Fairness at Work and Power in Communities

Feryal Clark Excerpts

Thursday 12th May 2022 Commons Chamber

[Feryal Clark (Enfield North) (Lab)]

My constituents in Enfield North want a Government who deliver for them. They want the financial security they need in the face of the cost of living crisis, the prosperity of a thriving high street, and the respect of properly funded local services that can deliver for them. The Queen’s Speech offered none of those things. It is wrapped up in an empty slogan that provides nothing to the people of my borough—a borough that has the 11th highest rate of child poverty in the country, and where one in five workers is on low pay. Enfield also has the highest rate of private rental evictions of any borough in London, mainly due to section 21 notices, which the Government have been promising to reform for years, but have failed to—yet we are still ignored.

It has become abundantly clear that the Government will not be levelling up this country. It smacks of total arrogance to talk about a “Medici-style renaissance” of our town centres when inflation is at a 30-year high. Only by our getting money back into people’s pockets will high streets and town centres, such as mine in Enfield North, be able to thrive again.

When it comes to levelling up, it is as if Enfield was the land that time forgot for this Government. Since 2018, Enfield Council’s budget has been cut by £70.2 million. The council has tried to work with central Government to help make up some of that shortfall through applying for the towns fund, the levelling up fund, and the community renewal fund. The result? A grand total of zero extra funding for Enfield—not a single penny. Frankly, after the emptiness of the Queen’s Speech, what hope do we have of that changing any time soon?

With more than 88% of the towns fund being allocated to areas with Tory MPs, is it any wonder that people in my borough are somewhat cynical about the Government’s agenda? The levelling up Bills in the Queen’s Speech are still desperately lacking in ambition, and as thin as the White Paper. The substance amounts to little more than the Government marking their own homework; there is nothing by way of new money or new ideas. Power could not be further away from the communities who are having to compete with each other over pots of funding sporadically handed out—or not, in Enfield’s case—by Tory Ministers. If levelling up is to mean anything, it should be about empowering local communities to take decisions in their own interest. Under this Government, it means paying lip-service to communities up and down the country, while continuing to hoard power in Whitehall.

Enfield, like the rest of the country, cannot carry on with more of the same. We need action to deal with the cost of living crisis now. We need a far more fundamental rethink of our economic settlement, with real power handed to communities. We need much better than what this Government are offering to the people of Enfield North and to the whole country.

As I have mentioned, the Government have been talking about abolishing section 21 for many years, but we are still waiting. Thousands of people in Enfield North are being evicted from their home for no good reason, and that puts pressure on local council housing lists. With thousands on the housing waiting list, it was very surprising that the Secretary of State for Transport intervened to stop a housing development on the car park next to the station, in order to protect parking facilities. It is absolutely beyond belief. Not only do the Government not have a plan to tackle the housing crisis, but they are actively preventing local authorities from dealing with the crisis; it is really disappointing. This Government continue to fail Enfield North residents on everything from housing to levelling up.

Finally, local councils, including mine, are doing a great job of delivering public health programmes focused on preventive measures. However, the funding formula for public health spending in local authorities was devised in 2013 and has not been reformed since. That means that boroughs such as mine are not getting the funding that they so desperately need to deliver preventive measures for their communities. It is unfair that my borough receives £39 per head, when the borough next door receives £139 per head. The disparity is ludicrous and there is no good reason for it. This was an opportunity for the Government to provide a fair funding formula, so that the residents of Enfield are not let down, but they have failed to do that. This Government do not fail to disappoint. The levelling up Bills do not deliver for Enfield, and, as I have said, everything that has been set out in the Queen’s Speech is just really disappointing.