Local Government Finance
Debate between Hilary Benn and John Redwood(9 years, 8 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Hilary Benn
I agree and I shall come to that point, too, when I talk about the consequences of what has happened for health and social care more generally.
Mr Redwood
The shadow Secretary of State is usually very fair-minded, so does he agree that the largest local authority service is education, which has over the past five years had cash increases and small real increases in spending, and that the biggest local public service is the NHS, as administered locally, which has had real increases as well? Were they not the right priorities and would not his party have shared exactly that priority of protecting health and education?
Hilary Benn
Indeed. If one looks back at the record of the previous Labour Government, one can see that that is precisely what we did. In fact, we increased investment in those two things as that reflects public priorities. Of course, Government life is about the choices one has to make and one of the choices the Government have not made is to publish the figures that the NAO has asked them to publish. I suspect that Ministers know what the figures are and know that they will damage their argument that this is a settlement that is fair to all, north and south, and therefore do not want to reveal what is happening. We also know that the NAO has criticised the Department and Ministers for not paying close enough attention to what is going on. Again, those are not my words but those of the National Audit Office, which said:
“The Department has a limited understanding of the financial sustainability of local authorities and the extent to which they may be at risk of financial failure.”
That is why the Public Accounts Committee said:
“The Department does not understand the impact over time of reductions in funding to local authorities, and the potential risks of individual authorities becoming financially unsustainable if reductions continue.”
On current trends, the revenue support grant will disappear entirely by 2019-20. When the Minister replies, will he confirm that that is the case? What assessment have the Government made of the impact of that on the viability of local authority services, particularly in the areas most reliant on Government support? Indeed, I ask Members to pause for a moment and contemplate their local authority’s budget without any revenue support grant whatsoever. The Chair of the Public Accounts Committee was very clear when she said recently:
“Further cuts could not just undermine the entire viability of most optional services, but might threaten some statutory services in these areas.”
Hilary Benn
If we get the opportunity after a certain event on 7 May, I would be very happy to receive representations from the hon. Gentleman and everyone else, because when I say that we want to achieve a fairer funding mechanism, that is what I mean.
In return for this economic devolution deal, all we ask is that local government comes together to form combined authorities across England. Their shape will vary from place to place, because economic geography and travel-to-work areas vary. This is a challenge to local government. Local government says to all politicians, “Trust us more.” Well, we would trust local government more. We would say, “Get organised, and significant devolution of funding is on offer in return.”
Sarah Newton (Truro and Falmouth) (Con)
Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
Local Audit and Accountability Bill [Lords]
Debate between Hilary Benn and John Redwood
Hilary Benn (Leeds Central) (Lab)
The Bill might appear to some to be rather dry—[Hon. Members: “No!”] I am relieved to hear that.
As the Secretary of State has said, the Bill principally concerns how we ensure the probity, economy, efficiency and effectiveness of the spending of billions of pounds of public money. As we have heard, it might be said that the Bill, introduced by one of the late Baroness Thatcher’s great supporters, seeks both to extend, through greater transparency in council meetings—the subject of her private Member’s Bill, as the Secretary of State has reminded us—and to overturn, through the abolition of the Audit Commission, part of her political legacy. The Audit Commission was of course set up by the noble Lord Heseltine. As he explained in his autobiography—it is important to remember this:
“I thought it wrong in principle, as the 1976 Layfield Report had said, that councils should be able to appoint their own auditors. Awkward auditors do not get reappointed.”
That was his judgment.
Lord Heseltine’s creation did have achievements to its credit, although we did not hear them from the Secretary of State. It contributed to savings in local government and it developed value-for-money comparisons. I think I am right in saying that it was the Audit Commission that appointed John Magill under section 13 of the Local Government Finance Act 1982 to investigate Shirley Porter and the homes for votes scandal in Westminster.
Mr Redwood
On the point about the value-for-money component of the audit, I and a friend of mine, John Hatch, wrote that idea up and persuaded Conservative Ministers to introduce it. It did not come from the Audit Commission.
Hilary Benn
No, the Secretary of State does not know his own Bill and he does not want to hear what his Conservative colleague, Sir Merrick Cockell, has to say about it.
Members should remember what the code says. Paragraph 15 states that local authorities should
“avoid anything likely to be perceived by readers as…being a commentary on contentious areas of public policy.”
High Speed 2 is contentious, as are hospital closures, the removal of fire engines, and whether Heathrow should expand. Is the Secretary of State really saying that there is something wrong with local councils representing the views of their residents? Sir Merrick’s conclusion is that clause 38 “sets a dangerous precedent”. I could not agree more.
The National Union of Journalists says:
“There is no evidence that extra statutory powers are required”.
The National Association of Local Councils opposes clause 38. Birmingham city council said in its response:
“we do not accept the government’s starting point.”
Exactly!
Mr Redwood
We all understand that it can be desirable for councils to run political campaigns and that it will certainly happen. Is not the point that they can do so in the usual way—by making speeches in the council chamber, talking to journalists, getting it in the local media and putting it on free websites—but not through paid-for propaganda?
Hilary Benn
Let us take the case of High Speed 2 and the concerns that have been expressed by some of the right hon. Gentleman’s colleagues about the route. Is he saying that local councils should not be able, on behalf of their residents, to express a view, to make representations and to say that they want the route to be changed? If he is not saying that, I do not see how he can support clause 38, given the advice that the LGA has taken.
Hilary Benn
No, I have been very generous in giving way.
The great localist is, in this Bill, asking to be given a great big blue pencil so that he can cross out things that he does not like.
Growth and Infrastructure Bill
Debate between Hilary Benn and John Redwood(11 years, 12 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Mr Redwood
Does the shadow Secretary of State agree that, given the weakness of the banks and the problems in the credit markets, section 106 deals will be far less generous than they were prior to the boom going bust?
Hilary Benn
Of course, and the fact that local authorities have been willing to renegotiate the section 106 affordable housing requirements is proof of that—[Interruption.] Well, lots of them have done so, and no doubt the planning Minister will tell us about those that have not.
Local Government Finance
Debate between Hilary Benn and John Redwood(12 years, 9 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Hilary Benn (Leeds Central) (Lab)
I welcome this opportunity to debate local government finance. I am conscious that we are entering a world of strange language—gearing and damping, floors and ceilings—and the Minister did not disappoint. I was slightly surprised, however, to hear so much about Greece and Italy, Ireland and France. Unless I am very much mistaken, when I last checked, those countries were not part of the local government funding settlement, but I stand to be corrected.
Local authorities provide services on which we all rely, and what they do has a huge effect on the quality of life of the citizens we represent and on the neighbourhoods in which they live. They are now having to deal, as every Member knows, with the biggest cut in resources that we have ever seen in our political lifetime. Councils have been forced to absorb a reduction in formula grant of almost 19.3% over the two years of the spending review. The cuts have been front-loaded. What that means, as the Local Government Association has pointed out, is that local government has borne the brunt of the reductions in the spending review rather than the burden being shared equally with other parts of Government.
Having heard the Minister’s contribution, it seems that he is still living on a completely different planet from the one on which communities and their councils have to exist. As the Institute for Fiscal Studies confirms, the total cuts to local government spending will outpace those of the public sector as a whole up to 2014-15.
Mr Redwood
We are discussing £72 billion in aggregate Exchequer finance for this year and next year, which is £1,200 for every man, woman and child in the country. That has to be taken off them in taxes in order to pay to local government. Will the right hon. Gentleman tell us how much more his party would like us to take off every man, woman and child in the country to make that Exchequer finance bigger?
Hilary Benn
My response to the right hon. Gentleman is that we would not cut so far and so fast, as he knows. We would certainly not have distributed the cuts in the fundamentally unfair way that this Government have done.
Hilary Benn
My hon. Friend is right. It is quite shocking that the Government have done this knowing what it will do, but at no time have they apologised, as they should, for the unfair way in which they have allocated these cuts, but it is time they did, because it is now clear that far from all of us being in it together, some are much more in it than others. This is not just about local authorities, because the same is true of funding for the fire service, which we are also discussing.
Mr Redwood
The right hon. Gentleman said that East Dorset and Basingstoke will gain money, but those districts do not get the increases for education and other county services. We are asked to approve a fall in East Dorset from £2.75 million to £2.5 million—a 10% fall—and a fall in Basingstoke from £6.74 million to £6.25 million, which is also quite a big fall because those districts will not get the other increases.
Hilary Benn
The right hon. Gentleman obviously did not listen carefully enough to the point I made. If he has not seen the figures produced by Newcastle city council he should do so, because it has looked at the impact of the cuts over three years and has taken account of transition grant and the new homes bonus allocation. In other words, it has looked at the total effect on those authorities of all the decisions the Government have taken, and that is what the figures show.
In relation to the fire service, there are brigade areas with a very high rate of incidents, such as Merseyside, Cleveland, Greater Manchester and West Midlands. What is happening to them? They are all facing reductions in funding per head, whereas areas with a lower rate of incidence, thank goodness, such as Hampshire, Royal Berkshire, and Hereford and Worcester, will get increases in their funding per head for the fire service. What that means for the losers is that fire stations are closing, pumps are going and firefighters are losing their jobs.