Anne Marie Morris
Main Page: Anne Marie Morris (Conservative - Newton Abbot)Department Debates - View all Anne Marie Morris's debates with the HM Treasury
(13 years, 11 months ago)
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Anne Marie Morris (Newton Abbot) (Con)
This is a timely debate, and I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for South West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous) for securing it. I will keep my comments brief to assist one more Member to speak.
Public funding effectively comes in two chunks. The largest is spending through central Departments; the smaller comes through the grant formula for local government. The emphasis today has been on the application of the Barnett formula to the local government grant, but the reality is that Barnett has had a creep effect and has become the default mechanism for making decisions even in mainstream Departments. Reforming Barnett is about reforming it as it is applied not just in local government but elsewhere.
The particular problem in my south-western constituency of Newton Abbot, in Devon, is that we are one of the largest regions in the country. Consequently, we have huge transport challenges, but the sparsity effect is not taken into account when funding formulae are determined for our local authorities. Some 20% of the south-west is rural, and it is a well-known and well-researched fact that our rural deprivation is high, which carries a heavy cost: 22% of people in the south-west live on the state pension, the highest number in the country as a whole. We all know the impact of the elderly on local government spending. In the south-west, 10% of people are over 75. I am pleased to say that they have a high life expectancy, but unfortunately that does not help the coffers.
We were fortunate this time around. Devon county council suffered a spending power cut of only 1.77%; in Teignbridge, my district authority, it was 5.89%. For that, I am grateful, but looking forward, the issue must be addressed. As I said, Departments have used Barnett when considering health funding and other devolved sums of money, and as a result, the south-west has fallen down the league tables. In 2009-10, the south-west was allocated only £42 billion across Departments, the third lowest regional spend in England. It has caused an awful lot of problems. We have 12.5% of the population, yet only 12% of the spend, even before aggravating factors are considered.
Children in Devon are particularly underfunded. We are 146th of 152 in the spending league tables. It has been calculated that in health care, we are £12 million short of the figure that would have been fair. We have the lowest spend per head in England on transport infrastructure, yet we are extremely rural and 14% of the population have no car. I urge the Minister to consider seriously the request for a needs-based formula, as it is clearly the way forward. I commend the proposal made by my hon. Friend the Member for South West Bedfordshire.