Devolution in England
Debate between Robert Neill and John Bercow
Mr Speaker
Order. We are not having an identity parade, but I think the hon. Gentleman has the right hon. Member for Wokingham (Mr Redwood) in mind.
Criminal Justice and Courts Bill
Debate between Robert Neill and John Bercow(10 years, 4 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Robert Neill
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. As an ex-Minister, I break no confidence in saying that when decisions are being taken, part of the advice will regularly be about the judicial review risks. Anyone who serves in an English local authority will know that part of the significant conversation nowadays is, “Okay, we think this is the right thing to do. How do we defend it against judicial review? We know, even though we have done the right thing, consistent with our democratic mandates, that a judicial review will be coming.” That cannot be in the public interest.
Mr Speaker
Order. It is always a delight to enjoy the free-flowing eloquence of the hon. Gentleman as he develops his tutorial, but may I gently ask him to bear in mind that a number of others wish to speak, notably his right hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (Mr Redwood) and the Chairman of the Joint Committee on Human Rights, the hon. Member for Aberavon (Dr Francis), and time is not limitless? Although we are savouring the hon. Gentleman’s delights, all good things must eventually come to an end.
Robert Neill
I rather suspect, Mr Speaker, that you have anticipated how my ministerial career came to an end as well, delightful though it was at the time. I am happy to draw my remarks to a close, because I know that my right hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (Mr Redwood) has a great deal of expertise on this matter. I will also welcome the contribution of the hon. Member for Aberavon (Dr Francis), not least because his predecessor was a member of my chambers who led me on a number of cases, including some judicial review matters with which he dealt expertly. [Interruption.] I am sorry to have driven you from the Chair, Mr Speaker.
Let me conclude with these thoughts. The judicial process is important for its checks and balances. That position is not being changed by the Government’s proposals; what they are providing is a reality check on the process of judicial review. On the issue of interveners, if someone chooses to intervene in litigation, they should not do so without being aware of the costs that their intervention can bring. That is what we are seeking to do. It is often the intervener, rather than the initial parties, who takes up the bulk of the time in the case. It is logical for someone who seeks to intervene in a case—no one is obliged to do so, after all—to face the discipline of the potential costs.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Robert Neill and John Bercow(10 years, 9 months ago)
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Robert Neill
I congratulate the right hon. Gentleman on his appointment. Does he agree that mediation is well established in the commercial law field and growing in the family and matrimonial law field, but that we are perhaps missing a trick in two areas? The first is in ensuring that more use is made of mediation in land compensation and related planning disputes. Will he meet me to discuss whether the Bill on High Speed 2 gives the Government an opportunity to promote that and to create greater awareness among fellow Departments, and—
Mr Speaker
Order. I say to the hon. Gentleman that if he was paid by the word when he was practising at the Bar, he must have become a very rich man indeed.
Planning (Mottingham)
Debate between Robert Neill and John Bercow
Greg Mulholland
The all-party save the pub group is entirely behind my hon. Friend’s community campaign and will offer him any support we can. The simple answer—I hope we will hear this from the Minister—is twofold. First, as my hon. Friend will know, the great news is that the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills is consulting on finally dealing with the property scam that is the pubco model, which includes Enterprise Inns. I hope that we will hear later this year that that will be dealt with. Secondly, I hope that we will start to get it through to the community pubs Minister—my hon. Friend and I had debates when he used to be the community pubs Minister—that although the provisions in the Localism Act 2011 are positive, we cannot accept a planning framework that allows such behaviour. We must have a change, so that pubs cannot become supermarkets behind communities’ backs and without any consultation with those communities. That cannot be right.
Mr Speaker
Order. The hon. Gentleman would almost have had time to consume a pint in the course of his intervention.
Robert Neill
Thank you, Mr Speaker. I understand my hon. Friend’s point, and I am grateful to him for his intervention. You will know of the importance that all communities attach to their local public house, Mr Speaker, and this behaviour is particularly reprehensible. It has denied people the opportunity to step in, unlike what has happened at other places nearby, such as the Baring Hall public house near Grove Park station, where notice was given and the community was able to get the asset listed. That opportunity was denied in the case of the Porcupine as a result of the underhand behaviour of Enterprise Inns.
The situation has been made worse by the behaviour of Lidl. It is becoming apparent that the company’s business model is one of acquiring public house sites and turning them into supermarkets in a secretive and predatory fashion—[Interruption.] My hon. Friend the Member for Leeds North West (Greg Mulholland) says that this is about collusion, and I have to say that a lot of people in Mottingham would agree.
As I have said, the situation has been made worse by Lidl’s behaviour. Representatives of the company came to a public meeting organised by the Mottingham residents association and, to put it charitably, gave misleading information about the status of the planning application. They claimed that they already had permission to demolish the public house, when in fact they had not even made an application. Since then, although they claim that they wish to consult the community, they have done no more than board up the public house. They want to demolish it so that, in effect, the pass will have been sold and it will be impossible to rebuild a pub on the site, but I am pleased to say that Bromley council will have to consider a section 31 application. I am sure that it will deal with such an application in an appropriate fashion. My hon. Friend the Minister cannot prejudge planning cases, but I would simply observe that I believe that there are very strong planning grounds for deciding that this is not an appropriate place for a supermarket.
Lidl’s poor behaviour did not stop there, however. Until I secured this debate—as well as earning a rebuke from you, Mr Speaker, for making an intervention on the matter at business questions that was perhaps a little less crisp than I try to be—Lidl had refused to engage at senior level with me or any other elected representative. Lidl is a privately owned, German-based company, and it is now buying up pubs around London and turning them into supermarkets. Ironically, there is a Lidl just 10 minutes away from this site, in Eltham, as well as branches of Marks & Spencer, the Co-op and Sainsbury’s within easy reach of it.
I find it extraordinary that, having misled residents over the status of the application, Lidl took no steps to correct that. It put in an application, then forgot to pay the fee for about seven days, which says something about the company. When I sought a meeting with a Lidl board director, the company refused to give my office the names of its directors. We had to go to Companies House to find out who they were. It refused to give me the names, and refused to meet me until it heard about the publicity generated by this debate. That is a contemptuous way in which to treat the public.
There are two messages for people in all this. First, they should know how Lidl is behaving in this case. Secondly, the Campaign for Real Ale is actively promoting its “List your Local” campaign, and my message to anyone with a pub owned by Enterprise Inns in their community is that they should get it listed as an asset of community value now, because they cannot trust Enterprise Inns not to sell it from under them without telling them. That is an unsatisfactory state of affairs. As things are, a demolition application has now been submitted and will have to be considered by Bromley council. I am happy that it will take whatever steps are appropriate, but this case demonstrates an attitude that is damaging for the community in that area.
This is not the only occasion on which Lidl has behaved in this way. In Warlingham, it destroyed the former Good Companions public house. It knocked it down, but it has yet to submit an application to redevelop the site. It demolished a former police station in Dartford as soon as it acquired it, and the residents of Dartford have had to live with a derelict site for the subsequent 15 months. That is predatory behaviour. It is unacceptable and unbecoming of a public company. I hope that the directors on the board of Lidl will realise the reputational damage that their conduct is doing. I say that more in hope than in expectation, but we can at least use the engine of publicity to flag up their behaviour and that of Enterprise Inns. The Minister might be aware that an application has now been submitted for the Porcupine public house to be listed as an asset of community value, and I hope that it will give it some protection in due course.
Local Government Finance (England)
Debate between Robert Neill and John Bercow(11 years, 8 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Robert Neill
Durham is in the unitaries. I was glad to hear recognition of local authorities as among the most efficient parts of the public sector. That may have something to do with the political control of the majority of local authorities. In reality, this settlement is not just about the important level of funding for this year and next year, but about setting a course that rewards local authorities that think outside the box.
An important point to make about that is that it is slightly depressing to hear, in a number of interventions from Opposition Members, the mantra, “We are worried about the cliff edge; we need to rebuild the base.” With respect—I say this from my experience, for what it is worth, in local government and from my period as a Minister—that is a profoundly misguided approach to adopt. The world of public service delivery is changing. Simply rebuilding the base on its old basis is not the answer. The base will never be as it was before, because the way we do things will never be as it was before. We are seeking to give local authorities the flexibility in their funding arrangements to find new ways of using their budgets, not simply saying, “Let’s get back to the old levels of money and the old way of doing things.” That was the mentality that got us into this mess in the first place. On the contrary, through the initiatives announced by my hon. Friend the Minister to reward efficiency much more—I hope we can look at what more we can do in future—we are giving local authorities an incentive to work together. It is not about how much local authorities get; it is about how they use it.
To give one example, I have mentioned in the past the London borough of Tower Hamlets—that well known local authority—which, among other things, manages to spend £1.2 million on eastend life, its information newspaper, which contains restaurant reviews, the football scores and other things that are entirely germane to local council services in its area. No doubt Opposition Members will say, “Oh, what’s £1.2 million here or there?”—that is not the sort of money they are interested in—but let us contrast that with my borough of Bromley, which has never run a municipal newspaper in its life, but which, when it needs to, simply takes out an advertising wraparound with the free sheet. I can tell hon. Members that Bromley has been done: it is appointing a shared director of public health, because part of the important ongoing work on public health funding—to which the right hon. Member for Leeds Central referred—is aligning it more closely with social services and adult social care funding. That is what Bromley is doing: it is working with a Labour council next door on joint procurement of IT services. Bromley is also looking at joint working on its legal and library services.
Those are the things that sensible councils across the country are and should be doing. To sneer at that and say, “Oh, this is just ‘50 ways to insult people’” indicates a mentality that I have not seen in public life since King Charles X of France was evicted from the Tuileries by the mob in the warm-up for “Les Misérables”. At the end of the day, they have not moved on and they have lost—
Points of Order
Debate between Robert Neill and John Bercow(11 years, 9 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Mr Speaker
The short answer is that I have received no such indication that a Minister is planning to come to the House to speak on those matters. The hon. Gentleman may wish to pursue his interests further in subsequent questions, in so far as he thinks he has not already done so to his satisfaction, and that of others, through the ruse of an attempted point of order.
Robert Neill
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. On 16 January this year, I initiated a Westminster Hall debate on the operation of the local government standards regime. In the course of the debate, I and other hon. Members referred to the standards regime in the London borough of Tower Hamlets and there was subsequent reporting of that. On 23 January there was a meeting of the full council of the London borough of Tower Hamlets. On the same day, the chief executive sent a letter—I have sent it to your office, Mr Speaker—the effect of which, I contend, was an attempt to gag any conversation or discussion of what had been discussed in this House. I seek your guidance on this, Mr Speaker. Am I correct in thinking that the advice given by the chief executive of the London borough of Tower Hamlets is erroneous in using the phrase,
“the fact that those comments have been made in Parliament does not entitle Councillors to refer or repeat them in Council or elsewhere.”,
which ignores the fact that qualified privilege does attach to a bona fide and accurate report of proceedings in this House, made without improper notice?
Secondly, the advice is erroneous because it says that making such a report might be in breach of the member-officer code of the council, but the internal code of a council cannot override the right of qualified privilege in relation to a report of the House if all other necessary qualifications are met.
Thirdly, the attempt by a public body to gag discussion or criticism of it that has been raised in the House is at the very least a discourtesy to the House, if not verging on the contemptuous.
Mr Speaker
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his point of order and for notice of it. With reference to the use of material outside the House being bona fide or not, that is a matter for the courts, and the hon. Gentleman will not expect me to occupy that territory. However, I can give what I hope is a substantive response to his point of order that is of value to him and the House.
I am quite clear that his contribution in Westminster Hall is protected entirely by article 9 of the Bill of Rights. What he said on that occasion may not be impeached or questioned in any court or place outside Parliament. The protection of papers published under the direct authority of this House is also clear. However, the extent of the protection afforded under section 3 of the Parliamentary Papers Act 1840 or otherwise to the repetition in some other place of anything said in this House is, as I have indicated, a matter for the courts, as the Act makes clear—it would be quite wrong for me to offer any opinion on that question from the Chair. The hon. Gentleman may wish to take up any particular concerns he has on parliamentary freedom of speech with the Joint Committee on Parliamentary Privilege. I hope that is helpful.
Local Government Finance Bill
Debate between Robert Neill and John Bercow
Mr Speaker
We are all looking forward to the development of the hon. Gentleman’s further arguments with eager anticipation.
Localism Bill
Debate between Robert Neill and John Bercow
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (Robert Neill)
I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
Mr Speaker
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Government new schedule 2—‘Transfers and transfer schemes: tax provisions.
Government new clause 20—Authority may be required to carry on commercial activities through a taxable body.
Amendment 351, in clause 158, page 138, line 45, at end insert—
‘London Housing and Regeneration Board
“333ZDA London Housing and Regeneration Board
(1) The Authority must establish a London Housing and Regeneration Board within six months of the Localism Act 2011 being passed.
(2) The London Housing and Regeneration Board is to consist of such numbers (being not less than six) as the Authority may from time to time appoint.
(3) The Authority must appoint one of the members as the person with the function of chairing the London Housing and Regeneration Board.
(4) In appointing a person to be a member, the Authority—
(a) must have regard to the desirability of appointing a person who has experience of, and shown some capacity in, a matter relevant to the exercise of the functions set out in this Chapter,
(b) must be satisfied that the person will have no financial or other interest likely to affect prejudicially the exercise of the person’s functions as a member, and
(c) must ensure that at least 50 per cent. of the number of members on the Board are appointed representatives of London boroughs.
(5) In exercising its housing and regeneration functions and powers subsequent to the enactment of this Chapter the Authority must consult and obtain agreement from the London Housing and Regeneration Board.”’.
Government amendments 205 to 210 and 212.
Amendment 352, in clause 168, page 148, line 7, at end insert—
‘(e) a majority of those London borough councils whose borough contains any part of the designated development area agree to the designation.’.
Government amendments 213 to 215, 218 to 220, 223, 253 to 255 and 265.
Robert Neill
We are dealing with part 7 of the Bill, which relates to governance in Greater London, and part 3, which relates largely to business rate matters and, I am delighted to say, has not proven controversial. I hope that part 7 will not detain us terribly long either, as a good degree of consensus was achieved in Committee and there are just one or two matters that it is necessary to debate further.
I will start with new clause 21, the lead provision in the group, and the majority of associated matters. With the exception of only two topics that I will come to in a moment, the rest of the group comprises a large number of technical amendments relating to two tax issues. Although the new clause is the first new clause listed on the amendment paper, it is not really the natural starting point, so perhaps I will be forgiven if I leapfrog over it to new clause 20, which will amend the Greater London Authority Act 1999 and require the Greater London authority to undertake certain specified activities for a commercial purpose through a taxable body. It relates to the transfer of a large number of functions of the Housing Corporation in London to the Mayor, to the movement of the London Development Agency into the GLA’s main body, and to the establishment of mayoral development corporations in London. All of those potentially involve commercial activity, so we have to get the tax treatment right.
Mr Speaker
Order. It might be helpful if I interrupt to make the point to the House that, although that is indeed the lead new clause, the order in which representatives on the Treasury Bench deal with matters is entirely a matter for them. Members can come in on such matters within the grouping as they think fit.
Robert Neill
I am grateful, Mr Speaker.
I will encapsulate the technicalities as swiftly as I can, but it suffices to say that these amendments are necessary to ensure that those commercial activities that are undertaken by the GLA are done so within a taxable environment. As a local authority, it would normally have tax-exempt status, but some of those activities are not of a local authority nature but more of a commercial nature and so have to be properly taxable. There is a long-established tax principle in that regard to ensure a level playing field between the public and private sectors in relation to commercial activities. That is particularly important in this case because the GLA will inherit, as a consequence of our devolution measures, a significant portfolio of land interests, some of which operate on a commercial basis and are subject to corporation tax and capital gains tax. It is not a new state of affairs. Section 157 of the 1999 Act made like provision in relation to the activities of Transport for London. That is the background to what we are doing.
In a nutshell, the list of specified commercial activities, which will be set out in a detailed order, will be worked up by Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs and the GLA during the passage of the Bill, but essentially the activities of the London Development Agency and Homes and Communities Agency will be transferred to the Mayor. That is how new clause 20 kicks off the whole proposition.
New clause 21 introduces new schedule 2, which will neutralise certain tax consequences—the other side of the coin—that might otherwise arise from the transfer of various property, rights and liabilities from the Office for Tenants and Social Landlords, the Homes and Communities Agency and the London Development Agency to other public bodies. There is a measure to enable the Treasury to make similar tax provisions for future mayoral development corporations. As we know, one is proposed, and we will come to that in a moment, but the provision will technically permit others to be set up and, therefore, embrace properly, within a legal framework, all those related activities.
Essentially, every Government new clause and amendment with which we are concerned relates to that process. The Opposition have tabled a couple of amendments, which I can deal with conveniently either now or in due course once they have been spoken to, but suffice it to say that the only Government amendments that do not form part of the tax treatment provisions are amendments 212 and 213. They relate to the mayoral development corporation, which is proposed for establishment, and I hope that we can find some common ground, because in Committee there was a discussion and Members generally accepted as desirable both the idea that the Mayor of London should have the power to establish a mayoral development corporation, and the current Mayor’s intention to establish such a corporation broadly relating to the Olympic park in east London.
The provision is more widely cast than that, for good reasons, and it will permit the establishment of other mayoral development corporations. None is envisaged by the current Mayor and I am not conscious of any envisaged by potential Mayors, either, but it would be on the books for the future.
The question that arose, and which the Government seek to address with the proposed changes, was what are the appropriate means of holding the Mayor to account for mayoral development corporation proposals. If a future Mayor—I am sure that it would not be the current Mayor—were to come up with a proposal for a mayoral development corporation which was thought objectionable, by what means would a control or brake be put on that process?
Barbara Keeley
I think I am right in reporting the Minister as saying that a principle of the Localism Bill is to trust local representatives. I hope that Ministers will bear that in mind as they take the Bill through its final stages in the House, because I want to question them about why that does not carry through to the imposition of shadow mayors, although I know that that is outside the scope of this debate. If we are to be true to the principle of trusting elected representatives, which the Minister has just stated, we must not impose on them.
Various people have intervened in this debate. It would help if we moved on to considering the amendments fairly soon, because we will be able to take the arguments in the round if we do that.
Mr Speaker
Order. That is in the hands of the Chair. At this stage, the hon. Gentleman will continue his remarks.
Robert Neill
I am grateful, Mr Speaker. I am anxious to deal with as many of the issues raised by hon. Members as possible, because this debate is time-limited, and for good reason. I hope that I have dealt, in large measure, with why it is appropriate to adopt the Government amendments, and why that is preferable to placing a veto in the hands of the boroughs, which would create a potential conflict of interest, or the earlier Opposition proposition of leaving a veto with central Government, which would be entirely contrary to the spirit of the Bill.
I will cover one final topic before I finish, if I may. Another proposal in the group, which I anticipate will be put, is amendment 351, tabled by the hon. Member for Lewisham East (Heidi Alexander), the next-door neighbour of part of my constituency. The amendment relates to the London housing and regeneration board. It is important that the Bill transfers housing powers and responsibilities from central Government agencies, in the form of the Homes and Communities Agency, to the Mayor. That has been welcomed across the piece politically in London. It is envisaged that the London housing board will be the vehicle within which that work is carried out.
As I read it, and I will happily be corrected if I am wrong, the amendment would prescribe in statute a requirement that the GLA should have a London housing and regeneration board. I cannot go that far because although it is no doubt a sensible thing to have, certainly at the moment, and is something that works well enough with the involvement of the Mayor’s office and the boroughs, we do not think it is consistent with the spirit of localism for us to prescribe, in one particular area, the manner in which the GLA should carry out its activities. Interestingly, that again seems to be a little bit of potential centralism creeping in through the back door. I would prefer to give the Mayor and the boroughs flexibility in determining how to take those issues forward.
I hope that I have dealt with all the topics in what has perhaps been a livelier debate than might have been anticipated when we started to talk about tax clauses, which I note have not featured in the controversy at all, perhaps not surprisingly.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Robert Neill and John Bercow(13 years, 8 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Chris Williamson (Derby North) (Lab)
The Minister knows that I have surveyed every fire and rescue service in the country about the impact of this year’s financial settlement. Fire chiefs have told me that his cuts to their budgets will result in fire stations being closed, fire appliances being taken out of service and more than 1,000 firefighters losing their jobs in the next 12 months alone. Is he confident that his cuts will not compromise public safety? Will he accept that the feedback from fire chiefs proves that he has singularly failed to deliver on his commitment to give some protection to fire and rescue services? Will he come clean and admit that his cuts—
Mr Speaker
Order. Three questions is too many; the hon. Gentleman must resume his seat.
Robert Neill
I do not accept the hon. Gentleman’s proposition at all. The fire service is protected because its reduction in spending power is 2.2% in the current year and 0.5% in the next year. I have pointed out exactly the measures that many local authorities are taking to save money in the back office and to concentrate on the front line, and I hope that he will encourage authorities to do the same and that he will not engage in scaremongering.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (Robert Neill)
I have already indicated to the right hon. Gentleman that it is for local authorities to decide how best they configure their work force. Let us see what eventually happens. It is important to remember that some of the figures that have been quoted do not bear in mind the fact that the HR1 forms, which are necessary for the purposes of consultation, do not result in job losses. Furthermore, job reconfiguration takes place by many other means that do not result in the figures suggested.
Stuart Andrew (Pudsey) (Con)
T8. I welcome the scrapping of the previous Government’s top-down housing targets, which caused so much inappropriate development, particularly in my constituency. As the Localism Bill goes through Parliament, however, some developers are land-banking brownfield sites so that they can gain planning permission successfully at appeal on greenfield sites. What are the Government doing to protect such sites in this interim period? Will they consider re-introducing the sequential approach to planning?
Robert Neill
My hon. Friend is right. The mixture of top-down regional targets, together with the removal of a specific reference to a sequential test in planning policy statement 3, did put pressure on greenfield sites. The Government have already changed the definition of brownfield sites to exclude gardens, and in the Localism Bill we have introduced proposals to abolish top-down targets from the regional strategies. The fact that that Bill is making progress through the Commons is a material consideration for developers to bear in mind.
Local Government Funding
Debate between Robert Neill and John Bercow(13 years, 11 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Robert Neill
The hon. Gentleman gets it right. Seemingly none of us knows what Labour’s plan was and the Leader of the Opposition does not know either. I assume that the hon. Gentleman will progress rapidly to the Front Bench, as he is as vague on policy as the leader of his party. If that is the best the hon. Gentleman can do by way of intervention, I suggest he saves his knees the trouble in future.
May I just—[Interruption.]
Mr Speaker
Order. Will the hon. Gentleman resume his seat for a moment? It is always a pleasure to listen to him, but he is swivelling and perambulating. I want to hang upon his every word; he must address the House.
Robert Neill
I shall do my best, despite the noise.
What we have seen today is an exhibition of wriggling by the Opposition. They have failed to take on board serious concerns raised by hon. Members. Reference was made to my hon. Friend the Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Simon Hughes)—[Interruption.] I was actually looking at you, Mr Speaker; I think that is courteous too. Reference was also made to my hon. Friend the Member for Bradford East (Mr Ward). Hon. Members have made serious points. The need for deficit reduction does not brook significant delay, but fair points have been made about it being appropriate to look not just at formula grant but at other spending powers available to local authorities. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has indicated that we are continuing to do that. We have taken steps to roll more grant into the formula grant, so the arguments that were made on that issue do not sensibly contrast like with like.
We have sought to give more flexibility in these undoubtedly difficult times by ending the ring-fencing of all revenue grants from 2011-12—something that the Labour Government never got around to doing. We are including single, non-ring-fenced, early-intervention grant worth about £2 billion. We are significantly simplifying and streamlining grant funding by rolling about £4 billion of grants in 2010-11 into the unhypothecated formula grant and reducing the total number of grants from 90 to 10. All those measures are designed to bring much greater transparency, as hon. Members on the Government side have pointed out. Despite their 13 years in office, the previous Government neglected to do that, so we need not take lessons from them on fairness or transparency.
As the Secretary of State has indicated, we are continuing the system of floor protection, which will help the most vulnerable authorities. That degree of ring-fencing, plus the other, greater freedoms that will be given in the decentralisation Bill that will be introduced shortly, will significantly assist local authorities in directing their resources to the most vulnerable. The fact that resources are limited is entirely the responsibility of Opposition Members rather than Government Members and the Opposition should never seek to wriggle out of that.
Let me congratulate one or two hon. Members in particular. My hon. Friend the Member for Meon Valley (George Hollingbery) made a particularly thoughtful and considered speech. He talked about the inevitability of floors and ceilings in the current system and the fact that there are real concerns in shire areas as well as urban areas. Any Government have to carry out a balancing act and that is what we seek to do. He and other hon. Members rightly referred to the need to move away from a formula that is past its sell-by date. Unlike our predecessors, this Government have grasped that nettle and committed to a swift review of local government resource in the first six months of next year.
My hon. Friend the Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark made fair points on behalf of London councils and the Local Government Association. The Secretary of State has met LGA representatives, and let me tell the hon. Member for Stockton North (Alex Cunningham) that I am happy to meet his fire authority; I have met a number of others already. We are protecting fire services, which are getting a lesser degree of reduction, and the profile is different, so steps are being taken in that regard. I will happily meet any authority that seeks to discuss these issues with me.
My hon. Friend the Member for Halesowen and Rowley Regis (James Morris) made an exceedingly well informed and powerful speech. He talked about the need, at times such as these, to move to greater transparency. It was pretty telling that certain Opposition Members rather jeered at the mention of the £500 in relation to transparency. That shows a patronising attitude towards putting ordinary people in the driving seat. Perhaps that is the difference between the Government and the Opposition on this issue.
My hon. Friend the Member for Croydon Central (Gavin Barwell) carried out a comprehensive demolition job on the speech by the shadow Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for Don Valley (Caroline Flint), and the entire proposition behind the Opposition’s motion. The previous Government were going to cut, and they would have cut as deeply. They were going to eliminate the deficit; the argument was over timing. The state that we discovered when we came into government meant that swift measures were necessary. To pretend otherwise is to behave like the people who set fire to the house and then blame the fire brigade when it comes in to put the fire out. The intellectual bankruptcy of the Opposition is shown by the approach that they have adopted to these matters.
I say to the hon. Member for Mitcham and Morden (Siobhain McDonagh)—whom I have known in London government for a long time—yes, I accept that there are councils of all political complexions trying hard in difficult times. My own council is doing so, as is hers. Equally, she will understand that, despite the sympathy that we have for those difficulties, as anyone in the business world will tell her, it is often best and most sensible to take steps towards restructuring at an early stage. That is particularly appropriate in the case of local authorities with a full range of functions. There are good examples not only in London, but across the country of local authorities making real structural and operational change. That needs to be done quickly.
I appreciate the point made by a number of hon. Members about capitalisation. I understand what is said, but it should be remembered that we are making £200 million available for non-equal pay capitalisation. Capitalisation is an exception to the normal accounting processes. Because capitalisation is permission to borrow, that ultimately has impacts upon revenue spend because it has to be paid back. It must therefore be strictly controlled. Although I understand that councils will inevitably say they want more, Government must be realistic and set limits to an exception to the normal process.
That we are not being dogmatic is reflected in the fact that we have adopted a different profile in relation to fire authorities, because experience shows that it takes single-purpose authorities longer to reconfigure their working arrangements than those that have a range of purposes which can be more effectively shared. We have been sensible and proportionate in our approach.
The Secretary of State stressed—I hope Members from all sides will take this on board, as there seemed to be a degree of consensus on the matter—that it is important that local authorities do not resort to the old-fashioned way of salami slicing and, in particular, cutting grant to the voluntary sector. That is usually important. We will fail if local authorities go back to the tried old ways of doing things. We want to encourage them to do otherwise.
That is why, in the localism Bill, we will establish new rights for voluntary and community groups to deliver local services. That is why the Government have created a transition fund of £100 million to be spent in 2010-11. It will support the voluntary and community sector during the first year of the spending round. Through the localism Bill we will also give voluntary and community groups the right to challenge local authorities where they believe that they can run services differently or better. There is a raft of measures to support the voluntary sector, none of which was adopted by the previous Government in their 13 years in office—another example to demonstrate why we need take no lessons.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Robert Neill and John Bercow(13 years, 11 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Robert Neill
The Government have endeavoured to assist the most vulnerable local councils by increasing the amount of money available in the formula grant that is not ring-fenced, moving more money into formula grant, reducing the amount of ring-fencing and rolling more grants into one. I imagine that when his Government were in office, the right hon. Gentleman would have complained greatly about their removal of working neighbourhoods funding for his city of Sheffield, which will cost the city some £38 million. We will endeavour to find the means to cushion that—
Mr Speaker
Order. We are talking about redundancy costs, so we must get on with it.
Simon Hughes (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (LD)
I gather that in the comprehensive spending review the Government allocated £200 million for the capitalisation cost of redundancy payments. I also gather that local authority chief executives and treasurers suggest that the costs might be between £1.5 billion and £3 billion. If they are correct and the Government estimate is much lower than the actual sums involved, what are the Government going to do about it?
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Robert Neill and John Bercow
Richard Graham
I am grateful to my hon. Friend. The £400 million redevelopment project in the Gloucester Quays in my constituency was unnecessarily delayed for more than a year as a result of being called in by the previous Government. Does the Minister agree that local planning decisions are now precisely that, that they will no longer be subject to frequent interference by the Government and that today we can send a clear message to developers and investors—in Gloucester and elsewhere—that we are open for business without delay?
Robert Neill
Localising decision making and planning is central to the Government’s policy. Ministers have made it clear that they will exercise the power to call in only very sparingly where matters of significant national interest and policy are concerned.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Robert Neill and John Bercow
Robert Neill
I have no intention of taking lectures from a member of a Cabinet that left this country record levels of debt. Unless there are cuts, by 2014 we will be paying more in interest on the debt than we will in council tax, business rates, inheritance tax and stamp duty combined.
Robert Neill
Those in greatest need ultimately bear the burden of paying off the debt which this country has been left—[Interruption.]
Mr Speaker
Order. I know that these are high-octane exchanges, but the House must calm down, because people lower down the Order Paper deserve a chance to get in.
Robert Neill
I hope that the right hon. Gentleman recognises that, if we are to have sustainable, quality local government services, the first thing we have to do is get this country’s economic mess sorted out.