Local Government Finance

Anna Dixon Excerpts

Wednesday 5th February 2025 Commons Chamber

[Shaun Davies]

I agree with my hon. Friend, the Chair of the Select Committee, that it is not sustainable. It is also bad for children, families, councils and communities. If children are in temporary accommodation, they genuinely do not know what school they will go to next term. That is bad for children, who are the next generation of citizens.

We need systematic change. Central Government need to ease the burden on local authorities and spread out the load; build enough affordable homes so that we do not have 354,000 people who are homeless every single night in England; move care into the community, as the Darzi report recommended; and resolve the systemic issues so that social care providers do not face funding crises every single year. I add my modest voice to the calls of other hon. Members: will the Government please communicate the public health grant to local authorities so that they can set budgets for the next financial year in a meaningful way?

[Anna Dixon (Shipley) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend makes a good argument about the amount of local government funding that has to go into adult social care. The cuts that we saw under the Conservative Government have hit disabled and older people particularly hard. Does my hon. Friend agree that the new Labour Government’s uplift to local government funding will go at least some way towards addressing the critical cuts that have affected disabled people and social care?

[Shaun Davies]

I thank my hon. Friend and recognise the contribution that she has made for that section of our society. I agree that far more needs to happen, and I know that the Minister is as ambitious as the rest of us to ensure that those 14 years of austerity are addressed.

Giving councils the funding that they need is a welcome change from the constant cuts under the Conservatives, and it helps us to address the emergencies in the short term, but it is also important that we have a Government who accept that the long-term systemic issues require transformation, who do not pretend that everything is fine, and who accept that things need to change and that local government is faster, cheaper and more agile in delivering services on behalf of our communities and our citizens. As I said earlier, it is the best preventive service this country has.

The Government’s missions are ones that I and many Labour MPs back, but almost all of them run through local government. Whether it is safer streets, housing, social care or reforms to the NHS, it requires a confident, healthy local government sector that is able to deliver those services. As I said, this is a vital first step. I know that the Minister, who has exceptional experience in the sector and huge amounts of respect, also recognises that, and I look forward to seeing what comes next.

--- Later in debate ---

[Robbie Moore]

I will give way to my neighbour, the hon. Member for Shipley (Anna Dixon). I hope that she will join me in opposing the council tax rise.

[Anna Dixon]

As the hon. Gentleman well knows, the cuts made to local government by the Conservatives when in government, through the grant, hit councils such as Bradford district and those mentioned by other hon. Members the hardest. That is why Bradford council was pushed into exceptional financing, has had to borrow and has had no choice but to put up council tax. Even with the council tax rise, it will still be below average. Does the hon. Gentleman agree with my assessment?

[Robbie Moore]

I am pleased to see that the hon. Member has been given her Labour Whips’ handout note. It is interesting that not once did I hear her oppose the Labour Government’s increase in council tax. Not only that, but she did not call out the mismanagement of the Labour-controlled authority. I am referring to the whopping £50 million of taxpayers’ money spent on the music venue Bradford Live. It was promised that it would open for district of culture—we have been awarded city of culture in Bradford district, but I refer to it as district of culture because that money should be benefiting all the constituents across the Bradford district—and was estimated to cost around £25 million, but Labour councillors signed off an expenditure of £50 million. It is not even open to the public yet, even though it is city of culture now.

[Anna Dixon]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Robbie Moore]

I will not give way, because I do not think the hon. Lady will agree with me and many of the constituents across the Bradford district in opposing a nearly 10% increase in council tax. I hope that her constituents are watching.

Not only that; it also comes down to the absolute mismanagement of children’s services by Bradford council. Let us not forget that the previous Conservative Government had to step in and take children’s services off Bradford council because multiple damning Ofsted reports indicated that it was not through the fault of those providing children’s services and the level of care needed on the ground that the services were failing; instead, the disconnect in management at the very top of Bradford council was so bad and was failing our children that the Government had to step in and set up a children’s trust, which I must say is now having benefits.

Is it not ironic that the Labour Government will refer to our 14 years, but in 2021 the Labour administration at Bradford council submitted, as part of its statutory duty, a report stating that the council was in a “sound financial position”? Yet now the council is claiming that it is £150 million in debt and seeking a council tax increase of 9.9%, despite having requested a 15% increase. What on earth are this Government doing to hold to account local authorities that are failing constituents in the delivery of services? Where on earth is that accountability?

Bradford Live is not the only place on which huge amounts of taxpayers’ money has been misspent; One City Park, in the centre of Bradford, is another such venue. Car parks are being knocked down. That is not the job of a local authority. We should be relying on private sector inward investment to pay for regeneration projects. The job of a local authority is to focus on providing statutory-based services, not dipping in and out of regeneration schemes, and failing, at the cost of my constituents. Now we see through our city of culture status, which does not seem to be benefiting many of my constituents, the council wanting to construct a fancy art piece in Centenary Project. Who on earth in the Keighley and Ilkley constituency is benefiting as a result of that work?

[Robbie Moore]

I absolutely agree. That point has been made not only by my hon. Friend, but by many Conservative Members. They say that the Government may, on the one hand, be passing down finance to local government, but they are, on the other hand, taking it away through the increase in employer national insurance contributions. This is a classic socialist policy: they are taking with one hand and telling councils how to spend it with the other.

Not only are my constituents going to be exposed to an increase of just about 10% in council tax, without the opportunity for a referendum to decide, but they are experiencing vast cuts to local services. We have had two household waste and recycling centres close in my constituency. The council is selling off assets. There are assets that have not yet been protected, despite the warm words coming from our Labour local authority. Assets such as the Ilkley lido, Keighley market and shops are now being considered for disposal, creating added worry to many of the occupants of those shops that the council own.

We have seen parking charges rise in villages such as Addingham, which means that the shops, which need those people to buy their products and to benefit their local economy, are now facing detrimental impact. Where does the issue of fairness kick in? In my constituency, the local council, which has increased council tax, spend that hard-earned money on a huge amount of mismanaged projects, wastage projects and projects that are not even open.

I submitted a freedom of information request to find out whether my constituents were getting a fair level of spending in the constituency. I asked the local authority how much had been spent on highways in my constituency over a two-year period. There are five constituencies across the Bradford district, so one would expect the figure to be about 20%, but it was about 7% on average over the two-year period. No wonder the state of potholes in my constituency is far worse than in the inner-city centre of Bradford. How can I justify backing any increase in council tax when the spending is so dire?

I want to come back to the issue of accountability. The last chief executive of Bradford council, Kersten England, held that post for a long period, and oversaw the mismanagement of finance and the diabolical handling of children’s services before the last Conservative Government stepped in, but—jobs for the boys—what is she doing now? She is chairing city of culture. What an absolute disgrace, in terms of who is being held accountable by the Government.

Let me quote some of the concerns that constituents have raised with me about council tax being raised by 9.9%. One said, “I will be 70 next year, and I am still having to continue to work to make ends meet.” Another said, “I am disabled and now, as a result of this council tax hike, will have to use my own savings to look after myself.” Another said, “I am a single mother with three children and I simply can’t afford this.” Another said, “I didn’t ask the council to throw money at a concert venue that is not open”—and therefore not benefiting my constituents—“yet they have done that and are expecting me to pay the price.” Another said, “It’s difficult to see why I would like to live through my retirement, having to spend this much more.” The list goes on.

There is only one long-term solution, and I will be interested to see what the Government have to say about it. I have long been campaigning, along with the former Member of Parliament for Shipley, Philip Davies, to pull our two constituencies out of Bradford council and create our own unitary authority away from the mismanagement of Bradford city.

[Anna Dixon]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Robbie Moore]

I give way to the hon. Member for Shipley.

[Anna Dixon]

As the hon. Gentleman knows, he and my predecessor put the idea of a breakaway council to his own Government, who rejected it as a complete non-starter. Let us work together across Bradford for the benefit of all our constituents.

[Robbie Moore]

I would be interested to hear what the hon. Lady’s constituents say. She has quoted the previous Administration completely wrongly, because they were absolutely behind the campaign to split the two constituencies apart. Indeed, I had many a meeting with the boundary commission. The challenge is that we have to get consent from the local authority, and we have a Labour-controlled authority that will not go anywhere near this campaign. Why? Because they know that my constituents are effectively the cash cow for the rest of Bradford. We are the dominant contributor to council tax and business rates, which feed city centre projects in the centre of Bradford.

I would like to understand the current Government’s position on my campaign to pull my constituency and Shipley—I believe I speak on behalf of many Shipley constituents—away from Bradford council so that we can have our own unitary authority, spend our own council tax and business rates in our own area, ensure that our local priorities are indeed prioritised, and leave Bradford city to make its decisions. I would be interested to hear what the Minister has to say on that, because that is the only way of achieving a long-term solution for my constituents across Keighley, Ilkley, Silsden, Worth Valley and the wider constituency that I represent.

Proportional Representation: General Elections

Anna Dixon Excerpts

Thursday 30th January 2025 Commons Chamber

[Anna Dixon (Shipley) (Lab)]

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds Central and Headingley (Alex Sobel) for opening the debate so eloquently, and I am grateful for the many excellent contributions that we have heard from Members on both sides of the House.

As a member of both the Labour Campaign for Electoral Reform and the all-party parliamentary group for fair elections, I consider it a real privilege to be speaking in this debate. Back in 1996 I was a United Nations volunteer in Bosnia, which was holding its first elections after the Dayton peace agreement; I was there to make sure that those elections were free and fair. It was very moving to be involved in ensuring that the postal ballots of people whose lives had been so disrupted by ethnic cleansing were received and were counted. That underlined for me the importance of giving everyone the chance to vote, and to know that their vote counts.

It pains me that here we are, in Britain in 2025, and those things are not true. We have heard many other Members talk about the disengagement with politics today, which I think is reflected in turnouts—not everyone is voting—and we have seen some of that further undermined by the last Conservative Government, who denied people votes through the introduction of voter ID. Independent oversight is also important for free and fair elections, yet the Electoral Commission has again been weakened. Many aspects of our democracy have been undermined, with the result that people do not feel confident that their vote and their voice count. As we have heard, millions have found themselves unrepresented in this Parliament, with six out of 10 voters ending up with a local MP for whom they did not vote.

We have heard today about the extent of tactical voting. I was elected in a marginal seat up in Shipley. We have been told that across the country, one in three people voted tactically. Like the hon. Member for Chelmsford (Marie Goldman), I spent a great deal of time on the doorstep trying to persuade people who would otherwise have voted Liberal Democrat, or indeed Green, that we needed to join forces, and asking them please to lend me their vote. While I am extremely grateful to the many voters who did indeed lend me their votes, and whom I now stand here and represent—and, of course, I would love it if they voted for me again at the next general election—I would prefer them to vote for their first preference, as, indeed, would they.

That is true of marginal seats, but we have also heard today that in safe seats many people feel disenfranchised, concluding that it is not even worth voting for the party they would otherwise support because it will not make a difference. Even those who are voting for the party that is winning those safe seats feel that they are under-represented, because if there is a very large majority, many of those votes are still represented by only one person in this place. For all sorts of reasons, people do not feel that their vote counts, and this is breeding distrust in politics. Just 12% of people in this country trust political parties. We have to reverse that. People must feel that their voice counts, and it does not help when political parties campaign only in marginal seats.

I turn to the benefits of PR, for which I am a strong advocate. I saw as a young politics student in Germany how PR led to more stable government. In my work in health and social care, I saw Governments elected under PR in the Netherlands and Germany pursuing long-term strategic policies on key issues such as social care reform, on which there is much common ground between Members from across the House. It was consensual and collaborative politics.

We know that the public do not like the heckling and braying that is common in this place on a Wednesday lunchtime. Some of our best debates are those in which we are in some agreement—for example, on climate and nature, or on violence against women and girls. I hope that with a system of PR, we would have better politics, and that is why I support the establishment of a national commission for electoral reform. The Government could get on the front foot, show that they are serious about addressing our unrepresentative voting system, and stem the rise in disengagement and distrust in politics. We could bring the public with us and rebuild trust in our democracy.

--- Later in debate ---

[Claire Young]

rose—

[Anna Dixon (Shipley) (Lab)]

rose—

[Paul Holmes]

I am spoilt for choice and I do not have much time left. I will give way to the hon. Member for Thornbury and Yate (Claire Young) and then to the hon. Member for Shipley.

Holocaust Memorial Day

Anna Dixon Excerpts

Thursday 23rd January 2025 Commons Chamber

[Shockat Adam (Leicester South) (Ind)]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker.

“Hate is the worst 4 letter word that exists”,

said Holocaust survivor Mathilde Middleberg.

I am deeply honoured to be called in the debate. As movingly articulated by the hon. Member for Hendon (David Pinto-Duschinsky), 80 years has passed since the liberation of Auschwitz, but it is heartbreaking to see acts of genocide, hate and evil still happening across the world and increasing threats from a new wind of far-right. The horrors of the camps must never be forgotten, and the testimonies of the survivors are still ringing in our ears and are as relevant today as they were 80 years ago, because what is 80 years in the history of the world but a blink of an eye? Yet, sadly, current events suggest that some people today need a reminder of the lessons of that horror.

For the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Bergen-Belsen, the University of Leicester in my constituency published extracts from the east midlands oral history archive of an interview with Leicester nurse Erti Wilford. Erti treated the survivors of Belsen for two years after its liberation by the British Army. She spoke of approaching Bergen-Belsen and smelling the dreadful smells from as far away as five miles, saying that she had:

“Never seen so much suffering and lice and filth. At Belsen they were just bag of bones and it was just dreadful, but some of them lived, it was quite incredible”.

Erti recalls the excitement of a camp doctor finally being allowed to deliver a baby and return it back to its mother rather than hand it to a guard for execution.

We must remember the names of Anne and Margot Frank, whose final resting place is Bergen-Belsen. They unfortunately died of typhus approximately a month before the liberation.

One would hope that such experiences mean that hate and genocidal and Nazi actions are a thing of the past, but sadly that is not the case. As articulated by the hon. Member for Brigg and Immingham (Martin Vickers), in Bosnia, the trucks arrived and they said, “Men, young and old, tall and short—get on and we will transport you to safety.” Within two weeks, 8,000 Muslim men, women and children were executed.

[Anna Dixon (Shipley) (Lab)]

I commend hon. Members for their contributions. Would the hon. Member join me in congratulating organisations such as Remembering Srebrenica, which has done so much to remember those Muslim boys and men killed during the Bosnian war, which is now some 30 years ago—we will be remembering that anniversary this year—and to learn lessons as well?

[Shockat Adam]

I welcome that intervention. All the work being done is absolutely vital.

We have seen genocide in Rwanda, where close to 1 million Tutsi were killed, and now, as we speak, in Sudan. If “never again” means anything, it means that the international community must take decisive action to pursue the perpetrators through the International Court of Justice. Instead, the far right is almost being indulged. Earlier this week, people who rioted on 6 January, who very much have far-right tendencies, were forgiven. Many of them were radicalised online.

This year’s Holocaust Memorial Day theme is to take action “for a better future”. That is why I am delighted to hear from the Minister that education will remain a priority. If we do not learn the lessons of history, we will live them again. Inter-faith work is absolutely vital. That is why I am proud to have been part of a team that set up an inter-faith group so that religions can talk to each other, not point fingers, and build bridges, not burn them. We must also take action against and hold social media firms and publishers to account for far-right misinformation.

I end with the words of Elie Wiesel:

“We must take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.”

Oral Answers to Questions

Anna Dixon Excerpts

Monday 20th January 2025 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Hall (Warrington South) (Lab/Co-op)]

3. What steps she plans to take to reform the leasehold system.

[Anna Dixon (Shipley) (Lab)]

6. What steps she plans to take to reform the leasehold system.

[Mr Joshua Reynolds (Maidenhead) (LD)]

15. What assessment she has made of the potential merits of abolishing residential leaseholds.

--- Later in debate ---

[Matthew Pennycook]

I fully appreciate the desire of my hon. Friend’s constituents to take advantage of the provisions in the 2024 Act that will make it cheaper and easier for existing leaseholders in houses and flats to buy their freehold. Unfortunately, we discovered on assuming office that the previous Government had passed the Act with a number of specific but serious flaws that prevent certain provisions, including those relating to enfranchisement valuations, from operating as intended. We need to fix those flaws through primary legislation, and we intend to do so at the earliest possible opportunity.

[Anna Dixon]

Earlier this month, together with about 40 Labour MPs, I met the managing director of FirstPort. I raised the case of 90-year-old Tom, who lives in a retirement complex in Bingley in my constituency. Like many of the residents whose stories we shared, he has been hit by extortionate service charges that have risen way above inflation. Does the Minister agree that stronger regulation of managing agents is needed to protect pensioners like Tom and others in leasehold flats from unaffordable housing costs?

[Matthew Pennycook]

We are very much aware that some managing agents provide a very poor quality of service to people like Tom and leaseholders across the country. Managing agents play a key role in the maintenance of multi-occupancy buildings and freehold estates, and their importance will only grow as we transition towards a commonhold future. As such, we have made it clear that we will strengthen the regulation of managing agents to drive up the standard of their service, and we are considering carefully the recommendations made in Lord Best’s 2019 report on regulating the property agent sector.

Oral Answers to Questions

Anna Dixon Excerpts

Monday 2nd September 2024 Commons Chamber

[Matthew Pennycook]

It sounds as if the hon. Lady has a response for the NPPF consultation that is in development. I welcome her views on playing fields. On CPOs, there is a discretionary power to disapply section 17 of the Land Compensation Act 1961 in relation to hope value. We need to ensure that that is brought into force; then we will take further steps to reform CPOs, as outlined in our manifesto.

[Anna Dixon (Shipley) (Lab)]

The last Government made local councils compete for pots of money. Bingley pool in my constituency was due to receive a levelling-up award. Those funds are vital for the regeneration of our towns. Can my hon. Friend update the House on the review of those awards, and on the timescale for informing communities such as mine, who have been let down by the Conservatives’ unfunded promises, of the results?

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government (Alex Norris)]

I share my hon. Friend’s anger that promises that did not have a strong financial backing were made to communities—promises that the Government are having to work their way through. As I said, we want to move away from the broken competitive model, but we know that promises have been made, and we are working on them. Hon. Members will hear further answers from us before the Budget on 30 October.