Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Lord Blunkett and Grant Shapps(13 years, 10 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Grant Shapps
The hon. Gentleman knows, because he has raised this issue with me before in the House, that the decent homes programme continues, and last week’s settlement, on top of the spending review, makes it very clear that £2.2 billion is available for decent homes—which, I understand, subsequent to our previous exchange in the House, his council is in line for.[Official Report, 27 January 2011, Vol. 522, c. 4MC.]
Mr David Blunkett (Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough) (Lab)
In a flight of fantasy and a moment of mental dysfunctionality, the Secretary of State and the Minister have proclaimed again and again that there is no need for front-line services to be cut if salaries are reduced, services are shared and there is greater efficiency. What will the Minister say to the Liberal Democrat-controlled Sheffield city council when, in cutting £70 million, it devastates services and decimates jobs in my city?
Grant Shapps
It is very important to get out to all local authorities across the country the message that the most vulnerable people should be protected in this spending settlement. That is an important point, because one of the principal ways in which vulnerable people are protected is through the Supporting People programme. Its budget has been pretty much kept intact. I will send out the message from the Dispatch Box now that the reduction in Supporting People is just 2.7% per annum, so there is no reason for local authorities to use that as an excuse to cut services to vulnerable people.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Lord Blunkett and Grant Shapps
Grant Shapps
The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right in that analysis; I completely concur with it. It is a disaster for first-time buyers. One of the first things I did as Housing Minister was to reverse the policy of the previous Minister to say that I believe in the aspiration of people owning their homes. The reason we ended up with this problem in the first place is related to the enormous deficit and boom and bust, which was led by housing in particular. We need a more stable economy in place—not like the one that we were headed for or like the Irish one, but one that is stable for the long term. That means that cutting the deficit is the No. 1 move. I am also very aware that there are effectively only five lenders on the high street, which means that there is very little competition for first-time buyers. The banking review will report next June. It is very important that competition is opened up and we reverse the situation for first-time buyers.
Mr David Blunkett (Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough) (Lab)
T1. If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.
Local Government Financing
Debate between Lord Blunkett and Grant Shapps
Grant Shapps
The fund was announced in the Budget, Mr Speaker. If the hon. Member for Eltham (Clive Efford) was present last week, he will have heard the Chancellor of the Exchequer announce it at this Dispatch Box. Let me clarify another point. My hon. Friend the Member for Wimbledon (Stephen Hammond) also mentioned that he had telephoned the office of the right hon. Member for Southampton, Itchen to check that the letter had been received. I am very surprised by the rather discourteous and disingenuous comments about my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State.
Mr Blunkett
Is this the £1 billion that the Government have just announced that they are withdrawing as a result of the abolition of the regional development agencies, which they promised before and after the election that they would abolish only if there was no support at local level?
Grant Shapps
I will come in a moment to the RDAs that were set up by Lord Prescott. In the meantime, I can tell the right hon. Gentleman that this is a new £1 billion—the regional development fund £1 billion announced in last week’s Budget and designed to help— [Interruption.] Labour Members do not want to hear about this, but it is designed to help in exactly the kind of constituencies that they have come here today to complain are being underfunded. They do not want to know that this coalition Government are doing something to help those areas. That is the truth.
We live in grave financial times, and the previous Government bequeathed a scorched-earth policy. As Labour’s departing Chief Secretary declared, “I’m afraid there’s no money left. Good luck.” [Interruption.] They do not want to hear that either, but it was what the note said, and it also happened to be true.
We inherited spending commitments funded by a litany of IOUs scrawled on the back of fag packets and a toxic legacy of debt from an Administration who went on a spending spree with the nation’s credit card. Our most immediate priority is therefore to reduce the nation’s chronic public spending deficit to pave the way for economic recovery.
Grant Shapps
I cannot tell my hon. Friend how the approval process used to work, but I can tell him that, in the new Department for Communities and Local Government, that kind of expenditure would never be signed off without someone political taking the decision right from the outset.
We have announced that we will move away from the wasteful inefficiency of central targets and towards incentives involving more carrot and much less stick. Last week, we scrapped the comprehensive area assessment, saving the taxpayer £39 million.
Mr Blunkett
It will help us over the next five years if the right hon. Gentleman can give us an answer to this question. Is he seriously suggesting that every sum over £5,000 spent in government will be individually signed off by a Government Minister?
Grant Shapps
No, I did not mention the figure of £5,000, but I did say that decisions approaching anything like the levels of the £134,000 spent on Parisian-designed sofas would require sign-off—and they would not get that sign-off, either.
We have introduced a Bill to stop council restructuring in Devon, Norfolk and Suffolk, which will save the taxpayer £40 million of unnecessary costs. This was a botched restructuring; even the accounting officer at the DCLG had no confidence in it, and issued a letter of direction to the former Secretary of State about it. There was no reason to spend that £40 million, but the Labour Government did not believe that the country was in a financial mess. They seemed to miss that point entirely.
There is more to come. We will promote locally led joint working, building not just on the Total Place pilots, but on innovations—such as joint chief executives— being championed by many councils. In the Queen’s Speech, we announced a localism Bill that will free local government from central control and give voters more power over local government and over the way in which money is spent. As part of this, we will introduce a new general power of competence for local authorities, so that they are free to give local communities exactly what they want.
The public coffers are nearly empty, and the nation’s credit card is maxed out. Shadow Ministers are fighting the wars of yesterday, trying to justify why their pet projects were notionally signed off by the Treasury, but ignoring the huge elephant in the room, in the form of a looming public debt of £1.4 trillion. But in these tough times, we are defending the interests of families, pensioners, small firms and the underprivileged. We are empowering councils to put the front line first, and to make the right choices on how best to protect the vulnerable and the needy in our society. We are putting councillors and the people in charge of going through the state books and highlighting waste and inefficiency, rather than relying on unelected and unaccountable quangos and regional structures. There is a difference between this Government and the last one: we trust people. That is something that the centralising, nanny-state, interfering Labour Government never did.