Local Government Finance Bill (Second sitting)

Debate between Jim McMahon and Rebecca Pow

Tuesday 31st January 2017 Public Bill Committees

[Rebecca Pow]

Exactly. They blame central Government— so now they are going to.

Professor Tony Travers: Central Government set the tax rate and the rules for the base, so it has been central Government’s responsibility up to now. All the rules will continue to be set by central Government. But there is a separate issue, which I realise is beyond the Committee’s remit. There are significant problems with non-domestic rates, notwithstanding the fact that they are the business property tax that we have. They are not a great tax—they are effectively a tax on inputs. They are inflexible in relation to profits, and so on. But—I respect the Treasury’s, and DCLG’s, problem—they are the tax we have got. Moving away from that to something different, which might be a radical change, is a reform that successive Governments have not been willing to make. However, there are good arguments for looking at business rates from first principles—starting all over again. That is not where we are with this Bill, I fear.

[Jim McMahon]

Q This is a more rounded debate about the sustainability and funding of local public services. If we are going to move to a localised method of funding, we need to make sure that it is robust and can fund the demand for public services. I have a concern about council tax in that context. People already believe that they pay far too much council tax and that all they get in return is their bins emptied—and now that is happening less often than it used to, in many areas. People are questioning why they are paying council tax and a potential 25% increase is programmed over the life of the Parliament. Is there not a risk, with business rates, in the way there is with council tax, that although a lot of this conversation has been about cost, the real debate is about the value that people believe they get in return? I would welcome a sector view, not about the total cost, which is always a bugbear for council tax and business rate payers, but on the perceived value in return.

James Lowman: I think that our members see it as a cost of doing business, rather than a payment for something. They see their contribution as business rates, the jobs they create and the tax they collect on VAT and excise duty. Where local businesses have to use local government, they pay for that. If they go for a licence, they have to pay licensing fees. Rates do not cover all the services that businesses receive from the local authority; they are seen as just a tax and a base level that they have to contribute in order to trade.

Neighbourhood Planning Bill (Second sitting)

Debate between Jim McMahon and Rebecca Pow

Committee Debate: 2nd sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 18th October 2016 Public Bill Committees

[Rebecca Pow]

Q Do you think that will be an incentive for people who are sceptical about the process we have been discussing? Would it really encourage them to do it?

Ruth Reed: I think if they felt they had some control over the way things looked, they would be much more incentivised to bring it forward.

[Jim McMahon (Oldham West and Royton) (Lab)]

Q I am interested in the powers providing the finance to deliver and get the expertise in, and so on. What about practical support beyond that, for instance toolkits, pro formas and websites that can generate content and formatting? Maybe I can use this opportunity to blow the trumpet of Greater Manchester, which is currently embarking on a project with the Cabinet Office to develop open data mapping. Would more projects like that help your parish and town councils?

Jonathan Owen: I have been interested in how the neighbourhood planning process has taken off over the last few years. We should recognise that it was an experiment, really, and we are at the early stages of that experiment. In any experiment we need to have plenty of ways to share good practice and showcase what others are doing, and the kind of toolkits you have mentioned. Certainly, from talking to parishes, they are reassured when they are able to talk to other parishes or other neighbourhood forums that have done it and learn lessons from that. Anything that we put in place—not necessarily in the Bill but through any financial support— to ensure that sharing of good practice would be brilliant.

Ruth Reed: Any obligations placed on local authorities to provide extra services, if they are not accompanied by funding, are going to put extra pressure on a system that is already in a—

Contaminated Blood

Debate between Jim McMahon and Rebecca Pow

Tuesday 12th April 2016 Commons Chamber

[Rebecca Pow]

The hon. Gentleman is making a very serious and sympathetic case. As well as people’s suffering, is there not also the issue of their unrealised potential—the hopes dashed, the dreams never lived, the potential never reached? It is on that account that we really owe it to these people to speak up—I do so on behalf an unidentified constituent who does not want me to give his name—and urge the Minister to address the issue.

[Jim McMahon]

The hon. Lady makes an absolutely excellent point. When Alex came to my office in Oldham, he told me that with his compensation payment he had bought a van to go and work self-employed, but his illness stopped him and eventually he had to sell the van, which had ended up sitting on his driveway. The hon. Lady is absolutely right that people have been denied opportunities that many in this House would take for granted. It is far more than simply an aching pain, or not knowing whether tomorrow will be better than today; opportunities have been stolen from people. Given that it is the state’s responsibility to put this matter right, we owe it as a nation to do so once and for all.

The payments we are talking about will seem quite small to many people here. In some ways, that is what makes this so unfair and so cruel. In one of the richest nations in the world, we are talking about penny-pinching from the poorest people in society, who did not choose to be in this situation and who need a way forward. A £2,000 payment taken away, or a winter fuel allowance, or prescription payments—support is being taken away. It is important to say that the £2,000 payments do not go to everyone, but are for people whose income is 70% below the average in that area. I do not want to make party political points, but it is a bit difficult not to do so when the Government of the day could put the matter right but are choosing instead to drag it out and prolong the agony and pain.

When Members vote in the Lobby of this House, we will be voting after having received a pay rise this year. Well done, all of us—aren’t we fantastic? Well, the people out there are not asking for a pay rise. They are asking just to get by—to have the money to pay the bills—and for justice. The Minister has the opportunity to put the matter right once and for all. She should take it.