Local Government Finance (England)

Emma Hardy Excerpts

Monday 24th February 2020 Commons Chamber

[Emma Hardy (Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Nickie Aiken), who made a very thoughtful speech. There is lot of agreement on the Opposition Benches with her comments about supporting the outreach workers who are working with the homeless community and with her calls for the reform of council tax. I look forward to hearing more contributions from her in the very near future.

I did not feel the same joy and gladness on hearing the Secretary of State’s initial comments. It appears that, with the picture he paints of the promised extra money, not only are we expected to be grateful for what he is offering but we are expected to ignore the past 10 years of cuts, which is difficult when we see the evidence of it in every part of our community.

One fact I would like the Minister to address in his summing up is that there are now 848 looked-after children in Hull—the number has nearly doubled since 2010. I am sure he is aware, as I am, of the outcomes for children in care and how much lower they are than for children who are not in care. I am sure, therefore, that he will feel as disgusted and outraged as I do that early intervention and support were not available for those children, and I hope he comes to the same conclusion as me that the early intervention and support were not absent because Hull City Council and the social workers did not care but because they did not have the finances needed to fund them.

We have been placed in a situation in which services are left to reach crisis point before there is involvement. All the money is spent at the crisis end, with very little spent at the beginning to develop the early intervention that families and young children desperately need.

It is the same with adult social care. We wait until things get to the most expensive point, when vulnerable adults are left going to A&E services that cost society a lot more than providing the services and support from the beginning. That is because of the Government’s decision to pull money away from our local government.

We do not always acknowledge how local government has been at the front of the cuts under both this and the previous Government. Local government has had to face the brunt. It has had to face the complaints from people who are angry about the roads not being repaired in the way they want, about bins not being collected in the way they want and about problems with recycling. Local government sits there and takes the blame for problems that are not of its making; problems that have come from this building and this Government’s decision to pull away its funding.

The Government want us to be grateful, and they want us to thank them for offering us a little more money. Maybe that would be easier if they showed a little remorse for what they have done for the past 10 years and if they acknowledged that they made a mistake, that they cut too hard and too fast and that the outcome has been those 848 children who are now in crisis and being looked after because some of them did not get the support they needed earlier in life.

I hope the Secretary of State is sincere in wanting to develop a truly fair funding formula and is sincere about working with Opposition Members, because I fear that, if the Government continue down the path they already seem to be taking, we will see more cuts to areas with the greatest need as the Tory shires seem to get more.

I would like the Minister to answer questions on how this will be weighted. Indeed, I raised this with him at a recent all-party parliamentary group meeting, so it should not come as a surprise that I wish to raise it with him again. How will the need for adult social care be weighted in the fair funding formula? How will the need for children’s services be weighted? Will it take into account the number of adults who can self-finance? In Hull, only 11% of adults can finance their own adult social care. That is one of the lowest levels in the country. Is that going to be taken into consideration when the Government develop this fair funding model? We have to look at more than just what business rates are coming into the area; we need to look at the need as well. When working out the new funding formula, is any assessment going to be made of how dire some of the services have become because of the past 10 years of cuts? How are the Government going to work with the different council leaders up and down the country in developing this fairer funding formula? How are the Government going to work with other Members of Parliament, if they actually want to get this right and move forward together?

On that point of getting this right and moving forward together, the other thing I wish to spend a couple of moments talking about is devolution. The Secretary of State knows, because, again, I raised this with him personally, that I am concerned about what is going to happen to Hull City Council on the issue of devolution. He spoke about the fact that South Yorkshire has signed its deal off, and that the Leeds city deal is under development, but I ask him again: what is going to happen to Hull? He talked about the need for a strong economic and geographical area. If he is looking for a strong economic area, he would be looking at Hull City Council, East Riding of Yorkshire Council, North East Lincolnshire Council and North Lincolnshire Council as part of a Humber devolution deal, because it is one. If the Government want to make this into a political decision, different boundaries would be drawn. I want to know from the Government what the priorities are, because it appeared that the previous northern powerhouse Minister accepted the argument for that strong economic area and that that was his deciding factor when making decisions. What is the Government’s deciding factor? Is it the wishes of local leaders in the area or is it the needs of the economy in the area? What is going to take priority when those devolution deals are signed off?

Mention has been made of having different levels of power going to different devolved areas, but will that not partly depend on geography? How many powers would be devolved in a very small devolution deal, with an area comprising just Hull City Council and East Riding of Yorkshire Council, compared with something as huge as the Manchester area? What conversations have been had about that? What happens if this involves a local authority with no partners? How is that going to work? If the Government are looking at a greater Lincolnshire model, they will find that it is not a strong economic geographical area. I want to know what the priorities are: keeping council leaders happy or solving the economic problems facing our country? I would like to know about that.

In conclusion, there are things on which the Government can start to work more effectively with Members from across the House. One of them is devolution, because we have one chance to get this right. If we do not get it right this time, it will take a long time to sort this out. We had this problem with Humberside, years and years ago, as that did not work. That is probably why we have ended up in the situation we are in now. We have got to get this right and to do so we need to be looking at more than just the wishes of local council leaders. We need to be looking at the economy and what works for that particular area. The same applies in respect of the fair funding formula. If the Government are serious about levelling up across different parts of the country, they should work with the Opposition parties to develop a formula that takes into account the needs of each individual area. Otherwise, those 848 children that I mentioned at the beginning of this speech are only going to increase in number.