Speeches by Khan.

“I am MP for Gillingham and Rainham and I was a councillor until November last year.”

“Some of the panel have already touched upon this, but just to push it a little further and see if any of the other panellists have views as well: what specific measures do you think could enhance the effectiveness of overview and scrutiny? Especially as we see the revolving nature of responsibilities within local gover…”

“You have touched upon some of my other questions. In terms of that additional flexibility, to be clear, what would you and other combined authorities like to see over that funding? What additional flexibility do you think would be useful? You have already mentioned a couple of areas.”

“Final question from me: in terms of receiving that flexible single pot of money in 2026, what impact does it have on your combined authority?”

“I am Member of Parliament for Gillingham and Rainham.”

“Moving on to a look at overview and scrutiny: what challenges do you foresee in ensuring that overview and scrutiny committees have the resources and the authority to hold local decision makers to account, in effect, in this changing model?”

“This is a question for you again, Tracy. Do you think that the integrated settlements go far enough in consolidating funding?”

“Do you think that that is enough, though, or do you think that there should be more disincentives?”

“I just wanted to come back on the point that was made there and unpick that slightly further. There have been examples of how this is interpreted. I appreciate that the guidance is set by the Department and then it comes down to interpretation, but is there any review of how it is being interpreted across authorities? …”

“Moving on to Housing First, you mentioned this at the start, when we began this conversation. I appreciate that the Department has a positive evaluation of the Housing First programme. I want to understand what the plans are to support its wider rollout across England.”

“Housing First has been looked at in other countries as well and it is seen as a model that works. Our own pilot is showing those positive results, which is great to see. I appreciate what you said about the spending review but, given that some authorities are already trialling this and using it in certain capacities, a…”

“Is there any work happening to ensure, where this is already happening, that they are being allowed to scale that up and that Government are providing the support needed in order for them to do this in the right way? I really want to understand how we are going to use the pilot that we have done.”

“I am Naushabah Khan, Gillingham and Rainham.”

“Thank you, Minister. It was really good to hear some of the work that is going on with the taskforce and with the strategy that will be developed as a result. We have obviously previously seen a number of strategies that have come out of Government. The previous Government had quite big intentions around ending homeles…”

“Thank you, Minister. On out-of-borough placements, this links to some of the conversation we had previously around temporary accommodation and standards. Given that quite a lot of out-of-borough placements are now happening in areas that are already deprived, do you think that there needs to be a reform of the legislat…”

“Thank you very much. That is really helpful, Minister. However, the key point there is around communication. That is, at the minute, not happening. There are plenty of examples where local authorities are not communicating with each other when this is the case and they are placing out of borough. At the minute, the leg…”

“Do you think that that is enough, though, or do you think that there should be more disincentives?”

“I just wanted to come back on the point that was made there and unpick that slightly further. There have been examples of how this is interpreted. I appreciate that the guidance is set by the Department and then it comes down to interpretation, but is there any review of how it is being interpreted across authorities? …”

“Moving on to Housing First, you mentioned this at the start, when we began this conversation. I appreciate that the Department has a positive evaluation of the Housing First programme. I want to understand what the plans are to support its wider rollout across England.”

“Housing First has been looked at in other countries as well and it is seen as a model that works. Our own pilot is showing those positive results, which is great to see. I appreciate what you said about the spending review but, given that some authorities are already trialling this and using it in certain capacities, a…”