Housing, Communities and Local Government: Departmental Spending

David Linden Excerpts

Thursday 9th July 2020 Commons Chamber

[David Linden (Glasgow East) (SNP)]

I am grateful to the Chair of the Select Committee, the hon. Member for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts), for opening today’s debate, which has certainly been wide-ranging and informative in terms of scrutinising MHCLG policy. I want to use my speech to touch on three areas of policy and spending, relating mainly to the shared prosperity fund, the stronger towns fund and, latterly, homelessness.

Yesterday was a set-piece day on which the Chancellor came forward and made some big spending commitments, some of which I certainly welcome. However, as always with this Government, they are very good at announcements but less so on the delivery and the detail. There is perhaps no greater example of that than the much-vaunted UK shared prosperity fund, details of which have been conspicuous by their absence, to say the least.

The reality is that we face the very real prospect of crashing out of the European Union at the turn of the year, and still no meaningful details have been outlined about the future of funding for our communities. As a member of the European Union, the UK received structural funding worth about £2.1 billion per year. Scotland itself has benefited from billions in European structural fund money since joining the EU in 1973. These funds have been used to support getting people into work and out of poverty, improving their education and skills, and investing in our infrastructure and our communities. They have come from the regional development fund, which promotes balanced development across the EU, and the European social fund, which invests in employment-related projects.

Analysis from the Conference of Peripheral Maritime Regions estimates that the UK would have been entitled to approximately €13 billion of regional development funding in the 2021 to 2027 period if it had stayed in the EU. The same analysis shows that Scotland will lose over €840 million by 2027, with the highlands and islands alone losing €130 million. It is therefore urgent that the UK Government outline what the shared prosperity fund will look like, how it will operate, the level of funding it will manage and whether that funding will be allocated. It is essential that the fund is no less in real terms than the EU funding it replaces. I hope when he sums up that the Minister will be able to update us on the future of the shared prosperity fund, because communities cannot be left in the dark any longer.

I want to touch on the stronger towns fund, which I raised with the Secretary of State in the last round of departmental questions. As I reminded him then, back when there were considerably more Scottish Conservatives in the House, his predecessor, the right hon. Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (James Brokenshire) was keen to inform them that Scotland could benefit from this stronger towns funding. However, again, details have been slow in coming forward. The stronger towns fund needs to be clarified and expanded and made fair for all parts of the UK.

The £1.6 billion fund ring-fences £1 billion for England and makes the other £0.6 billion available for bidding directly from local authorities. In doing so, the fund bypasses the Barnett formula entirely; it relies on the £0.6 billion that is biddable to negate the fact that there is no dedicated funding for devolved nations and therefore there are no direct Barnett consequentials for the £1 billion to be spent in England. Is this yet another example of Whitehall short-changing Scotland or will the Minister finally outline Scotland’s share of the stronger towns fund today? I am always quite struck by the number of Members in this House who can stand up and say how much money they are getting for their constituencies from stronger towns funding, but in Scotland we are no clearer.

I want to finish on a topic that impacts every town and city the length and breadth of the British Isles, which is homelessness. Despite the insistence of the previous Tory Government that cash injections would not solve rough sleeping, the coronavirus pandemic has shown that if there is a political will, there is a way.

In March, the Government announced £3.2 million emergency funding for local authorities to provide accommodation services to enable rough sleepers and those at risk of rough sleeping to self-isolate during the covid-19 outbreak. By May, a total of 14,610 people in England who were sleeping rough or were at risk of sleeping rough had been provided with emergency accommodation. Impressively, 90% of homeless people known to councils at the beginning of the pandemic have now been offered accommodation. That is obviously wonderful, but it needs to be taken on after the pandemic. We should not just be offering the homeless a place to stay to avoid the transmission of covid, but to end rough sleeping as an objective in itself. I hope that the Minister can offer some thoughts about how the Government plan to keep up this genuinely good work and ensure that one positive legacy from covid is that we support the homeless and make sure that we are looking after the most vulnerable in our society.