Football Clubs (Insolvency)

Debate between Marcus Jones and Jim Cunningham

Tuesday 18th March 2014 Westminster Hall

[Mr Marcus Jones (Nuneaton) (Con)]

Thank you, Mr Streeter, for allowing me to make a short speech. I did not intend to speak when I entered the Chamber, but the issue that my hon. Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Damian Collins) raises is important and we should support his endeavour to get the law affecting football clubs changed.

I am a long-suffering fan of Coventry City football club, like probably thousands of my constituents, who are extremely depressed and disappointed about what is happening to their football club. All football supporters follow their clubs for different reasons, and all experience tremendous highs and lows. Most probably get more lows than highs—unless they support one of the glory teams or are one of what I used to call Alex’s armchair army, supporting a team that might be many miles from where they live. Regardless of football affiliation, we must recognise that football clubs are community-based assets. They are not like any other type of business. If, for example, the customers of a supermarket chain suddenly decided they did not like what it was offering, they would usually abandon it and go elsewhere. Football supporters, however, regardless of how bad their team is at times, stick with it and support the club through thick and thin—or thin and thinner, in the case of my team at the moment. We must realise that; the clubs are embedded in communities.

Transparency has been raised several times. The people who follow clubs week after week, spending money, as my hon. Friend the Member for North Swindon (Justin Tomlinson) said, on season tickets, shirts and all sorts of things to support their club, deserve some transparency. They deserve to be able to hold their club’s owners to account. As to Coventry City football club, we do not even know who owns it. Many of the constituents whom I speak to are mortified that they cannot even find out who is to blame for its present situation. We need more accountability. We should never allow people to take on a football club that is embedded in a community, and then for whatever reason use it as a toy, thinking they can abandon the community, lift the football club up like a moveable commodity, and take it elsewhere.

[Mr Jim Cunningham]

The hon. Gentleman makes an important point. When we talk about wages, salaries and ownership, we tend to forget that football started with individuals playing in the street. The moral of the story is that it started with the fans, who created the teams in the first place; yet the fans get kicked in the teeth all the time when things go wrong.

[Mr Jones]

The hon. Gentleman and I do not often see eye to eye, but we probably do in this instance. Coventry City were a factory team, and started in the 19th century as a group of people from the Singer factory, who came together to play football. From that a great club was formed, which has lasted more than 125 years. We need to make sure we can see that the people running football clubs are fit and proper people. The clubs are not just commodities that can be shifted from person to person and area to area. They are organisations that communities depend on, particularly in a financial sense. When Coventry City left Coventry, it left a huge hole in the city, and that has particularly affected the local economy.

I support my hon. Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe, who is doing a fabulous job of raising the issues. He deserves every support, and I hope that the Minister will show him that she is in touch with the issue and willing to take action on behalf of millions of football fans throughout the country.

West Midlands Economy

Debate between Marcus Jones and Jim Cunningham

Wednesday 19th December 2012 Westminster Hall

[Mr Cunningham]

We do not have a breakdown of those figures. We do not know how many people are part-time workers or are in temporary jobs. I want to know more about those figures.

Budgetary pressures on the council are made all the more damaging in light of the financial pressures individual households face. For example, I am extremely concerned about the coming introduction of the under-occupancy penalty, or bedroom tax—in other words a new poll tax, but no one has grasped that. It will cut the housing benefit of working-age tenants in the social rented sector who have spare rooms.

The Government say that if people do not want to face the benefit cut, they can simply move into a smaller property. However, there are simply not enough smaller homes available in the current housing market. There is a national shortage of one-bedroom houses, particularly in the social housing sector. Furthermore, there are concerns that tenants are not being sufficiently prepared for the changes and do not know anything about the penalty.

The Department for Work and Pensions estimates that the introduction of the social sector size criteria measure is likely to affect 60,000 working-age housing benefit claimants living in the social rented sector in the west midlands at the time of its introduction in 2013-14. The change will mean that anyone in social housing with a spare bedroom will lose 14% of their housing benefit, or 25% if they have two spare rooms. Most people with a spare bedroom are pensioners who live in two or three-bedroom houses. There is a national shortage of one-bedroom houses, particularly in the social housing sector. In many areas, moving is not an option, because there are not enough smaller places to move into. I have long been concerned about that issue and want to prepare those who will be affected in Coventry as much as possible.

Another factor that is putting pressure on households is fuel prices. Petrol prices have fallen by less than 4p a litre, despite a 10p drop in wholesale prices—almost mirroring what happened six months ago.

[Mr Marcus Jones (Nuneaton) (Con)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Cunningham]

No. I want to finish my speech, and my colleagues want to come in.

The average pump price of diesel has fallen, but only by 40% of the fall in the wholesale value. The Government should be doing all they can to try to mitigate the impact of high prices, and doing all in their power to make the prices at the pump fairly reflect any drops in the wholesale price.

I have a number of serious reservations about High Speed 2. I wish to be given all possible assurances that Coventry will not lose out from the development of HS2. We have had a meeting with the Secretary of State for Transport, who will look at the situation and at how to ensure that Coventry does not lose out. I am concerned that HS2 might drive up prices in existing services to Coventry and reduce services on the west coast main line, which could blight inward investment in Coventry.

European attempts at high-speed networks are concerning. There have been criticisms that the high-speed route in France has meant that towns near but not on the route have suffered, as investment was sucked into the cities on the route. Coventry’s proximity to Birmingham is making me anxious that a similar loss of investment to Birmingham may occur.

Furthermore, I am extremely concerned about the compensation package being offered by the Government. I understand that the existing package does not cover all who will be negatively affected by HS2, particularly those at the fringes. Households may experience negative equity on their properties but will receive no compensation, therefore making it difficult to sell the properties on the periphery. I have been having meetings, but will seek more to gain every reassurance that Coventry households, as well as the local economy, will not be negatively affected by HS2.

In conclusion, I want to know what the Government intend to do to support Coventry. The city is working extremely hard to encourage investment and regeneration and to free up land to provide space for manufacturing facilities and many other projects. The council is doing all it can to continue providing essential services, particularly for Coventry’s vulnerable people, despite difficult budgetary pressures. The people of Coventry want reassurance that such hardships are not going to continue without the Government also taking action to stimulate growth in the region.

Local Government Budgets

Debate between Marcus Jones and Jim Cunningham

Wednesday 12th January 2011 Westminster Hall

[Mr Marcus Jones (Nuneaton) (Con)]

Thank you for allowing me to speak today, Mrs Brooke. I congratulate the hon. Member for Coventry South (Mr Cunningham) on securing this important debate, although some of his opinions on the overall situation in local government in Coventry and the west midlands may well differ from mine. Despite what the hon. Gentleman said and the synthetic rage from Opposition Members, local government had known for some time that whichever party formed a Government following the last general election, budgets for councils in the west midlands and for most councils across the country would reduce dramatically. That is not a hidden fact and not something that we should forget. Nor should we forget that the public know that the country has a massive deficit. We can talk about how that was caused. Obviously, the bankers are very much at fault, but the previous Government were also very much at fault for not having a proper system of regulation in place for the banks. The banks failed on their watch. They cannot get away from that point.

[Mr Cunningham]

Obviously, the hon. Gentleman is entitled to his point of view, but he certainly was not in the House, although I and my colleagues were, when the issue of Northern Rock arose. The then Opposition—the hon. Gentleman’s party—had no solution to that. In fairness, the Liberal Democrats said that we should nationalise Northern Rock. We said that we would have a look at that. Equally, if we look at the record of the last Parliament, we see that the hon. Gentleman’s colleagues always argued against regulation. Whether we were talking about banks or the private sector, they argued against regulation, and the only regulations that they are talking about abolishing now are those on health and safety.

[Mr Jones]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his comments, but we cannot get away from the fact that his party were in government; the banks failed on his party’s watch. We saw the first run on a bank for more than 100 years. That happened on his party’s watch. His party, not my party, was responsible for regulating the banks and it failed. The public know that and know that we must deal with the deficit. It is running at such a level that we are paying £120 million a day in debt interest alone. If we do not deal with that, not only will public services and the amount of money that we have for public services be vastly reduced, but the point also needs to be made that we risk putting this country in a situation like that which we have seen in Ireland, Greece, Spain and, probably, Portugal.

Let me return to the Government settlement in relation to councils. The better councils, including those across the west midlands, have been planning for several years for how they would deal with the inevitable cuts in local government funding. We should acknowledge that there have been reductions in formula grants for many councils over a number of years. The public have been looking to councils to show some leadership and show how they can deal with the very difficult situation that we all know we are in.

The previous Conservative administration at one of my local councils, Nuneaton and Bedworth borough council, did an enormous amount of work before the elections in May with Rugby borough council. That was about saving money through merging back-office functions, reducing the amount of management and sharing management. They were on course to save in excess of £2 million to £3 million. Unfortunately, the current—now Labour—administration in Nuneaton and Bedworth has politically abandoned that work and decided not to pursue saving money by reducing back-office functions. I am surprised by that because the previous Labour Government advocated it as a way for councils to save money in what they knew would be difficult times, and the current Government also advocate it.

I fear that Nuneaton and Bedworth council will look to make up its budget through massive rises in parking charges, as it has already shown by implementing a 25% rise in charges in the past couple of weeks. Inevitably, it will also make large increases in fees and charges elsewhere and, I am sure, huge cuts to front-line services through lack of foresight and forward planning.

On the grant settlement and the formula grant, I would like to discuss the disparity in settlements across the country that the hon. Member for Coventry South mentioned. Disparity is nothing unusual, because under the Labour Government, Warwickshire county council, for example, was particularly disadvantaged by its grant settlement year after year when compared with councils in areas such as the north-east. They received huge increases in grant funding while Warwickshire’s funding decreased and was continually behind the curve.

Looking beyond the grant settlements, we have seen some positives from the Government recently, which I welcome, such as allowing councils more freedom to deal with the issues that they face. Performance indicators have been the bane of many councils over a number of years—the comprehensive area assessment and the local area agreement. In reality, performance indicators have done very little either to improve the quality of local services to the people or to increase and improve outcomes, and particularly to reduce the gap between rich and poor. We now know that during the Labour Government, inequalities between rich and poor increased—they got worse, not better. Millions of pounds, even in very small authorities, have been wasted. Hopefully, authorities can put that into front-line services, rather than into writing a ridiculous number of plans or strategies, which have little or no effect.

The formula grant is a complex animal. It offers no transparency to local people over how local services are provided. People in local government, and possibly people in the Department, do not have a great understanding of the formula grant and how it is arrived at. What can be done to simplify the minefield of local government finance to make things more transparent for local people, so that they understand fully how taxes are raised to pay for local government and how its finance is allocated?

One area of concern within the current grant settlement is the transfer of concessionary travel from borough and district councils to county councils. That affects us in the west midlands in two-tier authorities, and particularly affects the two local councils in my constituency—Nuneaton and Bedworth and North Warwickshire borough councils—which is obviously of great concern to my constituents. With the recalculation of the grant, Nuneaton and Bedworth is likely to be disadvantaged by the loss of about £200,000 and North Warwickshire by about £300,000. I would like to know what the Minister can do to mitigate the effect that the transfer of the responsibility will, potentially, have on local services in Nuneaton.

I conclude by reiterating that this is a tough settlement. We all know that we have a tough settlement and it is incumbent on local authorities to work with local people and to ensure that they deliver on the priorities for those people. There are also certain anomalies that the Government need to mitigate, particularly the transfer of responsibility for concessionary travel. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s response.