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Each debate is chaired by an MP from the Panel of Chairs, rather than the Speaker or Deputy Speaker. A Government Minister will give the final speech, and no votes may be called on the debate topic.
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (Simon Hoare)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Charles. I first of all thank and congratulate the hon. Member for Dagenham and Rainham (Jon Cruddas) not only for raising this issue, but raising it in the tone that he did. I am grateful to him for that. I am also grateful for the work that his council leader, Ray Morgon, is doing on behalf of his residents. The hon. Gentleman raised that, which I thought was very important.
I will spend a moment or two setting the scene. It is not my intention to name and shame local authorities. I think the hon. Gentleman made an apposite point: we must all focus on the funding of the services that many of the most vulnerable citizens across the country rely on. As tempting as it is to try to play politics, I am not going to do so. Likewise, my door is open to those councils that are anxious that they are approaching the issuing of a section 114, because prevention is better than cure.
I join the hon. Gentleman in commending his council, without providing a running commentary on discussions between individual councils and my Department. I commend the openness with which the leadership of Havering and others in the borough have engaged the community and my Department. They are right to do so, and they will continue to have as much support from my officials and me as they possibly can.
The hon. Gentleman is also right, on section 114, that there is a mixed mosaic of reasons. It would be far easier if there was one geography, one political control and one reason for the trigger, but he set out a number of councils in different parts of the country that find themselves in challenging circumstances for a multitude of reasons. Irrespective of the reason, as with Havering, my Department stands ready to work alongside those councils, with the Local Government Association and others.
The hon. Gentleman mentioned SIGOMA. I was with the leader of SIGOMA, Sir Stephen Houghton, this morning, discussing the issues that his member councils are facing. That meeting was very useful. We will work alongside those councils to ensure that they can stay standing up to deliver their services.
The hon. Gentleman asked me to meet him; I am more than happy to do so, with any council officers or elected members that he deems appropriate, because we have to get this right. I recognise entirely the demographic challenges to which he alluded and how a council will need to change its mindset and policy-setting priorities to respond to those changes in pretty quick time.
The hon. Gentleman welcomed the changes that the Chancellor announced to the local housing allowance, and I welcome that. We listened to a whole variety of stakeholders, and there was general agreement that that is the right thing to do.
The hon. Gentleman talked about the timing of the settlement, which was not helped this year by the lateness of the autumn statement. I can share with him and the House that the instruction I gave to officials, who are more than prepared to meet the challenge, is to get the figures and as much information as we possibly can out of the door, on the proviso that those figures are correct and robust. I spent 11 years serving in local government as a parish councillor, a district councillor and a county councillor. I spent several years as a cabinet member on West Oxfordshire District Council putting together the budget, and I remember sitting for too many hours with the finance director when we all wanted to go home for family things, trying to crunch numbers, make savings and work out different things. There must be a better way of doing it. I am yet to identify what that is; when I do, I will share it, among the first people, with the hon. Gentleman. That is important, given these uncertain times.
The hon. Gentleman is right to point out the increasing complexity, range and quantum of demand from both ends of the age spectrum, from the needs of the very young to those of the vulnerable elderly. We must ensure that we are focused, as I know he and his council are, and remind ourselves that we can get tied up in the minutiae of the formula for this, the process for that and the probity of making announcements. We have people sitting at home wondering how, if or when their legitimate applications for support will be processed and delivered to make their lives more comfortable and better.
The hon. Gentleman talked about the social care grant. Through the 2023-24 settlement, Havering is receiving £14.2 million. That is a £5.8 million increase compared with the previous year’s settlement. The funding can be used for both adult’s and children’s social care. Additionally, we are providing £2.4 million through the market sustainability and improvement fund, £1 million through the discharge fund, and £6.8 million through the improved better care fund, which I am told is already improving local health outcomes and supporting the crucial social care sector.
Those figures are important, but—there is always a “but”, isn’t there?—I acknowledge the challenging position in which local government in England finds itself. We all know the issues that have afflicted the national economy in recent years. I do not offer them up to the hon. Gentleman as excuses, but we would be negligent if we did not put them into our mix of thinking. Just when the reverberations of the ’08 banking collapse started to be less severe, along came the pandemic and then Ukraine. They led to inflation, interest and all those pressures that people have felt in their back pocket and that council officers have felt in their budget settlements. Despite all those challenges, central Government have sought to provide big increases in funding to local government in recent years to try to address some of the reasons that the hon. Gentleman set before us. The local government finance settlement for 2023-24 made available up to £59.7 billion of funding for local government in England. That was an increase in core spending power of up to £5.1 billion on 2022-23—or, to put it another way, 9.4% in cash terms. Havering’s core spending power as a council rose to £218.7 million—a 9.2% increase on the funding for 2022-23.
Numbers and percentages are fine; we know that. But—again, there is another “but”—we are all aware, and it would be foolhardy of any Minister to pretend otherwise, that there are huge increases in demand for service. Costs are going up. It is great news that we have increases to the living wage—I suggest that nobody would challenge that as a matter of principle. However, it clearly has an effect on the pay requirements, particularly for local councils, when they are already under pressure. I know that Councillor Morgon is addressing the council’s funding pressure, and he himself has noted the unprecedented demand for both adult and children’s social care. As the hon. Gentleman said, Havering has one of the oldest populations in London, together with the second fastest growing young population in the country. There is pressure from both ends of the public sector service demand telescope, so it is understandable that the council is feeling the pressure from a growing need for social care.
I want the hon. Gentleman to understand that I get that, and to convey to anybody who is interested that we have empathy for his points. We are determined to continue working alongside Havering London Borough Council to ensure that it can deliver not just the services demanded of it, but the services that the councillors and officers themselves want to deliver, because they are true and honest public servants. It is not going to be easy. I am afraid I am not the owner of the ministerial goose that is laying a multitude of golden eggs for the local government sector, but we will continue to work with the hon. Gentleman and his council.
I will close by repeating my warm invitation for him to come in and have a conversation. We can go over the figures and think about these issues. I am almost preaching to the choir on this point. I know that the hon. Gentleman will keep at the forefront of his mind—as will I—that, whether we are Opposition MPs, Government Ministers or councillors, our primary duty is to do our very best to serve the public who put us here, and to discharge the duties that they give us in order to try to make their lives a little safer, a little more comfortable and a little easier. He and I share that endeavour, and I look forward to welcoming him and his colleagues to do the very best we can for his residents.
Question put and agreed to.