Provisional Local Government Finance Settlement

Lord Porter of Spalding Excerpts

Thursday 13th December 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Porter of Spalding (Con)]

My Lords, I declare my interests as set out in the register: I am the leader of South Holland District Council and chairman of the Local Government Association. I am sure that my noble friend the Minister is probably not keen on me standing up to speak, but for once I will say that this is a good settlement. I have been dealing with these settlements for eight years, and this is the first time that most of our members are complaining that the size of the increase is not enough. In the previous seven years, they all moaned about the size of the cuts. It would be churlish not to acknowledge that at least this is the start of a move in the right direction. The Government should be commended for recognising that we are at the bottom of where we can be.

It is not inefficiencies that are driving additional costs in local government, it is the extra demands being made on services. Some 1,000 extra children a day are being looked at, and there are 5,000 requests for adult social services a day. These are huge costs. However, if we do not get the social services stuff right, all of those costs then fall on the health service. The Minister has already acknowledged that a social services bed is much cheaper than a national health bed. So it makes sense from the taxpayer’s point of view to ensure that we invest as much as possible in preventive social care, rather than in acute care to fix whatever has been broken. It might be a good idea if someone figured out how much of the extra £20 billion that the health service is getting would be better directed towards adult social care, in order to prevent the health service having to take that on. Both Secretaries of State appear to be looking at this.

Will the Minister agree to go back to the department and get his colleagues to lobby every other spending department that gives small sums of money to local government? Let us not let those departments think that they can freeze those sums, and make sure that they are increased at least in line with inflation, because that will put additional funding into the hands of local government.

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend and he is right to say that on occasion, my heart is in my mouth when he gets up to speak, but I always recognise the fairness with which he addresses the issues. I also understand that he speaks from the front line. I recognise, as we all do, the pressures that are on local government. As I say, we really commend the work being done by councillors up and down the country. I think he is being fair when he says that this is a good settlement. I also think he is being fair when he says that we have had some challenges in the past. Perhaps this has to be set against the background of what will be a significant year, because of the business rate retention scheme coming on line, fair funding being looked at and the spending review—outside of what the Chancellor has said is the end of austerity. Given that, we should expect things to ease.

It would be absolutely right to accede to the request of the noble Lord. It is beyond my pay grade to speak to Secretaries of State on an equal basis, but I will certainly pass on to my right honourable friend the Secretary of State his view that other spending departments should be encouraged to look at what they can do because of the demands being made on local government.

The noble Lord, Lord Porter, said that the challenges are due to increased demand rather than inefficiencies. I accept that, which is why the digital declaration in the Statement is particularly important, as is the announced £7.5 million local digital innovation fund, which provides transformation funding for the town planning system in Southwark—the area of birth of the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy. Other similar announcements were made in Birmingham, to look at the way in which Amazon’s Alexa or Apple’s Siri can help with the delivery of some services. We have to think outside the box in innovative ways to make the most of digital services. That point was made in relation to the earlier Statement on police funding.