Budget Resolutions

Debate between David Simmonds and Steve Reed

Monday 1st November 2021 Commons Chamber

[Steve Reed]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. One of the things that the Government have done over the last 11 years is dramatically increase levels of poverty across the country. They have not been levelling the country up at all, and now they are trying to cover up their track record since they came into Government back in 2010.

To make the situation worse, the Government’s plans to change the local government funding formula—what they call, in an Orwellian way, “the fair funding formula”—will divide communities even further. Analysis by the Local Government Association found that millions of pounds would be redirected away from poorer towns in the north of England to wealthier southern shires, and that 37 of the Conservative MPs newly elected in 2019 would see millions of pounds cut from their towns, including Workington, Sedgefield, Stoke-on-Trent, Redcar, West Bromwich, Bishop Auckland, Grimsby and Leigh. That is not levelling up Britain; it is pulling Britain apart.

Whether it is work, families or communities, this Conservative Government have made our country more unequal. They have ushered in an age of insecurity, where public services have been decimated, wages have fallen in real terms, jobs are more precarious than ever before, our high streets are struggling to survive, and British people are forced to pay the highest housing costs in Europe for some of the worst quality housing. These levels of inequality are not just morally wrong; they make our country weaker. We all pay the price of inequality, with higher levels of crime, family breakdown and mental ill health, and we pay the price a second time by denying people the opportunity to reach their full potential for themselves, their families and their communities. Levelling up must mean opening up opportunity, not closing it down in the way that this Government have done for the last 11 years.

The Secretary of State will find that he cannot fix regional inequalities because the biggest obstacle in his way is his own party’s marriage to an economic model that is based on crony contracts and waste, and that starves whole regions of capital investment. We need new institutions in our regions—such as regional banks to direct investment where it is needed most—if we want the economy to work in the interests of working people in every part of the country.

[David Simmonds (Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner) (Con)]

The hon. Gentleman makes some interesting debating points, but will he share with the House his view why, despite this bad news that he has shared with us, the Conservatives remain overwhelmingly the largest party in local government and made significant gains in the recent local elections, especially in areas that traditionally favoured the Labour party?

[Steve Reed]

Given the Government’s announcement of their intentions to level up the country, the interesting thing will be whether those people feel that they have been levelled up at the next general election and the next set of local elections. That is the only test of what this Government are announcing that will really matter.

The Conservatives have broken the link between work and reward with a decade of stagnant wages and a tax raid on working people; they have undermined families by pushing half a million more children into poverty and refusing to invest properly in kids’ catch-up; they have ripped the fabric out of our communities instead of harnessing the innovation, creativity and compassion that they have to offer; and they have weakened our country with an economic model that has deepened the divides between regions and within communities. That is the polar opposite of levelling up.

Non-Domestic Rating (Lists) (No. 2) Bill

Debate between David Simmonds and Steve Reed

Committee stage & 3rd reading & 3rd reading: House of Commons & Committee: 1st sitting & Committee: 1st sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 20th October 2020 Commons Chamber

[David Simmonds (Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner) (Con)]

One can tell by the enormous crowd in the Chamber that the NDR Bill is going to be the highlight of this parliamentary week. Nevertheless, given that the average local authority delivers over 800 different services which, during this covid crisis, are being brought into sharp focus as to how essential they are as part of the warp and weft of our communities, it is important that we get this right.

This matter has been extensively debated previously, and it is largely of a technical nature. However, I would be pleased to hear the Minister address a point about the timing that has emerged during the Bill’s passage through the House. Among those 800 different services, local authorities provide the billing process to local businesses to ensure that business rates are both accurate and able to be paid on time. It is absolutely critical that they have sufficient time within that process to receive the data from the Valuation Office Agency, to test that with the software supplier who ensures that the bills are physically dispatched to businesses, to resolve any disputes that may subsequently emerge—it is not uncommon for businesses to come back with queries—and then to be in a position to ensure that payment is made in a timely manner.

I entirely understand why, from a Government perspective, it is important to align that process with a fiscal event, which is likely to be an autumn Budget. However, as we have seen, especially in these recent times, there is often a situation whereby the timing of those events needs to move around and change. I hope that the Minister will be able to address the need to ensure that this information is available to local authorities in a timely manner so that businesses have certainty and accuracy regarding these bills. I would like an assurance that if there is a need to change the date of the autumn Budget, there will then be scope within the timetable to provide the information to local authorities, prior to the Budget taking place, to ensure that the bills are available to local businesses in a timely manner, and, indeed, can be paid, so as to be part of the critical funding arrangements for local authorities.

With those observations, I take my seat and look forward to hearing the furious and enthusiastically engaged debate that will doubtless follow.

[Steve Reed (Croydon North) (Lab/Co-op)]

This is not a controversial measure, as the hon. Member for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner (David Simmonds) has made clear, but I want to put a few points on the record while confirming that the Opposition continue to support the proposals.

Since Second Reading, there have been at least a couple of developments. The first is that the rate of covid infection is rising again, and that makes the case for supporting businesses and local authorities, including through business rate reform, even stronger. The second is that organisations with an interest in this Bill have made it even clearer in conversations with us that although they support the Bill, they are looking for yet more meaningful change. The Bill must be the beginning of root-and-branch reform of the business rate system. Right now, the jobs of people in the arts, retail, hospitality and many other sectors are under threat from the economic impact of the covid-19 pandemic. Those sectors and others need help to get through the rising wave of infections, and they need that help as urgently as possible.

Business rates, as currently set up, do not fairly reflect the rental value of the premises occupied, and they have created regional imbalances. A further and growing unfairness is that retailers that occupy shops in high streets pay far more in tax than online retailers do—that situation is, disappointingly, incentivising the decline of our high streets. Research by Revo shows just how acute the regional imbalance can be. In the north and the midlands, the rate rise is almost 12.5 times greater than the rise in rental values, compared with just four times greater in the south. If the Government are serious about levelling up, they need to address that anomaly.

Getting the business rate system right is essential, and it should be seen as part of the support that the Government must provide to businesses and local authorities to help the economy to recover fully. The Government have been too slow to support businesses and local authorities during the pandemic. According to the Local Government Association, the Government have left councils facing a £3 billion funding gap, which means that support for local economic recovery may be cut precisely when it is needed most.

The country is facing a long, hard winter ahead as we contend with the effects of covid-19, and we must provide all the support we can to local authorities and local businesses to get our communities through this safely.

Westferry Printworks Development

Debate between David Simmonds and Steve Reed

Wednesday 24th June 2020 Commons Chamber

[Steve Reed]

I would like to make a little progress, because an awful lot of Members—not just in the Chamber, but elsewhere—would like to contribute to the debate.

The Secretary of State admitted last week that he was fully aware that his decision helped Mr Desmond avoid these charges. Why was it so important that this decision was rushed through on 14 January rather than, say, a day later or a week later? He has given no compelling reason for that, so suspicion arises that he was trying to do favours for a Conservative party donor.

The Secretary of State’s own advisers from his Department believed the scheme was viable with the higher level of affordable housing, so on what specific grounds did he overrule professionals with relevant experience that far outweighs his own? Without a credible answer, the suspicion arises once again that the Secretary of State was bending over backwards to do favours for his billionaire dinner date.

Barely two weeks after the Secretary of State forced the scheme through, in the teeth of opposition from his own advisers and the local council, the beneficiary, Mr Desmond, made a donation to the Conservative party— what an astonishing coincidence! The Secretary of State can see, as we all can, how that looks: cash for favours—mates’ rates on taxes for Tories that everyone else has to pay in full. Do this Government really believe that taxes are just for the little people? No one will believe a word they say on levelling up until the Secretary of State levels with the British people over why he helped a billionaire dodge millions of pounds in tax after they enjoyed dinner together at an exclusive Conservative party fundraising event.

[David Simmonds (Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner) (Con)]

Has the hon. Gentleman considered that the urgency partly arose from the fact that the period for determination of the application had expired in November 2018? The opportunity of these valuable homes had already been waiting more than a year for a decision in the hands of Labour Tower Hamlets Council.

[Steve Reed]

The issue in question is not that the Secretary of State called the planning decision in; it is what he did after he had called it in—[Interruption.] The Secretary of State will have a chance to respond. It is what happened when he took the determination, not the fact that he was taking it.