Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Dominic Raab and Lord Pickles
Mr Dominic Raab (Esher and Walton) (Con)
5. What steps he is taking to reduce translation costs in the delivery of local services.
The Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (Mr Eric Pickles)
My Department has issued crystal clear guidance to councils that they should cease translating into foreign languages. Translation is a waste of taxpayers’ money and encourages segregation and division. Promoting English is the best way to ensure integration.
Mr Raab
I thank the Secretary of State for that answer, and welcome the progress made by his Department. Does he agree that the enormous translation costs for public services that grew up under the previous Government were not just a huge waste of taxpayers’ money, but sent a message that if someone moves here from abroad, they do not need to speak English or to integrate, and that has proved a major policy mistake?
Mr Pickles
Yes; the cost worked out at something like £140 million a year. It is not good enough to say, “Don’t translate”; we must make a real effort to ensure that people can speak English. That is why my Department has invested £6 million in six programmes to deliver courses for more than 24,000 adults with the lowest levels of English. Those people are the most isolated because they are unable to speak English. The courses have been targeted principally towards Bangladeshi, Pakistani and Somali women.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Dominic Raab and Lord Pickles
Mr Pickles
I do not understand the hon. Lady’s hostility. This has been a very successful programme, and we have worked closely with Labour authorities. There is a lagging authority, however. I understand that her experience might be different, in that Newham has identified 985 families and is working with 90% of them, but has turned round only 14% of them, compared with the national average of 33%. Let us be clear: we are not turning these good folks into model citizens—these are very difficult families—but if we can get the children into school for three successive terms, get other family members into work for three months and reduce the amount of antisocial behaviour, it is better for those people and for their neighbours. It is also a lot better than the rather smug attitude being taken by some Opposition Members.
Mr Dominic Raab (Esher and Walton) (Con)
5. What steps he is taking to increase home building.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Dominic Raab and Lord Pickles(12 years, 2 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Mr Dominic Raab (Esher and Walton) (Con)
14. What steps he is taking to protect the green belt.
The Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (Mr Eric Pickles)
The green belt is an important protection against urban sprawl, providing a green lung around towns and cities. The national planning policy framework delivers the coalition’s agreement to safeguard the green belt. Inappropriate development should not be approved in the green belt, and boundaries should be altered only in exceptional circumstances.
Mr Pickles
What I have said is absolutely compatible with what the Chancellor said; there is no difference between my views and those of my right hon. Friend. We have said from the Dispatch Box that a proportion of the green belt is former brownfield land—a disused quarry, for example, or a scrap yard—and the national planning policy framework envisaged careful consideration of those boundaries. Does it not make sense to get those kinds of sites back under development, and protect and enhance the green belt?
Mr Raab
I understand that the Government want to legislate further to streamline planning as part of their economic growth strategy. Elmbridge in my constituency is 57% green-belt land. Will the Secretary of State confirm that the proposed legislation will not contain any new proposals that might weaken protection of green-belt land, and, critically, that planning inspectors will have no right to trump local democratic decision making?
Mr Pickles
I have good news for my hon. Friend. Based on calculations, it is not 57% green belt, but 60%.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Dominic Raab and Lord Pickles
Mr Dominic Raab (Esher and Walton) (Con)
6. What steps he is taking to reduce the level of fraudulent claims for funding awarded by local authorities.
The Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (Mr Eric Pickles)
Last month, in conjunction with the National Fraud Authority, I published a 10-point plan outlining how councils can save £2 billion a year from tackling fraud. Whether it be through dealing with tenancy cheats or organised crimes, this is a key way to save taxpayers’ money and protect front-line services.
Mr Raab
I thank the Secretary of State for that answer. Will he join me in recognising the lead taken by Elmbridge borough council, which over the last year alone recovered £72,000 of overpaid benefit and is using data checks to crack down on the abuse of the single person council tax discount, cutting out waste and fraud and saving taxpayers’ money?
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Dominic Raab and Lord Pickles(13 years, 10 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Mr Pickles
I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman gets out much, but West Oxfordshire is a very small place, and Durham is a lot bigger. Durham has reserves of just short of £93 million, and it receives formula grant at £459 per head, a sum that the people of West Oxfordshire can only dream of.
Mr Dominic Raab (Esher and Walton) (Con)
T2. Last year, London Councils spoke for many when it said that Labour’s local funding formula“lacks transparency and is inherently unstable and unpredictable, generating fluctuations…that defy logic.”Will my right hon. Friend review that formula and base it on real need, so that more taxpayers get what they pay for?
Mr Pickles
It is certainly our intention to review the formula and to try to place it on a fair basis. When I had the opportunity of dealing with it, one of the relatively small things I was able to do was to move the relative needs component up to 83% from 73%. That is why the settlement has been so progressive this time.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Dominic Raab and Lord Pickles
Mr Pickles
The hon. Gentleman’s council faces cuts of 1.36%. If his council cannot cope with that, it should ask him why the Labour party spent the country’s money without making adequate allocations and why the then Government planned cuts of £50 billion, of which local government’s share would have been about £13 billion.
Mr Dominic Raab (Esher and Walton) (Con)
T5. The coalition programme for government pledges to incentivise local business growth. Will that involve giving local authorities back a greater share of the tax revenue raised locally from business rates?