Spending Review and Autumn Statement

Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton Excerpts

Wednesday 25th November 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord O'Neill of Gatley]

My Lords, the announcement about the retention of business rates was made a number of weeks ago now. I may have misunderstood the question, but they are now available for all local authorities to retain. The latter part of the question was about the recommendation of the City Growth Commission, which I think most noble Lords will be aware that I used to chair. As we have agreed in principle with the deals we have already done, those areas that are prepared to take on mayoral responsibilities and have greater accountability will be given the powers to change and raise the rates suited to their own local desires and competitiveness.

[Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton (Lab)]

My Lords, I want to speak about the Minister’s apparent optimism about the northern powerhouse and regions in the light of the fact, following the previous speaker, that there is a disparity of funding for young people taking A-levels in sixth form colleges, schools and FE colleges. All the predictions are that many FE colleges will close. As for the north of England, I speak with detailed knowledge of Lancashire, where we have a fine tradition of tertiary colleges. For the Chancellor to be offering the chance for new school sixth forms or academies is pathetic, given the needs. If the Chancellor is serious about, for example, the construction industry, or the Government are serious about the care sector, how do they put that alongside the fact that closing FE colleges will restrict the number of people who are qualified to work in those fields and many others? I am afraid that too many members of this Government went from school to sixth form to university. The Leader of the House is saying that this is not the case, but far too much of their modelling is based on that sort of history, and they do not know enough about further education.

[Lord O'Neill of Gatley]

My Lords, I would love to give a very long answer to this question, not least because I had the pleasure of graduating through the comprehensive system, and of course I am very passionate about the northern powerhouse. I will say one or two very quick things. First, the BBC published an interesting poll last week of the views of people in the north about the northern powerhouse. The BBC, predictably, did not highlight what was possibly the most interesting part of the response, which was that nearly 70% of young people in the north believe that the Government could make a difference to their futures. That was very gratifying to see.

The second thing is about the new national funding formula. My strong suspicion is that this will benefit particularly the most disadvantaged parts of the country, including the north, relative to what would have been there before—although, as I said a few minutes ago, the details of that are yet to be provided even to me, never mind to everybody else.