Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Andy McDonald and Greg Clark
Andy McDonald (Middlesbrough) (Lab)
17. What recent assessment he has made of the fairness of local government funding.
The Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (Greg Clark)
The local government finance settlement reflects a detailed assessment of the needs and challenges of each area. We have announced a fair funding review and will work with local authorities to determine the appropriate funding needs of different types of areas as we move to 100% business rates retention by 2020.
Greg Clark
I am surprise to hear the hon. Gentleman ask that question, given that his county of Norfolk has benefited from £1.6 million through the transitional grant, which I would have thought that he would welcome. On what party colleagues have to say, he should take advice from Bury Council, which has said:
“The methodology is a welcome improvement on that employed for allocating revenue support grant reductions…and goes some way to redressing…years in which poorer metropolitan authorities have received an unequal share of…funding.”
The hon. Gentleman should talk to his party members as well as his constituents.
Andy McDonald
As a native Teessider, it cannot have escaped the Secretary of State’s attention that towns such as Middlesbrough have been hit hardest by his local government cuts, yet Middlesbrough has not had a penny from the transitional fund. It seems that this Government’s duty is only to those wealthier areas that voted Tory. Is he not ashamed of his callous and unfair treatment of his hometown?
Greg Clark
The hon. Gentleman should inform himself better about what is happening in the Middlesbrough local authority. For a start, as a result of the change in methodology, Middlesbrough gets an improvement in resources of nearly £4 million. I would have thought that he had read the consultation response that I received from Middlesbrough Borough Council. In response to the question,
“Do you agree with the proposed methodology for calculation?”,
the council said:
“Yes we would agree with the proposed methodology on the basis that this does not have a disproportionate impact generally across local authorities.”
The hon. Gentleman should inform himself before he comes to the House and asks questions.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Andy McDonald and Greg Clark(9 years ago)
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Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)
6. If he will take steps to minimise future reductions in the budgets of fire and rescue services.
The Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (Greg Clark)
Fire authorities have continued to provide an excellent service while making sensible savings. The number of incidents is 42% lower than 10 years ago, while the number of fire deaths and injuries is at an all-time low.
Andy McDonald
The existing grant distribution formula disproportionately penalises grant-dependent authorities such as Cleveland, regardless of socioeconomic deficits, unparalleled levels of industrial risk and/or their efficient performance. What assessment will the Minister make to identify less efficient authorities that can make savings and, more importantly, what capacity grant-dependent authorities have to make further savings?
Greg Clark
I take this opportunity to pay tribute to the magnificent work of firefighters, who, with the other emergency services, council staff, engineers, the armed forces, and indeed the whole community, have worked tirelessly to protect and help people during the flooding in the north of England.
Over the past five years, fire authorities have had spending reductions of less than local authorities. I have given the hon. Gentleman figures showing how well they have performed and managed those cuts, and the National Audit Office has said that the picture is one of financial health. In Cleveland, for example, the fire authority’s spending power is £48 per head of the population, compared to the national average of £37. So that is reflected in the formula.
Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation
Debate between Andy McDonald and Greg Clark(9 years, 5 months ago)
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Greg Clark
On that fateful day, in those dramatic circumstances, a Conservative-led Government did what history has regularly called on Conservatives to do and begin to pull the nation back from the brink of ruin after the disastrous denouement of a period of Labour Government. During the five years that followed, Britain’s prospects have been transformed, with the deficit cut by half, 1 million low earners taken out of income tax and spending on the NHS and schools safeguarded. More people are working than ever before in our history and Britain’s economy is the strongest growing in the western world. Thanks to the hard work and enterprise of the British people, our nation is on the rise again, but our task is far from complete. On 7 May this year, the British people looked at the past, looked to the future and asked us to finish the job. We are determined to repay their trust.
The Chancellor’s Budget puts our economic security first by cutting the deficit at the same pace as in the last Parliament until we have a surplus and ensuring that Britain pays its way in the world. It will help working people, support aspiration and boost productivity. It will reward work and allow people to keep more of the money they have earned. As the Chancellor said last week, the Budget is a new settlement for Britain.
Let me be frank: not every Budget goes according to plan. Some are cheered and others are jeered, such are the ups and downs of government, but it takes a special kind of genius to have an omnishambles Budget while in Opposition. I am sure that the whole House is eagerly awaiting the latest news from the hon. Member for Wolverhampton North East (Emma Reynolds) on whether the Opposition have a view on the Budget. Yesterday, the acting Leader of the Opposition announced that Labour would support the welfare cap and the restrictions on family tax credits, but within hours of her announcement three of the four leadership contenders—the right hon. Members for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper) and for Leigh (Andy Burnham) and the hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn)—denounced her and a policy that they had presumably agreed. We await the view of the hon. Member for Leicester West (Liz Kendall), but we have her representative on earth here—the hon. Member for Wolverhampton North East, who supports her campaign—and we want to find out whether the chaos is complete or partial. After the disarray of the last 24 hours, who could disagree with the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Tristram Hunt) when he said yesterday:
“The speed and rapidity with which we are beginning to be regarded as irrelevant…is really terrifying”?
We on the Government Benches have a settled view on the matters at hand. This afternoon, I will talk about two aspects of the Budget in particular: the opportunity that it offers to every part of the country to participate in our national success; and the imperative that it sets to move our economy to one of high productivity by addressing vital challenges, at the centre of which is building more homes.
Greg Clark
I will give way to the hon. Member for Middlesbrough (Andy McDonald)—the Member for my home town.
Andy McDonald (Middlesbrough) (Lab)
May I tell the Minister what is truly terrifying? It is his Government’s proposal to introduce a two-child policy that will punish the most vulnerable and the poorest in our society. That is the terrifying thing about this Budget.
Greg Clark
The hon. Gentleman can make that intervention in the parliamentary Labour party meeting later this afternoon, because I understand that that is the official Labour party policy.
Let me say a few words about devolution. As we recover from the recession and look to the future, it is clear that economic progress cannot come from London alone. One of the most striking achievements of the past five years is that the recovery has come from every part of our country. Businesses have created 2 million jobs over the past five years. Before 2010, only one in three jobs was created outside London and the south-east; now the figure is three in every five.
Where are exports growing fastest in the country? Is it in London? No, it is in the north-east, the home region of the hon. Member for Middlesbrough and myself. Where in England has the largest trade surplus? Is it London, or the south-east? No, it is the north-east again. Where is employment rising fastest? Is it in the south-east? No, it is in the north-west of England. For Britain to succeed, every part of the country must be firing on all cylinders.
That requires that we ask every city, town and county what they need to prosper. No two places are the same —Manchester cannot be confused with Margate, nor Newcastle with Newquay—so it should be obvious that a central plan for everywhere will end up working nowhere. For decades, however, that is exactly what central Government Departments tried to do; they prescribed blanket solutions for diverse local problems, which were enforced through unaccountable and expensive regional bureaucracies.
During the last Parliament, we made great strides towards reversing the failures of centralisation by devolving powers on planning, housing and economic growth. The Chancellor has already set out a bold vision for building the northern powerhouse, and this Budget will take us further.