Northern Ireland Protocol

Debate between Chi Onwurah and Brandon Lewis

Wednesday 10th March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Brandon Lewis]

My hon. Friend makes a good point. I have been fortunate in this role to be able to engage with and have advice and recommendations from the Northern Ireland business community through the business engagement forum, which we pull together and which meets regularly. That has been invaluable. I have also welcomed the engagement via the Joint Committee structures with representatives from business and civic society in Northern Ireland, of which more has been committed to. I hope that Vice-President Šefčovič and his team will be able to engage in more of that more quickly; it has been a few weeks since the last one. I think that it is important that we continue to take those meetings forward and that it would be good to have as much business involvement and contribution to this as possible, because that is what informs a perfectly good, really solid understanding of the needs of business for those flows of supplies for the people of Northern Ireland.

[Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central) (Lab) [V]]

The Prime Minister is far keener to celebrate a yet-to-be-built bridge between Great Britain and Northern Ireland than to take responsibility for the barriers that he has put there. Just five weeks ago, he said that the protocol must not

“place… barriers of any kind…down the Irish sea.”—[Official Report, 3 February 2021; Vol. 688, c. 948.]

Will the Secretary of State explain, then, why he negotiated an agreement that did just that?

[Brandon Lewis]

The hon. Lady may want to have a look at the Command Paper that we published last summer around how the protocol can work. It was very clear about making sure that we had a pragmatic and flexible approach, so that goods could flow cleanly and simply for people in Northern Ireland. We have also always been very clear about building on the SPS checks, which, in one form or another, have been there since the 19th century. That is the reality of recognising the single epidemiological unit of the island of Ireland—we have always been up front and clear about that. We are also clear that we want to make sure that there is not just unfettered access for Northern Ireland businesses to mainland Great Britain, which we have done, but this good, flexible free flow. The impact that we have seen over the last few weeks is why we had to take the decisions that we did last week to ensure that we have time for businesses to adapt and time in other areas to work with the EU to get permanent and long-term solutions.

Northern Ireland Protocol: UK Legal Obligations

Debate between Chi Onwurah and Brandon Lewis

Tuesday 8th September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Brandon Lewis]

My right hon. Friend makes a really important point and that is one of the key areas the Joint Committee is continuing to work on. It is important that it comes to a satisfactory, sensible and positive conclusion for both parties, to ensure that we can deliver on the protocol in a way that we can all agree on in a positive way. That is the perfect outcome. That is what we are focused on and want to see achieved.

[Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central) (Lab)]

The Secretary of State knows that the north-east has traditionally sent proportionately more of its young people into the armed forces than any other region. As a consequence, we have many veterans who served during the troubles. They, their loved ones and indeed all of us are proud of the hard-won peace. At the heart of the protocol is protecting the Good Friday agreement. Is he seriously contemplating using it as a bargaining chip in a trade deal?

[Brandon Lewis]

If the hon. Lady looks through my answers throughout this afternoon, she will see that I have been absolutely clear that it is quite the opposite: we are determined to ensure that we have a structure and a situation for the United Kingdom and the people of Northern Ireland that continues to deliver on the Good Friday agreement. We are determined to ensure we do that. That is a peace that has been hard won and it must be protected and delivered in the future as well.

Electoral Registration: EU Citizens

Debate between Chi Onwurah and Brandon Lewis

Thursday 25th April 2019 Commons Chamber

[Brandon Lewis]

As I said earlier, the UC1 form is there for anybody to complete and send in. It is on the website, it takes about 30 seconds to complete—or maybe a minute, for anybody whose handwriting is as slow as mine—and I hope that as many EU citizens as possible who are able to vote in this country take advantage of that opportunity and use their vote, if we have the elections.

[Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central) (Lab)]

European Union citizens make a huge contribution to our public services, our economy, our communities and our country, and to my city of Newcastle. I hope that the Minister recognises that and recognises that they have suffered immensely through the Brexit process, not being able to vote in the first place and facing a rise in hate crime and continued uncertainty about their status and that of loved ones. Does he not think that he should go the extra mile to facilitate their voting and that not doing so adds insult to injury and reflects a lack of flexibility of responsiveness, which is the reason why we are in this mess in the first place?

[Brandon Lewis]

The reason we are in this position is that on 29 March too many Members of Parliament did not vote to leave the European Union. However, I agree with the hon. Lady that EU citizens play a hugely important part in our economy, culture and society. That is why it is important that the Government and the Prime Minister have been clear from the very beginning that we want to protect and secure the rights of EU citizens in the UK. They are a hugely important part of our economy and I hope that as many as possible who wish to do so take advantage of the opportunity to vote in the elections, should we hold them. However, I still hold to the point that my main aim is to ensure that we do not have those elections in the first place and that we honour the referendum result.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Chi Onwurah and Brandon Lewis

Monday 6th March 2017 Commons Chamber

[Brandon Lewis]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right; arguably that will be the most watched sporting event in the world this year. It is an opportunity for the United Kingdom, and indeed for Wales, to show clearly what we have to offer. I was delighted to accept his invitation to go and meet the team down in Cardiff. We will keep a close eye on them to ensure that they have all the structural organisation they need to give everyone a fantastic event.

[Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central) (Lab)]

T2. In October, baby monitors were hijacked by organised crime for cyber-attacks. Last week, the secrets that children whisper to their teddy bears were to be found online. This Government have ensured that responsibility for cyber-security is literally all over the place. Does the Home Secretary realise that when there is a devastating attack by an internet-connected device—and there will be—she will be the one we blame?

Housing in Newcastle

Debate between Chi Onwurah and Brandon Lewis

Tuesday 10th May 2016 Westminster Hall

[The Minister for Housing and Planning (Brandon Lewis)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship today, Mr Hollobone. I congratulate the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne Central (Chi Onwurah) on securing the debate.

I do not recognise the Shelter figures. I have said openly that they are out-of-date figures based on a false premise, so the Government have secured data from local authorities to make sure we are working on up-to-date figures. Some 16 million pieces of data form that information. The hon. Lady might want to look back at the Housing and Planning Bill and what is actually in it. There have been discussions over the past couple of weeks, including in the House yesterday and in the Lords, and she will see that quite a lot of things will be coming through in statutory instruments during the summer. However, we have garnered 16 million pieces of data to make sure we have the correct information.

[Chi Onwurah]

Are the 16 million pieces of data that will form the basis of housing policy publicly available?

[Brandon Lewis]

While we are doing policy formation, they are not, but they will be in the public domain in future.

The hon. Lady mentioned the issues that Newcastle has in building houses; I think Newcastle should build houses. I visited recently and saw some of the excellent work being done up there with housing associations and private developers in Newcastle, but local authorities have a part to play in building different tenures of housing that are appropriate for their local areas. I would encourage them to make use of the £3.4 billion worth of funding that is available within local authorities for that specific purpose, before we even touch on the almost £23 billion worth of reserves that local authorities have got, which they could choose to use. Indeed, Newcastle has got £161 million before we even get on to the housing revenue account borrowing, which is £3.4 billion that they can use.

[Chi Onwurah]

I want to press the Minister on the figures that he is using. Is he saying that the £161 million of reserves is available to be spent as Newcastle wishes?

[Brandon Lewis]

The hon. Lady will have to ask Newcastle City Council. It is its money and its reserves. She might want to have a chat with the leader in Newcastle about how he chooses to use his reserves. Also, before we even reach the housing revenue account, local government has £3.4 billion that it can use. Indeed, we created more headroom 18 months or two years ago for local authorities, but there is more than that as well. We want to ensure there is good quality affordable housing for everybody. We are determined to increase home ownership: 86% of our population want to own their own home. We are also making sure that we deliver an increase in the housing supply.

The hon. Lady will hopefully take note of the fact that there was a 25% increase in housing supply last year alone, coming from the lowest level of house building that this country has seen since the 1920s, a situation we inherited from the now shadow Housing Minister, the right hon. Member for Wentworth and Dearne (John Healey), who oversaw just 88,000 homes being built. We are now up to 181,000 new properties created last year. In Labour’s time in government, for every 170 homes sold under right to buy, only one got built. Under the reinvigorated scheme that this Government have introduced, it is one for one, and under the extended scheme that we are now rolling out to the housing associations, it will also be one for one. Thanks to my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond Park (Zac Goldsmith), in London it will be two for one.

In Newcastle, a third of all homes built since 2010 have been affordable, reflecting more than £22 million worth of Government investment. I am pleased to see the progress —I have seen some of it for myself—in public and private partnerships, which have built some 1,800 homes. That is just one part of the progress we have made since 2010. By 2010—this is an important fact—the stock of affordable homes had fallen by 420,000. We had quite a big housing deficit to deal with, which we inherited from Labour, with 1.8 million families on the social housing waiting list. Five years later we were the first Government since the 1980s to finish their term with more affordable homes than when they started. We delivered 193,000 affordable homes in England between 2011 and 2015, exceeding our target by 23,000, and on our watch councils built more homes in five years than in the previous 13.

We are now investing a further £8 billion to deliver 400,000 affordable housing starts, including 100,000 homes for affordable rent. That is the largest affordable house building programme by any Government since the 1970s. As I have said, we respect the fact that 86% of the population want to own their own home; that is why our affordable housing programme will also support home ownership, and will include a commitment to build 200,000 starter homes. Younger first-time buyers will be able to buy their first home with a 20% discount. That means that in Newcastle upon Tyne the average starter home would cost no more than £120,000. When that is linked to a 5% deposit, we are starting to see affordability—of a kind that has not been present for the best part of a decade—coming back. We are still seeking expressions of interest from local authorities who want to use the £1.2 billion of funding that the Prime Minister announced in January to deliver starter homes.

Others in the hon. Lady’s constituency might be interested in shared ownership, with a deposit as low as £1,500—part of £4.1 billion of funding that we have opened up as a route into home ownership, delivering homes for 135,000 people. Our prospectus inviting bids for that funding outside London was published just a few weeks ago, and I encourage all local authorities to look at the bidding for that. Some 600 households in Newcastle have benefited from Help to Buy, and we have extended the scheme so more can follow. We are clear that social tenants should also have the opportunity to achieve their ambition and realise their aspiration of home ownership. That is why we have said we will extend the right to buy to those 1.3 million tenants, so that they have the same opportunities. Housing associations have also committed themselves to providing an additional home for every property sold. That is in addition to the reinvigorated right to buy scheme. The maximum discount was increased in 2012 and, as I have said, for the first time ever a requirement was introduced to build a new affordable home for every additional sale, nationally.

I am pleased to say that 574 homes have been sold through right to buy in Newcastle since 2010, but I want to be clear that we are not just supporting potential home owners. We are reducing the cost of social renting, as the hon. Lady outlined. The cost of social rent has roughly doubled in the past five years; it has been moving up faster than private rents. The 1% reduction will benefit tenants and if it benefits the wider public by reducing the deficit that we were left by Labour, that is a good thing as well. Almost £400 million will deliver 8,000 new specialist affordable homes for the most vulnerable in society as well.

In the private rented sector, which the hon. Lady touched on, we will continue to boost supply, which is the best way of driving up quality, choice and affordability for tenants. That includes our £1 billion Build to Rent fund, and the £3.5 billion guarantee scheme to finance those thousands of extra homes built specifically for private rent. Tenants in the private rented sector will also be better protected thanks to changes we are implementing through the Housing and Planning Bill to target rogue landlords, including banning orders for the most prolific and serious offenders, civil penalties of up to £30,000 for certain breaches, and a fit and proper person test for landlords letting out licensed properties. That is the biggest package ever seen in the sector.

The Government were elected to give everyone the best chance of living a fulfilling and good life. That will be achieved only by improving the housing market in every part of the country. Newcastle is no exception, as I am sure the hon. Lady will agree. That is why the Housing and Planning Bill is so important. It will drive up housing supply, and I hope that later today the House of Lords will recognise that the Government have an electoral mandate to deliver starter homes and the extension of the right to buy; I hope that they will stop blocking the will of the elected House, and that the Labour party will stop blocking the will of the public, expressed through the electoral mandate, and the protocols and will of the House of Commons, which show some of the biggest majorities of this Parliament. That is our mandate and we are determined to repay the trust of the British people who elected us on that manifesto, by building more homes that people can afford, making it easier for communities to build the homes they need and, above all, supporting the aspirations of people who work hard and want to buy a home of their own.

Question put and agreed to.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Chi Onwurah and Brandon Lewis

Monday 8th September 2014 Commons Chamber

[Brandon Lewis]

I will write to the hon. Lady with that information.

[Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central) (Lab)]

11. What assessment he has made of the adequacy of the discretion given to local authority officers in the national planning policy framework.

[The Minister of State, Department for Communities and Local Government (Brandon Lewis)]

Our planning reforms and locally led planning system have given more discretion to local authorities—to members, and through them, to local communities—especially when preparing local plans that identify where development should and should not go. Wherever possible we want local authorities to make decisions about their local areas.

[Chi Onwurah]

On Friday, following a concerted campaign by local residents, Newcastle city council exercised that discretion and rejected an application recommended by officers to site a two-storey McDonald’s drive-through opposite the city’s largest school at the northern gateway to our city. Does the Minister agree that the spirit of localism is best served by McDonald’s respecting democracy and not appealing?

[Brandon Lewis]

The hon. Lady will appreciate that I cannot comment on a particular planning application, but she is right to say that local democracy means that local decisions should be made by local members of local council authorities.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Chi Onwurah and Brandon Lewis

Monday 3rd March 2014 Commons Chamber

[Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central) (Lab)]

T7. Residents, constituents and firefighters from across Newcastle are writing to me shocked and angered by the proposed closure of Gosforth fire station. Before the Prime Minister was elected to office, he promised that front-line services would not be impacted, but this Government are cutting Tyne and Wear fire authority’s budget by 23% by 2017. How on earth does the Secretary of State believe it can lose a quarter of its funding without that having an impact on front-line services?

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (Brandon Lewis)]

This body has had a cut of a couple of per cent. in spending power for each of the past couple of years, and has built up its reserves and been able to spend that on extra training facilities when the Government already have a training facility. The hon. Lady should put pressure on that fire chief to make sure he is making his decisions based on local risk. The local risk decision is one that only the local fire service can make.

Local Government Finance

Debate between Chi Onwurah and Brandon Lewis

Wednesday 12th February 2014 Commons Chamber

[Brandon Lewis]

I thank my hon. Friend for raising the important issue of damping. I know that hon. Members have differing views about it, but it means that we can have stability in the baseline. It also recognises need as we move towards a new system, the business rates retention scheme, which I will turn to in a few moments.

Councils can become masters of their own destiny in other ways. The new homes bonus rewards councils that have increased the local housing supply, helping them to meet the needs of a growing community. In 2014-15, the new homes bonus will be worth £916 million, which is money for councils to spend as they see fit. Those authorities that have had an increase in their funding—Members have mentioned some of them—have had that increase because they have done the right thing: they have built more houses, and they have got more money for doing so.

The business rates retention scheme has revolutionised the potential to grow local economies, and has given councils a hand in their success. Under the previous Government, councils did not get to see that money—£11 billion in business rates—that they can now retain. Councils sit on a total of £230 billion of assets, and we must do more to turn those assets into better services for local people.

[Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central) (Lab)]

The Minister has talked about giving councils greater control over their spending, which has been reduced hugely—for example, Newcastle has lost £100 million—and about the new homes bonus, which is top-sliced from councils’ money and then controlled by this Government. How does he reconcile the Government’s apparent liberating of councils with their control of councils’ money?

[Brandon Lewis]

As we have said before, the Government are moving to a different system, in which councils are incentivised for doing things. The new homes bonus is a good example: if they build houses, they will get more money. Councils that need more support with creating or changing to cutting-edge services will now be able to use up to £200 million from asset sales to pay the one-off costs of service transformation.

The autumn statement protected local authorities from further cuts to services by setting out a two-year settlement, so allowing councils to plan for the longer term and to have stability in the services they provide to taxpayers. This year, we are publishing illustrative figures for 2015-16 to enable councils to do that.

As was announced in the spending round, £3.8 billion will become available from the better care fund in 2015-16. That touches on a point made by the right hon. Member for Salford and Eccles (Hazel Blears). The better care fund is a real opportunity for local authorities. It will give our civic leaders a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity not only to encourage better working between their local NHS and social care services but, importantly, to change for the better the lives of the most vulnerable people in our communities. Such a stable platform for forward planning, which is part of our long-term economic plan, will provide councils with the scope to merge back offices, to tackle fraud and to save £2 billion. Improving council tax collection will help to bring in the outstanding total of £2.4 billion in uncollected council tax. Our proposals put councils in charge of their finances and, for the first time in the history of local government finance, give them a direct stake in the success of the local economy.

We recognise the crucial role that councils can play in helping with the cost of living. We have offered councils support so that they can freeze council tax bills, despite the fact that those bills doubled under the previous Government. Since 2010, council tax bills have fallen by an average of 10% in real terms. The total freeze funding up to 2015-16 is £5.2 billion. That is a serious commitment by the Government to help hard-working families. Over the lifetime of this Parliament, the average band D taxpayer could save up to £1,100 thanks to our council tax freeze. The Chancellor has agreed, as he has in previous years, to put the next two years of funding into the baseline. That eliminates any risk of a cliff edge and offers the maximum possible certainty to councils.

Everyone in this House should expect councils to do their bit for hard-working families. They must recognise that they have a duty to take up the freeze offer. Councils that do not accept the freeze and instead want to raise bills by 2% or more may do so, but only by holding a binding referendum. We believe that that strikes the right balance between direct and representative democracy. I say to all councils, take the freeze. If they do not do so, but want to avoid a referendum, the increase will benefit them to the tune of just 0.9%. My message to councillors who are considering that is to go back and push their officers to deliver more for their residents. We have given local electorates the power to veto excessive rises through a referendum. Councils should trust the people if they are confident that they have a case for putting up taxes.

Local Authority Funding

Debate between Chi Onwurah and Brandon Lewis

Tuesday 3rd December 2013 Westminster Hall

[Brandon Lewis]

I will come to the issue outlined by the right hon. Gentleman, but I remind him that the independent report, which is in the Library, outlined that this year’s settlement was fair to areas in the north and south, rural and urban. It is important to remember the legacy that we inherited. My area—Great Yarmouth—is in the east and, thanks to the previous Government’s policy decisions, was left with a £3 million black hole, which this Government have had to fix. When we talk about spending power, we must remember that a Labour Government left my local authority with what would have been a 20% cut in spending power in one year— something this Government have had to deal with.

The hon. Member for Corby (Andy Sawford) mentioned councils such as West Somerset. He might like to do a bit more research and homework on what is going on in West Somerset and look at the work it is doing with its neighbours, on which I congratulate it. More and more small district authorities are moving to ensure that money on the front line is not spent on bureaucracy and red-tape administration. Many small district authorities particularly have budgets of under £20 million and should be looking to share management and chief executives to ensure that their taxpayers’ hard-earned money is spent on the services that we all want and not on bureaucracy and red tape. It is logical for authorities to do that. Instead of using childish language such as “takeover”, Labour Members should realise that this is about working in partnership and with efficiency for the benefit of local people.

It is important to understand that there has been a landmark change for local government this year. After years of doffing their caps to Whitehall, all councils now have the ability to control their own destiny. In the midst of the clamour of deficit denial and doom-mongering from some people, that message is in danger of not being heard. The size of the deficit and the debt must be dealt with, and local government is one of the biggest players in the public sector.

I want to make it clear to hon. Members that the current settlement and the one that we will soon propose for 2014-15 are fair to all—the north and the south—as the Library outlined. The hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne Central referred to what will happen next year, and I hope that she appreciates that we are only a couple of weeks from next year’s assessment, so she will not have to wait long for the details.

[Chi Onwurah]

I urge the Minister to focus on the key point of this debate, which is that money is being held back from local authorities and redistributed. He said that local authorities can take their destiny into their own hands and drive forward, but that necessitates imposing no such holdbacks in future. Will he confirm that?

[Brandon Lewis]

The hon. Lady’s point highlights where we are. The current structure for local government is that councils will benefit and see their income rise as a reward for the good work that they do for their communities. I will touch on that directly.

Manchester, Liverpool and Newcastle all have higher spending power per dwelling than the national average. When talking about what local areas have, it is important to put that in the context of the starting point. The average reduction in spending power is only 1.3% this year and we are protecting individual council tax payers by offering a council tax freeze. We are protecting councils through the rates retention scheme’s safety net, which generates a minimum level for their baseline funding, which Newcastle will benefit from, although it was unable to do so previously.

The settlement is fair because even for councils like mine, which now benefits from the efficiency support grant, we have provided protection for those who were hit worst by the policy decisions of the previous Government, and that brings me to the important point of how the system now works in a council’s favour. Following the Localism Act 2011 and financial reforms to the settlement, 70% of an authority’s income is raised locally and, most importantly, the growth incentive ensures that local government will keep up to 50% of all the growth that it generates. Councils have more power than ever before, but they must understand the implications. They must act in their residents’ best interests and work hard on their behalf. Redesigning council tax benefit to cut fraud, which costs around £2 billion, promoting local enterprise and getting people back into work, or redesigning services to make them more efficient and sustainable, especially as there are still savings to be had across the sector, all make a difference.

Some cutting-edge councils understand that and lead by example in developing good practice for the rest of the country to follow. Getting the ball rolling can be the hardest part of radically overhauling local services. The Government established the transformation challenge award to help councils, particularly small ones, to demonstrate innovation, to protect services and to reduce costs to the taxpayer. Just a few months ago, I was pleased to announce 18 successful schemes, including projects to accelerate the integration of local health and care services, which hon. Members have outlined this afternoon, and to create shared finance and human resources for emergency services.

The £3.8 billion that is coming across from the health service to be part of the local government family to provide adult social care is an indication of the work that follows on from the community budget pilots. That transformation touches on the point that the hon. Member for Corby made and is an important way to bring the public sector together and to drive out duplication and provide better services. We know from the community budget pilots that up to £20 billion of savings can be found across the public sector if we can get the work done correctly throughout the country. More importantly, they have shown better services for residents and more effective service delivery.

[Brandon Lewis]

The whole point of the change in the structure of local government finance is that council finance is partly in councils’ control. That is why 40 authorities have had an increase in their income this year alone. Today, a Labour authority has predicted a £500,000 increase in its income over the next couple of years, thanks to the business rate retention scheme. Hon. Members should focus on their councils’ decisions on what services they provide locally. Some £3.8 billion is going to local councils to ensure that they can deal with adult social care in a joined-up way, without creating further bureaucracy.

Local government has shown great skill in moving forward. The Audit Commission and a recent survey noted that residents believe that services have improved. Our community and neighbourhood budgets show that we are finding ways to rewire the system to provide better services at much lower cost.

Turning to the future, I recognise that councils are facing pressures. That is why the spending review set out a package of measures to support them in 2015-16, including the £3.8 billion pool of funding for integrated health and social care, which will help to ensure that services in the care and support system can be protected and will enable authorities to invest in prevention and early intervention.

We will make available a new fund of £330 million to accelerate the transformation of local services with a £200 million extension of the troubled families programme to support another 400,000 families, £100 million to build on the transformation challenge award to improve public service delivery and a further £30 million to drive change in the fire and rescue service. All that together shows that there is a huge opportunity for councils to save money and to achieve better outcomes by working collaboratively and innovatively for their communities.

[Chi Onwurah]

The Minister avoided answering the question asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth (Debbie Abrahams) about the impact of the funding changes on different councils in the north and south by re-emphasising the power that local authorities and councils have to direct their own funding. Will he specifically say whether he supports the principle of holding back funding, as has been described in several contributions this afternoon? He has listed some increases in some different funds. Are they coming from top-sliced funding or from new money, as we would understand it?

[Brandon Lewis]

I tell the hon. Lady again that what a local council does with its funding is a matter that she must put to her local authority. Councils must make the decisions about how they spend the money that they have. There is no point continuing to look at silo pots of money. The point of spending power is that it shows exactly what a local council has in total to spend on its local community. In Newcastle, the amount is one of the highest in the country. It is also why it is important that we offer support to people individually as well. We are pleased to be able to offer further support for council tax freezes in 2014-15 and 2015-16. We have been clear that if an authority wants to raise its council tax, it should do so with the assent of the public in a referendum locally. It needs to be able to explain to residents what it wants that money for and to convince residents of its case.

It is worth adding that in many cases, councils have more in reserves than they are losing through cutbacks. Liverpool, Manchester and Leeds all have reserves that are twice that of their spending power reductions. Indeed, this year, Newcastle has had substantial reserves. It is also important to note that local authorities will be spending about £4 billion extra this year across the country—well over the £100 billion of last year. It is also worth noting that local authorities have managed to increase reserves to a record level, going up by almost £3 billion to £19 billion. With that and the £2 billion in fraud and error, and with a further £2 billion in uncollected council tax, there is still a long way for local authorities to go before they can claim that they have done everything to drive out waste and bureaucracy.

We are in a new world for local government. The funding settlement used to be the endgame; now, it is just the starting point, with councils no longer tied to the settlement figures. They can get to earn their keep and retain £11 billion of business rates. That could deliver an extra £10 billion to our wider economy. It is worth noting that areas such as Manchester, Liverpool and Newcastle all saw business rates rise above the national average of 4.8% in recent years. However, thanks to the old begging bowl system, they missed out on the opportunity of making the most of that money—but no longer. From now on, it will be what councils make and not what they take that counts. If they bring in more businesses, more jobs and more homes, they will be rewarded. If they build those new homes through the new homes bonus, they will see a share of that money, which is worth £650 million this year and is growing. If they increase their business rates, they will retain some of the benefit of that increase.

Therefore, the message to councils is clear: if they are ambitious, become self-reliant and work hard on behalf of their local people, they will succeed and see the benefits. We want authorities to go further and faster, so that residents feel those benefits. We want to help and reward those who do the right thing and are innovative. Our funding approaches, as has been outlined independently, are fair for north and south, urban and rural, and rich and poor. I gently say to hon. Members who have outlined what they see as the funding draw from urban areas that even Labour Front Benchers have been arguing on the Floor of the House to move money away from urban areas into rural areas.