Katie Lam

I thank the Secretary of State for advance sight of her statement. It is a pleasure to see her again so soon. I join her in thanking those involved in the response to this summer’s wildfires, and applauding their remarkable courage. The Secretary of State is right to note that for far too many people across the country the sense of decline runs deep. In far too many places, organised criminals have taken over the high street, and in far too many cases, a place to sleep is something that people cannot take for granted. The stories I have been told by constituents who have experienced rough sleeping or unsafe housing remain some of the most challenging and profound I have heard since coming to this place. Although the Secretary of State talks about a new political and economic model, I am afraid that what we have heard today is a recipe for more of the same. While her focus on the scourge of organised crime on the high street is welcome, I am concerned that she addresses a symptom of the problem but not the underlying cause. While many bookies, vape shops and high street casinos are clearly legitimate, their cash intensiveness and lower overhead costs make them particularly attractive as fronts for money laundering. However, if those businesses are closed, criminals will simply find other types of high street businesses through which to launder money. What conversations is the Secretary of State having with her Home Office colleagues on dealing with organised crime? The right hon. Lady talks about the devolution of power and resources to local people, but what she really means is more politicians being given the power to increase the size of the state and raise taxes, but never to let people keep more of their own money or to interfere less in their lives. Will she confirm whether any tax raising powers devolved to mayors will be accompanied by powers to reduce tax—and if not, why not? Similarly, while the right hon. Lady is right to recognise the vital importance of addressing the housing affordability crisis, the answer cannot be spending ever more taxpayers’ money. Instead, the state must stop making it so difficult and so expensive to get new houses built in the places where people want to live. A greater supply of homes in those places will mean lower costs for everybody, particularly those who are renting and those looking to get on the housing ladder. In London, where our housing crisis is most acute, Labour has been in power for over a decade. Under Sadiq Khan, housing starts fell to their lowest level ever in 2024-25. Construction began on just 4,000 homes across our capital. Can the Secretary of State explain why Labour’s London mayor has failed to get to grips with this problem? Will the changes she proposes actually solve the housing crisis in the capital? If not, it is a little difficult to understand why she is introducing them. Finally, on homelessness and rough sleeping, we share the Government’s ambition to end rough sleeping, but it is impossible to ignore the fact that the new Prime Minister promised to do exactly that in his 2017 manifesto for the Greater Manchester mayoralty. His pledge was to end rough sleeping within three years. In fact, rough sleeping in Greater Manchester has increased every year since 2021, including in 2024-25 when the Labour party was also in power nationally. Can the Secretary of State therefore explain why the Prime Minister failed to solve rough sleeping in Greater Manchester, bearing in mind that it increased when both the local authority and the national Government were run by the Labour party? Can she explain why anybody should believe that he will be able to do so nationally?