Capital Projects: Spending Decisions

Andrew Gwynne Excerpts

Thursday 9th February 2023 Commons Chamber

[Lee Rowley]

I refer the hon. Lady to my answers at the outset, which explained very clearly the changes and how there is no ultimate change to what is being spent in communities up and down the land to transform areas that have been left behind for a long time.

[Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)]

Let me put it in local government terms for the Minister. When a council is told that it cannot spend any more money without specific approval, it is called a section 114 notice. What is it like for his Department to get the equivalent of a section 114 notice?

[Lee Rowley]

Let me put it in terms of reality. This Government’s budgets are not changing, this Department’s objectives are not changing, and this Government’s ambition is not changing on levelling up.

Levelling-up Fund Round 2

Andrew Gwynne Excerpts

Thursday 19th January 2023 Commons Chamber

[Lucy Frazer]

Yes, I will be happy to meet my hon. Friend, and I applaud his Conservative principles of never giving up and making sure that every area is covered.

[Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)]

The round 1 bid for Reddish to refurbish Reddish baths as a new business hub was rejected. The round 2 bid for Denton town centre to refurbish the Festival hall as a new community hub and regenerate Denton town centre was rejected. The Minister says that councils should waste more money on a round 3 bid, when clearly the Government have got something against Denton and Reddish. Why should Tameside or Stockport councils waste officer time when it is clear that, if at first you don’t succeed, fail, fail and fail again?

[Lucy Frazer]

What we have heard across the House this morning is that people who were unsuccessful in round 1 were successful, after taking on board feedback, in round 2. The pot was significantly over-subscribed. Of course we can improve areas and I look forward to round 3.

Oral Answers to Questions

Andrew Gwynne Excerpts

Monday 9th January 2023 Commons Chamber

[Lucy Frazer]

My hon. Friend is right to highlight unfairness in relation to freeholders. Estate management companies must be more accountable to homeowners on how money is spent to maintain privately managed estates. We will be giving freehold owners on these estates new rights to challenge costs and appoint a manager, as well as requiring private estate management companies to join a redress scheme.

[Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)]

The Minister will know that in some parts of the country, residents are impacted by chief rents. The Rentcharges Act 1977 extinguishes all chief rents in 2037, but many of the property companies that hold the chief rents are now using sharp practices and scams to con their residents out of extra money by sending questionnaires to residents about home improvements they have had. What is she doing to tighten up on these scams and sharp practices?

[Lucy Frazer]

The hon. Member makes an important point, and I know that freeholders are paying charges for maintaining communal areas, known colloquially as “fleecehold”. It is something we are looking at, and I am happy to update him on that.

Oral Answers to Questions

Andrew Gwynne Excerpts

Monday 17th October 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Clarke]

The hon. Lady is right to advocate for flood protection, which is vital. I actually welcome her question, because it is an important chance to reaffirm that investment zones are not in any way about cutting away environmental protection. They are about streamlining planning and making sure that lower taxes are on offer in targeted sites. Overwhelmingly, they will benefit brownfield regeneration projects, which would otherwise take years to unlock. I really hope that reassures her, and we will look at her amendments in detail.

[Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)]

Although this is the current game in town, I will be clearly supporting Greater Manchester’s bid to Government, which includes proposals for the Ashton mosque area in my constituency. However, given that this is still part of the mini-Budget—the only bit that has not been shredded yet—can the Secretary of State outline what the tax advantages to an investment zone will be? Can he clarify to the House that expects there to be not displacement of employment across the city region, but genuine growth?

[Mr Clarke]

Obviously, genuine additionality is the litmus test that we set for this policy, although it is vital to note that I see no harm in ensuring that, in areas where there is real opportunity, we bring good opportunities. On tax advantages, there will be a range of powers available, including on business rates relief, enhanced structures and buildings allowances, enhanced capital allowances and, critically, action on employer national insurance contributions, designed to ensure that there are incentives for new jobs in the zones.

Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Andrew Gwynne Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 8th June 2022 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

Let me reflect on that in Committee.

[Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)]

I am interested in what the Secretary of State has said about the re-emphasis on the environmental protections. Of course, in urban areas, that is often urban green space rather than green belt. I have a case in Haughton Green in my constituency where the council closed Two Trees high school. When it closed the school, it said that there would be housing on the footprint of the school but that the fields around the school, in a heavily urbanised area, would be protected, so there would be a green doughnut. It now says that it has to build on the entire site to meet the Government’s housing targets. With what he just said, does he give hope to the people of Haughton Green that the council can look at Two Trees again?

[Michael Gove]

I cannot comment on a specific planning application for reasons that the hon. Gentleman knows well, but I appreciate the strength of his point and will ask the Minister for Housing to engage with him more closely on both that specific issue and the broader policy points that he raised.

--- Later in debate ---

[Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Epsom and Ewell (Chris Grayling), and I particularly agree with him on the need to strengthen the nature conservation provisions in the planning element of the Bill.

Levelling up has been the mantra of this Government for the last three years—it is a slogan that is emblazoned on everything they do—but many of my constituents feel left out of the levelling-up agenda, because their local public services have been decimated over the past 12 years, their health inequalities have risen, and their sense of civic pride has gone into decline as a consequence. It is jarring therefore to hear this talk of levelling-up from the same Government who have overseen the biggest decline in living standards since the 1950s.

I represent a constituency that straddles two local authorities, Tameside and Stockport, whose settlement funding has declined by 24% and 32% respectively since 2015. In 2020, some 12,900 people across these two boroughs were forced to access food banks, an increase of over 25% on the year before. That is yet another example of charity picking up the slack where Government have so catastrophically failed.

However, I want to give the Government the benefit of the doubt and believe that they do want constituencies such as mine to turn the corner. I want to genuinely support the Government in doing that. I do not want to play party politics. It does not serve my constituents well to be left in the gutter while everybody else is doing well. I want to ensure the people I am sent here to provide a voice for share in the wealth, prosperity and future of this country. But for that to happen, we need the Government to look a bit more closely at some of the measures in the Bill.

I shall give an example. A school in my constituency, Russell Scott Primary School in Denton—a school that I went to—had an extensive refurbishment. Sadly, that was botched by Carillion just six years ago. Today it is a crumbling building. The foundations are shot to pieces; the roof is not safe; the fire safety measures do not meet national planning regulations; and when we have freak weather events—which we often do in Manchester—the school floods and sewage backs up into the classrooms.

We have appealed to the Government to provide money for a rebuild, and that has fallen on deaf ears. If we cannot level up our children’s future—and education is our children’s future—we are letting those kids down. Tameside Metropolitan Borough Council has put in a bid to the Government for emergency funding. I hope the Minister will pass my comments on to the Department for Education because true levelling up is education, it is skills, it is the kids and their future—the future of our country.

--- Later in debate ---

[Stuart Andrew]

I thank my right hon. Friend for that intervention. He knows—we have had a number of conversations on this very issue—that these are the things we are looking at. I look forward to bringing them forward as part of the Bill.

I want to touch on the issue of build out. I have heard loud and clear from colleagues, and so has my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, about the issue of developers seeming to take a long time from approval to build houses. These commencement orders and an agreed rate of delivery will, we hope, help us to get such permissions built out much more quickly.

A number of Members—my right hon. Friend the Member for Chipping Barnet (Theresa Villiers), my hon. Friend the Member for Buckingham (Greg Smith) and others—have raised their concerns about the national development management policies. One of the key aims of the Bill is to reduce the administrative burden on local councils so that they can concentrate on delivering high-quality, locally-led plans. That is why, through this Bill, we hope to shift the onus of delivering on national priorities to central Government through introducing a set of national development management policies. These policies will cover the most important national planning issues facing the sector, including net zero, tackling climate change and making sure that we are also dealing with heritage issues and protections of green belt.

To those who are concerned that these provisions will somehow override local plans, I would say that that is not the intention. The intention is to produce swifter, slimmer plans to remove the need for generic issues that apply universally, which will help us to reduce time-consuming duplication, and to ensure that local plans are more locally focused and relevant to the local communities. I hope that, during the passage of this Bill, we will be able to give more assurance on that.

[Andrew Gwynne]

The Minister will know that Stockport, which is one of the two councils that covers my constituency, pulled out of the Greater Manchester spatial framework, largely because even though Manchester and Salford were taking a large chunk of its housing allocation, its councillors were against green belt development.

Stockport is a very tightly constrained borough surrounded by green belt. It is now in the process of developing a local plan, but it will have to meet even higher housing targets. Will the Minister guarantee that if Stockport develops a local plan that meets the needs of Stockport but saves and protects the green belt around Stockport, he will support it?

[Stuart Andrew]

The hon. Member knows that I cannot comment on individual plans. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Wigan (Lisa Nandy) would be the first to apply for an urgent question asking me to explain why I prejudged a local plan. What I would say, in general terms, is that it is clear that local authorities can argue the constraints that they may have, and his local authority may be planning to do that; I do not know.

Let me move on, because I am conscious of time. I turn to second homes, because, if I did not, my hon. Friend the Member for North Devon (Selaine Saxby), as well as my hon. Friends the Members for St Ives (Derek Thomas) and for Penrith and The Border (Dr Hudson) and others, would be rather angry with me. We have put provisions in the Bill to try to help on that, and I know that she wants us to go further. I have made a commitment to come down to the south-west to hold a series of roundtables and see the issues for myself. We will see what else can be done as we go through the Bill’s passage.

Holocaust Memorial Day

Andrew Gwynne Excerpts

Thursday 27th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Enfield North (Feryal Clark), who remembered another genocide that took place in the world.

It is fair to say that antisemitism is nothing new. We only have to look back to Shakespeare to see that antisemitism was rife during that period in our history. It has been prevalent in societies across the world for centuries and it is still prevalent today. I recalled earlier the attack on shopkeepers in Stamford Hill only yesterday. What makes the holocaust different is that it shows the ultimate destination of antisemitism: a systematic attempt to wipe out the Jewish race and anyone of Jewish religion—not just people who were openly Jewish, but anyone who had Judaism in their genealogy. I speak as someone in that position. I would not be here today if I had been alive in Germany in those times. That demonstrates the way in which people’s backgrounds were traced to see whether any relative or any person of Jewish blood was present. It was systematic, deliberate and intentional.

I was at school with many Jewish children. No one spoke about the holocaust. Half of my class were Jewish, but no one ever spoke about the holocaust during those days. It was ignored, perhaps to be airbrushed from history forever, because it was such a tragedy. The relatives—fathers and mothers—of many of my friends had come from eastern Europe as refugees, but they never spoke about the holocaust either. When we were at school, we never got the opportunity to learn about its horrors and what people went through at that time.

I remember my first visit to Yad Vashem. It was not the Yad Vashem we see today; it was a much smaller, more intimate formation in its early days, going back to 1992. It was a pivotal moment for me on my first visit to Israel, seeing Jerusalem, seeing Yad Vashem and seeing first-hand what had gone on during the holocaust. It had the first ever recordings of survivors—people who had sadly passed away, but who had recorded their testimony in advance—plus early photographs and other details of what had gone on in Germany and eastern Europe in particular during the holocaust.

That made Yad Vashem more intimate, in many ways, than it is now. It is a much bigger operation now, with much more testimony and evidence of what happened, but when I heard the names of the children who had been murdered by the Nazis being recited, one name after another, it brought home to me how people could commit such systematic murder of children—wipe them off the face of the planet—and what a terrible experience it was.

[Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)]

I have had the privilege of visiting Yad Vashem four or five times now, and I remember on one particular occasion going into the cave the hon. Gentleman describes, where the recordings of children’s names and ages just continue. By coincidence, there was a run of names, two boys and a girl, the same age that my two boys and my daughter were at that time. I broke down in tears, because that is where it really hits home: “This could be you. There but for the grace of God go we all. If politics turns nasty and turns against you, this is the end result.” That is why Yad Vashem and all holocaust memorials are so important.

[Bob Blackman]

I thank the hon. Gentleman. I freely admit—I am not ashamed to say it—that I cried. I cried for humanity, I cried for the people who had been lost and I cried for our whole being and how we could ever have allowed such a thing to happen.

I declare my interest as co-chairman of the all-party parliamentary group on holocaust memorial. I look forward to the holocaust memorial and learning centre’s being built, so we can have our own facility where we can commemorate the lives of those who were lost, and commemorate those who survived. When I was first elected to the House in 2010, the first all-party group I joined was the APPG on combating antisemitism. It is right that, across the House and on both sides of the political divide, we stand against antisemitism.

I have visited Auschwitz-Birkenau, and I believe I share the view of most students who have seen Auschwitz for only one day that it would be better if people could stay a little longer, just to appreciate even further the terrible crimes that were committed. The problem with that, of course, is funding, and the fact that lengthening the amount of time spent away might reduce the numbers who could go on such visits.

The problem I see with the programme of Auschwitz-Birkenau visits is that students learn about what went on there and think that that was it. We must remember that it was not just Auschwitz-Birkenau: there was a network of death camps and forced labour camps right across eastern Europe and Germany, where Jews and others were forced into slave labour and then systematically exterminated.

I have often wondered how a civilised nation such as Germany could get into a position to commit such inhumane acts. When we talk about 6 million Jews being killed, it is a number; it is hard to personalise that down to individual circumstances. It is hard to visualise the horror of the attempt to wipe out the Jewish race. We should remember that it did not take place over one or two years. It was a deliberate, long-term attempt by the Nazis to eliminate the Jewish race.

We should also remember that the roots of the holocaust go back to the end of the great war. Germany was subjected to severe reparations. That led to incredible poverty in Germany, which then gave rise to the Nazis, who could say, “It’s the Jews’ fault you haven’t got any money. Let’s take it out on the Jews. If we take Jews out of their position, we can spread the wealth.” It was a deliberate policy of the Nazi party to spread this hatred and it should never, ever be allowed to be repeated. There needs to be a greater understanding and appreciation that, from the early 1930s onwards, this systematic approach led to the Shoah. We have to remember that.

We must also remember that antisemitism was rife in this country at that time, and we should not think that it was not going on elsewhere either. That thought process and the demeaning of Jewish people was going on, and that is one reason why few people were allowed to escape from Germany and come here. Had they been allowed to do so, many people who lost their lives in the camps would have survived.

I would like to take this opportunity to pay tribute once again to pay tribute to Karen Pollock and her brilliant team at the Holocaust Educational Trust, who do such wonderful work to educate people—young and old—about the horrors of the holocaust. Not everyone can go to Auschwitz-Birkenau and witness the crimes that took place. We talk, as other Members have, about the shoes, the spectacles and the clothing at Auschwitz-Birkenau, but the memory that I have above all else is walking across the park with the lakes. There is an eerie silence. There is no wildlife. No birds tweet, no animals cry and the reason why the wildlife know is that that is where the Nazis emptied the ashes from the crematorium. The wildlife know what happened there and so should we.

One aspect of the Holocaust Educational Trust’s work that has become more important is the outreach programme. Last year, more than 600 schools partnered with the trust to enhance educational provision. That is important because it allows holocaust survivors to give their first-hand testimony, lead workshops and ensure that young people understand what happened and learn lessons.

One of the most famous survivors was Gena Turgel, who lived in Stanmore in my constituency. In many ways, she was a pioneer of holocaust education, as she was going into schools and colleges way before any of the current structures were set up. She was born in Krakow and had eight brothers and sisters. She was only 16 when her home city was bombed on 1 September 1939.

Here is the part of Gena Turgel’s story that I think is most pertinent. Her family had relatives in Chicago and they planned to leave for the United States, but they made their decision too late, as the Nazis had already invaded and closed all the entry and exit points, so her family had to move to just outside Krakow. In autumn 1941, she moved into the ghetto, and then moved after some of her family were shot by the SS in the ghetto. She was then forced into a labour camp, and in 1945 to Auschwitz-Birkenau, where she was sent with her mother on the death march from Auschwitz, leaving behind her sister, who they never saw again. They then arrived in a further labour camp, were forced on to trucks, and travelled under terrible conditions to Bergen-Belsen, where they arrived in February 1945. On 15 April 1945, the British Army liberated Bergen-Belsen and among the liberators was Norman Turgel, who became Gena’s husband. Gena passed away in 2018, but her record is in a book called, “I Light a Candle”, so her legacy lives on.

Hermann Hirschberger was born in 1926 in Germany. He lived with his mother, father and older brother. He attended a local non-Jewish school, but when the Nazis said that Jewish children could not go to school any more, he was forced not to go. He was beaten up going from home to school and back again by people who were his friends when he was in school, because the Nazis had said that Jews were not allowed to exist. At 9 pm on 9 November 1938, the synagogues were burnt and businesses, homes and shops were smashed. Windows were smashed and homes and buildings were burnt to the ground. This is known as Kristallnacht, the night of broken glass.

After that, Hermann’s parents realised that they had to escape, but they could not—they were not allowed to. However, Hermann was one of the first to come on the Kindertransport to this country, where he built his family. He never saw his parents again. Hermann and his brother had a long journey to get to the UK. They were taken to a hostel in Margate, where Hermann had his bar mitzvah, and remained there for about a year. They regularly wrote to their parents. Two days after war broke out, their parents wrote to say that they had received their permits—they would be allowed to leave. However, once war broke out, they were not allowed to leave. They were sent to a camp in the Pyrenees and eventually murdered in Auschwitz- Birkenau.

In this country, Hermann and his brother were separated and then reunited. Hermann went on to marry and live in my constituency. He regularly spoke to schools about his life and what happened to Jewish people when they came to this country as refugees—by the way, it was not a happy experience for those people. We should own up to that and honour that memory.

Of course, we honour Hermann’s memory, because sadly he died on 1 January 2020. I had the privilege of meeting him on many occasions and hearing about his experiences both in this country and before he arrived. The reality is that, as time goes on, survivors are, sadly, no longer with us, so it is important that we capture their testimony and every other aspect on video, in audio and in writing.

I have had the unfortunate opportunity to witness at first hand the plight of the Rohingya and see what still happens in this world. We have a duty to ensure that people who have perpetrated murder are brought to justice and suffer for the war crimes that they have committed, and that we help and assist refugees.

The theme this year is “One Day” when we put aside all our differences to remember what happened not only in the holocaust and in persecution by the Nazis but in the genocides that have followed. We hope that one day there will no longer be any genocide. Today, we learn about the past and empathise with others, but we must take action for a better future.

I end with a quote by Iby Knill, a survivor of the holocaust, who said about the camps:

“You didn’t think about yesterday, and tomorrow may not happen, it was only today that you had to cope with and you got through it as best you could.”

Oral Answers to Questions

Andrew Gwynne Excerpts

Monday 24th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[Neil O’Brien]

The next round of bidding for levelling-up funding will open in spring and we will set out the conditions for funding in due course.

[Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)]

The towns fund is a limited beauty contest. All town centres, such as Crownpoint in Denton and Houldsworth Square in Reddish, matter. Twelve years ago, those town centres had hanging baskets and planters, the street furniture was beautifully painted, and our main town centre park, Victoria park, had bedding plants. All those things have gone as the councils have faced 60% cuts. How are we going to get some civic pride back in communities such as Denton and Reddish?

[Neil O’Brien]

That is a serious point, so let me address it in the consensual and serious way that it deserves. The rise of online shopping is posing major challenges to our town centres. That is why we are bringing forward the future high streets fund and the billions of pounds of funding that I mentioned. I also draw the hon. Gentleman’s attention to things such as the community ownership fund, which helps to save these vital local assets. But of course we recognise that there is more to do, and more to think about in terms of how we change these town centres to help them adjust to a new world in which people will continue to spend more money online. We need to make them places where people work and live as well as just shop.

Greensill Capital

Andrew Gwynne Excerpts

Tuesday 13th April 2021 Commons Chamber

[Paul Scully]

The Bank of England refused Greensill’s entry because there were no banks in the scheme. It was a way for the Government and the Bank of England to get money to businesses and of underwriting it rather than its being a separate loan scheme. That is why Greensill was accredited for CLBILS. The only other request to expand Greensill’s reach came from the shadow Front-Bench team, who asked for it to receive the higher level—up to £200 million.

[Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab) [V]]

The Chancellor now washes his hands of the covid public lending schemes that he set up. It is laughable given the fanfare and fuss he made of their launch. I almost feel sorry for the Minister. He has been sent here to defend the actions of senior Ministers who are not even in his Department. Given that the Chancellor is the person who we know received lobbying texts from David Cameron, can the Minister tell the House what he thinks the Chancellor is afraid of?

[Paul Scully]

The Chancellor has delivered £356 billion-worth of support, I think it is currently, to businesses. He has flexed at every opportunity across Government in devising and designing loan schemes, which are overseen by the British Business Bank, which is overseen, as the single shareholder, by the Secretary of State for BEIS. That is what we should be proud of. The Chancellor is not afraid of anything here. The question is about the coronavirus large business interruption loan scheme, which is administered by BEIS, and that is why I am here to answer it.

Unsafe Cladding: Protecting Tenants and Leaseholders

Andrew Gwynne Excerpts

Monday 1st February 2021 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab) [V]]

It is astounding—no, that is the wrong word. It is shameful that we are still debating unsafe cladding on buildings. It is three and a half years since the awful scenes at Grenfell, yet far too many people are still living with the nightmare that their homes are wrapped in combustible cladding. What is incomprehensible is that despite promising that all Grenfell-style cladding would be removed by last June, there are nearly 50,000 people still living in around 165 buildings over 18 metres tall that are still covered in the same cladding found on Grenfell Tower.

However, the scale is even bigger. We know that there are other types of combustible cladding—not all the same as that used at Grenfell, but equally dangerous. There are at least 450,000 people still living in blocks with all forms of unsafe cladding. Here in Greater Manchester, there are currently 107 high-rise residential buildings that have adopted interim measures as a result of significant fire safety deficiencies, but a further 64 buildings in Greater Manchester are known to have failed the ACM test with no remedy yet, and another 75 privately owned buildings have fire safety issues that are attributable to other unsafe cladding.

I want to be constructive, which is why I support the motion tonight. I particularly welcome the call to create a national cladding taskforce, putting residents at its heart, as they did in Australia. The Government’s joint inspection team just does not have formal enforcement or funding powers. Somebody should urgently carry out an audit to establish the extent of dangerous materials on buildings, prioritise them according to risk, and ensure that there is enforcement against those who do not undertake the work.

We need to protect leaseholders and taxpayers by pursuing those responsible for putting cladding on buildings and recouping costs through legal action against them. We need an absolute deadline to make homes safe. The shadow Secretary of State, my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon North (Steve Reed), suggests June 2022, which I support. We need legislation to protect residents from being passed on historical fire safety costs; enforcement powers against building owners who refuse to start work; and measures to make it easier to recover costs from bad builders.

There are other calls in the motion to help to get the housing market moving again for those trapped in this mess. We cannot afford more inaction. Tonight, we have the chance to properly act on this scandal, to take appropriate action, and to make all homes safe after three and a half years. Our constituents and this country deserve nothing less.

Council Tax: Government’s Proposed Increase

Andrew Gwynne Excerpts

Monday 25th January 2021 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab) [V]]

Council tax is flawed and regressive. It disproportionately impacts on the poorest the hardest, and not just on the poorest people in society, but on the poorest areas of England. Not every area has the same council tax base. The two boroughs that I represent are a case in point. Tameside is predominantly made up of band A and B homes. There is nothing the council can do about that: those are the facts on the ground. Stockport is more mixed, with many more properties in higher council tax bands. That means Stockport can raise more money than Tameside can—it is basic maths—but neither can raise enough from council tax alone to meet basic service standards set by Government. They are both grant-dependent councils. They both need Government top-ups to function.

Some councils are fortunate. They can raise enough from council tax and business rates to meet local needs. They do not need a central Government grant. But all past Governments of all political colours have recognised this in-built unfairness and have redistributed grants to councils with low tax bases and high needs to even things out—until recently. This is the sheer unfairness of what this Government are doing. They have cut grant funding by half across England, but that is an average. In some areas, it is over 60%: 60p in every £1 gone. That is a lot of lost income for Tameside and Stockport. There is smoke and mirrors from Government. Ministers then tell councils they have more flexibility—“You can plug your gap by increasing council tax”—except that it does not work because it brings in nothing like the same amount as the funding cut by Ministers and there is still a gap. So the poorest areas with the highest needs in social care and children’s services still have to cut services.

Then came covid-19. I was the Secretary of State’s shadow this time last year and I was grateful to him for briefing me about local government stepping up to the covid challenge—and, boy, didn’t they do just that? I pay tribute to those councillors, officers and staff for all they did and are continuing to do. But I do not think that I am breaking any confidences, because it has been said in public, too: Ministers guaranteed to me that they would reimburse in full those already cash-strapped councils to do what it takes. That has not happened.

Here we are in the grip of covid still and councils are being told, “If you want to plug your gap, you need to increase your council tax.” Except it does not plug the gap. It does not come close. Residents lose out twice: they pay more, they get less. And the blame is devolved to councillors, not Ministers. That is why I support this motion tonight.