Local Government Funding Debate
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Andrew Gwynne
Main Page: Andrew Gwynne (Labour (Co-op) - Gorton and Denton)Department Debates - View all Andrew Gwynne's debates with the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government
(6 years, 7 months ago)
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Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)
I beg to move,
That this House believes that local government has severely suffered as a result of almost eight years of brutal and devastating cuts; notes with concern that the Institute for Fiscal Studies estimates that between 2010 and 2020 local government will have had direct funding cut by 79 per cent; is concerned that the top ten most deprived councils in England are set to see cuts higher than the national average, with nine on course for cuts more than three times higher than the national average; believes there is a risk that services and councils are reaching a financial breaking point; calls on the Government to act on the warnings of the National Audit Office and initiate a review into the funding of local government to ensure that the sector has sustainable funding for the long term and to immediately provide more resources to prevent more authorities following Conservative-run Northamptonshire into effective bankruptcy; and further calls on the Government to report to the House by Oral Statement and written report before 19 April 2018 on what steps it is taking to comply with this resolution.
The motion calls on the Government to respond to the challenges faced by local government. I want to start by paying tribute to councillors of all political persuasions and none, and to council officers and staff, who have risen to those difficult challenges over the past eight years, making really tough decisions but ones that have often sought to protect public services. As I will come on to explain, all levels of local government are now saying that the cuts have to end or local government will collapse.
I am proud of my own roots in local government, having served on Tameside Metropolitan Borough Council for 12 years before coming to this House. My wife is a Tameside councillor approaching her 19th year of service. I know the very difficult decisions that she and her colleagues continue to have to make because of the decisions taken by Members of this House and this Government.
For those without the first-hand experience, the work of local government, as the Secretary of State recently put it, may seem small in the grand scheme of things, but to consider those working at the coalface in local councils as merely cogs in a machine to make the jobs of politicians in Westminster easier is a failure to recognise the real value, the responsibility and the pride shown by our local leaders.
Wes Streeting (Ilford North) (Lab)
In May, I will cease to be a councillor after eight years as a member of Redbridge London Borough Council. In my borough and, I suspect, every other Labour authority up for election this year, Conservative candidates will be out there attacking them for council tax increases that have been forced on them to protect public services from the savage cuts of this Tory Government. Is that not an example of the utter hypocrisy of the Conservative party: anti-cuts campaigners locally, while in this place cheering those cuts and voting them through?
Andrew Gwynne
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Of course, part of the reason—two sides of the same coin—is that there have been eight years of cuts from this place to local councils, meaning that council budgets have shrunk. It is also this place that has allowed councils to increase council tax. This year it increased the limit by a further 1%, which means that it is merely shifting the blame on to local councillors of all political persuasions—and this is not a party political point.
Andrew Gwynne
I will give way in a moment, but I am responding to my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford North (Wes Streeting).
That is why it is so unfair: the Government have devolved the cuts and devolved the blame. They have sought to distance themselves from decisions for which each and every Member on the Conservative Benches is directly responsible.
Andrew Gwynne
And I remind the hon. Gentleman that council spending has been less in real terms since 2010. In the decade to 2020, my own local authority of Tameside will have lost close to £200 million of Government funding. That is unsustainable and he has some responsibility for that because of his votes.
Catherine West (Hornsey and Wood Green) (Lab)
My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech. Does he agree that particularly perturbing are the cuts to children’s services? Every single local authority leader, regardless of party, is screaming out for more money for children. Cuts to children’s services, particularly those for very young children, have such a long-term impact. We must give every single child the best start in life.
Andrew Gwynne
My hon. Friend is absolutely right: if ever cuts had consequences, they manifest themselves in the problems faced by our children’s services.
Andrew Gwynne
Not just yet, as I am still answering my hon. Friend the Member for Hornsey and Wood Green (Catherine West). What we are seeing in all councils that are responsible for children’s services is the real increase in demand, and I will talk a bit more about that later. This is coming not just from me but from the Tory-controlled Local Government Association, which says that children’s services require an extra £2 billion of funding. That is quite clear. It is coming from county councils, metropolitan district councils and unitary councils, and from the Special Interest Group of Municipal Authorities and the County Councils Network, as well as the Tory-controlled LGA. Everybody is singing from the same hymn sheet, yet when it comes to the priorities of this Government, when they were faced with a choice in the November Budget, what did they choose? A £5 billion tax giveaway through the bank levy and to vote down an Opposition amendment in which we pledged to put the £2 billion into children’s services—exactly where the Secretary of State’s own Tory councillors are saying it needs to go.
Andrew Gwynne
No, I will make a bit of progress. [Interruption.] I have taken three or four interventions already and I am only on page two of my speech. A little bit of patience is perhaps needed from Government Members.
The fact is that for politicians of all political persuasions and none in local government, the sense of pride and responsibility is why many of us came into politics—to make our world a better place for the people we grew up with, our neighbours, our family and our local communities. It is therefore saddening that this debate is even needed today.
Andrew Gwynne
I will just move on. The fact is that since 2010, local government has borne the brunt of the public spending cuts. Since 2010, 49.1% of central Government funding has been cut from local government—[Interruption.] It is interesting that the Parliamentary Private Secretary is giving his Back Benchers cue cards and whispering in their ears about what to say.
Mr Ranil Jayawardena (North East Hampshire) (Con)
Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Andrew Gwynne
I will not—[Interruption.] If the hon. Gentleman cannot think of his own intervention without the help of the Parliamentary Private Secretary, it is probably not worthy.
Metropolitan district councils have seen a reduction in spending power of 33.9% in real terms—
Several hon. Members rose—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
Order. The hon. Gentleman will give way if he wishes to, but we must hear his speech.
Andrew Gwynne
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. Metropolitan district councils have seen a reduction in spending power of 33.9% in real terms from 2010 to 2017-18. Over the same period, county councils’ spending power has fallen by 22.1%, but spending power masks the true scale of the cuts to Government grants. This is having a drastic impact on council services. Youth centres, museums and libraries are having to close. Our social care system is in crisis. Compared with 2010, there are now 455 fewer libraries, 1,240 fewer Sure Start centres and 600 fewer youth centres.
Huw Merriman
It is all well and good for the hon. Gentleman to talk about the difficulties from 2010, but the reality is that many of those difficulties have been caused by the Labour Government’s policies. I was a district councillor for eight years. I know how tough it was. Take some responsibility for what you delivered.
Andrew Gwynne
As I say, I was a councillor for 12 years, 11 of which were under a Labour Government, and we had 11 years of growth in our local authority. That was something to be proud of. However, the Government’s record gets worse—
Emma Hardy (Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle) (Lab)
Will my hon. Friend give way?
Emma Hardy
I thank my hon. Friend for giving way and for his excellent speech—[Interruption.] No, I feel that the atmosphere in here ignores the very real consequences of what we are talking about. I have mentioned before that in my constituency there are 140 more looked-after children who have been taken into care because they have not had that early intervention and early support. Government Members can laugh and joke and make this into some sort of comedy show, but I am sorry; we are talking about the impacts on real people’s lives. Real people’s lives are being changed forever because of this Government’s actions, and I do not think that it is a laughing matter!
Andrew Gwynne
My hon. Friend is right to be angry. When the public watching this debate see Tory MPs laughing, sneering and smirking at our public services in crisis, they will know what side the Tories are on, and it is not theirs.
Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)
I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way, because this is an important debate. Yes, the Liberal Democrats are now on the Opposition side—[Interruption.] Listen! We were on the Government Benches to say that we needed to tighten our belts, but for a long time now we have said that enough is enough. We are seeing the impact on our local services. We cannot stand by any longer. You all must have constituents coming—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
Order. That is a very long intervention. I call Andrew Gwynne.
Andrew Gwynne
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. The hon. Member for Bath (Wera Hobhouse) is right that these cuts have gone far too far. Many of my constituents, though, will not forgive the Liberal Democrats for the part they played in pushing through the deepest austerity in the coalition Government. Many of those hard choices have resulted in some of the increases in demand that we are now seeing, particularly in children’s services and adult social care.
Maria Caulfield
I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way; he is very generous. I understand his call for more funding for local government, but can he explain why Labour Members voted against the local government finance settlement, which gave councils more money?
Andrew Gwynne
Because it is a fact that the local government finance settlement went nowhere near the gaps that have been created by the hon. Lady’s party in local government. We do not support ongoing austerity. We want to ensure that we reinvest in our public services, and that is why I hope she will join us in the Lobby tonight. If she believes in defending public services and wants to see more money for our local councils, she can support our motion tonight, and I look forward to her being in our Lobby.
House building has fallen to its lowest rate since the 1920s and homelessness is rising. The number of people sleeping rough on our streets has more than doubled since 2010—[Interruption.] The Secretary of State can chunter, but I do not think that doubling the number of rough sleepers is a record for the Housing Secretary to be proud of. Older people are not living with the dignity and comfort that they deserve because of the cuts to social care. The outsourcing of public services has led to one scandal after another, and the collapse of private outsourcing companies such as Carillion has put services at further risk. Demand for children’s services is placing growing pressure on all councils. Central Government funding to support children and their families has been cut by 55% since the Conservatives came to office.
Andrew Gwynne
Well, if the hon. Gentleman can say where the extra £1.7 billion that has been cut from children’s services will be made up from, I look forward to hearing his suggestion.
Andrew Gwynne
The fact is that—[Hon. Members: “Yes or no?”] The fact is that the privatisation of our council services has been a catastrophic failure. I can tell the hon. Gentleman that the next Labour Government will introduce new rules to allow councils that want to to fully in-source their services without let or hindrance by the Government, because we support publicly owned, publicly accountable public services.
Several hon. Members rose—
Andrew Gwynne
I will give way to the hon. Member for Carlisle (John Stevenson), who has been so patiently bobbing at the back for the past however many minutes.
John Stevenson
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way so generously. In Cumbria we had the opportunity for a devolution deal. It did not happen. In Cumbria we had the opportunity to reduce the number of councils and councillors, which would have meant savings of around £25 million, which could have been spent on frontline services. The reason for the failure was Labour councils and Labour council leaders. Does the hon. Gentleman not think that was a failure of the Labour party?
Andrew Gwynne
Of course, the hon. Gentleman did not want to tell me where the £1.7 billion for the shortfall in children’s services was coming from. I know that in Cumbria there is a shortfall in funding for children’s services, as there is in every other county council in England. Every metropolitan district council in England and unitary councils across England are all saying the same thing. Perhaps he ought to speak up for Cumbria and get the extra money for Cumbria’s children’s services.
The result of the cuts has been appallingly clear. Cuts to early years intervention have meant a record number of children, some 72,000—let us stop and think about that—taken into care last year. The number of serious child protection cases has doubled in the last seven years, with 500 new cases launched every day. More than 170,000 children were subject to child protection plans last year—double the number seven years ago.
Ruth Cadbury (Brentford and Isleworth) (Lab)
Like my hon. Friend, I too was a councillor—for 25 years. Does he agree that the removal and slow cutting of early intervention services, specialist family services and support and grants for charities that support people and families in the community over the past seven or eight years is part of the reason why too many children are coming into children’s services, too late and with too many serious problems?
Andrew Gwynne
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. We had numerous debates in the Parliament from 2010 to 2015 about children’s services and in particular the cuts to Sure Start. I think Sure Start had the basis for being one of the previous Labour Government’s greatest achievements, had it been allowed to remain in place, fully funded in the way that Labour intended. What used to gall me the most was Member upon Member on the Government Benches saying that Sure Start was a waste of money and did not work. Sure Start was never intended to be a quick fix. Government Members can tell me in 20 years’ time, when the children and parents who went through Sure Start are parents and grandparents themselves, whether Sure Start worked or not. I believe that one of the biggest tragedies of the David Cameron era of Government was the slash-and-burn approach to early years.
Several hon. Members rose—
Andrew Gwynne
I give way to my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle (Emma Hardy) again.
Emma Hardy
One of the issues facing our schools is the number of children attending who are not classified as school-ready. There are increased numbers of children with oracy problems and children starting school who are not toilet trained, which increases the impact on our schools’ resources.
Emma Hardy
That is because of the lack of support for children from health visitors and Sure Start services. Does my hon. Friend not think it is time for the Government to reverse those cuts if they are genuinely committed to giving every child the best possible start? Or can only children from families with the money to pay for it have the best possible start?
Andrew Gwynne
My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and that is the short-term approach of this Government and their predecessor, the coalition. However, making short-term savings in a particular year has resulted in massive cost and demand increases further down.
Andrew Gwynne
I will give way to the hon. Gentleman, as he keeps trying to intervene on interventions.
James Cartlidge
When interventions transmute into speeches, some of us get a little frustrated. The point is that difficult decisions had to be made when in 2010, we were faced with the highest budget deficit since the war. The hon. Gentleman is effectively saying that we should have protected the Department for Communities and Local Government budget, just as we chose to protect the NHS. What taxes would he have increased or what other Departments would he have cut to pay for that?
Andrew Gwynne
I will take no lectures from a Member who voted to cut the bank levy by £5 billion. I politely point him towards the “Grey Book”, which we published with our manifesto, “For the many, not the few”—I am sure it is well thumbed on the Government Benches. In our manifesto we pledged to give, this year and every year, an additional £1.5 billion for local councils and where we—[Interruption.]
The Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government (Sajid Javid)
I will tell him.
Andrew Gwynne
The Secretary of State says he will tell me. I am glad that he is looking into Labour policy development. Perhaps he ought to consider his own policy development on these matters, because the Government are so woefully lacking in any such proposals. Our proposal was fully costed, with £500 million for early years, £8 billion for social care—
Andrew Gwynne
I will not give way again, because I am answering the hon. Gentleman’s question. What we proposed, when put together, is a far better deal for our children, our elderly and our councils than what the Conservatives have been able to come forward with.
Mr Paul Sweeney (Glasgow North East) (Lab/Co-op)
Does my hon. Friend agree that it is about time that we bust the Tory myths about the economic shock that this country faced? The reality is that the economy was growing when Labour left office. It was the absurd austerity policies of the Tory party that prolonged the recession and made it worse, giving us what is now the longest recovery in our country’s economic history.
Andrew Gwynne
My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and it cannot be said often enough. When the Gordon Brown Government ended, the economy was growing again. That is a statement of fact. [Interruption.] The Secretary of State chunters again about “the deepest recession”. I think he will find that the global crash started in the United States of America—something that even his former Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne, now acknowledges.
Catherine West
My hon. Friend is making some great points. Does he agree that the children’s services crisis has been worsened by the 1% pay freeze over the last eight years? I hope we hear good news at the end of this debate from the Minister about pay increases for those workers being brought in line with the NHS pay increases.
Andrew Gwynne
My hon. Friend makes a really important point. I will come to some of those issues later, but her point is very well made, because we have not only seen the hollowing out of our local services. We have also seen the impact of that on local government as a whole.
I know that is an inconvenient truth for Ministers, and I am sure that when the Secretary of State responds, with his pre-prepared speech, he will say that I am making overtly political points. That seems to be his stock answer. He seems to forget that it is the job of the Opposition to point out the Government’s failings, of which there are many in local government policy. However, it is not just the Labour party saying this; it is the National Audit Office. Surely the Government recognise the National Audit Office as a reputable organisation that knows what it is talking about. The NAO has told us what the Government’s policies mean. They mean that one in 10 councils with social care obligations will have exhausted their reserves within the next three years. They mean that the Government’s short-term fixes are not working and that local government still has no idea how its finances will work after 2020. It is about the cost of negligence being paid for by communities across the country. Vital services are cut, and because the Government shift the blame on to local councils, giving them so-called flexibility but then criticising them when they use it, council tax bills are increasing.
Planning and development, the National Audit Office has shown, has been cut by 52.8%. If we are to meet the Government’s ambitious targets for new homes, who will be the planners of the future? Who will identify the land to be built on? Who will process the planning applications? Who will be the enforcement officers to ensure that the homes and other buildings are built in accordance with the plans?
Funding for transport has been cut by 37.1%. These are our bus routes. These are the vital links between our communities. These are our roads, our pavements, our cycleways. I note that Conservative Members are now silent about that.
James Cartlidge
It is extremely kind of the hon. Gentleman to give way, but it must be said that he is continuing the same argument. When we had the deficit, we chose to protect the NHS and had to make other difficult choices. He is effectively saying that Labour would have protected the budget of the Department for Communities and Local Government. He must therefore tell us what other budgets he would have cut, or what taxes he would have increased, to pay for that protection.
Andrew Gwynne
I think that people listening to the hon. Gentleman’s intervention will find it hard to believe that he protected the NHS, for a start. However, I am glad that he has intervened on the issue of transport. It is rather ironic that he has come here and said that we would want to protect local government. He is damn right we want to protect local government, but so does his Defence Secretary. His Defence Secretary took to Twitter a couple of weeks ago decrying the fact that Conservative-controlled Staffordshire County Council was removing bus services from his constituency—the same Defence Secretary who voted for the cuts in this place.
Emma Hardy
One of the impacts of the transport cuts is the declining number of apprentices, who find it difficult to travel to college to complete their apprenticeships because of the cost of local transport. In their manifesto, the Conservatives promised to give apprentices subsidised local travel. This is another instance in which their promises have failed and they have failed to deliver, because they are apparently incapable of any joined-up thinking.
Andrew Gwynne
My hon. Friend is absolutely right, but this does not just apply to transport. It applies to food safety, and to day-to-day services such as street cleaning and the emptying of bins. It applies to our museums, our heritage, our cultural services and our libraries: the glue that holds together the fabric of our local communities. I do not support the Government’s notion that they can go on cutting vital day-to-day services without those cuts having an impact.
Andrew Gwynne
I will come back to the hon. Gentleman, if he will allow me. I need to draw my remarks to a conclusion, but I will take a few more interventions before I do so.
It is not just the National Audit Office that is making these comments. Back in 2015, the Institute for Fiscal Studies was warning that deprived areas were suffering from the harshest council cuts. The Government called for councils to spend their reserves and sell off their assets. Tory Northamptonshire followed that instruction to a T, and look where it got them.
As local government leaders warned of the coming crisis in adult social care, the Government said
“town halls are hoarding billions in their piggy banks”.
The Municipal Journal said recently, in response to this toxic situation:
“This is a wholly unsustainable position, and has already led to speculation about the long-term futures of four other counties which have used significant cash reserves in recent years: Surrey, Lancashire, Somerset and Norfolk.”
All I can say is that if the Surreys of this world are now struggling and pleading poverty to the Secretary of State, heaven help the Liverpools, the Manchesters, the Birminghams, the Tamesides and the Hulls of this world.
Wera Hobhouse
I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way. He is very generous. Does he agree that if there is to be wholesale reform of local government funding, it should at least be fair, and should not punish areas that are already more deprived than others? There must be a fair funding formula, but that is not what is currently proposed.
Andrew Gwynne
The hon. Lady is absolutely right. Anything that comes out of the mouths of Ministers that contains the words “fair” and funding” sends shivers down my spine.
Hugh Gaffney (Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill) (Lab)
My hon. Friend is making a very important speech. I should say that I am currently a member of a council, and as a councillor I know about the effect that the cuts are having. In Scotland, £1.5 billion has been slashed from local government since the Scottish National party came to power. Does my hon. Friend agree that the nationalists are simply a conveyor belt for the Tory austerity that is continuing in Scotland?
Andrew Gwynne
My hon. Friend can speak very well about his experiences in Scotland. Tory austerity south of the border is driving local councils to the edge of a financial cliff, and I am very sorry if that is being replicated north of the border by the SNP Government in Holyrood.
Several hon. Members rose—
Andrew Gwynne
I must make a little more progress. I will give way once more before I finish my speech.
It is little surprise that when we talk to Conservative Members in private they are just as concerned about what is going on in their own local communities as Labour Members are in public. It is not just the Opposition who are expressing concern about what is happening across local government; the IFS, the NAO and the media that cover local government are all saying the same things, as are members of the Conservative party.
Ensuring that vulnerable children have the protection that they need should not be a party political matter, which is why I am grateful for the work done by the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) to highlight the crisis in children’s services. Both the hon. Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman) and the current Minister for Policing and the Fire Service, the right hon. Member for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner (Mr Hurd) have campaigned against library closures. As I said earlier, the Defence Secretary has expressed concern about the cutting of bus services by Tory-controlled Staffordshire County Council—and he is right.
The Government can talk the talk on social mobility, supporting apprenticeships and investing in local communities, but at the moment—as was pointed out by my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle (Emma Hardy)—people who live in rural areas and want to find work or apprenticeships cannot travel because there are no local transport services for them to use. I agree with the Defence Secretary. I only hope that he will be in the Lobby with us today, supporting his Twitter petition. For many years we have argued for a change of direction while the Government have stuck their head in the sand.
Mr Sweeney
Does my hon. Friend agree that what has been displayed today, in the most spectacular fashion, is total Tory economic illiteracy about what this country has faced? Had the Tory party continued with Labour’s stimulus plan, we would have restored the public finances at a far faster rate than can be achieved through a self-defeating austerity project.
Andrew Gwynne
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The evidence was there when we left office, and the almost immediate impact of Chancellor George Osborne’s turning off the taps was apparent for all to see.
Several hon. Members rose—
Andrew Gwynne
I will not give way again.
Today’s vote offers all Members on both sides of the House an opportunity to send a very clear message to the Government and the Secretary of State: the message that things must change as a matter of urgency, that our vital public services should be properly funded, and that our communities need and expect their councils to deliver the services that they want to see. I hope that all Members will join us in the Lobby to stand up for their communities, their public services, and—yes—their councillors, too. This is not just about Labour councillors, but about Conservative, Liberal Democrat and independent councillors: everybody who serves our communities in the town and county halls across England.
The Government need to think again about the impact of their reckless and short-sighted approach to council funding. Northamptonshire is the first, but it almost certainly will not be the last. For local government, money tomorrow is no solution to a crisis happening today. I urge all right hon. and hon. Members to support us in the Lobby. I commend this motion to the House.
Andrew Gwynne
On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. Given the unanimous view of the House to accept Labour’s motion on local government funding, and given that the motion ends with
“and further calls on the Government to report to the House by Oral Statement and written report before 19 April 2018 on what steps it is taking to comply with this resolution”,
that is the clear view of Members. How can we ensure that it happens?
Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Lindsay Hoyle)
I think that the hon. Gentleman already knows the answer, but let me see if I can help a little. I am sure that the Government will reflect on the motion, but in the end, it is up to them, and unfortunately, it is not binding. I think that answers the question.