Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government

Debate between Andrew Gwynne and Kevin Hollinrake

1st reading: House of Commons
Tuesday 2nd July 2019 Commons Chamber

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

We have had a thorough and full debate, and I think quite a thoughtful debate from those on both sides of the House. I add my thanks to the Backbench Business Committee for choosing the topic of Housing, Communities and Local Government for this estimates day debate.

I thank the hon. Member for Oxford West and Abingdon (Layla Moran) for the way in which she opened the debate. She set out a very real concern that is felt across all parties in this House about the impact of a decade of constraints on local government and the effect that that is now having on our public services. However, it would be remiss of me not to say that she and the Liberal Democrats displayed a little bit of collective amnesia, because they were in government between 2010 and 2015. It does seem that “Sorry” is the hardest word. In her defence, she said that she campaigned against these cuts as a candidate, but her Ministers slashed and burned many of the services she referred to. The crisis in local government today, the crisis in adult social care today and the crisis in children’s services today have their roots in the coalition years, and the Minister for local government was a Liberal Democrat—he is now Lord Stunell of Hazel Grove—although he occasionally got locked in the Opposition Lobby in votes, which is perhaps why he was very quickly moved.

I want to pay tribute to the other contributions: from my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts), who is the Chair of the Select Committee and brings so much knowledge to these debates; from my right hon. Friend the Member for North Durham (Mr Jones) and my hon. Friends the Members for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Gareth Snell), for York Central (Rachael Maskell) and for Warwick and Leamington (Matt Western); and from the Conservatives, the hon. Members for The Cotswolds (Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown) and for Thirsk and Malton (Kevin Hollinrake), the right hon. Member for Witham (Priti Patel), and the hon. Members for North East Derbyshire (Lee Rowley), for Stoke-on-Trent South (Jack Brereton), for Redditch (Rachel Maclean) and for Walsall North (Eddie Hughes).

I want to echo the right hon. Member for Witham, who mentioned that she is married to a councillor. It would be really remiss of me not to mention that I, too, am married to a councillor—Councillor Allison Gwynne—on Tameside Metropolitan Borough Council. I am incredibly proud that both my councils have, since May, had a female leader. The councils are very ably led by two incredible Labour women. Councillor Brenda Warrington, the leader of Tameside, has been joined by Councillor Elise Wilson, the new leader of Stockport Metropolitan Borough Council. They are both doing great work. I also want to thank all our dedicated council staff and councillors of all political persuasions and none for the incredible work that they do in making sure our communities are looked after. While they have continued to work hard and to lobby for the resources they need to do their job, they know—and we know actually—just how hard that job has become over the last few years. The debate has put out the message in various ways, but it is the same on both sides of the House: increasing concern about the growing crisis in local government funding and the huge cost pressures, particularly in children and adult services.

The consequence of the cost pressures in those people-based services is that the place-based services—the neighbourhood services—are squeezed. The conundrum for local councillors is that most people think that their council is there to deliver the place-based services. They are the things that they see: bins being emptied, streets being swept, parks being maintained, libraries being open and youth centres existing. Those services are squeezed to pay for the pressures in children and adult services.

I will rattle off a few figures: 763 youth centres and more than 700 libraries have closed, and Sure Start has been cut in half, since 2010. Yet local government is the beating heart of our communities. Our councils keep our streets cleaner and safer, protect the most vulnerable in society and maintain our green spaces. When we inevitably grow older, we hope that our councils will be there to provide the services to give us dignity in old age.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central said, we should work towards Total Place. The previous Labour Government were keen on developing the notion that all public bodies, across the public sector, should work towards the same strategy and outcomes, and ensure that there are proper joined-up, people-based services. Our councils are the lynchpin of providing cohesive, joined-up public services, whether housing, police and crime prevention, leisure services, youth services or public health, which widens into the national health service.

[Kevin Hollinrake]

I understand that the hon. Gentleman’s preference was not for making cuts to local authorities over the past few years, and he makes a good case for that. However, faced with the challenge in 2010 of balancing the books against a backdrop of £153 billion annual deficit, where would he have made the cuts?

[Andrew Gwynne]

The hon. Gentleman should realise that we are almost a decade into austerity and local government has taken the biggest hit of any Department. There is a reason for that. It is easy to pass the blame from Whitehall to town and county halls throughout the country. The Conservative Government have hung the hon. Gentleman’s councillors as much as Labour councillors out to dry.

[Kevin Hollinrake]

rose—

[Andrew Gwynne]

I will not give way just now.

In the past decade, local government in England has lost 60p out of every pound that the previous Labour Government invested in our communities, in local services, in the glue that binds our communities together. The estimates debated today will sadly offer no relief to local government. The only major change from last year in the funds for local government is for business rates relief. Although it is welcome that the Government are compensating local government for that policy, it is necessary only because the Government have refused to undertake a fundamental review of business rates for which many have called. I am proud to say that the next Labour Government will conduct such a review.

Although the Minister can speak today about increases in local authorities’ spending power in this year’s settlement, it is all smoke and mirrors. Any increases are possible only if all councils increase their council tax by the maximum possible, which would mean eye-watering, inflation-busting tax increases for ordinary households. Council tax now equates to 7% of the income of a low-income family, compared to just 1% for a high-income family. That is not only unfair, but economically incoherent. The poorest areas, those that need the most resources to cope with the growing demands on children’s services and adult services, will never be able to raise the money they need. My right hon. Friend the Member for North Durham made the point that far less is possible in those areas than in the more well-off areas of the country.

I do not make that point to argue that we should be robbing some areas to fund others, but the fact is that all councils are now struggling and I would guess that that is not lost on the Minister. I hope that he will now be interested in solutions to the problem, because there is a growing chorus of concern from those on the Government Benches behind him. We are seeing a reverse redistribution of funding: a shift away from spending on local services that is based on need and deprivation.

Let me just remind the Minister that, while the Tories have in some cases actually seen spending increases, nine out of the 10 areas that have seen the largest cuts are Labour controlled: Hackney, £1,406 less per household in spending power between 2010-11 and 2019-20; Newham, £1,301; Tower Hamlets, £1,264; Knowsley, £1,057; and Southwark £1,014. Those are eye-watering numbers. Then we look at the other end of the scale: Maidstone, a £678 drop; Tewkesbury, £5.31; Vale of White Horse, £4.12; Tonbridge and Malling, a £4.18 increase; Stratford-on-Avon, a £7.45 per household increase; Uttlesford, a £7.66 increase; Horsham, a £15.68 increase; Wokingham, a £39.31 increase; and the Isles of Scilly, a £336.78 increase. That just is not fair. Not one council that has seen an increase in spending power from 2010-11 to 2019-20 is a Labour council.

What was in this year’s funding settlement? Unfortunately, I am not able to speak today about what the funding situation will look like next year because nobody knows—no one on the Opposition Benches, no one in local government, not even the Minister. Councils would normally have started their budget setting planning process, but they remain completely in the dark about how much funding they will have next year. The Government’s intention was to implement a fair funding review and to increase the percentage of business rates retained locally from April 2020, but the Tory leadership contest has thrown that plan up in the air. As the Chief Secretary to the Treasury told the Lords Economic Affairs Committee earlier this month:

“The plan was to launch the spending review just before the summer recess…I would suggest that’s unlikely given the current timetable of the Conservative leadership election.”

If that is not the case, I recommend that the Minister use this opportunity to set the record straight. I know that everyone in local government would welcome clarity. We need that certainty. Is there going to be a spending review? Is it going to be for four years? Is it going to be for one year? The Minister needs to give clarity.

What we do know from a survey published today by the Local Government Association is that one in three councils is worried that it will be unable to provide the statutory services by the end of this Parliament. That would include services such as: preventing homelessness; ensuring that vulnerable children are safe; ensuring quality of life for all adults; and dignity in old age. We know from the same survey that year-on-year cuts and an unprecedented rise in demand for these services have resulted in one in five councils being concerned that it will not be able to balance the books this year.

In closing, I would like to repeat the words of the Conservative Lord Porter, who said earlier this month:

“If the Government think the policy going forward is to spend all your reserves, and then we will find some new money…after you have spent all your reserves,”

the Secretary of State is going to have to

“explain to the public why those people died because the money was not available… It is always about understanding the cost of everything and the value of nothing.”

Never has a truer word been said. That is the reality, and I genuinely hope that the Minister, whom I respect greatly, will get a grip on his two leadership want-to-bes and insist that they start to fix the decade of neglect and cuts that our communities and local government have endured.

Local Government Finance

Debate between Andrew Gwynne and Kevin Hollinrake

Tuesday 5th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Gwynne]

My hon. Friend, who is a doughty champion of the people of the city of Coventry, is absolutely right. What we have seen today from this Secretary of State is smoke and mirrors. He can talk about a spending power increase across local government, but that is predicated on every English local authority increasing council tax by the maximum level possible—an eye-watering, inflation-busting increase. We know that not every local authority can raise sufficient money by council tax alone, which is the reason behind the revenue support grant. A 50% cut to the revenue support grant of my hon. Friend’s city of Coventry is a big cut by monetary standards. Coventry’s council tax base does not allow the city council to raise anything like enough money to plug that gap.

[Kevin Hollinrake]

The hon. Gentleman talks about the revenue support grant. How can it be right that a person in London gets £437 per year allocated to them from the central Government grant, a person in a metropolitan borough £319, and a person in a county £153? How can that be fair or right?

[Andrew Gwynne]

I will answer that: a third of the services are more expensive to deliver in urban areas. That is the fact. It is in the Government’s own report that was commissioned for the then Department for Communities and Local Government. Some Tories do not get the reality of this, but I imagine that those who represent urban areas probably—silently—do. The fact is that revenue support grant is there because Governments of all political persuasions recognise that not every area is the same. The baseline is not the same. In some urban areas, the council tax base is low.

[Kevin Hollinrake]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Andrew Gwynne]

No, I am answering the hon. Gentleman, if he will do me the courtesy of listening.

Every local area has a different council tax base. I hazard a guess—I do not have the facts in front of me —that a 1% increase in council tax for Tameside Council, which I partly represent, will raise significantly less than a 1% increase in his area’s council tax, but the needs of Tameside are as great, if not greater, than some of the needs of his constituents.

--- Later in debate ---

[Andrew Gwynne]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I pay tribute to his council for all the hard work that it is doing in very difficult circumstances. Cuts do have consequences, and cuts that are outside the control of the local authority are now presenting themselves as spending problems for town and county halls across England. That is why we are so angry about what this Government are doing.

[Kevin Hollinrake]

rose—

Social Care

Debate between Andrew Gwynne and Kevin Hollinrake

Wednesday 25th April 2018 Commons Chamber

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

We have had a very wide-ranging debate with 16 Back-Bench contributions. I pay tribute to my hon. Friends the Members for Redcar (Anna Turley), for Luton North (Kelvin Hopkins), for Weaver Vale (Mike Amesbury), for Leicester West (Liz Kendall), for Blaydon (Liz Twist), for Warrington South (Faisal Rashid), for Keighley (John Grogan), for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green), for Crewe and Nantwich (Laura Smith) and for Bedford (Mohammad Yasin) for their passionate, powerful and well-informed contributions. I also thank the right hon. Member for Ashford (Damian Green), and the hon. Members for North Cornwall (Scott Mann), for South West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous), for Cheadle (Mary Robinson), for Solihull (Julian Knight) and for Redditch (Rachel Maclean) for their contributions. We might not always see eye to eye, but there is consensus that we have to fix the problem in adult social care, although how we go about that will always be up for debate.

[Kevin Hollinrake]

Is the hon. Gentleman aware of the very constructive cross-party, collegiate visit of the Communities and Local Government Committee to Germany, where we looked at its social insurance scheme, which could provide the perfect, sustainable and scalable solution to the adult social care conundrum?

[Andrew Gwynne]

The Government need to decide their position, but there are examples across the world of how adult social care can be funded. We need to make sure we get a system that works for England.

I also pay tribute to the workforce and carers. They do not just need platitudes from us in the House; they need the Government and politicians on their side.

This is the second time we have had to call an Opposition day debate on this issue, following the Government’s lack of action on social care. In our debate last October, there was broad agreement across the House, as there has been more or less today, that reform of social care was a priority, but here we are, six months later, and little has changed. Last month, we heard the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care tell the British Association of Social Workers that he accepted his share of responsibility for the lack of progress since the Conservatives entered government in 2010.

The social care Green Paper, due this summer, has faced substantial delays. We need a commitment from the Government that it will not be delayed any further. There is only so much longer that the sector can wait. Let us remember that in January there was hope that the Government would place an extra focus on social care after the Department of Health was rebranded, but then, shortly afterwards, in what sounded like a tribute act to the Prime Minister, the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government told a packed LGA conference—I was there—that

“nothing has changed, nothing has changed”.

Confusion still reigns, and it is true: nothing has changed. This confusion means that 1.2 million people are being denied the support they need.

Let us look at what the cuts mean. According to its director of adult care, social care provision in Northamptonshire County Council—a Conservative council —is

“on the verge of being unsafe”

as a result of the cuts. That council has effectively been the first in England to declare insolvency. According to the director, the additional funds in the local government finance settlement will have “little impact” on the county’s problems, and I fear that that is right, but the Minister will be aware of the widespread fear that what has happened in Northamptonshire could happen again elsewhere. Mark McLaughlin, who was appointed from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs in December to oversee Northamptonshire’s finances, has warned that all top-tier local authorities will soon face similar issues. Then, only last week, we heard that Worcestershire County Council, the Conservative-run local authority in the constituency of the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, had buried a report expressing urgent concern after rising costs, including the cost of adult social care, had forced the council to use more than half its reserves in the past five years. The Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy expects the growth in demand to result in a budget deficit of £60.1 million by 2020-21.

Parliamentary Constituencies (Amendment) Bill

Debate between Andrew Gwynne and Kevin Hollinrake

2nd reading: House of Commons
Friday 1st December 2017 Commons Chamber

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

Some of us have greatness thrust upon us, Madam Deputy Speaker. I only came in to observe the debate but, sadly, my hon. Friend the Member for Lancaster and Fleetwood (Cat Smith) has taken ill. I am sure that the whole House will wish her a speedy recovery.

It is a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper). I suspect that he has a vested interest, given that he was the Minister who took through the original proposals, and wants to preserve his legacy. I do get a sense of déjà vu though, because of course I was the shadow Cabinet Office Minister this time last year, and I remember the right hon. Gentleman making virtually the same speech. I hope that the House will forgive me, but I will do almost the same.

I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Gorton (Afzal Khan) for tabling the Bill. We are all largely in agreement that a review is needed; updating boundaries is a vital part of the functioning of our electoral system. However, it must proceed in a way that benefits our whole democracy and not just the short-term interests of one political party.

The Opposition strongly oppose a reduction in the number of parliamentary constituencies and welcome measures in the Bill to maintain the size of the House of Commons at 650 Members, correcting a decision taken by the coalition Government to have 600, a purely arbitrary number for which no logical case has been made. The cynic in me would suggest that it was chosen purely for political advantage.

[Kevin Hollinrake]

Surely the logical case is that that number is less, and therefore the cost of running this House will be less. Is that not logical?

[Andrew Gwynne]

I will come on to those points, because the hon. Gentleman will find that the cost of politics is already being cut in a number of ways. The duty of this House is to ensure that the Government are held to account, and my concern is that the proposal to reduce the number lessens scrutiny on the Government of the day. That might not be a Conservative Government, and I would hope that the hon. Gentleman would want to preserve his rights, when he sits on the Opposition Benches, to hold a future Labour Government to account.

The lack of clarity from the Government has concerned many across the Chamber. The Government have stated that the boundary review is proceeding in accordance with legislation, but, according to three senior sources quoted in The Times, the plan is likely to be scrapped due to a lack of support from the Conservative Benches—[Interruption.] I hear “Hear, hears”. Perhaps this will be the latest casualty following the Prime Minister’s failure to win a majority in June.

If the review is going to be ditched, I say to the Government: stop wasting public money. This is a charade. Let’s ditch the review now and start a fresh one based on principles we can all agree on. Suggestions that this is being done to cut the cost of politics are red herrings. The claimed savings of £13 million a year are dwarfed by the £34 million annual cost of the 260 extra peers appointed by the former Prime Minister. Can the Government seriously talk about cutting the cost of politics after offering £1 billion to the Democratic Unionist party? The contradictions in the Government’s arguments are so blatant it is insulting. This Bill proposed by my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Gorton would also see potential savings by requiring the boundary commissions to report every 10 years rather than every five.

The Government claim that a reduction will bring the number of MPs in line with that in similar sized legislatures. International comparisons should indeed play an important role in policy making. However, by cutting the number of MPs and making their constituencies bigger and more remote, the Government endanger the MP-constituency link, which is envied by democracies across the world.