Local Government Finance Settlement

Baroness Jones of Whitchurch Excerpts

Thursday 22nd January 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)]

My Lords, I am extremely grateful to my noble friend Lord Beecham for tabling this Motion today. Like others, I pay tribute to his formidable record of representing local government over many years, as well as the demolition job he has done on the Government’s record today. He quite rightly points out that the scale of the cuts now being demanded of councils will inevitably have a devastating effect on core services and vulnerable residents. What is truly shocking is the unfairness of the distribution of the cuts, with the 10 most deprived areas having their spending power cut by 16 times the amount of the 10 least deprived areas. It is not difficult to see whose side the Government are really on. I also welcome the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Southwark, and congratulate them on their excellent maiden speeches. I look forward to working with them in the future.

In the short time I have, I would like to focus on two examples of the consequences of the Government’s short-sighted policies for disadvantaged children and young people. A couple of weeks ago, we had a very good debate in this Chamber on the importance of early intervention for child development. There was widespread support for the notion that intervention and family support for the very youngest children, those between the ages of nought and three, could make the biggest difference to a child’s life chances and their opportunities for social mobility. This was particularly so for children from the most deprived families, with increasing evidence that this could lead to fewer demands on public services at a later date.

Of course, this was the very notion that led the previous Government to develop the network of Sure Start centres. This policy was so popular that it forced David Cameron to pledge that the centres would be safe under a Tory Government in his hands. Sadly, we now know that this was not the case. The ring-fenced funding was removed and already 600 centres have closed, with councils now forced to consider further closures to meet the new budget reductions.

The last Department for Education figures show that spending by councils on early years services was slashed by some £400 million over three years. In 2013-14 alone, spending on children’s centres and associated early years activities fell by 8.5%. This is despite all the evidence that investment in parenting and support services for very young people can reap enormous rewards later, both for individuals and, indeed, for the state. Does the Minister agree that there is an urgent need to revitalise the Sure Start network, perhaps as a basis for co-located family services, and with secure funding reinstated?

Secondly, I want to refer to the decline in youth services. Again, the Department for Education estimates that these budgets fell by more than 12% in just one year, compounding year-on-year decreases. This too represents a very short-sighted approach. For example, last week I had the pleasure of visiting the Hangleton and Knoll youth project in Hove, along with my honourable friend Tristram Hunt and our Labour candidate, Peter Kyle. We heard about the fantastic work the project is doing to turn around the lives of young people, particularly those who are alienated from the school system and would otherwise be facing poverty and unemployment. But, like many other youth centres around the country, it faces a precarious future. What these young people clearly need is a route into full-time training or quality paid apprenticeships, and it was heartening to hear the leader of the Labour group pledging, if elected, to end youth unemployment in the city by the 2019 election.

Given David Cameron’s new-found friendship with the Green Party, I wonder if the Minister could ask him to have a word with the Green-run council in Brighton and Hove about recognising the value of its youth services and to do something about the hundreds of young people in the city who have been unemployed for more than a year. While he is at it, please could he also have a word with the council about the appallingly low levels of recycling in the city, which have actually fallen by 16% since the incompetent Green Party took office? That highlights its abject failure to deliver on what should be a basic issue for any party that cares about the environment. Finally, will the Minister join me in congratulating the Labour-run Welsh Government, who are already achieving 54% recycling rates and are well on their way to their zero-waste goal? I look forward to hearing his response.