Christopher Pincher
Main Page: Christopher Pincher (Independent - Tamworth)Department Debates - View all Christopher Pincher's debates with the Cabinet Office
(7 years, 12 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Jeremy Corbyn
No.
Many more of our public services are under threat. The Land Registry is threatened with privatisation—a move considered and then rejected in the last two Parliaments. Those Governments listened to the concerns of public and expert opinion. I hope and trust that this Government will consult and come to the same conclusion and that, rather than selling off the family silver, they will retain the Land Registry in public ownership and administration.
We are very clear that the BBC is a valued national institution, but its success is anathema to this ideological Government. Labour will continue to stand up for the licence fee payer and will fight any further Government attacks on the BBC and its independence. Whether it is the NHS, good and outstanding schools, the east coast main line in public operation or the BBC, the Government just cannot stand the threat of a good example of popular, successful public services. We will stand up for them against the Government.
The Opposition have long highlighted the injustice of the unequal funding allocations to local authorities. I hope that a local government finance Bill will provide an opportunity to address the disgraceful situation in which the poorest areas, mainly in the inner cities of this country, suffer by far the greatest cuts to expenditure. The cuts imposed on local authorities have had a devastating impact on services for both young and old. Just this week, despite the protestations of some local residents, Oxfordshire Council, the Prime Minister’s favourite county council, announced that it was closing half of its children’s centres. In the past five years, £4.5 billion has been cut from the adult social care budget, which has taken away dignity from elderly and disabled people. Again, the effects of those massive cuts in the adult social care budget fall disproportionately on women in our society.
We will scrutinise very carefully the devolution of business rates, which, if not handled correctly, has the potential to exacerbate inequalities between areas of this country. We have a deeply unbalanced economy, and we will oppose plans that widen regional inequalities, rather than narrow them.
On a positive note, we wholeheartedly welcome moves to devolve powers to re-regulate bus services, and we will look to expand those provisions more widely. Whole areas of the country, particularly in rural Britain, have no bus services at all, and they should be provided with them, particularly where people do not have access to their own cars.
We are very sceptical about competition in the water industry, which actually goes against the trend in much of the rest of Europe, which is of re-municipalising water and giving it back to communities—a Government committed to devolution might consider that, but this Government want competition. Perhaps we can have competition in reservoirs, pumping stations and mains pipes. We could even have three standpipes on every corner. Imagine the vision of Tory Britain: one for Evian, one for Perrier and one for Malvern water.
The Prime Minister
I will look at what my hon. Friend says. When we look at economic growth and development, all the evidence is that having universities of a high quality in all our regions is a massive driver for growth and for retaining talent in those areas, as the contribution of the Manchester universities to the northern powerhouse shows so clearly.
Christopher Pincher
My right hon. Friend is being typically generous in giving way. All the secondary schools in my constituency are academies, a process begun by the Labour county council before it was booted out in 2009. I welcome the national funding formula that will help all schools, I hope, in Staffordshire. Will my right hon. Friend make sure that the academies in Tamworth are protected and are never abolished, as the Leader of the Opposition would like?
The Prime Minister
We are committed to academies and free schools. We want to combine that autonomy with the national funding formula and make sure that more of the money goes to the school itself. All these reforms go together to drive change in our education system.
On jobs, today’s figures show unemployment falling, employment rising and a new record for the number of people in work in our country. This Queen’s Speech builds on this record with more help for small businesses, further improvements to infrastructure, and measures to make Britain a world leader in the digital economy and in new industries, such as autonomous vehicles. We are determined to deliver a recovery that is rich in jobs. With the national living wage, no one paying tax before they earn £11,000, in-work training, learning through life and all the steps that we are taking to boost productivity, our ambition should be for a Britain with the best paid, best trained workforce anywhere in Europe.