Local Government Finance

Debate between Gareth Thomas and Jim Cunningham

Wednesday 22nd February 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Thomas]

I commend the hon. Lady, who has been a brave voice on the Government side in raising this issue.

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend was right when he said that even if local authorities are allowed to raise this money, in the longer term, by 2021, it will not cover the costs, because there will be a deficit nationally of more than £2 billion. If we take Coventry and Warwickshire, by 2021, there will be deficit of £33 million. That shows the scope and scale of the problem.

[Mr Thomas]

My hon. Friend has taken a number of opportunities of late to champion his local authority in the difficulties that it faces—not only for now, but in the long term. The situation he describes in Coventry is mirrored up and down the country. It is time that Ministers grasped the seriousness of the situation.

The LGA has made clear that the continued underfunding of social care is making it impossible for many local authorities to fulfil their legal duties under the Care Act 2014, leaving open the prospect of a whole series of costly court challenges. It is true that some money, £240 million, has been switched from the new homes bonus to fund social care, but when serious analysts suggest that £1.3 billion is needed urgently now to stabilise the social care system and that the funding gap for social care is expected to reach £2.6 billion by 2020, it is difficult to find anyone, even in the Government’s own party, who thinks Ministers are on track to sort the social care challenges that our country faces.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Thomas]

Let me gently suggest to the right hon. Gentleman that he might like to think about the adequacy of the funding for services that are needed in that area. I suggest that, in that spirit, he might recognise the accuracy of the figures that I have just given.

[Mr Jim Cunningham]

Between 2010 and 2020, Coventry’s Government grants will have been cut by 50%. The Government are shifting responsibility for grants on to local authorities. Let me put it another way: Coventry will have lost £655 million, and in that respect it will be typical of local authorities throughout the country.

[Mr Thomas]

My hon. Friend has made a good point. That is all the more reason for continuing to hold the Government to account for their decision to axe revenue support grant in full under the Local Government Finance Bill.

What this settlement also does not address are the huge pressures that councils face as a result of rising homelessness and temporary accommodation costs, as well as rapidly increasing children’s social care costs. Rough-sleeping rates fell to historical lows under Labour; they have more than doubled since 2010. The number of social homes being built is at the lowest level on record. With more than 1 million people on social housing waiting lists, councils’ spending on housing families in temporary accommodation has gone up by 46%. Instead, Ministers are taking money away from councils through the new homes bonus. Ministers sing the praises of the new multi-year settlement as a way to give local government certainty, and then in their very first year make a late switch, leaving many councils with an unplanned gap in their budgets.

No area of England has been spared from cuts to services. The doors have shut on libraries, day centres and care homes. Bus services, leisure centres and youth centres have all closed or had their hours and range of services restricted. Women’s refuges have been axed, funding and contracts for local charities taken away. Advice services have gone. Investment in parks and street cleaning has been sharply reduced. All these services and others, treasured by local communities, or vital lifelines for vulnerable residents, have been cut.

This funding settlement will mean that the people of England are left with worse public services. It will deepen the divide between those parts of the country that are well-off and those that rank highest for deprivation. It is a settlement that will not remotely begin to tackle the social care crisis, and it will hit the pockets of those struggling to balance their budgets particularly hard. And it does not tackle the long-term problems facing councils from an increasing dependence on business rates. England deserves better, and that is why we will be voting against this report.

Local Government Funding: Birmingham

Debate between Gareth Thomas and Jim Cunningham

Tuesday 13th December 2016 Westminster Hall

[Mr Gareth Thomas (Harrow West) (Lab/Co-op)]

I am grateful for the opportunity to take part in this debate. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Steve McCabe) on securing it, on making such a detailed, determined and effective speech on behalf of his constituents and on defending his city as he did. I also acknowledge the contributions of my right hon. Friends the Members for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Ms Stuart) and for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Liam Byrne), and my hon. Friends the Members for Birmingham, Erdington (Jack Dromey), for Coventry South (Mr Cunningham), for Birmingham, Yardley (Jess Phillips), and for Birmingham, Hall Green (Mr Godsiff), who supported my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak today and who each sought to defend and make the case for the people of Britain’s second city.

My hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak set out the scale of the cuts that have hit Birmingham —some £90 million in 2016-17 in total. After Liverpool, Birmingham is the local government area hit hardest by the Government’s funding cuts: some £750 million has been cut from its budget since 2010. He went on to point out very powerfully the failure of the Conservatives to ensure any transitional funding at all for Birmingham in last year’s settlement. Conservative-led Surrey got £12 million and Hampshire got £19 million; those are just two examples, alongside the others he mentioned, of areas that benefited from the transitional funding package, while his city—one of the biggest and most significant local authority areas in the UK—got nothing at all.

I will come back to some of my hon. Friend’s opening remarks, but let me first dwell on the contribution of my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Erdington. He referenced the impact of local authority cuts on homelessness in Birmingham, and particularly on young people suffering homelessness. He noted the work of 14 charities in Birmingham that support their Members of Parliament today in demanding a better settlement for Birmingham and in praising the efforts of the council to protect the most vulnerable in challenging times.

[Mr Jim Cunningham]

I do not want to detract from the bigger issue of Birmingham, but I am sure that my hon. Friend knows that other local authorities in the west midlands are experiencing exactly the same cuts to public services—youth services, libraries, teachers, education budgets, social services, you name it.

[Mr Thomas]

My hon. Friend widens the debate to the impact of cuts in funding on local authority areas throughout the west midlands. He could also have widened it to underline the cuts in funding that all English local authorities have suffered since 2010. In that context, Thursday’s local government finance settlement will be particularly important, not only for Birmingham and for local authorities in the west midlands but for the whole of England.

If he will forgive me for saying so, my hon. Friend interrupted my praise for the contribution of my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Erdington, who underlined a number of points made by my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak about the need for further improvements in areas for which the council is responsible. He said quite rightly that that is absolutely no justification for the scale of cuts that various local government Ministers have demanded of Birmingham’s public services.

My hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley made particularly powerful points about the impact of local authority funding cuts on the many victims of domestic abuse in Birmingham. She backed up the comments of my hon. Friends the Members for Birmingham, Selly Oak, and for Birmingham, Erdington on the impact of homelessness in Birmingham and the lack of available support. She underlined the significance of Birmingham’s social care funding crisis, which we will particularly need to focus on when the local government finance settlement is debated on Thursday. She went on to widen the debate from services directly funded by local authorities to other public services. She spoke about the impact on children in our schools of the real-terms cuts in schools funding. My hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak referenced the impact of other aspects of the funding cuts on the national health service and the police.

My hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Hall Green made a series of important points about the impact on youth services, which, when they exist, can offer alternatives to crime and radicalisation. He underlined the concern expressed by my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak about the scale of the cuts in youth services that Birmingham City Council has had to push through because of the loss of funding.

Before the debate, we had the chance to read some of the comments made to the media by the chief executive of Birmingham City Council, Mark Rogers. It is impossible for anybody who has read his comments to doubt the veracity of my hon. Friends’ contributions today. He spoke about the

“catastrophic consequences for some people”

in the city of Birmingham of years of cuts that have forced it to slash funding for key services for vulnerable people. He said that the council had

“just two youth centres”

left and that the

“youth service has all but gone.”

The article also states that, according to Mr Rogers,

“homelessness prevention services had been cut by so much that rough sleeping had quadrupled”.

Understandably, he is worried about the impact of cuts in funding on social care and about how fewer elderly people are now eligible for care at home. He is expecting to have to implement £113 million of cuts in 2017-18, on top of the cuts that have been made since 2010. In the context of the much-debated social care crisis, which many Members on both sides of the House have underlined to the Government, the fact that Birmingham is having to look at taking almost £30 million out of its adult care budget will be profoundly worrying to anyone who knows people who are elderly, in need of care or vulnerable in other ways.

We already know from the letter that Ministers sent to councils last year with the details of their funding settlement that the Government increasingly expect councils such as Birmingham to increase council tax by as much as 20% by 2020. Across the country, that is equivalent to an increase in average band E of about £300 a year by 2020. Effectively, the people of Birmingham are being expected to pay 20% more in council tax while getting dramatically lower levels of service. Will they get better street cleaning? Will their bins be emptied more regularly? Will they have a better chance of seeing the elderly people they love get better care? Sadly, the brutal truth is that the quality of services is going down as the Government seek to continue to cut funding.

We are told that Ministers are no longer talking about austerity, but the brutal reality of the cuts in funding that Ministers are still making is that public services will continue to decline. We hope for something different when the local government finance settlement is announced on Thursday.