Speeches by Khan.

“I want to start exploring the logistics of this in a little bit more detail. In thinking about how this will work with unitary authorities joining up together, the impact on services is going to be a key part of the consideration. It would be really helpful to understand your thoughts on that and how the actual logisti…”

“To touch upon that, compared to perhaps some of our European counterparts, the way that we have fiscal devolution is quite constrained by comparison, which means that there are challenges, particularly for local government. That is something that we, this Committee, have heard from other witnesses in the past. I know t…”

“I appreciate that we have touched on this already, but it would be helpful to understand, given the opportunities we have had with this particular White Paper, why further fiscal devolution and powers to combined authorities has not been part of it.”

“This is just a follow-up to that. From what Lewis was saying, there has been a bit of a lack of clarity about how this works in terms of the second stages. As someone who comes from an area—Medway—that applied to be on the priority programme, was refused and is now trying to look at what the next stage of that looks li…”

“I am Naushabah Khan, the Labour MP for Gillingham and Rainham.”

“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Vickers. I am grateful to have the opportunity to speak in this debate, because the safety of young people online is possibly one of the most pressing challenges of our time. I have a confession to make: I hate social media, but I feel compelled to use it. It cannot…”

“Does my hon. and learned Friend agree, given where we are with social media today, that legislation just has not kept up with the pace of change? We are far behind in being able to deal with and tackle this issue, given how extensive social media usage is. Our pace of change, in terms of legislation, just has not met t…”

“I have a slightly different question. Does the panel have any views on whether local government reorganisation could help to address this? Could some of those areas where you have potential pockets of poverty that might be a bit hidden when you look at this be addressed through a reshaping of local government? Or would…”

“Off the back of that, a couple of things have been mentioned, as well as suggestions that there are just things that we are perhaps not approaching in the right way as a country. What are some of the solutions to these funding models and how they are operating at the minute in local government? How could we alleviate t…”

“To picking up on adult social care and SEN services, what has led to the quite drastic increase in recent years in terms of those provisions? Or is that something that has been ramping up for a number of years now and are we just reaching a bit of a pinch point?”

“That probably leads into a bit of what I was going to ask next, which is around the cost pressures. You have alluded to a couple already, but what are the most significant cost pressures that local authorities are currently facing?”

“I am Naushabah Khan, Labour MP for Gillingham and Rainham.”

“We heard from the previous panel in quite some detail about the potential influence of foreign individuals and organisations in UK elections, particularly around finance. I know, Vijay, you just referenced it as well. What are the main challenges that you face in monitoring and regulating the threat of interference fro…”

“Naushabah Khan, Gillingham and Rainham.”

“We have had a conversation today about people feeling disenfranchised or feeling that they do not have a say in the political system and wanting to increase the number of people voting, particularly people from particular backgrounds for example, ensuring that we involve them. Do you think that voter ID is helping or h…”

“Two very quick questions from me. The first one, John, I think you mentioned some of your recommendations that are going to be coming forward, which include, for example, looking at unemployed people who are less likely to have that type of ID. Has there been any further work done on socioeconomic background and the co…”

“One final question, going back to donations—and, Vijay, I know that you did touch on this in previous comments. How urgent do you think it is that we close that gap, that the Government take action to close that gap, particularly for unincorporated associations and the potential threat of foreign donations that we migh…”

“You have picked out a few things, hostile states and the use of social media. Do you think that the UK Government are suitably equipped at this point, and is there legislation in place to deal with that? How can we close that gap? What more should we be doing for future elections?”

“Thank you very much for that. I speak as somebody who came from a unitary authority that is only 20 years old, represented 280,000 people and went through that change; you can still have connections to the local community.”

“In summary, I would be interested to hear from the panel whether you think that, given the current new structures proposed by the devolution paper, residents will be able to effectively engage with their local leaders.”