Local Government Finance Bill

Debate between Baroness Hollis of Heigham and Lord Greaves

Tuesday 3rd July 2012 Grand Committee

[Lord Greaves]

The noble Lord was sacked. I think further investigations are required, and we will report back.

I was moved to speak by listening to my noble friend Lady Eaton. I support a great deal of what she said, which was in emphasis a little different from some of the contributions made by other noble Lords. In principle, these amendments are right: 50% is a remarkably low figure to be retained by local government, and certainly not what was expected when the scheme was first announced to the world. However, I want to bring noble Lords down to earth with regard to some local authorities. Retention locally of the business rate will not be a financial bonanza for those local authorities at 50% or at any other higher percentage. Many authorities, as my noble friend said, will continue to need to rely on the rate support grant, if it continues to be called that, because they will have great difficulty not only in finding ways in which to expand their tax base by increasing their business rate but also maintaining them at the present level. This is a fact of life, and the localisation of business rates in these areas, including my own region of east and Pennine Lancashire, does not have the rosy glow around it as it does in areas that will find it easier to grow a commercial base. That is not to say that people will not try to do it, but in areas such as my own it will be a matter of trying to hang on to what is there at the moment.

I give an example. A small district might have two or three large mills or factories contributing quite a high proportion of the business rate. It only requires one or two of those to close down and the position will be fairly catastrophic. It is not the same in every kind of area and whatever kind of system we have in future will have to retain a substantial element of redistribution at least for those authorities. I do not know what proportion of authorities that is, but I have heard my honourable friend Andrew Stunell tell me that about 20% will be substantially reliant in future on continued redistribution elements of the grant. I do not know whether the Minister has an idea or can enlighten us after this Committee.

The second thing that causes a certain amount of alarm is the 50%. It is really the argument about what happens to the money that is centrally controlled. How far will this kind of area, which tends to be the old, declining, industrial area—although not all as some are coastal towns that have fallen on bad times, and so on—rely on the traditional kind of government grants, particularly capital grants, for regeneration? We discussed this issue in your Lordships’ House last week in a debate launched by the noble Lord, Lord Mawson.

The noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, and I were making similar points that parts of the country are missing out on the grants that are now available, compared with the past. That is partly as a result of the reduction in funding for capital schemes and the fact, for example, that the regional growth fund is cumulatively less than the regional development agencies used to have available to disperse. It is partly because there is a tendency now to go for growth and to go for the places where growth is easiest and perhaps to go more to the south-east, the Greater London area, the big cities, the city regions and metropolitan areas. There are very exciting and worthy schemes for authorities to work together for economic growth and development in areas such as Greater Manchester. Those places that do not naturally fit into the big city regions risk missing out. I am talking about my own area in Pennine Lancashire, but there are others as well, in the north-east, in west Cumbria, and elsewhere around the country. Our concern is about how much the less fashionable and less sexy areas, or the areas which find growth more difficult and where the return on investment may be less as a percentage, are going to miss out on this 50% redistribution. There are huge questions there.

I ask the Minister whether the Government have an assessment at this stage of how much of this central fund is expected to be used for different purposes. How much of it is expected to be used for council tax issues which the noble Earl, Lord Lytton, was talking about? How much is expected to go on administration? How much is expected to go on straightforward redistribution to the sort of areas I am talking about? How much will go to traditional funds and schemes for capital investment and development around the country? How much will go on regeneration? How the Government will use this money is not clear to me at all. I can see in total the kinds of things it is going to used on, but I do not really know whether they have an estimate of how much is likely to be used for the different elements. I would find it extremely interesting and useful to have that information, if the Government have worked it out.

[Baroness Hollis of Heigham]

My Lords, I had not intended to come in on this part of the Bill; I was waiting for council tax to come up. However, the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, have triggered a set of questions for me. Does the department have a “who pays, who gains” outcome as a result of these changes? If so, can the Minister share that with us? I am very unclear.

I am delighted to see that the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, has been converted from the error of his ways. Let me remind him that before the business rate was nationalised—I think it was the only thing that was nationalised under the Thatcher Government—authorities like my own, which were no longer unitary after the disaster of 1974, none the less received a business rate. This meant that those who lived outside the fringes of the city area and who did not pay the domestic rate, contributed through the business rate to the city’s well-being. This meant that a city could therefore serve as a regional centre while having only the property rate of a rural district council.

More important still, it meant that the leader of the council—myself—or the chair of finance would take great pains with the Chamber of Commerce. Every year, I went with a prospective budget, and it had a very direct influence over how we constructed our budget. As a result, until the nationalisation of the business rate under the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, and as there was a direct pay-off to our revenues, I was willing to forego rateable value on new property; I was willing to invest in apprenticeship schemes; I was willing to do the environmental works, the roads and so on, to get small enterprises off the ground; and we were willing to help SMEs to develop through local enterprise trusts. We did all that because there was a direct pay-off. I could never understand the huge folly of a Conservative Government, which is above all expected to be business-oriented, cutting that link with the city authorities—admittedly, they largely tended to be Labour authorities at that time—which gave them an incentive to build their business.

After nationalisation of the business rate, the result was—I did the figures—that my local authority was contributing something like £14 million a year in business rate to the Exchequer and receiving back something like £7 million. The adjacent Conservative authorities, which did virtually nothing, were contributing about £2 million and receiving back about £4 million. In other words, they were piggy-backing off the flow of the nationalisation of our business rate to rural areas, because they had never had a concern to develop business in their areas, partly because they had high property values and did not want to be contaminated by it. It also meant that I no longer had any incentive to do something similar. I forgot to declare that I, too, am a vice-president of the Local Government Association.

I applaud this move, even if it does not go as far as I would like. However, I understand the need for an equalisation grant, otherwise Westminster would retain far too large a share and other local authorities would have very little. As a result, it will be really important for us to see what greater equity there will be now in terms of the statistics between who pays in and who gains and what the return is. Some authorities, such as my own, are district councils trying to do a unitary job with district council revenues—thank you very much to the Government for that—and they will be glad to have that money if it allows them to look after their business economy as well as the wider economy, in terms of building tourism and so on for the whole area.

For the sort of authorities that the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, mentioned, which may well need this money but may not receive it, there is a problem, too, of the distribution between those authorities whose money comes from small but highly valued premises—solicitors’ premises and so on—and those that have relied in the past on large physical premises such as factories, which are now closing due to the shift in the British economy. A reason for this request is that we were screwed the last time around and it was a disastrous policy for government, of whatever complexion, as well as for regional economies. I hope that this time around we will get a more equitable and sensible distribution. If the Minister can help us by promising to circulate some of these figures, it would be very valuable indeed.

Localism Bill

Debate between Baroness Hollis of Heigham and Lord Greaves

Wednesday 7th September 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Greaves]

My Lords, this is the first time that I have spoken on Report so I should declare a few interests. I am an elected member of a district council in Lancashire, a vice-president of the LGA, a vice-president of the Open Spaces Society and a member of the access, conservation and environment group of the British Mountaineering Council. Those are the interests I can think of that might come up during Report. If I have any others, I shall declare them later.

I apologise for having to nip out of the Chamber for the latter part of the speech by the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, and the beginning of the speech by my noble friend Lord Tope. I can assure everyone that I probably agree with every word that they said, even when I was not here, on the basis of what they have said otherwise. We had a glowing account from the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, about how wonderful the complaints and resolution system is in her housing association.

[Baroness Hollis of Heigham]

My Lords, I was not trying to say that. I was trying to say that, having gone through such an exhaustive system, I could not see what added value would come by having a fifth tier, an MP or a councillor, as opposed to going direct to the ombudsman.

[Lord Greaves]

I entirely accept that. However, in my experience, not all housing associations are the same and some do this better than others, which is inevitable with any type of organisation. In a sense, if there are housing associations or social landlords that do not do it quite as well as the organisation in which the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, is involved, that is an even more important reason why tenants should be able to go to the housing ombudsman as easily and quickly as possible.

Like my noble friend, we on these Benches would have preferred that this proposal from the Government was not in this Bill. It seems to go back to a local government ombudsman system that, as noble Lords have said, used to exist in local government but that, frankly, was not necessary and in some cases was harmful. There is no doubt whatever that on some occasions councillors used to find reasons not to pass complaints on or tried to persuade people not to pursue them. I always took the view that unless it was clearly vexatious I would automatically pass it on, even on one occasion when it concerned a complaint against the borough council about a housing matter in which I had been closely involved. I was chairman of the housing committee and I still said, “I will pass it on because it is right and proper that it gets dealt with”.

At Lancashire County Council, on one occasion I made a complaint against the education authority. Shortly after, I went to a reception of important people at county hall in Preston. As soon as I walked in the room, the then education officer came bounding across the room and at the top of his voice tore a strip off me for daring to question the reputation and organisation of that education authority. He then marched back to the other side of the room. I was much younger and a bit more timid than I am now but I still marched after him and, in an equally loud voice, tore a strip off him and told him that he was undermining democracy. In a sense, I should not have had to be there as part of that system. The people involved should have been able to go direct.

Along with other noble Lords, I think, around the Chamber, we have had quite a few discussions with members of the Government, particularly with Grant Shapps, who I believe is in charge of the housing parts of this Bill. We came to the view that we might win the argument but would not win the process of this legislation of removing these parts of the Bill or of putting in an amendment along the lines of that proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, which I would otherwise strongly support.

To help the Government, in these discussions we are looking for some compromise that at the very least provides a backstop so that, if any of these designated persons are not helpful and try to resist or are just incompetent in passing on a complaint, the tenant can nevertheless go direct to the housing ombudsman. It is a slightly messy process and it is not as good as now, but it can work and at the very least would maintain their right to go direct to make the complaint, even if someone else tries to persuade them otherwise or to block it.