High Streets and Town Centres in 2030

Graham Stringer Excerpts

Thursday 13th June 2019 Westminster Hall

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Graham Stringer (in the Chair)]

Order. I intend to call the SNP spokesperson at 2.30 pm. Five Back Benchers are indicating that they wish to speak, so the arithmetic is straightforward: there is no need for a time limit.

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[Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Stringer. I thank the Committee, its members and its staff for the excellent report. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts) on securing this debate and on his opening remarks, which were wide-ranging, informative and comprehensive, as well as excellently delivered. I thank all the hon. Members here for a reasoned debate, delivered in a good atmosphere, considering shared concerns about the future of our high streets at this important time.

This week, Arcadia, one of the biggest retailers in the country, narrowly avoided a collapse, which would have put 18,000 jobs at risk. Even so, Arcadia workers still face 50 shop closures and 1,000 job losses; my hon. Friend the Member for Bedford (Mohammad Yasin) highlighted some of the impacts of that on his constituency. Arcadia will not be the last retail group to struggle. Too few retail magnates have not given sufficient thought to the long-term sustainability of their retail groups, leaving workers and consumers to pay the price. Mike Ashley is as successful in his self-proclaimed role of saviour of the high street as he was in selling Newcastle United. The Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee has compared working conditions in Sports Direct to “a Victorian workhouse.” That is not the kind of high street we want to see.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Dulwich and West Norwood (Helen Hayes) highlighted, the identity of our town centres is wrapped up with the retail sector, which is the largest private sector employer in the UK, employing one in 10 of our workforce. When I walk down Northumberland Street or through Eldon Square in Newcastle and see the vibrant mix of consumers and traders, I am grateful that my city centre appears to be weathering a very difficult trading environment; but that cannot be said for all cities and especially not for our towns.

Indeed, as this report highlights, there are often differences within towns. My hon. Friend the Member for York Central (Rachael Maskell) spoke about some of the innovative practices that some businesses on her high street were using to attract more foot flow. In Newcastle, Grainger market, our Victorian gem, is putting on tea parties and gastronomic delights in order to do the same thing.

What this review tells us is that, if our town centres are to survive to 2030, they must be grounded in community. Local authorities have a responsibility for the economic and social wellbeing of the places and communities they serve, but the scale of the issue demands action from central Government to ensure that our local authorities have the necessary powers to do their job, as hon. Members on both sides have emphasised. That must be backed by proper funding—much, much more than the pitiful £1.2 million put into the regeneration pilot in 2017. Our high streets and town centres anchor our local economies and offer jobs, services and a sense of place, but that is declining year on year. Every retail location type—high streets, retail parks, shopping centres—saw the number of occupied units decline at a faster rate in 2018 than in 2017. The high street vacancy rate rose from 11.2% to 11.5%; in retail parks it jumped from 4.9% in 2017 to 7.1% in 2018. There are 50,000 empty shops in the UK. In shopping centres, 6% of empty space has been empty for two years. On the high street, that figure is 5%. There have also been more than 100,000 job losses in retail over the past three years alone.

Some people say it is inevitable that online shopping will kill the high street, but it is wrong to think that the rise in internet retail equals empty shops and job losses. The impact of technology on our society involves political choices, and in this case the impact is due to Government inaction. As we see in this report, many shoppers still enjoy shopping as an experience; the most successful high streets are those with a good mix of retail, leisure and services, which provide a vibrant community space, not just a collection of businesses.

Under this Government, we have seen chronic under-investment in infrastructure, particularly outside London and the south-east. For example, the north-east receives less than one third of London’s transport spending per capita. According to the Local Government Association, outside London we have lost 117 million miles of bus routes—nearly half of all council-subsidised services—since Tory austerity began in 2011.

Every month, 60 bank branches and 250 free cash machines close, with devastating effects on access to cash in rural areas, and despite repeated promises to safeguard our post offices, we face 2,500 potential closures over the next year. We welcome today’s announcement by UK Finance that the banking sector will work to support people’s free access to cash, but it is not enough. Will the Minister take note, follow Labour’s lead and ban automated teller machine charges?

This Government have not only failed to take action but repeatedly ignored their own warnings. Despite the recommendations of this report, they have chosen to extend permitted development rules, which, as we have heard from many hon. Members, can effectively depopulate town centres in the day, which has an impact on retail and restaurants and makes it harder to enforce high standards for new homes. Will the Minister take note and suspend any further extension of permitted development, as hon. Members have called for?

In their response to this report, the Government refuse to recognise that online retailers should be contributing more. The system is past its sell-by date, having been

“designed in 1990, when businesses made money in a very different way.”

Those are not my words, but those of the Conservative Mayor of the West Midlands, Andy Street, who understands that high street retailers are being crippled by an outdated business rates system and has called for online retailers to pay more tax—as indeed have hon. Members such as the hon. Member for Hertford and Stortford (Mr Prisk) today.

The Tories have failed our high streets, failed our retail sector, and failed our economy. They have no claim to be the party of business. As the hon. Member for Dunfermline and West Fife (Douglas Chapman) highlighted, a no-deal Brexit would be catastrophic for businesses, extending that failure and wrecking many of the businesses on our high streets and in the retail sector. I ask the Minister to rule out a no-deal Brexit—[Interruption.] I am sure it is within her pay grade to do that. Will she at least say that she will not support a Conservative candidate who supports a no-deal Brexit?

Labour’s industrial strategy will rebuild our economy for the many. Unlike this Government, we care about every part of the economy. As part of our “innovation nation” mission, we will raise productivity and job quality in sectors such as construction, agriculture and retail that have been wholly neglected by the Government’s industrial strategy. Labour would fund a new catapult centre to boost the take-up of innovation in the retail sector, creating higher wages and better jobs on high streets across the country.

Our high streets are reaching crisis point, which is why Labour has an emergency five-point plan to resurrect and rebuild our town centres. I will finish with that plan. First, we will ban ATM charges and stop post office and bank branch closures. Secondly, we will provide free bus travel for under-25s. Thirdly, we will roll out free public wi-fi in town centres, so that we have networked centres that encourage people to spend their time as well as their money. Fourthly, we will establish a register of landlords of empty shops in each local authority, making it easier to bring shops back into use. Finally, we will introduce an annual revaluation of business rates, ensure a fairer appeals system and review the business rates system to bring it into the 21st century.

Labour’s plan will revive and reinvigorate our high streets, which must urgently adapt. We will take the urgent action required; will the Government follow in our plan and commit real resources to ensuring that our town centres can survive and thrive?

[Graham Stringer (in the Chair)]

Before I call the Minister, I will say two things. First, my notes said that the Minister was Kit Malthouse, but you are no less welcome for being unexpected, Minister. Secondly, can I ask you to leave a short space of time at the end of your speech for the Chair of the Committee to wind up?

Local Government Funding

Graham Stringer Excerpts

Wednesday 27th March 2019 Westminster Hall

[Thelma Walker]

I was a headteacher and a teacher for 34 years, and as a member of the Education Committee, I know the impact on children’s services and their ability to cope. My constituent described how low-level support for families had been removed, leaving them to reach crisis point before they received help. With less staff to react to crises, they have been running themselves ragged firefighting. They said:

“I rarely see the public now, but when I do bump into people I used to help, they think I’ve let them down. They feel alone, and I feel responsible.”

We can see the dedication of our council workers, and I know how they feel. As I have said, I was a headteacher at a school in a deprived area with a Sure Start centre attached. Properly funded multi-agency working supported children and families so that they did not end up needing as much support from public health services and other areas.

[Graham Stringer (Blackley and Broughton) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the cuts that have been made so far have been exacerbated by the lack of a real tax base in local government and too much central Government interference?

[Thelma Walker]

I believe that devolved local governance, with local knowledge of the needs of local communities, is really important, and we have lost that.

Early intervention was cost effective in my previous career, and it transformed people’s lives. They were not left to go through the stress and trauma of reaching crisis point. It is better for the health and wellbeing of our communities to have that support in place, but Kirklees was forced to make savings of nearly £200 million over the past nine years. Over the next three years, the council has to find a minimum of £38 million in savings. That has detrimentally affected my constituents’ lives.

In particular, there are significant and growing pressures on high needs in Kirklees. The Government have acknowledged that Kirklees is the second most underfunded council in the high needs block of the dedicated schools grant.

One of my constituents has been in contact with my office for some time about their two children, who have been diagnosed as being on the autistic spectrum. They have been trying to establish appropriate support for their children through education, health and care plans. It has not been straightforward. Cuts to funding mean that the local authority is struggling to give the family the necessary support.

The pressures are also visible in housing. Another of my constituents, who lives in local authority housing, has been subject to verbal abuse and harassment from their neighbours. They have applied to move, but the housing provider has not been able to facilitate relocation because it does not have suitable places to move them to. It has been able to offer only additional security measures to reassure the constituent. Local authorities and local government workers are doing what they can, but they do not have the resources to do what they need to do. Hard choices have had to be made to protect care for the most vulnerable.

I know that these stories will sound familiar to many hon. Members today. Sadly, such stories are by no means unique to my constituency. But there is an alternative; it does not have to be like this. In Finland, local government has a lot of autonomy, and there is a greater level of responsibility for policy and delivery in areas such as education, healthcare, social services, planning and infrastructure. Decision making is closer to the people and seeks to be responsible for their needs. In Finland, policy is geared towards commitments to provide housing where it is needed, support those who cannot care for themselves, and provide accessible low-cost childcare to families.

Finland has also trialled a universal basic income. Policies are focused on delivering positive outcomes for citizens on health and wellbeing, and on reducing inequality. Marking those policies as priorities is important and effective. For the second year in a row, Finland has been named as the world’s happiest country, which cannot be a coincidence. There are some real lessons to take forward from countries such as Finland, which could be used to inform the way local government operates in the UK.

Labour is investing in delivering effective and positive change for local government, our communities and the families within them. The next Labour Government will genuinely end austerity and put an end to this crisis. At the last election we pledged £8 billion for social care. We also pledged an additional £500 million a year for Sure Start and early intervention services, to reverse the cuts that have closed centres across the country and to ensure that all children have the best start in life.

Greater Manchester Spatial Framework

Graham Stringer Excerpts

Thursday 21st February 2019 Westminster Hall

[Kit Malthouse]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for providing that clarification. Just for clarity, he is saying that he is concerned not about the number of houses that are built but about where they are built in his constituency, and that he would like to see higher-density housing on brownfield sites. I agree with that aspiration. I hope he recognises that that is perfectly within the capability of the local authority and the Mayor in Manchester to decide through their plan process. If he would like to meet representatives of Homes England to talk about the marginal viability funding that we can and do provide for trickier sites that require remediation or other action to make them viable, I would be more than happy to facilitate that.

[Graham Stringer (in the Chair)]

Order. I remind hon. Members that interventions should be short and to the point, and that Members should speak when they have the Floor, not from a sedentary position.

[Jim McMahon]

I accept the Minister’s energy on this issue, and I welcome the opportunity to sit down for a meeting. However, the question will be whether he can show me the money. We can have as many conversations over a cup of tea as we like, but it will not get a brick laid in Oldham. We need to see cash, to redevelop the sites that we are talking about and for vital public service infrastructure.

A problem in Oldham is that our schools are oversubscribed; we have an expansion programme in our primary sector and we are looking for sites for new secondary schools to deal with the growth in the number of children who need educating. No facility is being offered by the Government to meet that demand, nor on transport links—we have lost a million miles of bus routes in Greater Manchester. GP practices are overwhelmed. The local A&E has missed its targets constantly because of the number of people waiting on trolleys for four to 12 hours. We cannot build houses without accepting that public infrastructure is needed to service them.

Housing need will be particular to each area; it will be different in Oldham from that in Stockport, Trafford or anywhere else. The real issue for the Government ought to be how much public money is spent on housing benefit payments, given to private landlords for housing that does not meet the decent homes standard. It is a scandal. Billions of pounds are spent every year, including in my town, on renting substandard terraced housing built to service mill workers that has no resale value as such. These houses can be picked up at auction for about £40,000, but landlords charge £500 a month rent to tenants, many of whom will be in receipt of housing benefit. It costs us taxpayers more to pay for that substandard accommodation than to build new social housing or to help people to get on the housing ladder.

We keep hearing that austerity is still in place, and that it is still difficult to find resources. Surely that gives us a bigger responsibility to make sure that money spent in the system is spent to the best effect. The experience in Oldham is that it is not. Too many people live in overcrowded accommodation that does not meet the decent homes standard. We could use that money better. That goes beyond Homes England’s land viability fund. Homes England will say that funding will bridge the gap if homes built on derelict sites have lower-end resale values. However, what if there are streets and streets of terraced housing that are not of the standard required to meet the challenges of the future and to provide people with a decent place to live? We need an urban renewal programme of significant money, geographically anchored, to transform the housing markets in those areas.

The other point I would make is on the community’s feeling in the process. Any situation like this, in which we talk about changing where people live, will be emotive. Many people who live in my constituency, including myself, are dislocated, relocated or newly established former Mancunians. We moved to Oldham, the gateway to the Pennines, because we wanted a different type of lifestyle; we did not want to live in the urban streets of Manchester. By the way, many Manchester properties that we lived in, including the one that I grew up in, have been demolished as part of clearance programmes. Many estates in Royton, for instance, were developed in the ’60s and ’70s, when there was an urban clearance programme in Manchester. People made an active decision to move from the streets of Manchester and to a better lifestyle, with a bigger house with a garden, and fields that they could take their dogs for walks on and where children could play. The idea that that is being taken away—in a process that I am afraid lacks transparency at some points—does not sit well with local people. I will explain what I mean by that.

The original call for sites in 2016 meant that landowners and developers could put forward the sites that they wanted to be considered for development. In that process, I would expect—I have made these representations within Greater Manchester—there to have been a record, a scoring mechanism and a proper assessment of those sites to determine which then went into the 2016 consultation. I cannot see what assessment was used for some of those sites that have been put forward, and why some had been recommended by developers but not proposed within the plan. I am afraid we are seeing the same thing again.

There is a new site that is massively problematic for my constituents around Thornham Old Road in Royton. That was not part of the original 2016 consultation. It has now found its way into the revised plan. During the consultation, Redrow, the developer, sent letters to the surrounding properties because it apparently wanted to buy one of the houses to knock it down and use the site as an access road. That was before the consultation had even finished, yet we wonder why local people do not have confidence in the system’s being fair, transparent and properly assessed.

It feels like we are being hit from all sides. We are being hit by a Government who are imposing a target that leaders locally are saying is inflated and does not present the latest population data. That means that those leaders are forced to go into the green belt when they would prefer not to. The process is being far too developer-led, not community-led. Not one area in my constituency has a neighbourhood plan developed by the community, where they get to design what their community development will be in future, so they feel as though it is being done from the top down.

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[Jim McMahon]

I have been heckled by the Minister and the Parliamentary Private Secretary, the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton (Kevin Hollinrake)—I hope the officials do not join in, or it will get a bit out of hand. We were promised after the original consultation that there would be no loss of green-belt land, and we were promised a radical rewrite. I accept completely that Greater Manchester has to comply with the requirements placed on it. I do not hold any Greater Manchester politician responsible for the housing target passed to them, but it cannot be a radical rewrite when for my constituency there are 450 more units than were in the original plan.

I briefly wanted to talk about some of the land issues that we have. In August, we will be reflecting on 200 years since the Peterloo massacre, where working people demanded the right to vote. Many in my constituency as it stands today did not return home. They were killed at Peterloo. One of the contributing factors to Peterloo—this is, I accept, a local history point—was that the Rochdale magistrate had been given word that the rebels or radicals had practised military manoeuvres in their hundreds at Tandle Hill in Royton. Word got to the Rochdale magistrate, and they sent word to Manchester. That definitely contributed to the feeling that there would be a riot and civil disobedience that could not be controlled.

[Graham Stringer (in the Chair)]

Order. May I ask the hon. Gentleman to quickly come back to the spatial strategy?

[Jim McMahon]

What I am saying is relevant, because the marching ground at Tandle Hill was eventually planted out with a beechwood to stop people marching there. It is now Tandle Hill country park, which is adjacent to the site proposed for development at Royton. These are important historical sites. The country park is also where the Tandle Hill war memorial is placed. Given the topography of Tandle Hill, it is no surprise that it is on a hill. When someone is stood at the memorial, they are looking down at the sites proposed for development. The development would change the character and nature of what I consider to be a very special part of the Borough of Oldham. It is a place where people can come together, where there is more to life than just work, and where people can enjoy the countryside. That is very important.

It was an issue that the north of the Oldham borough was taking a disproportionate share of redevelopment when the south of the borough had none. We made recommendations that there should be a more fundamental review to make sure that each area took its share of development. In consequence, hugely problematic new sites have been added in the Bardsley and Medlock Vale area of Oldham.

By and large, the community would find a way to reconcile with some of those sites—for instance, a former landfill site that lends itself to development—but because different processes have not been brought together, former public open space is being redeveloped for housing at the same time as new sites are being proposed that take away the green belt around that community. Not only have people lost their immediate urban open space to development, but they are likely to lose the field at the back of their estate too, which further cuts them off.

I do not want a devolution of blame or targets that does not meet with what local people want; I want the Government to genuinely give local people the freedom and ability to decide the future of their communities. It is not enough to say, “We are doing that with the Greater Manchester spatial framework”, because the people who are being forced to make the decisions have been hamstrung by Government-imposed targets. The Government know that and they can do something about it.

I am proud of my local authority. The leadership of Oldham Council is working hard to set a new vision for our town, to give our town direction, and to give us hope and optimism when, to be honest, the Government have walked away from our town. The council wants to use the spatial framework to frame that vision, but it is being forced to go into areas that it would rather not go into, as is the Mayor of Greater Manchester, who has been clear about that.

Let us use the debate as an opportunity, not to restate what we already know—it feels as if that is how the Minister is beginning to line up—but to genuinely reflect on the contributions that have been made and try to seek compromise. If Parliament and the Government learned how to compromise a little more, our politics would be in a better place.

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[Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Hazel Grove (Mr Wragg) on securing this debate. I will call him a friend, because although we are from different political parties, we represent constituencies in the same borough and have worked together on a number of issues. Sometimes the artificial barriers that this place sets up mask the real co-operation between Members on both sides of the House.

I believe in plan-led systems. They work best when larger areas co-operate over a wide geography, and I have experience of that. Before I became the Member of Parliament for Denton and Reddish, I served for 12 years as a councillor on Tameside Metropolitan Borough Council—one of the 10 councils that make up Greater Manchester. I remember very well, in my early days as a Tameside councillor in the mid-1990s, the proposals to introduce the Tameside unitary development plan. It was intended to replace the Greater Manchester structure plan, which had been in existence since the formation of the Greater Manchester County Council in 1974. The Greater Manchester structure plan, like the Greater Manchester spatial framework, covered the entire county. It made sense, because it meant that economic growth, housing growth and infrastructure planning happened on a county-wide basis, and that there could be co-operation across all the constituent authorities. Spatial planning actually worked. It is no good having 10 individual plans, because all 10 councils want to chase after the same goose that lays the golden egg.

Sadly, that is the situation that we fell into. When the Greater Manchester structure plan became obsolete, the then Conservative Government of John Major instructed the 10 metropolitan borough councils of Greater Manchester to get on and do their own thing. Each of the 10 local authorities produced its own unitary development plan. That was great for someone looking inside the box of just the city of Manchester—you served as a leader of that local authority for a considerable time, Mr Stringer—Rochdale, Oldham, Tameside or Stockport, but of course those boroughs do not act in isolation from one another.

With devolution, with the creation of the Greater Manchester combined authority and with the election of a Greater Manchester Mayor, I saw a real opportunity to get spatial planning right for the whole county so we can pool and share not just our resources, through things such as business rate retention, but our strengths as a destination—as a place to live and do business. I am biased. I will not get into a debate about which is the second city of this country; I will leave that to Birmingham and London, because we all know that Greater Manchester is the best place in the United Kingdom.

I saw those things as an opportunity, but I feel as though it is slipping away. We have had some really good co-operation on things such as housing targets, but as my hon. Friend the Member for Hazel Grove said very seriously, if Stockport were to go it alone, the housing needs that would fall on Stockport would mean that it would have to eat into the green belt. It is a very constrained borough, in the sense that it is surrounded by the green belt on three of its four sides. The only place where there is no green belt is where Stockport meets the city of Manchester and Tameside, but there is no room for it to grow that way either, because it has developed right up to those boundaries. By co-operating—not only has Stockport done that, but all the other outlying boroughs have done it to a lesser or greater extent—Salford and Manchester have been able to take around 40% of the housing growth for the entire county. That is good, because it will reinvigorate a large swathe of redundant brownfield sites in east Manchester, which borders my own constituency, as well as in the city centre and central Salford. The sites have lain derelict for decades and it is right that they are utilised first.

I do not just want to see growth in the central core, important though that is. There will only be a certain amount of demand for apartments and high-rise buildings without the greenery and the personal and private open space that comes with houses with gardens. There will have to be housing growth not just in the central core of the conurbation, but in the outlying areas. My hon. Friends the Members for Oldham West and Royton (Jim McMahon) and for Heywood and Middleton (Liz McInnes) are absolutely right. Unless we can get proper sequencing of “brownfield first”, there is a real danger for our conurbation.

The urban regeneration in the city centre is happening because land values have gone up, which makes brownfield sites worthy of developing, but similar brownfield sites—former old industrial sites that are now suitable for housing in Oldham, Rochdale, Tameside and parts of Stockport—will not have the same land value, and that value falls even further if there is an oversupply of green-belt land. This is about free market economics, and supply and demand. If I am a developer and a mass of sites have been identified, I will go for the cheapest site that gives me the greatest return. Frankly, in Greater Manchester, that is a green-belt site.

There could be much more buy-in to the loss of green-belt land. We all recognise that some green-belt land will have to be developed in the future growth of our city region, but if green-belt land is to be taken, we must have a proper “brownfield first” approach. I do not want to be here in future years saying that my constituents were proved right because the derelict site in the centre of Denton is still derelict 10, 20 or 30 years on, but the green-belt land surrounding Denton has been eaten up by development. If the green-belt land has to be built on—I accept that some of it might have to be—let that be because the brownfield land has been exhausted and it is absolutely necessary to build on the green-belt land. We should be creating sustainable communities. For a community to be genuinely sustainable, we need urban regeneration alongside new builds.

I want to commend the two councils in my constituency. Stockport Council is very ably led by Councillor Alex Ganotis, who is standing down in May. I thank him for his public service. He has done a great job of emphasising the need for urban regeneration. I particularly thank him for what I think will be a great legacy of his: the future regeneration of Stockport town centre. As part of the Greater Manchester spatial framework, with Andy Burnham using his new mayoral powers to create mayoral development corporations, Stockport is going to have the first mayoral development corporation in the country. It will regenerate Stockport town centre, which has got so much going for it. At the moment it is quite derelict on the edges. The historic core of the town—an absolute beauty—does not have the retail offer that it should have. However, the more people we get living and working in the town centre, the more vibrant and active it will become. I commend Stockport Council for its approach to urban regeneration, and I look forward to the mayoral development corporation transforming Stockport into the employment, residential and retail hub that a town of that size should be.

I also pay thanks to Councillor Brenda Warrington, leader of Tameside Metropolitan Borough Council, not least because she is my parliamentary agent; until last month she was also my constituency party chair. She, too, has approached the spatial framework process with fresh eyes. She understands that the environment matters, too; the built environment matters, and the natural environment matters.

One lasting legacy of the old Greater Manchester Council, and something I am really passionate about, is the transformation of the river valleys across Greater Manchester from industrial blackspots in the 1970s to linear country parks. In every part of Greater Manchester, there are river valleys that 45 years ago were industrial wasteland, but anyone standing in them now would think they had always been open countryside. One thing that unites the whole of my constituency, cross borough as it is, is the Tame valley.

I raise the Tame valley because the main campaign that has brought the hon. Member for Hazel Grove and me together is a campaign against the extension of the Bredbury Parkway industrial estate. I am not against economic growth, and Greater Manchester needs to grow economically. It is not a bad thing to want jobs to be created in Greater Manchester, in locations where our constituents can access them, but I have an issue with Bredbury Parkway. The existing industrial estate is locked in by the infrastructure in the hon. Gentleman’s constituency. It has direct motorway access on to the M60 at Bredbury roundabout, but unfortunately most HGVs cannot use it because they cannot get under the low railway bridge on the main line between Manchester and Sheffield.

I have met Highways England, Network Rail, Stockport Council and the prospective developers. It is fair to say that the prospective developers do not want to pay for any infrastructure upgrades—certainly not of the magnitude required. Highways England and the highways authority of Stockport Council say that the road cannot be lowered under the bridge, because it has already been lowered to its maximum depth; if it is lowered any further, the bridge will fall down. Network Rail says that to rebuild the bridge would involve the closure of the main line between Manchester and Sheffield, which would require funding of many millions that we will not get.

If there is any extension to the Bredbury Parkway, HGVs will have to come through Denton in Tameside to get on the motorway network at Crown Point. My constituents will not have that. They are already blighted by a considerable number of HGVs coming from the Bredbury Parkway scheme. Any extension would not be acceptable to them on traffic grounds or, indeed, on air quality grounds. My constituency is one of the most air-polluted in Greater Manchester. Two motorways run through it—the M60 and the M67—and anything that makes air quality even worse for my constituents is, frankly, not acceptable.

However, the situation is worse than that. The developers propose, aided and abetted by the Greater Manchester spatial framework process, to build very large distribution sheds in the “v” of the Tame valley. Everything at the top of the hill, in the constituency of the hon. Member for Hazel Grove, has basically already been developed, and everything sloping down to the River Tame, which is the constituency boundary as well as the local authority boundary, is currently pasture. Those sheds would be terraced, but—this is worse—they would come right up to the river bank. On the opposite bank are not one but two local nature reserves, which are very precious not just to the people who live in my constituency, but to those in the hon. Gentleman’s constituency.

It would be fine to destroy the green belt in that way if we took the jobs argument alone. However, this is not a Stockport local plan—this is not a matter just for Stockport—but a Greater Manchester strategic plan, and over the whole county there is an oversupply of new land for economic development in the spatial framework, so the argument for removing the green belt at Bredbury automatically disappears. That land is not just green belt; it is the Tame valley. It is the thing that unites Tameside and Stockport, and every part of my disparate communities of Dukinfield, Audenshaw, Denton, Reddish and the Heatons. That is why I am so cross; it is why I will continue to oppose the Bredbury Parkway scheme, together with the hon. Gentleman; and it is why I hope those who propose the Greater Manchester spatial framework exercise common sense with the next revisions, which will be published after the consultation ends.

I want very briefly to refer to the concerns of my hon. Friend the Member for Makerfield (Yvonne Fovargue), who cannot be here. I would probably have had to give her the same dispensation as I gave my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham West and Royton, because they are both members of the shadow Housing, Communities and Local Government team. She feels really strongly about this issue, so she has asked me to say a few words on her behalf. She has led a campaign with local councillors in Wigan against the use of land to create warehouses by junction 25 of the M6. In 2013, a similar scheme was thrown out by an independent planning inspector, but planning permission has already been submitted for warehousing the size of six football fields, and the jobs have been advertised.

That poses an important question: what is the point of even consulting on a spatial framework if developers can usurp the system as they seem to have done? That is precisely what is happening at Bredbury, where the developers have already held a public consultation. It makes a mockery of the plan-led system. I hope to get reassurances from the Minister that he takes very seriously the principle that developers and others should not seek to usurp the plan-led system, but that we need to get the plans in place before developers seek to develop cherished protected sites.

The other thing that has been mentioned—

[Graham Stringer (in the Chair)]

Order. I am sorry to interrupt the hon. Gentleman, but I would be grateful if he started to bring his remarks to a conclusion so the Minister has about the same time as he has had.

[Andrew Gwynne]

I am bringing my comments to a conclusion. I just want to touch on the serious issue of the numbers. We need clarity from the Minister about whether we should use the ONS numbers or the earlier numbers he set out. That brings me back to my first point about supply and demand. If we have an over-supply of green-belt land because we have used the wrong set of figures, how can the Minister give assurances to any of our constituents that those brownfield sites will be developed first?

I hope that the Minister will take on board the concerns we have raised and that he understands our sincerity. We want the best for Greater Manchester—we want our city region to grow and be prosperous—but it has to be sustainable for the future of all our communities.

[Graham Stringer (in the Chair)]

I ask the Minister to leave at least a minute at the end for summing up.

Local Government Funding

Graham Stringer Excerpts

Tuesday 15th January 2019 Westminster Hall

[Preet Kaur Gill]

My hon. Friend’s important intervention tells us about the plight of councils as a result of non-statutory services not getting the investment that they need. We will end up with councils delivering only statutory services, which will by no means meet the needs of our diverse communities.

In the context of Birmingham’s projected population growth of 121,000 by 2031, the cuts will mean even less money in real terms per person. Nor is the situation unique to Birmingham, as we have heard from many hon. Members across the country. The Institute for Fiscal Studies reports that

“funding from government grants, business rates and council tax is still set to be 1.4% (£0.6 billion) lower in real-terms than in 2015–16, which is equivalent to 4.2% per person after accounting for forecast population growth.”

Whatever the Minister and the Secretary of State may say, that means that councils will have less money to deliver services. This is not about the need to find minor efficiencies following a period of high spending; it follows a period of dramatic and coalition Government-enforced reduction of 22% per person, in real terms, in council spending on services between 2009-10 and 2015-16.

[Graham Stringer (Blackley and Broughton) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is making a very strong case about the damage that is being done to local services by cuts in the Government grant. Does she agree that there is no resilience in local government’s tax base, which is strangling local democracy, and that there needs to be a reversal of the changes that were made in the late ’80s and early ’90s to councils’ abilities to raise their own money?

[Preet Kaur Gill]

My hon. Friend raises an important point, which I will touch on later.

Not only was that devastatingly large amount taken across the country, but the spending cuts hit more deprived areas far harder than other areas, a point which I will come back to later. The Government often mock Members asking for more money for a particular cause, but that misses the point. These cuts are not just about money; they are about what the money allows local government to do, or not to do—it is about the services and support that local government can provide to empower communities and support individuals to fulfil their potential.

New research by Unison shows that 66% of local councillors do not think that local residents are receiving the help and support they need at the right time. Does the Minister understand that that is not because councillors and council workers are not working hard enough? Does he agree that the reductions of £16 billion to core Government funding between 2010 and 2020 have led to that situation? Will he make public all the data and analysis his Department have put together on the scale and variation of local responses to cuts, as well as on the impact of almost a decade of austerity on local government, and the inequalities it has reinforced and perpetuated?

What does the Minister say to Lord Porter, the Conservative chair of the Local Government Association? In the most recent copy of First, the magazine for local government—I have a copy that I am happy to share with the Minister—he said:

“Next year will continue to be hugely challenging for all councils, which still face an overall funding gap of £3.1 billion in 2019/20.”

That figure is not what is needed to make progress or to invest further in the future of our families and communities—that is just to stand still. Does the Minister agree with Lord Porter?

I know that universal credit is not the Minister’s brief, but I hope he will take the opportunity to discuss his understanding of the problems that universal credit is causing for citizens and therefore for local government. What analysis has the Department done of the impact on local government of rent arrears from council tenants on universal credit? Residential Landlords Association research reveals that the number of private landlords with tenants receiving universal credit and going into rent arrears rocketed from 27% in 2016 to 61% in 2018, with the average amount owed in rent arrears by the universal credit tenant rising 49% between 2017 and 2018. If there are similar findings for council tenants—there is no reason to think universal credit impacts differently on council tenants from those in private accommodation—local authorities will be put under further pressure by a failed Government initiative.

This is not party political. This is not about Labour councils wasting money, or Conservative councils being frivolous. Lord Porter said:

“Councils can no longer be expected to run our local services on a shoestring.”

Does the Minister think that those Conservative councils that have gone bust or reduced services to the legal minimum have received enough funding? Will they receive enough funding through the latest funding settlement? If so, does he think that they went bust because of their own failures—and will he outline those failures?

When the Prime Minister took office, she promised that the mission of her Government would be to tackle injustices. Since 2015-16, the most deprived councils have seen a cut of 2.8%, while the least deprived have seen a small real-terms increase of 0.3%. That is not tackling an injustice—that is embedding and reinforcing one.

Anti-Semitism

Graham Stringer Excerpts

Tuesday 17th April 2018 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)]

This week, we have been reminded of some of the darkest days in human history as we commemorate the 73rd anniversary of the liberation of Bergen-Belsen. More than 120,000 Jewish people were transported to Belsen, a high proportion of whom were children. One of those children was Anne Frank, the very person the Secretary of State quoted earlier. She died with her family only weeks before the liberation of Belsen by British soldiers. While in hiding, she wrote:

“How wonderful it is that no one has to wait, but can start right now to gradually change the world! How wonderful it is that everyone, great and small, can immediately help bring about justice by giving of themselves!”

I hope that all of us in this House today will be able to live up to those words.

I want to begin by addressing the comments made by the Secretary of State. As politicians, we all—and I mean all—have a duty to root out anti-Semitism, but recent events have shown that we in the Labour party need to be better at policing our own borders. The Labour party was formed to change society and to give a voice to the oppressed. Reflecting the existing defects of society can never be enough. It is our responsibility to show that we have zero tolerance of anti-Semitism in the Labour party. There is no place for anti-Semitism in the Labour party, on the left of British politics or in British society at all. End of.

[Graham Stringer (Blackley and Broughton) (Lab)]

I completely associate myself with my hon. Friend’s last three or four sentences. I represent one of the more significant Jewish populations in the country, in Kersal and Broughton, and I have worked with the Community Security Trust over a number of years to try to reduce the number of attacks on Jewish people in my constituency. I have to say that I have never come across anti-Semitism within my Labour party, and I have been shocked to realise that it exists in the party and among people associated with it. Does my hon. Friend agree that one of the things we can do to reassure the Jewish community, not just in my constituency but throughout the country, is to deal with any accusations through a proper process as quickly as possible and, where necessary, either throw the accusations out or throw the people out?

[Andrew Gwynne]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and speed is obviously of the essence. We cannot allow any allegations of anti-Semitism to be kept on the back burner. Where there is an allegation of anti-Semitism, we must not only call it out but root it out.