The Coroner Service

Debate between George Howarth and Robert Neill

Thursday 28th October 2021 Westminster Hall

[Sir George Howarth (in the Chair)]

Before we begin, I encourage Members to wear masks when they are not speaking, in line with current Government guidance and that of the House of Commons Commission. I remind Members that they are asked by the House to have a covid lateral flow test twice a week if coming on to the parliamentary estate. That can be done either at the testing centre in the House, or at home. Please also give each other and members of staff space when seated and when entering or leaving the room.

[Sir Robert Neill (Bromley and Chislehurst) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the First Report of the Justice Committee, The Coroner Service, HC 68, and the Government response, HC 675.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship again, Sir George, and to introduce the debate. I am grateful to the Backbench Business Committee for allocating time for the debate. This is an important matter that deserves further attention. I am sorry in some respects that it requires further attention, because had the Government responded more positively to what is a detailed report based on careful and substantial evidence, it might not be necessary to highlight the measure of deficiencies that are revealed in the Government’s response.

I welcome the Minister to his first justice debate in Westminster Hall, having congratulated him warmly on his debut at the Dispatch Box in the main Chamber yesterday. I appreciate that the Government response was not his responsibility, and I am not sure if he can avail himself of the young and naïve defence that was used yesterday.

Fire Service (Metropolitan Areas)

Debate between George Howarth and Robert Neill

Wednesday 7th March 2012 Westminster Hall

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (Robert Neill)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Williams. I congratulate the hon. Member for Bolton South East (Yasmin Qureshi) on securing the debate and all the right hon. and hon. Members who have spoken. The hon. Lady is of course right to pay tribute to the firefighters in her constituency and in green watch and to many others across the country. I have been involved in the fire service, one way or another, for 35 years. I have been the leader of a fire authority. I have had to wrestle with the difficulties of balancing a budget. Throughout those years, I have met firefighters in stations. I have dealt with the fire unions regularly.

[Mr George Howarth]

rose—

[Robert Neill]

I will not give way very much, I am afraid, because I want to answer some of the points that have been made. With respect to the right hon. Gentleman, let us see how we get on.

There is no monopoly of concern for the fire service in either party or personal terms. Equally, we have to recognise that, as with all the public sector, the fire service must deal with the difficult and pressing financial situation that we inherited from the previous Government. I make no bones about that. We must therefore deal with difficult financial circumstances in a sensible fashion. There is no point in denying the need to reduce the deficit, and I do not think that most responsible people on any side do. It is not helpful to use the rather selective quotations that we have just heard or highly coloured scenarios. There are difficulties, which are being addressed by fire services through hard work, and I recognise that. It is equally important, however, to provide the full context, which may not have been picked up fully in the debate.

First, it is right, as has been observed, that back-loading is recognising the position of the fire service as an emergency service. It is worth noting that the reductions applied to fire and rescue authorities have been less than those applied to local authorities in general. No one likes to have to make reductions, but the inheritance is such that it cannot be avoided.

Secondly, it is important to realise that the much criticised formula is—I say it bluntly—essentially the formula that this Government inherited from Opposition Members when they were in government. It is a bit rich to hear criticisms of illogicality from hon. Members who were effectively the authors of the system—a system that the Government are proposing, in the coalition agreement, to change. Let me spell that out a little more clearly.

Local Government Finance

Debate between George Howarth and Robert Neill

Wednesday 8th February 2012 Commons Chamber

[Robert Neill]

I shall give way once and once only, to the right hon. Member for Knowsley (Mr Howarth).

[Mr George Howarth]

I am grateful to the Minister. He is making a speech about local government finance. Has he noticed that he has not mentioned a single figure yet?

[Robert Neill]

Since the settlement is set out in reams of paper, I need not trouble the right hon. Gentleman too much with that, though he might like to know that the right hon. Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn), I regret to say, fell—unintentionally, I am sure—into error in his point about expenditure. The disabled facilities grant has in fact been increased this year, as it was last year. It was increased by a further £20 million. It has gone up from £167 million to £187 million, and it will go up to £207 million next year.

It is worth saying that central Government are providing £27.8 billion in all by way of formula grant to local authorities. In addition there are further specific grants. It is also worth saying, if the right hon. Member for Knowsley would like some figures, that we are providing a further £20 million in transition grant this year. That makes up for the slack in budgets that came when the Labour Government brought working neighbourhoods funds to an end, quite deliberately and in a planned fashion.

Local Government Finance Bill

Debate between George Howarth and Robert Neill

Tuesday 24th January 2012 Commons Chamber

[Robert Neill]

The danger in the hon. Gentleman’s formulation is in assuming that that would shift all funding in that way, and that is not correct. What we have said is that we will have the option to make an adjustment to keep the grant within the control totals, and to ensure that money raised by business rates is returned to local government, in a way that is consistent with the scheme in the Local Government Finance Act 1988. That is not different, because as the hon. Gentleman, with his experience, will know, quite a number of funding streams are paid to local authorities, outside formula grant. I do not accept that it follows that all of them have to be added in. What we have said is that we will seek to align more closely the grants with the responsibilities.

[Mr George Howarth (Knowsley) (Lab)]

I am grateful to the Minister for giving way; he has been generous. He may cover this later, but the top-ups and tariffs updated by the retail prices index would mean that, without the protection of safety nets, Knowsley, which I have the honour to represent, would have a four-year cash growth of 21.9%; by comparison, for the City of London, it would be 139.6%. Will he explain how the measures that he is about to announce would ameliorate the problem?

[Robert Neill]

In a later passage of the schedule, we deal with the operation of the set-aside and the safety net, and that will deal with the issue of recouping what is decided to be disproportionate growth, and how that will work in principle. Of course, as this is a framework Bill, it does not set out the impact on any individual local authority; it sets out the methodology that will be applied, and I will happily deal with that at the appropriate time.

I can tell the right hon. Gentleman that, as we may have indicated earlier, over the spending review period that we have looked at, Knowsley’s non-domestic rate increase was 8.4%, which is significantly above the national average. Of course, I accept that local authorities start with different financial circumstances, and we are reflecting that in the baseline, so that no one is worse off, but we are right to point out that some local authorities that certainly have a number of demands on their resources are capable, as we have seen, of a growth in business rate income that is above the national average.

In a nutshell, the Government amendments deal with a set of revisions that we do not anticipate having to use, but which it is desirable to have, as a fail-safe device to correct any mistake or erroneous calculation. That is the background. One further point should be made: it follows that where we have occasion to use the provisions to recalculate tariffs and top-ups, or to make an amending report, obviously the sums due to local authorities would potentially differ from those of which they were originally notified. It is therefore right to point out that the provisions in paragraph 12(5) and 12(7) and in paragraph 15(3) and 15(5) ensure that the sums due and paid by an authority as a result of the original calculations can be compared with the result of the recalculation or the amending report, and that adjusting payments can be made to reflect the difference.

--- Later in debate ---

[Robert Neill]

As I recall, when we get to paragraph 26 we are looking at that ability, but let me double-check the exact paragraph. One has to look both at this part and at the part that deals with the safety net. In paragraph 26 of the schedule, there are regulations that can be made about payments on account. We envisage circumstances in which the Secretary of State may make an in-year calculation in response to a request, and regulations can be drawn up to deal with that eventuality, which is a fair one. I hope that puts the hon. Gentleman’s mind at rest.

[Mr George Howarth]

This might make me a bit unpopular on the Opposition Benches, but I think it is perfectly understandable that the Minister might want to deal with the detail of this, after consultation with local government, through regulations that will go before the House. That is not unreasonable, but it would help many of us if rather than giving the detail of the regulations he gave some indication, either now or later in the afternoon, of the principles he would like to adopt in the regulations and on which they would be based.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Jones]

I obviously do not want to draw your wrath, Mr Robertson, for going off the subject, but time and time again the Secretary of State talks about devolution and giving local government powers, and then he produces this centralising Bill and gives councils diktats week after week about what they should and should not be doing—whether they should have pot plants, or whether they should have weekly bin collections. The public will start to see through it. He cannot have it both ways. He cannot have a Bill that will centralise power and centralise the finance that local councils raise and at the same time tell councils what they can and cannot do, but that is his method. If the Government do not accept the amendment and accept need as the basis for payments, people will come to the conclusion that many of us have already come to—that they do not actually care about need.

[Robert Neill]

I will endeavour to confine myself to matters that are germane to the amendments, so I will be fairly brief despite the temptation to inquire what happened to Trotsky and Bakunin drives. I imagine they were probably airbrushed off the map in Durham at some point.

I am not sure whether hon. Members have quite followed how paragraph 28, relating to the distribution of any remaining balance in the levy account, will actually work. As I hope they will be aware, provision is made in the Bill for some or all of the remaining balance in the levy account to be returned to local authorities. It provides flexibility over the amount to be distributed and the basis of distribution, and we believe that it is wise and sensible to keep it that way. It will enable the distribution of the remaining balance to be carried out as is appropriate at a particular time. For example, it might be appropriate to distribute it to authorities on the basis of need, or if we assess that there is no such need, we might wish to return it to some of the levy authorities to make up for the taking of levy moneys that were not needed for disbursement. It would be wrong to preclude that possibility, which is provided for in the Bill.

[Mr George Howarth]

Actually, paragraph 28 states:

“The Secretary of State may determine that an amount equal to the whole or part of the remaining balance on the levy”

be distributed. I am sure it was inadvertent, but the Minister misled the Committee slightly a few moments ago.

[Robert Neill]

No, with respect, because first, there is flexibility to distribute all or part of the balance on that basis. Secondly, that flexibility is not unchecked, because the procedures in sub-paragraphs (2) and (3) require the Secretary of State to include both the amount to be distributed and the basis on which it is to happen in a local government finance report, which will be subject to the scrutiny of the House. Such a report is laid before the House and can be debated.

Finally, paragraph 18 tightly defines the debits that may be made from the levy account. The effect of that paragraph, taken together with the rest of the schedule, is that any money in the levy account can be used only to make safety net payments or to be returned to local authorities as part of the distribution of the remaining balance for the year. The idea that the Treasury can somehow snaffle it and keep it back from local government is simply not correct.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr George Howarth]

I have already mentioned paragraph 28. Sub-paragraph (1) refers to paragraph 19(2), which states that the remaining balance must be

“debited (as an item of account) to the levy account kept for the year”

or

“credited (as an item of account) to the levy account kept for the next year.”

The flexibility still lies with the Secretary of State, who can decide whether it is utilised in the current year or the subsequent one.

[Robert Neill]

That just enables the sum to be carried over. The point is that it would remain in the same account. It could not be used for any other purpose. It could be carried forward for a year as part of a buffer, but as I have indicated, it could go out of the levy account only by way of a safety net payment or as a distribution of the remaining balance to local authorities. Either way, it would go back to local government. That is the key point that I am not sure has been grasped. I therefore hope that Members will not press amendment 33 to a Division.

Amendment 35 would require any payment in respect of the remaining balance to take place in the following year. There are some technical reasons why I do not believe it would work, including the need for any payment from central Government to local authorities to include the standard provisions about Treasury consent. I know that Opposition Members will remember that. It is a technical thing, but it has to be done.

I assure Members that in practice we would not want to hold back any distribution of the remaining balance once it had been agreed in the local government finance report. However, payment as described in the amendment might be difficult to achieve because of the timing of that report.