Provisional Local Government Finance Settlement

Debate between Robert Jenrick and Peter Aldous

Thursday 17th December 2020 Commons Chamber

[Robert Jenrick]

I forgot to say in response to the shadow Minister that of course the first and most celebrated customer of Robin Hood Energy in Nottingham was the right hon. Gentleman, the former Leader of the Opposition. On his questions, I can absolutely answer that this Government are committed to ending rough sleeping and we can see from the 60% increase in funding in this settlement versus the last spending review the degree of resources that we are willing to put into this issue. It is not solely about money; it is also a crisis of health. There are issues to do with ex-offenders, law enforcement and immigration. We are doing everything we can, and I am working with my Cabinet colleagues to progress this issue. We are investing that £433 million into new, good-quality move-on accommodation , including in London, working with the GLA and local councils, including his own, as well as pan-London organisations such as Peabody to get that accommodation up and running by the end of this year. He asks about housing more generally, and I want to see more houses built in London as much as he does. He could go to his own council in Islington and ask it to do more. Its current local housing need is for 2,300 homes, and it is building on average 1,000, so less than half the amount of homes needed. Charity starts at home, and I suggest he goes to Islington and gets the council building to support the local community.

[Peter Aldous (Waveney) (Con)]

I thank my right hon. Friend for his statement. As chairman of the county all-party parliamentary group, I welcome his confirming a settlement that provides additional funding to provide stability for council finances next year. The county APPG has long campaigned for a more equitable methodology for distributing council funding that will promote levelling up and benefit not only historically underfunded counties such as Suffolk but metropolitan areas. I thus welcome the Secretary of State’s commitment to fair funding, but can he provide further details of when the Government will bring forward such proposals for consultation?

[Robert Jenrick]

We all—certainly those of us on the Government Benches—would agree that we need an updated and fairer method for distributing public funds within local government. This year would have been the wrong time to bring that forward, I think. This is a one-year settlement in a period of almost unique instability in the sector. There might be an opportunity to do it next year, and my Department will work with the Treasury to review that. In the meantime, we have substantially increased the rural services delivery grant, taking that to £85 million, the highest amount to date, to support the delivery of public service in places such as Suffolk, where it is undoubtedly challenging and expensive.