England has battled wildfires in recent months after the hottest summer on record (Alamy)

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The MP for Scarborough and Whitby, Alison Hume, created the APPG after her northeastern constituency experienced the largest wildfire it had ever recorded last summer.

She told PoliticsHome that the lack of government action in response to that “devastating” incident had been “frustrating”, adding that the location of the fire – far from Westminster and the centre of the national media – played a part in the lack of attention.

“To be brutally honest with you, it’s because there’s been lots of wildfires in the South. It took two weeks to get any national coverage of the Fylingsdale Moor wildfire, and it was a massive fire that burnt for 40 days,” the Labour MP said.

“Since then we’ve had many more wildfires. It’s going to be on a lot more MPs’ radars, and I won’t be the only person standing up in the House of Commons talking about them, sadly.”

Extreme temperatures have resulted in wildfires across the country in recent weeks, including in southern areas such as Suffolk and the New Forest. The fires have damaged homes, businesses and environments in the constituencies of many MPs, leading Prime Minister Andy Burnham to describe the country as “tinderbox Britain”.

The scenes have led to a recent increase in public concern about climate change, according to Ipsos polling shared with PoliticsHome earlier this month.

“Wildfires are going to be part of our future going forward, as flooding is, and therefore we need to be much more resilient,” Hume added.

“We need to be planning, looking at land management ahead of these things, and then afterwards, what we do to help people recover.”

The Labour MP for Stourbridge, Cat Eccles, said wildfires in her Midlands constituency had left it feeling “almost like a war zone”. Wildfires in Stourbridge lasted days and destroyed 19 houses. Eccles told PoliticsHome that police officers were forced to break down doors and drag members of the public to safety. 

Visiting Stourbridge on Friday, Burnham announced a temporary ban on the sale of disposable barbecues. Later that evening, a nationwide emergency alert warned people in England and Wales that there was a high risk of wildfires across the country and that the public “should not undertake any activity that could start a fire”.

Last week, the PM also announced funding for farmers to build on-farm reservoirs to help with future droughts and better access to water.

Speaking about the aftermath of the Fylingdales Moor/Langdale Forest fire last August, Hume said there had been a “massive gap” in the financial aid given to the community, after farmers lost equipment because they were on the front line fighting the fires. “Without them, there would have been not only loss of property, probably loss of life,” she said.

This year, the government has been “moving more decisively”, Hume added.

The APPG Chair wants the government to look at how the UK can learn from how other countries deal with wildfires, like how France and Spain fight fires from the sky: “We’ve got to improve our aerial capacity, there’s no doubt about that.”

She praised the government’s efforts to provide clearer leadership on wildfires, pointing to her recent calls with security minister Dan Jarvis and other Whitehall departments.

Speaking to PoliticsHome in his capacity as a constituency MP, Northern Ireland Secretary Chris Bryant said there have been several wildfires in his Rhondda and Ogmore constituency in recent years, but that the last fortnight has “felt different”.

Fellow Welsh Labour MP Ruth Jones, whose constituency of Newport West and Islwyn has suffered wildfires this summer, told PoliticsHome that she would like to see more education around the dangers of accidentally starting fires in hot and dry conditions.

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If proposals under internal discussion go ahead, the rise will be much larger than the previous record set by Worcestershire Council last year when the Labour government granted it special permission to introduce a 9 per cent hike.

Wandsworth, which is Conservative-run after Labour lost control in May, currently has one of the lowest council tax rates in the country, with residents paying around 0.1 per cent of the value of the property they live in per year.

However, historically low levels of council tax combined with growing pressure on its finances have forced the council to prepare a record-breaking increase.

London MPs have warned that recent reforms to how central government distributes funding to local authorities will leave councils in the capital like Wandsworth particularly exposed to rising costs. 

The government argues that the changes are needed to rebalance funding towards areas with higher deprivation so that it is “truly based on need”. As a result, many London boroughs are set to see their grant funding decrease, with Wandsworth’s projected to fall by around 40 per cent.

Westminster, which like Wandsworth was permitted to raise council tax above five per cent without a referendum for the next two years to raise more revenue, recently warned that it would have to raise council tax by up to 200 per cent to keep spending at current levels.

The Wandsworth tax rise is expected to be implemented in April 2027 if it goes ahead, with the rate then being frozen for the rest of the term, PoliticsHome understands.

Local Conservatives stress that residents in the south London borough would still pay one of the lowest council tax rates in the country even if the unprecedented rise goes ahead.

Both the council and the Conservative Party declined to comment.

Local authorities across the country are grappling with rising costs, driven in large part by spending on vital services including adult social care and homelessness.

A spokesperson for London Councils, which represents local government in the capital, told PoliticsHome “it is now almost impossible” for councillors in London “to protect frontline services for their communities” because “funding from central government remains wholly insufficient to meet these growing demands”.

Wandsworth Labour leader Simon Hogg, who ran the council until May 2026, said: “It beggars belief that Wandsworth Conservatives are planning Britain’s biggest ever council tax increase.”

“The Conservatives are pretending the council has run out of money so they can bring in austerity policies. They’ve already cut domestic abuse services, scrapped the youth bus and axed new council homes for 400 local people,” he told PoliticsHome.

Earlier this year, the council announced cuts to some schemes in a bid to save money, warning that tax would rise by up to 230 per cent without any fall in spending.

(Alamy)

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The National Union of Students UK (NUS) and Purpose Union are calling on ministers to roll out a nationwide auto-enrolment system that would “remove the needless barriers for universities and colleges”. 

The push is backed by the Greens, with Brighton Pavilion MP Siân Berry saying “it is more important than ever that students and young people have a say in their futures.”

Launching the campaign, the NUS pointed to recent auto-enrolment trials at individual educational institutions that successfully boosted voter registration, such as a 2023 trial at the University of Nottingham, which increased voter registration applications from under 1,000 to over 23,000, representing 64 per cent of all students.

As part of this scheme, new and returning students were asked during the online registration process for the academic year whether they would be happy for their data to be shared with their term-time local council to allow voter registration.

While such a trial was a success, the NUS has warned that implementing auto-enrolment can be arduous and expensive for institutions when done individually, as it means setting up their own data-sharing arrangements with local authorities where their students live.

The NUS is calling on ministers to invest in a technical solution that would allow student data from across the country to be funnelled into the existing Individual Electoral Registration (IER) hub, which in turn would make it easier for students to join the electoral register.

The Labour government is committed to lowering the voting age to 16, but there are concerns about low levels of engagement among young people.

In 2023, the Electoral Commission found that around 60 per cent of adults under 20 were not registered to vote.

The Electoral Reform Society (ERS) says starting university is a “crucial point where many young people can either drop off the electoral register or miss being added altogether”.

“Auto-enrolling students as part of a wider automated voting scheme would help ensure that young people are correctly registered come polling day and able to cast that all-important, habit-forming first vote. This will ultimately increase participation in elections and strengthen our democracy,” ERS Chief Executive Darren Hughes told PoliticsHome.

The NUS is pushing the government to deliver this reform in the next year to ensure that students have the opportunity to take advantage of it before the next general election. While the next election is currently scheduled for 2029, there is speculation that Prime Minister Andy Burnham might be tempted to capitalise on positive polling and go to the country sooner.

NUS England President Favour Samuel said: “If the government doesn’t act soon, we risk another general election with unequal democratic processes which disproportionately prevent young people, minorities, and private renters from voting.”

Samuel added: “We want to see the government invest in a simple technical solution which would streamline the process, remove the needless barriers for universities and colleges and enable every young person to exercise their right to vote.”

Green MP Berry told PoliticsHome: “As the climate crisis, housing and living costs for young people intensify, it is more important than ever that students and young people have a say in their futures.

“The Labour Party has a responsibility to follow through on its commitment to improve voter registration rates, and I welcome this call from NUS and Prospect Union for the government to invest in student auto-enrolment.”

A Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government spokesperson told PoliticsHome: “We want to make sure registering to vote is easier for all – which is why we have said we will work towards a new automated voter registration system to make the process easier.

“Through the Representation of the People Bill, we are also making changes before the next general election which will make better use of data across government so that eligible voters can be easily identified and supported to register to vote.”