Local Government Finance

Debate between Derek Twigg and Hilary Benn

Wednesday 8th February 2012 Commons Chamber

[Hilary Benn]

My hon. Friend is right. Certainly the West Yorkshire fire service does an extremely good job in meeting the needs of all our constituents.

Worse is to come if Ministers insist on proceeding with the cuts that they have planned for years 3 and 4. As the Minister will know, the metropolitan fire chiefs have been so worried about the prospect that they have given Ministers a stark warning in their response to the review, in which they say:

“The Mets have already shouldered 62% of the cuts in the English fire and rescue service outside London in the first two years…The cuts planned for years 3 and 4 are unsustainable and would lead to life threatening reductions in fire cover and national resilience capacity”.

Unless the Minister has a very good answer to that, he ought to reconsider his plans for the cuts in years 3 and 4.

Last year the Local Government Association warned that the consequences of the cuts in local government finance would be felt in front-line services, although—the Minister made this point—many councils have rationalised back-office services and cut costs. The approach of the Secretary of State and the Minister is to blame councils for all this, claiming that front-line cuts are not necessary. I was interested to read what the Minister told the Select Committee back in 2010, when he was questioned by its Chair, my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts). My hon. Friend put this to him:

“So the bottom line from your point of view, then, as a ministerial team, is that there is no need for any cuts in services in local government at all.”

The Minister replied:

“No, they shouldn’t be cutting the front-line services.”

Only a group of Ministers who were completely divorced from what was going on in the real world in local government could say such a thing in public. We know, however, that in private some of them have said something rather different. Last year the Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, the hon. Member for Hazel Grove (Andrew Stunell) wrote to fellow Liberal Democrats—[Hon. Members: “Where is he?”] He cannot be locked in the Division Lobby this time, but it would have been nice to see him here. In his letter, he described the local government settlement as “very disappointing”. A year ago, Liberal Democrat councillors published a letter in The Times in which they said that local government was

“being let done by the Communities and Local Government Secretary”.

Even a good friend of the Secretary of State and the Minister, the much respected Baroness Eaton, accused Ministers of being

“detached from the reality councils are dealing with”.

[Derek Twigg]

May I make a point about the impact of front-line cuts on people? In Halton, adaptations for people with disabilities can no longer be obtained because of Government cuts. The Minister did not answer my question earlier, when I asked why the much more prosperous Cheshire East authority has been subject to a much smaller cut than Halton, which is one of the most deprived boroughs in the country.

[Hilary Benn]

My hon. Friend makes an extremely good point, and has anticipated what I am about to say about the impact of the cuts.

National Planning Policy Framework

Debate between Derek Twigg and Hilary Benn

Thursday 20th October 2011 Commons Chamber

[Hilary Benn]

I am going to make a little more progress.

The ham-fisted way in which aspects of planning policy have been handled by the Government has been entirely of their own making: parts of the policy were drafted in a rush; they did not listen properly to advice; they have created uncertainty—hence the result of the consultation and the need for clarity—and, most disappointingly of all, they responded initially to criticism with retaliation. That is quite some achievement. In this respect, as in others, the Government cannot help going too far, too fast.

The Government have got themselves into this position partly because of the difficulties with their economic policy, which is central to planning reform. Everyone can now see confidence plummeting, unemployment rising, growth grinding to a halt and nothing like enough private sector jobs being created to replace those being lost in the public sector, even though we were promised last year that that was what would happen. Worst of all, however, in the face of this failure, the Government have no plan to put it right. There are some in government, not so much in DCLG but elsewhere, who have blamed the planning system for a lack of growth, even though, over the past 60 years—to respond to the point made by the hon. Member for Reading West (Alok Sharma)—it has helped our country to build many new homes, to establish many new businesses and shops and to undertake a great deal of development.

No one is going to say that the planning system is perfect or that it cannot be improved upon—decisions could certainly be made quicker. However, given that the Government’s own impact assessment makes it clear that 85% of planning applications were approved in 2009-10, it is hard to see how it can be described as a system that stands in the way of economic growth. What worries people when they read the NPPF is the possibility that it will usher in a “big bang” development free-for-all, which no one in the House would want.

[Derek Twigg]

The Government did not explain exactly what they meant by giving communities a greater say. Most of my constituents who have written to me on the subject fear that they will actually give business a greater say. One of my constituents asked, “Would what the Government are doing have stopped the housing development down the road to which I objected?” Will the Government be giving communities more power to stop development? Most people who contact me want to stop it rather than support it. Are the Government creating a smokescreen by saying that they will give communities a greater say, rather than actually giving them greater power to determine the outcome of applications?

[Hilary Benn]

My hon. Friend has raised an important point. There are those who think that neighbourhood planning will give them the opportunity to reduce the number of houses planned for the areas in which they live—this takes us back to the point made by the hon. Member for Broxtowe (Anna Soubry)—but I understand from the NPPF that it is a one-way lock. A neighbourhood plan cannot say, “We would like to have fewer houses than proposed by the local plan”; it can only say, “We would like to have more houses”. People who have seen neighbourhood planning as a potential way of doing what the hon. Lady wants to be done will find themselves rather disappointed.

Under the current system—I want to recognise its strengths—councils have granted developers planning permission for 300,000 new homes that have not yet been built. Why have they not been built? It is clearly not the fault of the planning system, which has done its bit. What are the Government doing about the fact that the number of new homes built in England in the first year under the coalition was the lowest for at least 20 years, and about the fact that plans for 200,000 new homes have been abandoned since their election because of the chaos and uncertainty created by their planning proposals? That is but one example of the way in which the Government’s draft framework is leading to confusion.

The Government hope that planning reform will help growth to get going again, and we all want that. However, their actions in rushing reform in a way that has lost people’s confidence and hurrying to try to abolish the regional spatial strategies have led to uncertainty among planners, councils, developers and the courts. As a result, the system may slow down while everyone works out what the new words mean.