District Council Finances

Alberto Costa Excerpts
Wednesday 1st May 2019

(4 years, 11 months ago)

Westminster Hall
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Mark Pawsey Portrait Mark Pawsey (Rugby) (Con)
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I beg to move,

That this House has considered district council finances.

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Gapes. I am very pleased to have finally secured a debate on the finances of district councils, which is an important subject. The fact that we got the debate now is testimony to the popularity of debates in Westminster Hall. I shall speak about a report that was published by the all-party parliamentary group for district councils in July 2018. Since our return after last year’s summer recess, I have consistently been applying for the debate, and we have finally got it, and with local elections tomorrow, it is extremely timely—persistence has finally paid off.

I am a Member of Parliament representing a district; I represent the borough of Rugby. I am a former district councillor and member of that authority, and very proud to have represented my community on the council and to have the opportunity to represent it in Parliament. As a former member of a district council, I strongly believe that they have a vital role to play in the next few years in shaping and delivering Government strategy, supporting local growth, building the homes we need and providing the preventive services that are necessary for sustainable health services.

To set the context, there are 192 district councils. In two-tier areas, they deliver 86 of 137 essential local government services to 22 million people, which is 40% of the population. District councils cover 68% of the country by area. One of their most important functions is as the housing and planning authority; they approve 90% of planning applications in their areas and enabled over 91,000 new homes to be delivered last year.

I am very proud to say that my local authority, Rugby Borough Council, saw 584 dwellings completed in 2017-18. It is a great example of a district that looks favourably on house building and development, and it has a very progressive attitude. I know the Minister saw that on his recent visit to Halton, which is an excellent example in my constituency of house building at scale, with a development that will consist of 6,200 homes by the time it is completed.

In two-tier areas, the county council area is divided into a number of districts, which each have an independent district council. I firmly believe that district councils are closer to their residents than are the vast majority of other forms of local government, which is one of the reasons I strongly believe that they should be protected. Rugby town hall is in the middle of our community. It is accessible by all residents and immediately identifiable; it gives a sense of identity to our community. I know there are pressures that are leading some areas to consider alternative arrangements—in particular, there is a move towards unitarisation—but in my area that would be neither practical nor in the best interests of our residents. Districts operate on a size and scale that makes sense to local communities, and they have a unique understanding of the residents they serve.

Alberto Costa Portrait Alberto Costa (South Leicestershire) (Con)
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May I take this opportunity to congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this important debate? Blaby District Council and Harborough District Council, led respectively by Councillor Terry Richardson and Councillor Neil Bannister, are both excellently run. Does my hon. Friend agree that any proposal for unitarisation of the Leicestershire area is not welcomed by the district councils?

Mark Pawsey Portrait Mark Pawsey
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I share the views of my hon. Friend in believing that districts are the right-sized and best-located authorities to deliver a substantial number of services to local residents. I fear that some of that connectivity and identity would be lost in a larger organisation.

I will now talk about some of the things that district councils have been able to do. One key issue that came out of our report is that district councils have a proven track record of devising innovative solutions to transform public services by taking a lead in improving services and providing outcomes for people through better collaboration. That is a really important point, which we will come back to again and again. It is driven by a financial imperative in some instances, but in many ways it is driven by the desire to do things better.

District councils have a proven track record in building better lives and bigger economies in the areas they serve. Through their roles in planning and housing, they act as the building blocks for local economic growth, and in many ways districts work collaboratively with each other and alongside newly established local enterprise partnerships to deliver growth and support local businesses and industry. I believe that district councils also protect and enhance the quality of life by safeguarding our environment, which is an issue we will be considering later today in the Chamber. Promoting public health, leisure and a sound environment is an important role, creating attractive places to live and where people will want to raise their families and build an economy. Districts are also tasked with the challenge of tackling homelessness—again, their proximity to the people and knowledge of individuals is important—and the duty to promote wellbeing.

For district councils to deliver for their residents and the businesses in their area, it is important to ensure that they have sustainable and suitable levels of funding, which is the matter I want to address. It is why the all-party parliamentary group for district councils, which I chair, held a formal Select Committee-type inquiry on the finances of district councils. We published our report, “Delivering the District Difference,” in July 2018. I want to put on the record my gratitude to the 60 local authorities that provided written evidence to the APPG, and I thank the seven district councils, including Rugby Borough Council, that came before us and provided oral evidence to the APPG in Parliament. I am also grateful to many parliamentary colleagues who sat on that committee, particularly the hon. Member for Stroud (Dr Drew), who took part in the evidence sessions and is here today.

Our report was a major piece of work, and we collaborated with the District Councils’ Network to ensure that we were working closely with the sector. I thank the DCN for its valuable contribution to the report. In our evidence sessions, it came across loud and clear that district councils under financial pressures have identified innovative and efficient ways of doing things differently to provide better value for money to local taxpayers. A recent Local Government Association report found that district councils have saved £224 million through sharing services with other districts and bodies, which is far more than any other type of council.

I will give some examples of shared working arrangements that my local authority, Rugby Borough Council, has with others. Rugby has a shared service on building control with Warwick District Council and works on procurement with our neighbours, Nuneaton and Bedworth Borough Council. A particularly useful case study in Rugby involves its working closely with Daventry District Council to provide local crematorium and cemetery services. On its own, neither authority was of a sufficient size to be able to deliver these services efficiently, and my constituents wishing to use crematorium services were obliged to make lengthy journeys to either Coventry or the other side of Warwick. There had been an aspiration for such a service in Rugby for some time, but it was recognised that, in isolation, Rugby was not of sufficient size to deliver it. By working with Daventry and providing a facility on the border between the two authorities, we have ensured that the residents of both local authorities have great provision.

National Audit Office figures show that district councils have experienced the most significant real-terms cut in spending power between 2016-17 and 2019-20, which has required them to be enterprising. One of Rugby’s overarching corporate priorities is to become financially self-sufficient by 2020. It is seeking to reduce its reliance on the sometimes arbitrary and variable central Government funding sources and take control of its sources of income through local taxation arising from economic growth and investment income. When I was a councillor, I was always aware of concerns that the pots of funding might or might not be available. They were sometimes arbitrary or time-limited, which meant that it was difficult to plan for the long term. Rugby aims to be financially self-sufficient so that it is no longer reliant on those variable sources. That will ensure better provision for my constituents in the long term.

All councils have had to work hard to achieve more with less. Between 2010 and 2020, councils in England will have lost almost 60p of every pound of central Government funding. For district councils, that equates to almost £1 billion. I know the Minister recognises the role that districts have played in identifying savings, and is aware of the burden that they have shouldered in recent years.

Alberto Costa Portrait Alberto Costa
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I thank my hon. Friend for his generosity in giving way again. The district councils in my constituency have highlighted the ever-increasing cost of waste and recycling services. Proposals to scrap a charge on green waste collection and introduce weekly food waste collections, although laudable, are likely to put significant financial burdens on district councils. Does my hon. Friend agree that, should district councils implement those changes, proper and full support is needed from central Government?