Speeches by Smith.

“I am Member of Parliament for Hyndburn.”

“I can see that Robin would like to come in but briefly, what you are saying is what we would expect mortgage brokers and providers to say they make more money when they take on a new mortgage. But the certainty a buyer has in France and the USA and the way the market operates there, surely gives both renters and buyers…”

“But it does not have to be like that; other markets operate quite differently, where people have certainty over a much longer period of time.”

“Bringing this back to the topic of shared ownership, I am interested in your views on how the issues around lease duration and ground rents for existing shared owners can be addressed to encourage lenders to provide mortgages.”

“I will let others come in but to just slightly push back, that set of data was based on the prior rules and changes have been made since. Would we still maintain that confidence if, goodness forbid—it certainly would not happen under this Government—there was a similar disaster as when Liz Truss wrecked our economy? In…”

“What are the timelines for that publication?”

“Moving now to some questions around local government finance, the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill is giving councils greater influence over pupil placements and new schools, which is a really welcome step forward. Councils are facing huge economic pressures due to SEND and high-needs budgets. How will you provide…”

“I am Sarah Smith, Member of Parliament for Hyndburn. I will also just put on record an interest that I have. I am also a landlord.”

“Do you not agree with me that it would seem unfair for the 16th most deprived community in the country to potentially be disadvantaged by these reforms?”

“Moving on to the fair funding review, I really welcomed this as a bold move to try to get better distribution of funding into local government across the country, especially in places such as Hyndburn. We are, unfortunately, the 16th most deprived local authority, based on the recent update in the indices of multiple d…”

“My question was more about how you see your role in enabling councils, through changes or your renewed approach to local government finance, to take a longer-term view and to move more into early intervention and preventive work. In SEND and across other areas of policy, how do you envisage enabling local authorities t…”

“I just want to challenge that. Certainly in my constituency, we have recently been looking at the specific question of HMO licensing. People are up in arms that, right now, that is focused on a number of postcodes, because their view as a resident is, “That just means that, in my postcode next door, we are going to sud…”

“Just to pick up on what you said there around selective licensing, you seem to be suggesting that there is a role for that only in particular postcodes and not at a broader level.”

“Moving on now to the obstacles that landlords are likely to face in raising the standard of their properties, what reasonable steps could the Government take to help landlords overcome these obstacles? Linked to that, what role could the private rented sector database play in helping landlords on that journey of raisin…”

“You mentioned that the process of the legislation coming through and the choice of language has been the root cause of creating that adversarial interaction between landlords and tenants. I would push back that, surely, what has caused us to get to this place is that there are hundreds of thousands of landlords who hav…”

“Coming back to the question of enforcement, it was mentioned earlier that there is a real differentiation across local authorities. It is one officer to 25,000 in Huntingdonshire, through to one to every 267 in Nottingham, which apparently is the best. What is the panel’s view on how we should best pay towards the cost…”

“Before I ask a question specifically on enforcement, Kate, you mentioned in your research the 50% of non-mortgaged private rented sector homes, which are often in the worst condition. I wondered whether you could say a little more about your understanding and maybe the characterisation of landlords in this country. Peo…”

“I recently met a constituent who was made unemployed in 2020 during the covid pandemic, and she has struggled ever since to find and hold down a job. She has an autism diagnosis, and it is only since this Government started improving the system that she has had access to a disability-trained job coach, who has supporte…”

“Does the hon. Lady not recognise that personal independence payment is not a benefit paid on your ability to work—it is paid regardless—so providing that case study is perhaps not the most appropriate to making the argument she is trying progress?”

“Will the Chancellor join me in congratulating the great work of Red Hat, a catapult based in Hyndburn that has supported the safeguarding of over 300 jobs and the development of 46 new products? Will she meet me to consider the role of catapults in supporting economic growth in places such as Hyndburn?”