Autumn Statement 2023

Baroness Pinnock Excerpts

Wednesday 29th November 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, I too welcome the noble Baroness, Lady Vere, to her new ministerial post and I remind the House of my direct interests in local government, as set out in the register. It may not perhaps be surprising that my perspective on the Autumn Statement is somewhat different from the Minister’s.

The Autumn Statement provided an opportunity for the Government to set out a coherent strategy for tackling the deep challenges facing households, businesses and public services. It contained a package of sweeteners for taxpayers, positive support for some businesses, a welcome increment to the national living wage and increases in benefit levels. However, it was not a programme that demonstrated that the Government understood the enormity of the challenges faced by both public services and many businesses.

The Government fail to understand that a successful country depends on well-funded, reliable and resilient public services. Our NHS currently has 7.7 million people on waiting lists for elective care. The latest information from Cancer Research UK shows that 20,000 cancer deaths per year are avoidable. The Autumn Statement was the chance to use the fiscal headroom available to provide the NHS with the resources it needs to reduce waiting lists and cut avoidable deaths. The NHS was not even mentioned. The Government are ignoring the consequences for individuals who are stranded on ever-increasing waiting lists to alleviate a painful hip or hernia. These are the very people who are on long-term work sickness, which results in burgeoning demands on welfare support. A strategic approach would recognise the links and attempt to address them.

The Joseph Rowntree Foundation reported in October that over 1 million children are experiencing destitution, which means that their families are struggling to provide the absolute basic needs to stay warm and have enough food and appropriate clothing. That is shocking enough, but the fact is that three quarters of those experiencing destitution are already in receipt of social security payments. The JRF recommended that universal credit should have what it called an “essentials guarantee” to ensure that everyone has a protected minimum amount of support to afford the very basic needs. The rise in benefit levels will not be sufficient to reduce this appalling picture of destitution. Maybe the Minister can say what actions the Government intend to take to substantially reduce the number of children experiencing destitution.

Increasing numbers below the breadline has consequences for other public services, particularly for local government. Yet another important piece of the jigsaw that provides for the needs of communities and families is under severe pressure, but was not referenced at all by the Government, who nevertheless expect local public services to pick up the pieces in times of stress and distress.

Local Government Association analysis shows that councils are facing funding gaps of £2.4 billion in 2023-24 and a further £1.6 billion the following year. This amount is equivalent to all local government spending on waste collection, libraries, and recreation and sport. The Institute for Fiscal Studies demonstrates that my own council of Kirklees is underfunded relative to its need by £13 million a year. Across local government there has been a reduction on average of 22% in real-terms spending, which for councils with higher levels of deprivation rises to 26%. In my own authority, this equates to a loss of £536 per household per year.

It is therefore not surprising that one in four councils are right on the brink of declaring what amounts to effective bankruptcy—this includes Conservative-led county councils, as well as Labour-led metropolitan authorities. Indeed, Nottingham City Council has this very day issued a Section 114 notice because it is unable to issue a balanced budget. Can the Minister provide any assurance that there will be funding support for councils to enable essential services to continue? For example, will councils be provided with additional funding to pay the increase in the national living wage? Many employees in councils will be affected, as will partner organisations providing essential care for adults and children.

Local authorities in more urban areas are spending around 30% of their core spending power on children’s services. Increases in central funding nowhere meet that justified level of demand, which leaves local authorities making desperate decisions. Over 70% of councils are considering scaling back leisure services. In my own council, there are current proposals which will result in the closing of swimming pools, leaving just two swimming pools for a population of 500,000 people. Again, this has consequences—for example, for those with arthritis who depend on swimming for exercise. The closure of sports centres means that the social prescribing of, say, yoga, dancing or badminton, becomes impossible, and those same people are then reliant on an already overstretched NHS. Perhaps the solution to the loss of swimming pools is to use our rivers, but the only action in the Autumn Statement in relation to tackling sewage-filled rivers is to slash the funding of the Environment Agency by 11% per year.

No doubt the Minister will respond by saying that there has been an increase in funding for adult social care, but what is never acknowledged is that over a quarter of this additional funding comes from the pockets of hard-pressed council tax payers in the form of the social care precept, which in my council amounts to £200 per household per year on top of the council tax.

Levelling up is the Government’s answer to the dire state of local services, yet the investment provided is, according to SIGOMA,

“a drop in the ocean”

compared to what councils have lost, alongside the bidding regime that requires councils to spend £30,000 per bid to the various levelling-up pots. Therefore, it is not surprising that people say that they are losing a sense of pride in the place where they live and feel that the country is going downhill. Those were the sentiments that were crying out for action in the Autumn Statement; what we were given was the equivalent of a few deck chairs being moved on the “Titanic”.