Vikki Slade

I am really pleased to follow the speech of the hon. Member for Sunderland Central (Lewis Atkinson) with my own story of an early venue. In 2007, I remember visiting the Stage Door in Southampton—a venue above a pub—for one of the very first, intimate gigs of Scouting for Girls. They are now internationally renowned and celebrating their 20th year, but there were so few of us at the gig that we actually helped them carry their kit there and back afterwards. Without those little gigs, they would not have had that success such that 20 years later we can go and enjoy them at summer festivals. I rise specifically to speak to Lords amendment 37. During the Bill Committee, as the Minister will recall, my hon. Friend the Member for Stratford-on-Avon (Manuela Perteghella) and I spoke frequently about the importance of town and parish councils and the need to strengthen them as unitary councils take decision making further away from local people and dilute the identity and priorities of clearly defined places. As local government is reorganised and councils cover ever larger geographies, it is critical that communities retain hyper-local democratic structures not as an add-on but as an essential part of effective devolution. There was a lot of talk originally about what other structures might be in place as part of the Bill if not a town and parish council, but that does not seem to have made much progress. I am disappointed that without something really strong in that place, there is nothing recognising the critical place of our town and parish councils, whose strength forms part of our communities, as so passionately talked about by the hon. Member for East Thanet (Ms Billington) and my hon. Friend the Member for St Ives (Andrew George). I spoke on Second Reading about how the forthcoming local government reorganisation—it does not affect my area—will see the end of authorities such as Winchester and Southampton city councils. It is inconceivable that historic places such as Winchester will not either immediately or within a couple of years re-establish a town council to protect their identity and ensure that their unique needs—beyond those covered by the fairly nebulous unitary authorities that will replace them—are met. Parish and town councils give residents not only that opportunity to create their sense of place, but a direct, accountable voice. In Dorset, the plan for change created in 2016, which came before our local government reorganisation, talked about the expansion of town and parish councils and the creation of neighbourhood-level structures, but those decisions were deferred for future administrations to progress. On the Dorset side, the gaps were filled so the whole area became parished, but in Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole they were never implemented after being blocked by the then Conservative-led councils. A decade on, we are having to retrofit them at local cost and with an administrative burden. I welcome that Conservatives in the other place have recognised that encouraging the expansion of parish governance in currently unparished areas really does matter—it is ironic that their colleagues have chosen not even to stand for election in the new town councils in Broadstone and Poole. As the remit of unitary authorities has expanded, funding has inevitably focused on statutory services and neighbourhoods with the highest levels of deprivation. I welcome that, but as a consequence many of the facilities that residents really value—the fabric of everyday community life—have quietly fallen away. When I moved to Broadstone at the turn of the century, Christmas lights, street furniture repairs, tree planting and small community grants were considered standard and funded, or at least supported, by the local authority. Today, they are routinely deemed out of scope for huge councils doing their best to protect the most vulnerable through statutory services. However, those things still matter deeply to the residents they serve; without them, communities begin to feel overlooked and to look unloved.