Speeches by Fahnbulleh.

“With the leave of the House, I will respond to the thoughtful, constructive and robust interventions from hon. Members across the House. I will start with a theme that has been raised once again by the hon. Members for Guildford (Zöe Franklin) and for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner (David Simmonds) —that this is a centr…”

“I will make progress, as we are almost out of time. On the key question of funding our strategic authorities, we absolutely recognise the vital role that strategic authorities and mayors can play. We are seeing this across the country—that is why we support devolution to mayors and strategic authorities. On the point a…”

“I will make progress. The point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Ribble Valley (Maya Ellis) and the hon. Member for Brighton Pavilion (Siân Berry) that we must have strong community engagement is one that we absolutely believe in. We will continue to learn from what we see on the ground and draw on insights as to …”

“I thank my hon. Friend—”

“I beg to move, That the Bill be now read the Third time. I am privileged to be able to open this Third Reading debate following constructive debates on Report. Let me first reiterate my thanks to Members on both sides of the House for their thoughtful contributions during the Bill’s passage. The Bill cements the Govern…”

“I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.”

“We will consult on whether that power should be extended to foundational strategic authorities that do not have a mayor, and we will see the responses to that consultation. I said yesterday that the Bill is the floor, not the ceiling, of this Government’s ambition. Today’s announcement shows just how seriously we take …”

“Glasgow city will receive £1.5 million of Pride in Place impact funding to improve high streets and invest in community spaces and assets. In addition, neighbourhoods across Scotland will receive up to £20 million through our Pride in Place funding to transform their areas. We are working with the Scotland Office to an…”

“I would be delighted to visit Glasgow North East and am pleased to hear of the local enthusiasm for our Pride in Place agenda and my hon. Friend’s work in supporting this locally and championing her constituency. We are working closely with the Scotland Office on phase 2 of the Pride in Place programme to confirm the s…”

“We are providing £1.5 million from the Pride in Place impact fund to enable immediate work in Luton to develop community spaces and revitalise local high streets. Work is already under way on this, and I look forward to seeing the impact it will have locally.”

“Yes, I agree 100%. May I just thank my hon. Friend for the work that she is doing to bring the voices of her community to the very heart of this? Our Pride in Place strategy represents a new way for Government to work that puts power, agency and the voice of our communities front and centre. We expect all local authori…”

“My hon. Friend is always a champion for Cornwall. To confirm, there were two things that drove the allocation: indices of multiple deprivation and our community needs index. For places that did not receive Pride in Place funding, within our strategy there is a whole suite of tools and levers that communities can grip i…”

“I thank the right hon. Member for raising the important work that has been done in his constituency. We will continue to work with that group, because we want to ensure that all communities have the ability to grip assets and drive the change that they want to see.”

“We are working with all areas to ensure that we are devolving power, whether to strategic authorities or mayors, to make sure that they can grip the economic opportunities and unlock the growth that we did not see under the last Government, but that this Government absolutely want to deliver.”

“I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.”

“I am delighted to bring the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill back to the House on Report. Before I go any further, I would like to place on the record my gratitude to Members from across the House for their continued engagement on this Bill, and in particular to the Chairs and members of the Public Bil…”

“Absolutely. We are very clear that with powers come responsibility and accountability. We are strengthening scrutiny powers for local government, and we will continue to look at ways in which we can strengthen scrutiny and accountability powers for mayors. We are absolutely clear that we have got to devolve power, but …”

“We are very clear that the process of local government reorganisation should be driven by local areas. That is why we are going through a process in which local areas are coming up with proposals, and consulting constituent authorities and their communities. We will then make a decision based on those proposals. It is …”

“The Opposition have some cheek to raise that point, because on their watch, local government was put under a huge amount of pressure. Reorganisation should have happened on their watch, but they ducked it; we are now gripping this issue and driving the change. We are not doing this for the fun of it, but because we are…”

“I will make some progress on the things we will be debating today. In Committee, we amended schedules 1 and 9 to the Bill to state that combined foundation strategic authorities’ decisions on adopting local transport plans and agreeing their budgets will require the unanimous agreement of all constituent councils. This…”