On behalf of its membership, the cross-party LGA regularly submits to Government
consultations, briefs parliamentarians and responds to a wide range of parliamentary inquiries. Our recent
responses to government consultations and parliamentary briefings can be found here.
Local government would welcome discussions with Government on potential impacts on councils of the Illegal Migration Bill. The Third Reading of the Bill will take place in the House of Lords on 10 July 2023.
The Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill acts upon long running asks from councils and the LGA for further devolution in England. We are pleased that the Government has proposed to speed up the process and make good on its commitment to offer all of England the opportunity to benefit from a devolution deal by 2030. It is also important that councils of all sizes are engaged in the devolution process.
It has been councils’ priority to ensure that lessons from Grenfell are learned and that swift action is taken to ensure that every tenant has access to a safe and high-quality home.
The LGA supports the overall aims of the Online Safety Bill (OSB), which makes provisions for the regulation by Ofcom of certain internet services. The regulation proposed in this Bill is aimed at ensuring platforms have systems and processes in place to deal with illegal and harmful content and their associated risk, particularly to children and young people. The Bill primarily does this by introducing duties of care to some user-to-user services (e.g. social media sites) and search engines. The Bill also imposes duties on such providers in relation to the protection of users’ rights to freedom of expression and privacy.
Reducing in-work poverty requires significant work to address the wider determinants of low income and barriers to work, such as health. Government should foster an enabling environment by tackling barriers such as lack of quality housing, appropriate infrastructure, and green spaces to improve quality of life.
The Bill seeks to remove the possibility for public bodies, including councils, to campaign against, boycott, seek divestment from, or sanction a particular territory internationally, unless endorsed by the Government’s own foreign policy
We strongly support a preventative, assets-based approach to health, which recognises that the essential components of good health go far beyond NHS treatment and care. An assets-based approach supports repeople to make healthy choices and enables them to live healthy, independent and productive lives. If they have health and social care needs, our approach is to provide community-based and person-centred care and support which enables them to live independently and live their lives as they choose.
Smoking is the single largest cause of preventable death and the biggest cause of cancer worldwide. As well as impacting upon health, smoking places a significant burden on the public purse, to the tune of £12.6 billion each year.
To improve the lives of the armed forces community across the whole country, councils want to work closely with the Government before, during and after the transition of service personnel into civilian life.