Local Government Finance
Debate between Clive Betts and Simon Hoare(2 months, 3 weeks ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (Simon Hoare)
It is a pleasure to wind up for the Government in this debate. I will just say gently to one of my shadows, the hon. Member for Blaydon (Liz Twist), that if the situation is as bad as she and the hon. Member for Oldham West and Royton (Jim McMahon) have painted it, I am surprised that with the exception of those on the Front Bench and the hon. Member for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts)—I know, as a former Select Committee Chairman, that one is obliged to take part in these debates when they relate to one’s Department—we have, against all this horror, had only one Labour Back-Bench contribution. I thank and congratulate the hon. Member for York Central (Rachael Maskell)—at least there is one Labour Member who is concerned about local government and who is not obliged to come and talk about it.
What an exciting prospect we have—the nation sits agog! After 14 years of opposition, a review to look at long-term plans is what the hon. Member for Blaydon tantalisingly holds before the House and the electorate. After 14 years of opposition, one has to ask what on earth they have been doing with the time. A review to look at long-term plans! As always, the Labour party is quick to critique and slow to deliver. What a contrast to the speeches we have heard from Conservative Members.
Mr Betts
I take the Minister back to the beginning of the debate, when the Minister for Housing, Planning and Building Safety talked about doing a long-term review of local government finance in the next Parliament. The difference, of course, is that the Government have been in power for the last 14 years and could have done something about it.
Simon Hoare
The hon. Gentleman and I have discussed this on many occasions, and I know he broadly agrees with me on this point. Local council chief executives and leaders would have come at the Department with pitchforks and flaming torches if we had dumped a 200-page consultation document on their desks at a time when they were rallying to support their communities during the covid crisis.
This year, as last year, the Government have rightly set our focus on stability, certainty and security. I believe this local government finance settlement delivers on all three.
Simon Hoare
No. If the hon. Gentleman is not here for the opening, he cannot take part in the summing up. He has tried that trick before, and it did not work then.
As we heard from the hon. Members for North Shropshire (Helen Morgan), for Sheffield South East and for Blaydon, some of these issues came through in the consultation and in the engagement: support for special educational needs; a long-term view of adult social care; and reform to the funding formula, which so many hon. and right hon. Members have referenced. A reformed funding formula would provide stability and security to our local authorities, and the best way to deliver it is through cross-party working. That is what this House owes them.
When I was asked to take on this job, I had no idea of the complexity and time required to arrive at a local government finance settlement. I thank all colleagues who came along to take part in my parliamentary engagement, which was hugely helpful. I pay tribute to my private office and to officials in the Department—long hours, huge work. I pay particular tribute, not least because her note tells me I have to, to Victoria Peace for all her hard work, as well as to Kate, Nico and others. It has truly been a team effort.
I also thank the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Prime Minister for listening to the case that the Secretary of State and I took to them on revising the formula. We said that we would listen, we did and we have acted. Those are the hallmarks of prudent, listening, caring, one-nation conservativism, and it is writ large in this local government finance settlement.
I also pay tribute, as so many others have, to the work that councillors and council officers do, day in and day out, to deliver to make the lives of some of the most vulnerable people in our society more bearable and a little better, and to create a sense of place in which people wish to live. We salute all of them. Are all of them brilliant? Of course not, but not all of us are brilliant either. But I know that, day in and day out, they focus on doing their best.
I have been called many things, but the hon. Member for Sheffield South East called me “genuinely helpful”. My hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset (Chris Loder) called me “the great rural tsar” and a “knight in shining armour”. And my hon. Friend the Member for St Austell and Newquay (Steve Double) called me a “warrior” for rural councils. I am grateful for those comments, and I look forward to their being carved into my headstone in due course.
Simon Hoare
Not too soon, I hope.
I could bore the House with the figures for the local authorities of each Member who has contributed, but those figures are on the public record. They are all going in a positive direction. I think we have started to make significant inroads into addressing those concerns, by turning our thinking to the common themes that have ranged through this debate. The trajectories on SEND and adult social care show no sign of abating, and we need a long-term solution. The formula does need reforming and the Government are committed to doing just that in the next Parliament.
I say to everyone that the transformation and productivity plans, which we see as a key part of the settlement, are all part of underscoring that “Agenda for Change” is a process, not an event; it has to be iterative and organic, because, as my hon. Friend the Member for St Austell and Newquay mentioned, we have no money and councils have no money save that which we raise through the taxpayer. We have a duty to ensure that we deliver the biggest bang for each and every buck.
My hon. Friends the Members for Hastings and Rye (Sally-Ann Hart) and for West Dorset, the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (Sarah Dyke), and my hon. Friends the Members for Loughborough (Jane Hunt) and for Waveney (Peter Aldous) all made important points about how the formula review must ensure that we take into account the differentials in the demand of need in delivering services in a rural or coastal area. I do not believe that we would be right in any definition of the term to say that “need” in an urban area outranks that in a rural or coastal area, or vice versa. Need is need and our local authorities want to play their part in making a difference on that. My hon. Friend the Member for Loughborough was not the only one, but she was right to mention the need for other Departments, when they create a new burden or duty on local authorities, to take into account the budgetary impacts that those services have, and I certainly take that on board. My hon. Friend the Member for Hastings and Rye made that point as well and I agree with all who have made it.
The hon. Member for York Central asked a specific question about the flood recovery framework and business rates. I am delighted to confirm to her that 100% business rate relief is available to business for a minimum of three months where they have been flooded and that that relief can continue to an agreed date until the business is able to be reoccupied for trading. I hope that that gives some comfort to her and to her constituents who have suffered from flooding issues in the recent time.
A lot has been done, services can continue, but the need for reform, cross-party working, blue skies thinking and significant change remains. This settlement is a generous one, with more than half a billion pounds or, I should say, “just” half a billion pounds, available for children’s services and adult social care. My hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset has long advocated for the rural services delivery grant and that is up now to its highest level, at £115 million. I know that rural councils, including that of the hon. Member for North Shropshire, will have welcomed that as a useful means of supporting their services.
We understand, applaud and appreciate the important contribution that councils make across our country, and the difference they deliver for their communities. We understand and are going to work with the sector, sector leaders, council leaders and others to ensure a bright, secure and stable future for local councils. We are providing a £600 million uplift, and, on average, a 6% to 7% increase in core spending power for most councils. This is a fantastic opportunity for councils to continue to deliver and for us to support them. I close with the point that many have made: we will deliver better for our constituents when central and local government work in partnership, matched horses pulling in the same direction, serving our communities and making a vital difference for those who need it. I commend the settlement to the House.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That the Local Government Finance Report (England) 2024–25 (HC 318), which was laid before this House on 5 February, be approved.
Resolved,
That the Referendums Relating to Council Tax Increases (Principles) (England) Report 2024–25 (HC 319), which was laid before this House on 5 February, be approved.—(Simon Hoare.)
Resolved,
That the Referendums Relating to Council Tax Increases (Alternative Notional Amounts) (England) Report 2024–25 (HC 320), which was laid before this House on 5 February, be approved.—(Simon Hoare.)
Business of the House (Today)
Ordered,
That, notwithstanding the provisions of paragraph (14) of Standing Order No. 80A (Carry-over of bills), the Speaker shall put the Questions necessary to dispose of proceedings on the Motions in the names of:
(1) Secretary Michelle Donelan relating to the Data Protection and Digital Information Bill: Carry-over extension; and
(2) Secretary Alex Chalk relating to the Victims and Prisoners Bill: Carry-over extension not later than one and a half hours after the commencement of proceedings on the Motion for this Order; such Questions shall include the Questions on any Amendments selected by the Speaker which may then be moved; proceedings may continue, though opposed, after the moment of interruption; and Standing Order No. 41A (Deferred divisions) shall not apply.—(Penny Mordaunt.)
Financial Distress in Local Authorities
Debate between Clive Betts and Simon Hoare(3 months ago)
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Mr Betts
I thank my hon. Friend for that question. Yes, it certainly is doing so. I have just produced a report about local government audit. There is a real problem there. If accounts have not been audited for three years, as in most cases, but probably longer in other cases, how on earth do we know what is happening in local council finances? Certainly, getting local audit on an even keel by the end of this year is very important, but where accounts are qualified, as they will be, councils should not be blamed for that; it is the problem of the local audit system, and we really must sort that out.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (Simon Hoare)
On behalf of the Government, I thank the Chair of the Select Committee and all his colleagues on it for the work that they do in general, and for the report in particular. I will obviously study it with great care, and respond in the usual way. He made a number of points. I think we can all agree that certainty and security for the local government sector are important, and I concur with his view that there is clear merit in multi-year settlements. I also agree that whoever is standing at the Dispatch Box in the role of local government Minister after the next general election—I pray to God that it will be me, and I hope that my prayers will be answered—reforms will always be difficult and complex. I would be interested to know whether the hon. Member for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts) sees any merit in establishing some cross-party working and blue-sky thinking on the issue, in order hopefully to land something that can deliver certainty and security for five, 10, 15 or 20 years ahead, to give comfort to local government leaders, section 151 officers and others.
Mr Betts
While I might not completely agree with the Minister’s prayers, I agree that if we are to sort this out for the long term, particularly social care funding, we need a system that has general support. The Committee has called for that in the past. What we did on pensions reform a few years ago, cross party, has stuck, so there is merit in that suggestion. Whether we can achieve it, I do not know, but we ought to try.
Political Parties, Elections and Referendums
Debate between Clive Betts and Simon Hoare(3 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (Simon Hoare)
I beg to move,
That the draft Electoral Commission Strategy and Policy Statement, which was laid before this House on 14 December 2023, be approved.
It is a pleasure to be able to present this important strategy and policy statement for parliamentary consideration this afternoon. We may disagree on many points, but one point on which I hope we can agree is that there are plenty of issues in our political life to raise the blood pressure. Let me say respectfully to the House that this strategy and policy statement is not one of them, for reasons that I shall set out.
The Electoral Commission Strategy and Policy Statement was laid before Parliament on 14 December 2023 for approval by resolution of both Houses within a 40-day period in accordance with section 4C(9)(a) of the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000. Let me start by asserting clearly and unequivocally a concern which I know many right hon. and hon. Members have had, and which I wish to nail from the outset. This statement, this strategy, in no way undermines or challenges the robust, legislatively underpinned independence of the Electoral Commission. The commission plays an important part in our national life. It has a key and important role, and the House and, I believe, the country recognise that.
The statement gives the Government no new teeth or power. How, if and when the commission faces into the guidance is up to it and the scrutiny of Mr Speaker’s Committee on the Electoral Commission, whose role is exercised on behalf of the House. The commission, as is set out in the 2000 Act, only has a “duty to have regard”. We are not saying—not least because we cannot, and do not wish to—that the commission “will” or “must”. We create no new duty to report to the Government, only a duty for the Speaker’s Committee to maintain its relations with the commission. The commission will continue to report only to Parliament, as it has done since its creation in 2000. The statement—I want to make this very clear, because this is a twin approach of independence—does not politicise Mr Speaker’s Committee or the Office of the Speaker in respect of its commission functions.
Mr Clive Betts (Sheffield South East) (Lab)
I have been listening to what the Minister is saying with a bit of disbelief. If the commission will not have to take any notice of the statement or act on it, but need only have regard to it, what is it here for? If “having regard to” means “taking seriously and doing something about”, that applies both to the commission and to Mr Speaker’s Committee, which has to oversee the commission and its work. Does that not compromise the neutrality and independence of Mr Speaker as well as the Electoral Commission? This is a very serious matter.
Simon Hoare
If that were true, it would be a serious matter, but I must say to the hon. Gentleman—for whom I have huge respect, and who chairs the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee with much distinction—that I do not see it that way, and neither do the Government. However, he takes me from my explanation of what the statement is not, to explaining why we are approving it. That is the nub of this issue. We see—I see—the role of this Government and of any party that has the honour to be in government in the United Kingdom as that of a pro tem custodian of our democracy. That is why we have election law, and why I am the elections Minister. Democracy is, as we discussed last week in the Holocaust Memorial Day debate, a fragile flower under huge pressure.
We believe that the statement is timely, not least because of the raft of changes that have flown through and been delivered by statutory instrument from the recent Elections Act 2022. We are also hugely cognisant of the threats to the robustness and resilience of our democracy presented by overseas interference, fake news, deepfakes, and artificial intelligence. The solemn role of pro tem custodian, and holding the flame of democracy while we serve in government, are important.
Simon Hoare
If the right hon. Gentleman will be a little patient, he will have his question answered. He asks his question in his way and, in the words of Frank Sinatra, I shall answer it in mine.
The first paragraph rehearses this key point:
“The Electoral Commission is the independent regulatory body responsible for giving guidance and support to Electoral Registration Officers and Returning Officers in undertaking electoral registration and conducting elections and recall petitions effectively and in accordance with the law.”
Anybody disagree with that? No. Paragraph 2 states:
“The Chair of the Commission has the responsibility in law for acting as the Chief Counting Officer at national referendums in the UK…and the staff of the Commission support the Chair in that role, when it is required, to work through local electoral authorities to deliver such events.”
The delivery of smooth and seamless referenda is not, I would suggest, a revolutionary power grab by His Majesty’s Government.
Paragraph 3 states:
“The government believes the Electoral Commission has an important role to play in maintaining the integrity of our elections and public confidence in that integrity.”
I do not think that point will get the Division bells ringing. In answer to the question from the Chair of the Select Committee, paragraph 3 continues:
“The duty to have regard does not require the Commission to give lesser priority to, or to ignore, any of its other statutory duties. The Electoral Commissioners and the Commission’s executive leadership will remain responsible for determining the Commission’s strategy, priorities, how it should discharge its duties (including day-to-day operations) and the allocation of its resources, as agreed by the relevant parliaments. It will be for the Commission to determine how to factor the Statement into its decision-making processes and corporate documents such as the Five-Year Plan.”
Paragraph 4 states:
“One of the government’s policy priorities is ensuring our democracy is secure, fair, modern and transparent.”
One could easily transpose the word “government” for “Parliament” there. Who will argue with ensuring that our democracy is secure? Who will argue that our democracy should not be fair, modern, or transparent? Paragraph 4 goes on to say that it is a priority to ensure
“that those who are entitled to vote should always be able to exercise that right freely, securely and in an informed way;…that fraud, intimidation and interference have no place in our democracy;…that we are the stewards of our shared democratic heritage which we keep up to date for our age.”
That is my custodian point again.
Paragraph 5 states:
“One of the leading government objectives is tackling electoral fraud”.
Anyone in this House in favour of electoral fraud? I did not think so—and rightly so. Paragraph 5 goes on to state that the commission should
“support continued effective delivery of voter identification by raising public awareness about the requirement to show an approved form of photographic identification before taking part in UK parliamentary elections, local elections in England and elections in Northern Ireland”.
It has done that in Northern Ireland for the last 20 years or so. This issue was raised in close questioning from the Lords Constitution Committee just the other month. The important role of the Government, the commission and other agencies in raising the profile and public awareness of voter identification was a matter that we discussed at some length.
Mr Betts
I am listening to the Minister reading out a list of the things that the commission is obliged to do by law anyway, so why he has to restate them in this paper, I do not know. The clear advice to the Committee and to the Speaker’s Committee was that if certain items were identified as priorities for the commission, other things would per se be of lesser priority. For example, overseas voter registration is a priority, but the registration of voters in this country, where 8 million people are not on the register, is not listed as a priority. This skews the work of the Electoral Commission, whether the Minister likes it or not.
Simon Hoare
The hon. Gentleman was obviously so busy trying to find his rebuttal point that he did not listen to my answer to the first question. I set out clearly that the duty to “have regard” does not require the commission to give lesser priority to, or ignore, any of its other statutory duties. The electoral commissioners and the commission’s executive leadership will remain responsible for determining the commission’s strategy and priorities, and how it should discharge its duties. The statement in no way undermines, countermands or double-guesses any work of the commission.
The paper goes on to talk about tackling electoral fraud, which I know we would all wish to do. Crucially, it also talks about the role of the commission in working with returning officers and others to ensure the maximum opportunity for those with disabilities to take part in the ballot on the day and in polling stations. Nobody in this place, or the other place, would think that was not a noble aim.
Simon Hoare
I politely ask the Chair of the Select Committee where in my remarks opening the debate I talked about other regulatory bodies and tried to rank them pari passu with the Electoral Commission. I will tell him where I did it: I did not.
Mr Betts
The Minister’s right hon. friend the Member for Norwich North raised it, and she was the Minister who took the Bill through Parliament, so it is worth taking seriously what she had to say.
The Minister did not tell us what problems the statement is meant to address. It would be helpful if he did so. [Interruption.]
Simon Hoare
I am trying to be helpful. Read Hansard. I have answered the hon. Gentleman’s question three times. If he neither understands nor can hear the answer, that is not my fault.
Mr Betts
The Minister is clearly trying to be helpful but not succeeding.
In the end, it comes back to the point that the Electoral Commission’s priorities do not have to be the Government’s priorities, and the Government have no right to direct the commission in its work. Again I ask: what problem is the motion designed to address? If the Minister cannot articulate what the problem is and how the statement will change the behaviour of the Electoral Commission, frankly every Member of this House is busy and has lots of things to do. Have we just wasted 90 minutes of our time, because in two years we will come back and find that today’s motion had no impact? I rather hope that that is the case, because the other scenario would be that the Government are interfering in the Electoral Commission’s work, which is the worse of the two ways of looking at this.
Simon Hoare
First, I thank all right hon. and hon. Members for their contributions this afternoon. To address the last part of the speech made by the hon. Member for Brent Central (Dawn Butler), I have been very grateful to colleagues on the Opposition Benches who have said some rather nice and kind words about me personally. I will not press to a Division the question of whether I deserve those nice and kind words—I am not sure how my side of the House would vote.
I say this in all seriousness: I hope the House knows me well enough to know that if I thought the intentions that sit behind this statement, the Elections Act, or any of the statutory instruments that have flowed from that Act were what hon. Members have asserted they were, I would have tendered my resignation to the Prime Minister. As a democrat—as somebody who has stood in elections, who has lost and won elections, and who has served in this place, if only for eight and a half years—I can say that there is nothing malign or mission-creep in anything that we are discussing today. I am not expecting that sentiment to change the votes of Opposition Members, but I say it sincerely. A number of Members have asked where the statement came from. Its genesis is, of course, to be found in sections 4A to 4E of the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000, inserted by the Elections Act 2022—that is where it comes from.
I will try to address some of the comments that have been made. My shadow, the hon. Member for Vauxhall (Florence Eshalomi), said that there was a political agenda; there is not. We paid full regard to the submissions of consultees, and we took a different view from them. That is perfectly fine. It does not undermine the system, nor is it a dangerous politicisation of the commission.
I believe my right hon. Friend the Member for Norwich North (Chloe Smith), a distinguished former elections Minister, was right when she referred to this as a reasonable vehicle. She asked about my discussions with the commission. I have had a very useful meeting with its senior team, at which we discussed a range of issues and how we can work together to support and buttress our democracy. Those conversations will continue. The statement is iterative and organic, and it can of course be refreshed to reflect issues and challenges as they arise in the field of AI, overseas involvement and so on. The House will notice that I use the word “as”—as they arise—not “if”.
My hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow North (Patrick Grady)—I call him an hon. Friend because he is a friend—asked: where is the parliamentary sovereignty? When the Division bell rings, that is the exercise of Parliament’s sovereignty, and he will vote accordingly.
The hon. Member for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts), in an rather confusing way, said he thought the statement was wrong because it did not mandate the commission or tell it what to do, and then went on in almost the same breath to say how frightful it would be if the statement could do that. I am afraid the hon. Gentleman is proving to be, on this issue and on this issue alone, a little bit of a pushmi-pullyu, because the independence of the commission is absolutely safe and sacrosanct.
Let me read back into the record from the statement that the
“duty to have regard does not require the Commission to give lesser priority to, or to ignore, any of its other statutory duties. The Electoral Commissioners and the Commission’s executive leadership will remain responsible for determining the Commission’s strategy, priorities, how it should discharge its duties”,
and so on and so forth, within its five-year plan. The commission will not be reporting to me, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, No. 10 or the Cabinet Office. It will continue to report to Parliament through Mr Speaker’s Committee, using the functions it has.
Simon Hoare
I hope the hon. Gentleman will forgive me, but I will not, because the House has a lot of business today. Let me address the points that have been raised by others, because I want to give due attention to the points they have made.
The hon. Member for Lancaster and Fleetwood (Cat Smith) really should have a word with her own Front Benchers about overseas voters. Let me quote from her hon. Friend the Member for Vauxhall on the statutory instrument we took upstairs on Wednesday 6 December 2023, when, from the Labour Front Bench, she told the Committee:
“We do not oppose the principle of overseas voting and giving citizens who still have a strong connection to the UK a voice in our elections, and that includes people who still have a strong connection to our local services and communities”.—[Official Report, Eighth Delegated Legislation Committee, 6 December 2023; c. 6.]
So the hon. Member for Lancaster and Fleetwood is entirely out of step with her hon. Friend on the Front Bench.
Simon Hoare
I heard the hon. Lady very clearly say that in principle she was opposed to overseas voters. If I misheard her, then I apologise, but that was certainly the thrust of the remarks she made.
The hon. Member for Luton South (Rachel Hopkins) describes the statement as a political agenda. Is improving disabled access having a political agenda? If so, or if that is the charge, I am going to plead guilty. Is cracking down on electoral fraud? If that is the charge, clap me in irons. Is ensuring that the rules of registration and the importance of voter ID are promoted? If so, take me off to the Tower. I plead guilty as charged.
Simon Hoare
The point, as I have consistently said, is to augment and buttress the work of the commission, and to give some reference tools in Parliament’s assessment. I also want to take issue with the hon. Member for Lancaster and Fleetwood—again, I hope I heard her correctly—who prayed in aid the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011, as if it was an ancient symbol of our democratic function that we have repealed. It sat for five years as a way of giving confidence to the markets that a coalition of two parties could deliver the clean-up strategy for what her party had left behind in 2010. So its repeal was not a dismantling of some great, permanent piece of our democratic architecture.
The hon. Member for Brent Central seemed to refer to this as a vendetta against the commission. Let me just invite her—[Interruption.] She referred to it as a vendetta—I wrote the word down. The record will say that she thought that Mr Johnson, as Prime Minister, was waging a vendetta against the commission because the commission had said something with which he disagreed; that was the word the hon. Lady used and I will play it back to her advisedly. I took a contemporaneous note of the word as she used it. Let me just invite her to consider that if we wished to wage a war against the commission, we could neuter it, fetter it, force it to report to us and we could abolish it, but we haven’t and we won’t. Why won’t we, why aren’t we? It is because we know that the commission is important, we respect its work, and we honour, cherish and guard its independence. We believe that this statement and the previous legislation that this House has put through will augment the accountability of the commission to Parliament and, in so doing, serve this as its sole and only purpose: to build on Parliament’s and the public’s confidence in its work. The commission was and is independent, and it will continue to be independent. I commend this motion to the House.
Question put.