Oral Answers to Questions

David Davis Excerpts

Monday 7th April 2025 Commons Chamber

[Matthew Pennycook]

I recognise, as I said, the challenges experienced by leaseholders. When it comes to insurance, the Minister for Building Safety recently met the industry to discuss how we can bring premiums down. When it comes to service charges, I assure my hon. Friend the Member for Southampton Itchen that we understand, not least because I have significant numbers of such cases in my constituency, the considerable and, in some cases, intolerable financial strain being placed on leaseholders as a result of opaque and unaffordable service charges. We are committed to empowering leaseholders to challenge unreasonable service charge increases, and my hon. Friend will not have to wait long for us to take action to that end.

[David Davis (Goole and Pocklington) (Con)]

14. What discussions she has had with the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Secretary of State for Education on the potential implications for her policies of councils becoming insolvent due to inadequate funding for SEND education.

[The Minister for Local Government and English Devolution (Jim McMahon)]

The Government recognise the impact that spending on special educational needs and disabilities is having on council finances. A £1 billion increase to SEND and alternative provision was announced for 2025-26 in the autumn statement. The Government intend to set out plans for reforming the SEND system in further detail this year. That will include details on how the Government will support local authorities to deal with their historical and accruing dedicated schools grant deficits.

[David Davis]

Next March, when local authorities can no longer exclude the high needs elements from their balance sheets, half of them will go bankrupt as it now stands. For the East Riding, it is estimated that this year’s education budget is £17 million in deficit. That is largely because of increased high needs spending on pupils with special education needs. Can the Minister give me an undertaking that we will not next year find ourselves either crushing the needs of special needs children or those of other needs in society?

[Jim McMahon]

First, we need to repair the system of SEND provision and deal with its impact on local authorities. The system is not sustainable in its current form, and we must reform it from the ground upwards. Secondly, deficits have been accruing and are still accruing, and that is a big issue. We certainly do not intend councils to be the victims of a system over which they have had no control, and we will work with them in our endeavour to prevent that.

[Jim McMahon]

As my hon. Friend says, this issue requires a whole-of-Government approach. When Governments work in silos, it is those who need support the most who fall through the gaps in the end. This Government do work across Departments, including our own and the Department for Education, to ensure that we have a single plan. Ultimately, of course, we have to deal with the financial impact on councils, but it is the young people going through the system who really matter.

[David Davis (Goole and Pocklington) (Con)]

T1. If she will make a statement on her departmental responsibilities.

[The Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government (Angela Rayner)]

I refer the House to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests, which states that I am a trade union member.

Let me update the House on the waste dispute in Birmingham. Our priority is tackling the misery and disruption caused to residents. The Government have consistently urged the council and Unite to sit down and resolve the dispute; it is welcome that they met yesterday and that further talks are taking place today, but we continue to press all parties to negotiate that urgently needed resolution.

It is essential to protect public health by tackling the backlog of waste, and my Department is in close contact with the council. This weekend I met the council leader and the managing director, and we are providing ongoing support to address the public health emergency. Collections took place over the weekend, and will continue this week to clear the backlog and protect public health. The Government continue to support Birmingham’s recovery.

[David Davis]

Needless to say, everyone wishes the Secretary of State well with that.

In March, the Chancellor said:

“The regulatory system has become burdensome to the point of choking off innovation, investment and growth. We will free businesses from that stranglehold”.

In my constituency, the Finnish company Metsä Tissue wants to invest hundreds of millions to build a state-of-the-art tissue manufacturing plant. The investment will provide 400 direct jobs, thousands of other jobs and £30 million a year for the local economy, but although the site is a freeport, the investment is hampered by monumental costs of £113 million to make it ready, although the same process on an equivalent site in Sweden will cost £4.5 million. What are the Government doing to correct this problem?

[Angela Rayner]

We have been doing a lot to try to ensure that, under this Government, taxpayers get value for money from the fair and reasonable amounts that we can invest to make land ready for development. As the right hon. Member said, we have the freeports—some of them a legacy from the previous Government—but we want to see infrastructure built, which is why we are bringing forward the Planning and Infrastructure Bill. We have committed ourselves to 150 new major infrastructure projects, so hopefully we will kick-start the economy in a way that his Government was unable to.