Speeches by Cocking.

“Will the Minister outline her Government’s policy and what she is going to do? She has given us a history lesson on what has happened, but what are the Labour Government going to do moving forward? Can she give us a date for when they are going to meet their manifesto commitment to close the last asylum hotel?”

“I draw attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. Some of the areas that we are looking at are still two-tier areas. Will the Minister outline the Government’s approach? Can two-tier areas create combined authorities, or is it the Government’s ambition that new combined authorities will be c…”

“I am Lewis Cocking, Broxbourne. I am a local councillor as well.”

“Your response sounds like it is a talking shop. What were the outcomes from the meeting? What was agreed to be delivered by the next meeting in February?”

“You have outlined on a number of occasions that there is a shortage of housing in London, so why is London’s housing target being slashed?”

“You keep telling us that there is not enough housing in London and you have slashed the target.”

“Minister, I want to talk about joined-up services. We have been talking today about very important and complex issues. Some people who are rough sleeping have very complex needs. What are the Government, and particularly your Department, doing around joining up those services? That is particularly important with the he…”

“I am really conscious of time. Since you have been in post, have you had a meeting with your counterpart in the Department of Health and Social Care where rough sleeping has been on the agenda?”

“I am Lewis Cocking, Broxbourne. I am a local councillor as well.”

“Your response sounds like it is a talking shop. What were the outcomes from the meeting? What was agreed to be delivered by the next meeting in February?”

“You have outlined on a number of occasions that there is a shortage of housing in London, so why is London’s housing target being slashed?”

“You keep telling us that there is not enough housing in London and you have slashed the target.”

“Minister, I want to talk about joined-up services. We have been talking today about very important and complex issues. Some people who are rough sleeping have very complex needs. What are the Government, and particularly your Department, doing around joining up those services? That is particularly important with the he…”

“I was about to mention battery technology, so I ask the hon. Gentleman to wait just a few seconds. The Bill does go quite far in that its ambition relates to all houses, but I think we should go further. If we are putting solar panels on houses, we should require those houses to have battery storage as well, which migh…”

“I congratulate the hon. Member for Cheltenham (Max Wilkinson) on his Bill. I do have some reservations about it, which I will go into shortly, but I am minded to support it today because this is a much better policy than the current Government line about having large-scale solar farms on all our farmland throughout the…”

“I draw Members’ attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. In the devolution White Paper, the Government set half a million people as the appropriate size for these new councils. Can the Minister therefore rule out creating big super-councils that represent more than a million people? Will h…”

“I had a meeting with a state school in my constituency that said the changes will be damaging because it gets a grant from a private school, which will have to be cut to deal with the impact of VAT. That state school, which is in a genuinely working-class community, will be £200,000 a year worse off under this policy. …”

“Why are you sitting here saying, “We need more grants. We need more grants”? Where does that fit in? Fiona Fletcher-Smith: Generally, the sector is very well funded, but our priorities at the moment are to invest in existing homes. In the past, we would be able to invest in existing homes and use spare money to go into…”

“Going back to housing association assessments and health checks, so to speak, where do you report it to? You do an assessment on the housing association. Where does that information end up? Fiona MacGregor: We grade providers on housing associations on three elements. We grade them on governance, viability and consumer…”

“There is no obligation for you to send that to local authorities or tenants. Fiona MacGregor: It is very well used. Anyone can sign up, and every time we publish anything you will get an alert. Anyone can sign up and get the alerts whenever we publish a new judgment. They are widely available.”