Clive Betts
Main Page: Clive Betts (Labour - Sheffield South East)(9 years, 9 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Mr Clive Betts (Sheffield South East) (Lab)
The Minister says that local government has to bear its fair share of the cuts. Does he accept that according to the Office for Budget Responsibility—the Local Government Association produced these figures for us—if we exclude spending on schools and public health, which local authorities cannot affect, in 2009-10 local authorities represented 19% of public expenditure? By 2015-16, it will represent 16%. In other words, local government has surely borne more than its fair share of cuts. It has had more cuts as a percentage than the rest of central Government services.
Kris Hopkins
I do not have those figures, but what I will say is that I recognise that local government has had to make a substantial contribution to driving down the deficit left by the previous Administration. It is important that we recognise that local government has responded in an extremely positive way to the challenge we have placed before it.
During the consultation period, which closed on 15 January, my ministerial colleagues and I met a number of local authorities and representative groups. I also led a phone-in discussion, with more than 100 authorities participating. In addition, the consultation received numerous written responses. We considered very carefully the views of all those who commented on the provisional settlement. On 3 February, we laid before the House a local government finance report which confirmed our proposal for the settlement for 2015-16 as announced. We also confirmed our proposal that the council tax referendum principle for 2015-16 will be set at 2%.
I recognise the time and effort that those responding to the consultation—councils, in particular—have given in submitting detailed and considered comments on our proposals. As I said, we listened to those views carefully. In doing so, we recognised that councils asked for additional support. As a result, our announcement on the final settlement for 2015-16 included provision for a further £74 million to support upper-tier authorities, including to help them to respond to local welfare needs and improve social care provision.
Robert Neill
I have no doubt that we would also see the imposition of regional planning through the right hon. Gentleman’s delicately termed “county region authorities”. That would be another imposition on local authorities. The new homes bonus has enabled authorities that want to provide homes for their populations to deliver those homes and to pay for the services that such populations rightly demand. There is an inherent contradiction in the Opposition’s argument.
It is significant that Opposition Members are talking about greater devolution. I, too, hope that there will be an increase in the retained element of business rates. Interestingly, that never happened throughout the whole of the Labour party’s watch. They only started to move towards a devolutionary stance after my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State introduced the retention of some of the additional business rate. We have a track record of delivering policies, but they are simply saying that they would do the reverse of whatever they did in the past, which seems fairly normal for the Labour party at the moment.
Robert Neill
I will of course give way to the Chair of the Select Committee.
Robert Neill
Yes, it is very clear that more new homes are being built. The right hon. Member for Leeds Central talked about need. One of the biggest recipients of the new homes bonus has been the inner-London borough of Tower Hamlets. It has built homes in a needy area, and it has been one of the biggest beneficiaries of the new homes bonus. There is therefore a direct correlation, and that correlation also relates to need. With respect to the hon. Member for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts), his point was not the best he has made in debates in the Chamber.
It is worth observing that local authorities have calculated that they will see an increase in business rate income in 2014-15, thanks to the Government’s economic policies. Some 91% of local authorities anticipate that their business rate income will grow during 2014-15, because we are starting to get the economy back on track. Having record levels of jobs and economic activity would be prejudiced by the Labour party, but that is the real way to create sustainable funding for local government, not a culture dependent on tweaking handouts.
My hon. Friend the Member for Hornchurch and Upminster (Dame Angela Watkinson) made an important point about why we need to move away from the culture of dependency. Historically, there were disparate levels of resourcing between inner and outer-London boroughs. Once upon a time, that to some degree reflected the demography of London, but that demography has changed significantly. As I know from the experience of my London borough of Bromley, the pressures facing outer-London boroughs are now much closer to those of inner-London boroughs. As my hon. Friend the Member for Beverley and Holderness (Mr Stuart) observed, the artificial inflation of the weight given to density has made the problem worse in some cases. Throughout this Parliament, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and his ministerial team have gradually sought to rectify such wrongs, and I hope that in the next Parliament we can build on the very solid foundations built so far.
At the end of the day, I hope that we can move away from the artificial argument about dependence on the central Government grant. We should give local government the tools to invest, which is why the new homes bonus and the retention of business rates are so important. A fairer and more transparent basis for funding is critical, and that is what the coalition Government have delivered.
There is still more to do, although none of us would disagree that local government is probably the most efficient part of the public sector. That is why I was pleased to see the excellent work done through the better care fund. I represent a top-tier authority, and most such authorities regard adult social care as one of their principal funding pressures. Once the better care fund is established, I hope that much more work will be done to align adult social care with health services. Local authorities can often deliver many of the health-related aspects of services for elderly people more efficiently than the traditional health service model. Again, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State is to be congratulated on opening up that new opportunity, which sensible authorities, such as mine in Bromley, have already seized. We must ensure that health authorities and commissioning groups understand that too, and that they fully co-operate and do not seek artificially to hang on to money—often, their local government colleagues may be best placed to get the best bang for local residents from the available buck. I hope we will see more of that important development.
Although not directly part of the grant settlement, I hope my right hon. Friend will continue to point out to colleagues in the Department for Education that we could look for greater flexibility in the operation of the dedicated schools grant. That is a good thing in itself, but some types of educational spending currently fall outside its parameters, and we could consider that issue for the future.
None of that takes away from the fact that every local government Minister has to do a balancing act when they set out the local government finance settlement. I believe that the DCLG ministerial team has done a good job, and above all we must keep bearing down on the deficit and keep public finances under control. Equally, we should continue to reward councils that do the right thing. In due course, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (Mr Redwood) was hinting—I will say this in a way that does not make me out of order, Madam Deputy Speaker—I hope that as we consider future funding arrangements for the whole United Kingdom, we will be able to give more weight to councils such as Bromley that have historically shown high levels of efficiency. Bromley delivers its services at the lowest unit cost per head of any London borough, and it also happens to have the second lowest level of central Government grant. The more we remove local authorities from the need to depend on that ratio of central government grant the better, and the more likely it is that they will profit from their own efficiency. That is the way forward.
I hope that in the short term we will look again at some elements of the way the grant is calculated and give greater weight to efficiency. It is probably right that there should be a greater relationship in local government between behaviour and out-turns, and between behaviour and consequences. The best thing would be to ensure that a higher percentage of local government spend is raised locally, and the Government are on course for that. They have made a good start but can always continue to do further work in future. At least we are able to offer local government a realistic programme as we go into the general election, building on achievements that have been delivered, rather than on the inherently contradictory flights of fancy from Opposition Members. We respect local government—I spent many years of my life in local government, and there are good people and authorities of all colours. For all the words of the right hon. Member for Leeds Central, imposed centralism is not the answer, and we must build incrementally—as the Secretary of State rightly has done—to return powers increasingly to local government. This finance report is consistent with that path, and I hope the House will support it.
Mr Clive Betts (Sheffield South East) (Lab)
This Parliament will clearly go down as the Parliament of austerity, but let us go back to 2010 and look at the situation when we began this journey. At the general election in 2010 the economy was growing—[Interruption.] I know Conservative Members do not like to hear that, but it was growing. The Government made a commitment in the coalition agreement to removing the deficit over the course of this Parliament, but that has not happened, has it? That is because the economy stopped growing because of the immediate severity of the cuts. As a result, not only did that happen, but real wages have not grown, the tax take has been less than anticipated, and the increase in housing benefit paid to people in work has grown substantially. That is why the deficit has been cut to only a third or a half—depending on the definition —of its original level.
Mr Graham Stuart
The hon. Gentleman is the only senior commentator I have heard suggest that the economy stalled primarily because of a reduction in Government spending. Surely he should accept that it was to do with the general economic dislocation across the continent of Europe. While the rest of Europe is flatlining, and while this Government have tried to wrestle down the deficit, Britain has returned to growth. We have higher growth this year than any other major economy in the world, and that should be celebrated.
Mr Betts
That is interesting. If the hon. Gentleman is saying that the fundamental problem was a major dislocation in Europe and the world because of the banking crisis and collapse, it is difficult to blame it solely on the Labour Government. After the major dislocation and the recession, the economy had started growing by the time of the election in 2010. It then went back into recession. That is what happened.
We are where we are. Through all the austerity and the pain of service cuts, the deficit is at least half of what it was. In other words, the Government have missed their target by at least 50%. That is the position. Nobody will dispute that, will they? It is fairly clear that the Government missed their target by at least 50%.
We have had all that austerity, but has it been fair? Has it been fair to local government as a whole, to Conservative councils as well as Labour councils, because they will make that point strongly? Why has local government been asked to bear the biggest burden? There is another way of putting that: why do Ministers believe that the services our communities receive from their local councils are less important than other public services? That is important.
Mr Betts
The hon. Gentleman shouts, “We were protecting the health service,” but social care provided by local councils is as important. Of course, that is not protected from the reductions.
The figures I quoted earlier were from the Local Government Association and the Office for Budget Responsibility, so they are clearly right—perhaps hon. Members want to challenge them. The spending that local authorities can control—which excludes schools, public health, which is ring-fenced, and housing benefit—has fallen from 19% of total public sector current expenditure in 2009-10 to 16% in 2015-16. That is a disproportionate cut in local government spending compared with public spending as a whole. There is another way of looking at it: local government spending as a percentage of GDP has fallen from 4% to 2.9%. That is a significant fall.
The Government have tried to spin the 2015-16 cut as a 1.7% cut in spending power, but we should again look at the figures produced by the LGA, which are based on OBR figures. The real figures that local authorities can control, on a like-for-like basis over the years, excluding the better care fund, council tax and the public health grant, which is ring-fenced, show that the cut is 8.5% in real terms. That is the figure.
Ministers like including spending power and they like the better care fund. Hon. Members should read the exchange that the Communities and Local Government Committee had with the permanent secretary recently. He accepted that the better care fund was not part of the grant from central Government to local authorities. That money is included in the budget of the national health service, in the Department of Health. That is where it is accounted for. Ministers cannot count it in both the Department of Health budget and the Department for Communities and Local Government budget. That would be double counting. Ministers count the better care fund in the Department of Health budget, and say, “Ah. We do not talk about the actual grant and money for local authorities. We talk about spending power.” Although the better care fund is in the Department of Health budget, they say that it is part of local government spending power. That is how they get their calculation down to 1.7%. That is how they do it—by sleight of hand. We cannot have that double counting.
That is not to decry or demean the better care fund. The concept of trying to join up health service and local authority social care is obviously a good one.
Mr Betts
I will make a little progress and come back to the hon. Gentleman.
There are major issues. Why are local authorities singled out for bigger cuts? Within local government, why have the deprived communities had the largest cuts? Ministers could make a logical, rational argument. They could say that the authorities with the biggest grant might lose the most grant in cash terms. I might not agree with the argument, but I can see a logic to an argument that says because authorities have so much more money given to them historically, they are likely to lose more when cuts are made. Can Ministers sustain an argument that says authorities historically receiving the most grant, the most needy authorities, should therefore have the biggest percentage cuts? What is the logic for that? It is one thing to argue the biggest amount, in cash terms, should come from authorities with the most cash given to them, but why should they have the biggest percentage cuts? What is the logical argument for that? How can it possibly be right that over the period of this Parliament, between 2010-11 to 2015-16, Sheffield’s spending power—I will use the Minister’s own definitions —has fallen by £230.60 per head and Wokingham’s has fallen by £2.29 per head, only 1% of Sheffield’s fall? How can there be any rational, reasonable justification to explain that cut? How can there be?
Mr Gordon Marsden (Blackpool South) (Lab)
My hon. Friend is making a powerful and incisive point. Does he agree that this bears down particularly badly on those unitary authorities, such as my own in Blackpool, which have above-average needs in big spending areas such as education and social services, but find themselves subject to precisely the phenomenon he describes?
Mr Betts
Absolutely. As I say, Ministers can make an argument that those who have had the most grant might lose the most cash, but not that they should have bigger percentage cuts. They are the areas in greatest need. In two years’ time, we will have the ridiculous situation where Sheffield and most of the northern cities, such as Liverpool and Manchester, will have a lower spending power per head than Wokingham. Can anyone on the Government Benches justify that? It is simply not reasonable.
The hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Robert Neill), an ex-Minister, said he suspects a future Labour Government would find surreptitious ways to redistribute money back to Labour authorities. I think we can be open about this: this Government have not been surreptitious. They have done it blatantly. They have taken money away from the most needy and given it to the most privileged. That is what they have done, to the point where the spending power of Wokingham in two years’ time will be greater than the spending power of Sheffield on a per-head basis. Sorry, but that is just not reasonable and no one can justify it.
The impact is there for all to see. I went around my constituency last weekend and met people. We talk about the need to join up social care and the health service—of course we need to. Sheffield had a wonderful in-house care service provision called “Care for you”, which dealt with some of the most needy people who were in their own homes and required extensive support. Sheffield ended that service because it was cheaper to go to a private supplier that had lower overheads, mainly because it does not train as well and pays the minimum wage at best. I then met a constituent on Saturday whose elderly father’s carer missed four appointments. After 36 hours his father was found collapsed on his bedroom floor and, of course, was admitted to hospital. Why was he admitted? The care package had failed. Why had it failed? The authority was having to make cuts because of the budget cuts. That is the reality of how things are in local government at present. That is not a bad authority trying to do it on the cheap, but an authority trying to reduce spending, because of the massive cuts it is facing, by another £60 million next year. In the end, much of that will have to fall on social care, the biggest budget.
Mr Graham Stuart
The hon. Gentleman talks about double counting. He accepted that the Government had protected the schools budget and the health budget, and that therefore, given the size of those budgets in overall Government expenditure, there would be disproportionate cuts elsewhere. Will he put it on the record that his party would, as it did in Wales, cut the health service to protect local government funding? Tough choices means being clear about what one protects and what one will cut. His party seems to want to have it every which way without telling people the truth.
Mr Betts
I think we should also deal with the myth that somehow the NHS has been protected. If we look at the King’s Fund and other commentators—the British Medical Association, certainly, or go to the GPs in my constituency—its spending has gone up in line with general inflation. Unfortunately, though, it has not been sufficient to cope with the increased demand, particularly from elderly people wanting ever more support from community GPs and hospitals.
If we have dealt with half the budget deficit this Parliament, is the Tory party saying that, if it is returned to power, this scale of local government cuts will continue? Can we really contemplate reducing local government spending as a percentage of GDP from 4% to 2.9% and below? If so, we will not be back to 1930s levels of service provision; we will have gone back even further. The graph of doom is coming. Tory councils as well as Labour councils are talking about it. Figures from the Office for Budget Responsibility show that by the end of the next Parliament, if the cuts continue on the same trajectory, we will reach the point where statutory responsibilities take up the whole local government budget, and nothing will be left for discretionary services. But I do not expect Ministers to respond, because, as the damning report from the National Audit Office said:
“The Department does not understand the impact over time of reductions in funding to local authorities, and the potential risks of individual authorities becoming financially unsustainable if reductions continue.”
That is what the NAO said, and that is the reality we are facing up to.
I do not have time to go into all the issues of decentralisation. I am a decentralist, and I speak on behalf of the Select Committee. We would decentralise not merely spending responsibilities, but tax-raising responsibilities, which the Labour Front-Bench team is beginning to move towards, with full responsibility for retaining business rates locally. I hope we can go further, but so far the Government are not prepared to move in that direction.
In conclusion, there are three big questions that the Government have not answered. Why have local authorities had to face more than their fair share of cuts, compared with other Government services, in this Parliament? Why have the poorest authorities faced the largest cuts—far larger than is proportionate? In the end, do Ministers seriously believe that in the next Parliament we can continue with the same level of local cuts and maintain the financial sustainability of local councils and the services they deliver?
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (Stephen Williams)
We have had 13 Back-Bench contributions to the debate. Most of them have been thoughtful and reasonable, with Members standing up for their constituents, as our electors would expect. We have heard a lot about different areas, including the reinterment of Richard III in Leicester and the lollipop people, if I may put it that way, in Birmingham. We heard about cities and counties. The speech I found most enjoyable was that of the hon. Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Ms Stuart), who addressed not only the history of her great city, but the future vision. There may be a face-off between her and my hon. Friend the Member for Beverley and Holderness (Mr Stuart) as to who can milk the cow most productively. As someone who grew up in a Welsh village surrounded by sheep, I will not offer any rural contribution.
What we heard from the Opposition Benches was long on what problems there are and how awful the position is, but had very little recognition of the fact that one of the reasons for the current difficulties is the situation that we inherited in 2010. A couple of Members looked through that rear-view mirror and were in almost complete denial about that legacy. That might have been understandable in 2011 or 2012, but at this point in the political cycle, 90 days before the country goes to the polls, we expected to hear more of the vision that the hon. Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston spoke about—the solutions to funding local government in the future.
Thanks to this Government’s policies of stabilising the economy, getting the public finances under control and rebalancing the economy, we are now seeing a better future for this country. Local government, like every part of the public sector, has made a significant contribution to getting to where we are. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Annette Brooke) said, councillors from all parties should be congratulated on that. The Government continue to need to make difficult decisions to put the public finances on to a sustainable path. In that context, it is inevitable that councils, which account for a quarter of all public spending—this year they will spend about £115 billion-worth of taxpayers’ money—will have to operate with reduced budgets.
Let me assure the House that, contrary to claims that have been made, in this settlement, like those before it, councils with the greatest needs and the highest demand for services still get the most funding. Indeed, the 10% most deprived local authorities in England receive 40% more spending power per head than the 10% least deprived. Several questions were asked about different authorities. Let me take the top and the bottom as examples. Hackney is the most deprived local authority area in England, and its spending power per dwelling will be £3,706.89, while Hart—I am putting together the district and county services and comparing like with like—will receive £1,854.57. At the top and the bottom, we can see that need is still reflected within the system.
Stephen Williams
That would indeed seem rather odd on the face of it, but we are talking about the settlement now, not making projections about the future. What happens in future will be a matter for the next Government, in whatever configuration they are, and we will have to see where we are at that point.
Several hon. Members talked about additional resources for rural authorities. We recognise the challenges that those authorities may face in delivering services to their communities. My right hon. Friend the Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole and my hon. Friends the Members for Beverley and Holderness and for Newton Abbot (Anne Marie Morris) made a powerful case. We have listened, and that is why, for the ongoing settlement, we are adding £15.5 million for the most sparsely populated rural areas. My hon. Friend the Member for Beverley and Holderness said that poverty is found in rural areas as well as in urban areas. Indeed, the only area of the country that still has objective 1 funding from the European Union is Cornwall—not one of our big cities.