Communities and Local Government (CSR)

Andrew Percy Excerpts

Thursday 13th January 2011 Westminster Hall

[Mr Betts]

The only problem with that is that the post of PCT head will go shortly, so that saving will probably disappear. The issue is interesting. I would have liked to be much more radical and bring the functions of the PCT generally within the orbit of local authorities. One or two Conservative councils—I think Essex is one—were up for that. There could have been some more radical changes to make savings.

Local authorities know that they have areas of statutory responsibility in social services and will try to protect those as well as they can. They also know that if reductions are made—this is becoming clear throughout the country—standards of street cleaning will deteriorate, as well as highway maintenance, for which there will be a 19% cut in capital funding. It is right to protect concessionary bus fares for pensioners, but there will be a squeeze on funding for integrated transport authorities in metropolitan areas. For example, subsidies for evening and weekend services, rural services and young persons’ concessions will be hit, and that will then hit people who are more deprived and do not have a car, and who are younger or older and rely on local bus services. The services affected will be those that deliver quality of life—parks, libraries and sports centres.

The Secretary of State said that there was no need for cuts in front-line services, but Doncaster, which has an independent mayor and Labour councillors, will close 14 of its 26 libraries. I understand that Gloucestershire will close 11 libraries and have seven open for only three hours a week. Somerset will close 20 of its 34 libraries, and Croydon will close five. Those councils, which are not of a Labour persuasion, are all making cuts in front-line services. Is the view of the coalition—both parties in it—that all those cuts are unnecessary, and that those councils are maliciously ruining services for constituents and residents when they need not be cut?

[Andrew Percy (Brigg and Goole) (Con)]

If the situation is as rosy as the hon. Gentleman suggests, why did my Labour council in north Lincolnshire increase the cost of the young people’s post-16 bus pass by 500% four years ago? Why did it have to increase council tax significantly at the rate of 12% over three years? Why have libraries been closed, and why have rural bus services been cut during the past five years—all under the Labour Government when things were so rosy? Does he not understand that part of the problem has been that, although more money came in, the Labour Government told councils such as mine where to spend it instead of giving them discretion to spend it on the services that they wanted?

[Mr Betts]

I have already said that I generally agree that councils should have greater freedom to make choices about spending decisions. In general terms, I welcome the power of general competence to give local authorities even more discretion. Having greater ability to spend but their resources cut is the ironic position in which most of them will find themselves.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Stewart Jackson (Peterborough) (Con)]

It is always a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Robertson. Today, we have the opportunity to pay tribute to the Government, as you would expect me to, Mr Robertson, for being imaginative and innovative within the confines of the comprehensive spending review and for seeking to engineer a paradigm shift based on a philosophical underpinning of decentralisation, localism and the devolution of power. The Localism Bill, which will have its Second Reading next week, does not take a slash-and-burn approach to local government. Nor, incidentally, is it a refutation of everything that the former Labour Government did before 6 May last year. There is a general consensus that the current Government are in favour of what the hon. Member for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts) called a drive for transformational local services.

I am a glass-half-full kind of chap, so I see the Government’s measures as an opportunity to drive forward localism in the context of the big society. That concept is, I admit, misunderstood, not least by some in my own party, but it chimes with some of the issues that the former Government were talking about before they lost power. In the previous Parliament, I sat through the Committee stage of the Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Bill, which had come from the House of Lords. As hon. Members will know, my colleagues and I did not oppose every aspect of that important Bill; it was a bit of a spatchcock Bill, but we supported certain measures because we thought that they were going in the right direction by devolving power and responsibility to individual councillors and officers. One such measure was multi-area agreements and another was leaders boards, which could be seen as fledgling local enterprise partnerships.

I have always been a bit unfashionable among members of my party in that I have—[Interruption.] I am getting sedentary interventions from my hon. Friend the Member for Brigg and Goole (Andrew Percy). I have always been quite in favour of at least looking at city regions as super local enterprise partnerships and as a vehicle for driving regeneration, and it is important that we continue to debate that. I am talking not about reconstituting metropolitan or non-metropolitan county councils, but about having bodies with real resonance. Local enterprise partnerships go some way in that direction on key issues such as post-16 education, public health and strategic transport.

[Andrew Percy]

I thank my hon. Friend for allowing me to mention the local economic partnership for the Humber region in the Minister’s presence. A huge argument is going on between our four local unitary authorities—the estuarial authorities—which seem unable to agree with businesses about the need for a Humber-wide economic partnership. We need such a body for the simple reason that it would, just as my hon. Friend says, represent the sub-regional unit, as opposed to the area defined by the more historic boundaries. I thank my hon. Friend for allowing me to make that point once again to the Minister.

[Mr Jackson]

I am always happy to facilitate an advertising break for Yorkshire and the Humber, as I am sure the Chairman of the Select Committee, the hon. Member for Sheffield South East, would be. In the previous Parliament, a report published by the Local Government Association found that the specific argument against regional development agencies was that they had not overcome the differences in economic growth within or between their areas, and work by management consultants Ernst and Young also found that.

The philosophical underpinning for local enterprise partnerships is that we recognise that there are very local economies. Even in an area such as the north-east of England—I am mindful of the need not to go off the point too much, Mr Robertson—there is a quantum difference between the economic issues that inform decisions taken on Teesside and those that inform decisions taken in Tynemouth, north of Newcastle or in Stockton-on-Tees. Even within that area, there are sub-regional economies, so I think we have made the right decision on local enterprise partnerships.

I want to talk now about the less than benign fiscal climate that we face. I think we will have a mature and grown-up debate today, but it is worth saying that Her Majesty’s Opposition committed themselves to a 20% reduction in local government funding. If members of the Labour party in Parliament and beyond are not going to make that reduction now, and given the Minister’s very good point about the Office for Budget Responsibility having looked at the net reduction as a function of local authorities being able to recoup funding in a way that the Ministry of Justice, for instance, cannot necessarily do, the question is what core services Labour party members will cut.

We have had a lot of lectures from the Labour party recently about local government cuts, so let us look at one example: Durham county council. The unitary authority there will see its formula grant reduced from £263 million to £235 million. We should bear it in mind that Surrey county council, for instance, will see its grant reduced from £178 million to £152 million. Durham seems to find enough funds to spend £3.73 million on communication. It has five diversity officers, four European officers, two climate change officers and an undisclosed number of staff working full time for trade unions. It has also refused to say how much its chief executive is paid. Funnily enough, it is sitting on £93 million of reserves. If I can be slightly partisan, my colleagues and I will accept lectures about the impact of cuts only if all the alternatives to cuts are being pursued.