost half of social workers say they do not feel like they get enough time with the families that they are working with. If caseloads are going down, what is that due to or what more are you doing as a Department to ensure that caseloads can come down for those for whom it has not yet?”

“Two brief questions on social workers. We have heard evidence that there is a recruitment and retention problem. Obviously the turnover and the instability that results from that is bad for the children that social workers are there to serve. Are you intending to take any steps? I appreciate the comments you have just …”

“I think we would absolutely accept the points you make. The urgency of having places for children to go to that are safe and known to be safe is absolutely of paramount importance. We probably would want the reassurance of the data on how long you have until you have inspected all of those so that we can have some reas…”

“October 2023, so we are now 18 months later. How many have been done, how many remain to be done, and when do you expect that to be completed?”

“Just on that, you say that all new places that need inspections have been known about since September 2023?”

“In which case, what more needs to be done to ensure that there is no chance of children ending up in the places that we have described, whether registered or not?”

“It is all capital, okay. On the basis that we have heard worrying reports about unsuitable supported accommodation, all new placements in much better accommodation will be welcome. But the unsuitable accommodation—and the evidence presented to this Committee was about children living in hostels, B&Bs, barges, caravans,…”

“Is any of the money announced revenue for staffing costs or is that expected to be absorbed into local authority?”

“How much of the overall £90 million pot do you expect to go to new and how much to refurb?”

“What is roughly the split that you are expecting in money for new builds and money for refurbs on existing estate?”

“Obviously the demand will differ from region to region but overall, do you have data yet from the local authorities as to what their pressures are and how many places they need those 200 homes to provide?”

“It is 200 general homes and 180 homes.”

“Minister, in the autumn Budget, the Government committed £90 million to renovating and expanding the children’s home estates. That is a welcome investment but, particularly on the expansion, how many new places are you expecting that money to buy? You will need to staff those. How will you ensure that there are suffici…”

“There are clear benefits coming through and we look forward to seeing more evidence of those. Are you alive to some of the challenges around how you define the region? Some of the evidence that the Committee’s heard took a supposedly sensible region but then noted that actually parts of it would work with its northern …”