Speeches by Reed.

“I have had the great pleasure of visiting Peterborough with my hon. Friend on many occasions. He is always very powerful in putting forward the case for the city and the people who live there, and that includes, as he has just shown, his determination to ensure that Peterborough continues to grow in a way that will bri…”

“I hope the hon. Lady will agree that we should take the time to get it right, rather than rush into a decision that I do not think would be right at the moment. The intention is that the elections will go ahead in 2027 as scheduled. The final decision will be brought forward as early as possible after the summer recess…”

“I thank my hon. Friend for his question. I recognise what a strong champion he is for his constituents. I am sorry that he did not get his preferred option in this case. We had to select the option that we believe will be best, against the criteria that we have published. He is quite right to be concerned about the voi…”

“Financial viability was one of the key criteria against which we assessed all the proposals, and we selected the most viable options in all cases where that was before us. We would certainly not have accepted proposals that were not financially viable. I believe that the hon. Gentleman’s constituents will benefit from …”

“I believe that the option we have selected was the one supported by the Conservative party in Gloucestershire. We selected it because it was the strongest and most stable option, and presented the strongest financial case. There will be savings coming through this process, and they can be ploughed back into improving t…”

“I have had the pleasure of visiting my hon. Friend’s constituency with him. Indeed, I know the county very well because it is where I was brought up. He is absolutely right. The savings that we will realise through local government reorganisation will be ploughed straight back into the frontline services that he and hi…”

“I would just remind the right hon. Gentleman, as I have said several times already today, that the vast majority of the proposals that we have accepted have cross-party support. As much as the Opposition might like to pretend that this is being done in the interests of only one party—I would suggest that the right hon.…”

“I thank my hon. Friend for her question and for sharing her views with me in advance of this statement. Of course, I would be more than happy to ensure that the meeting she has requested goes ahead, and that she and other colleagues in the county are able to express their views directly to a Minister. I would just like…”

“I have visited my hon. Friend’s constituency with her on many occasions, so I know at first hand that she is one of the strongest advocates for her constituents of any Member in the House. She makes an important point there, because we do not want to lose the voice of individual towns such as Hastings and Rye within un…”

“The Pride in Place programme is a very important initiative for this Government. It is £5.8 billion targeted at 284 of the poorest areas, as defined by the index of multiple deprivation. Those areas are getting up to £20 million each over a 10-year period, with decisions about how that money is invested taken by the lo…”

“We keep all these options under review constantly, and we have conversations with the Treasury about this. The significant reductions that we have had in interest rates since the general election have helped massively on the demand side. In fact, before the most recent incident, the war in the middle east, we had recor…”

“The communities delivery unit in the Department is conducting ongoing monitoring of both the decision making and whether communities are being appropriately engaged. It is monitoring the outcomes and outputs of that work, which will be developing over time. That is how the monitoring is happening. The Government could …”

“Obviously, conversations are going on about council tax policy, how it can be made more progressive and the best way of doing that that is fair to everybody. That conversation is under way, and it would be inappropriate for me to throw in my personal views as if they were those of the Department, because at this stage,…”

“We need both, is the truth of it. We came into power and inherited a housing crisis. The number of people sleeping rough on the streets had doubled since 2010, under the previous Government. The number of families living in temporary accommodation, often for years—it is very difficult to call it “temporary” when you ar…”

“I have just come back from the LGA, where I must have spoken to dozens of council leaders of all parties.”

“We have established something called the network for neighbourhoods, which is designed to ensure that the chairs and other leaders involved in these boards can network with each other and share best practice. The Department, with No. 10, has been facilitating that work, because it became clear quite quickly that they f…”

“That will be determined by the relevant transport companies and authorities as the homes get built, as Transport for London is doing with developments in south-west London, where they are looking at increasing the train frequency as the population increases. But you cannot increase the frequency of the trains if there …”

“If you want to know if I have spoken to council leaders, you can just ask if I have spoken to council leaders and I will tell you that I have. The same applies collectively and individually at the LGA. I have regular meetings in the Department, very often focusing on house building as well. I do a lot of visits to hous…”

“We are currently taking advice on it. The idea is: how do you try to smooth out the peaks and troughs in the sector? When you get a deep trough, as we have had recently because of events overseas that I will not repeat again, it is then very difficult to come out of it, because we lack the skills, for instance, and the…”

“Again, I have views on that, but it would not be sensible for me to share them here, because they are currently personal views, and I am sitting here as a representative of the Government and the Department.”