Oral Answers to Questions
Gill Furniss Excerpts(1 year, 2 months ago)
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Gill Furniss (Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough) (Lab)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (Felicity Buchan)
As we committed to doing in legislation, we are conducting an evaluation of the impact of voter identification at the May polls. We will publish that evaluation no later than November this year.
Gill Furniss
The Electoral Commission’s report into voter ID is utterly damning. It found that awareness of the new rules was lowest among black and minority ethnic communities, and take-up of voter authority certificates was minimal. Even the Government’s own MPs can see the reality of this failed experiment. The right hon. Member for North East Somerset (Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg) said:
“Parties that try and gerrymander end up finding their clever scheme comes back to bite them”.
Does the Minister agree with her own Conservative colleagues?
Felicity Buchan
I remind the hon. Lady that 99.75% of the electorate were able to vote successfully. I also remind her that it was the Electoral Commission that called for voter identification. It has existed in Northern Ireland for two decades and was introduced under a Labour Government, and it exists in most European countries.
On the hon. Lady’s point about ethnic minorities, everyone deserves fair and free elections, and it has been ethnic minorities in areas such as Tower Hamlets and Birmingham who have been the victims of electoral fraud.
Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill
Gill Furniss ExcerptsWednesday 8th June 2022
(2 years, 6 months ago)
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Gill Furniss (Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough) (Lab)
In my constituency, levelling-up is more than just a buzzword. Communities like mine have borne the full brunt of 12 years of the Conservative Government’s austerity agenda and a chronic lack of investment. Forgive me if I do not trust the very same party when it claims that it is the one to fix the mess that it has made.
Let us look at what the Government have done to council funding. Local authorities are the backbone of our society, delivering the services that people rely on every single day. Levelling up will be achieved only if our local authorities are empowered with the investment they need to deliver for their communities, but their funding has been cut to the bone by the Conservatives. Sheffield City Council has seen its central Government grant cut by more than £3 billion in real terms since 2010. That inevitably means that budgets are being stretched thinner and thinner, and my constituents are left to deal with the consequences. Speaking of budgets being stretched, the cost of living crisis means that families are having to cut back even further to make ends meet, but the Government have turned their back on them. In my constituency, the claimant count is almost double the national average. It was therefore a hammer blow when, last year, the Government callously slashed universal credit by £20 a week. Not only that but they scrapped the triple lock on pensions, leaving households with impossible choices to make.
Government Members may be quick to point out subsequent rises in universal credit and the state pension this year, but they are a drop in the ocean compared to the high levels of inflation, which are putting more and more pressure on household budgets. We cannot level up when people are still being pushed into a never-ending cycle of poverty. Decisions were made in a very different economic climate, and inflation has now sky-rocketed to a 40-year high. If the Government are serious about levelling up, they must revisit their cuts, which have taken money out of people’s pockets at a time when the cost of everyday essentials is spiralling out of control.
When these issues have been put to Ministers, they have constantly stuck to the line that high-paid jobs are the solution, but, under the Government’s watch, work is no longer a reliable route out of poverty. Research by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation shows that the proportion of families in poverty where at least one adult is working is at an all-time high. Those figures are the culmination of the Government standing back for more than a decade while low pay and insecure work became more and more prevalent in our economy.
The truth is that we have a Government too distracted by scandals of their own making to focus on delivering the changes that the country needs. The never-ending soap opera of the Prime Minister means that, for communities like mine, levelling-up is seen as merely an afterthought.
My constituents have concluded that the Government simply do not care about them and their everyday struggles. In 2019, the Prime Minister visited Sheffield and delivered a promise to level up every corner of the UK, but let us look at what has happened since. Independent analysis shows that, by the Government’s own 12 levelling-up metrics, my constituency has fallen even further behind. The South Yorkshire Mayoral Combined Authority has big ambitions for the area, but they are being held back by the Government. The Mayor made a detailed £474 million bid for a bus service improvement plan that truly would have helped to level up the region, but it was rejected by the Government. That is perhaps not a surprise when we consider the fact that the funding available under that specific scheme came to just over £1 billion, despite £3 billion being initially promised.
The Government are going nowhere near far enough to truly level up constituencies like mine. What we need is bold action, but the Bill, in its current form, is simply more empty rhetoric.
Council Tax: Government’s Proposed Increase
Gill Furniss Excerpts(3 years, 10 months ago)
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Gill Furniss (Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough) (Lab)
As a former councillor, I am glad that we are able to hold this debate today. Before entering this place, I was a councillor for 17 years and saw at first hand the impact that austerity has had on our city and its families. I also saw the challenges we faced in trying to prioritise budgets in the face of wave after wave of cuts. Since 2010, many local authorities across the country have had to grapple with devastating cuts. My council in Sheffield has lost almost 50% of its budget, with cuts amounting to £475 million. Throughout this period, the Labour council has made difficult decisions and been forced to adapt many services, but it always sought to protect the most vulnerable in our city.
The Government’s proposals to allow councils to raise tax by up to 5% is absurd. It would not come close to addressing the funding crisis that many are experiencing. Next year’s costs for adult social care alone in Sheffield will be £31 million. A 3% increase would contribute only £6.6 million to that cost. The further 2% would contribute only £4.4 million. That does not come close enough to addressing the covid funding gap of £61 million that Sheffield City Council faces next year after the £92 million cost of responding to the pandemic.
This policy flies in the face of the Government’s levelling-up agenda by benefiting wealthier areas. While a 5% increase in Sheffield would raise £9 million, Surrey County Council would raise £38 million with the same increase. Councils across the country will, of course, be reluctant to raise council tax by 5%, but the Government have given them no choice. They have done what they do best: they have shifted any responsibility away from themselves. No council faced with significant funding gaps would refuse even the slightest boost to funding during these challenging times. It is shameful to hold councils to ransom in this way.
My constituency of Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough ranks as the 12th most deprived constituency in England. Over a third of children are eligible for free school meals. Very many of my constituents face tremendous hardships to make ends meet. Claims for universal credit have risen by 95% since March, with almost 14,000 families now receiving the payments—around half of these are in work. While the Government consider removing the uplift, they are also moving forward with this plan, which would add further strains to household budgets.
Families in Brightside and Hillsborough have particularly felt the cost of covid-19. Funding this increase will be more difficult for many families in our community than in more prosperous areas. I am deeply concerned that pushing forward with this plan would only further the hardships that many of them face. Hundreds of thousands of families across the country are feeling similar pressures. The Prime Minister said he would do “whatever it takes”. It appears that this meant abandoning councils and pushing the burden of support for their strained finances on to local taxpayers.
The Government are adept at performing U-turns, so I hope that they will do another and scrap this policy. The Chancellor must prioritise introducing a comprehensive funding settlement for local government to redress the budget imbalance that a decade of cuts and the covid-19 pandemic have caused.
Post Office and Horizon Software
Gill Furniss Excerpts(4 years, 9 months ago)
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Gill Furniss (Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairpersonship, Mr McCabe. I thank the hon. Member for Telford (Lucy Allan) for securing this important debate.
This extremely serious matter has raised worrying questions about the management and governance structures of Post Office Ltd and the way in which the Government oversee it as a public body. I pay tribute to the many sub-postmasters who have endured the harsh realities of this national scandal. Among them is Alan Bates, who has spearheaded the litigation that ultimately saw sub-postmasters get some of the vindication they deserved. Like Mr Bates, I know that the successful litigation was the first step towards achieving justice. I also pay tribute to journalist Nick Wallis, who has followed the case from the beginning and has been a passionate champion for the sub-postmasters’ cause over many years.
This debate relates specifically to the review of criminal cases, so I am disappointed that the Ministry of Justice is not responding to it. Will the Minister explain why it is a BEIS representative who is responding, when the topic of the debate was intended to fall under the brief of the Ministry of Justice?
The wrongful conviction of sub-postmasters has had an impact on the lives of far too many individuals and their families. People have lost their livelihoods, had their businesses stolen from them and, in many cases, been ostracised from their communities. For those affected, that has been a living nightmare.
One young woman began her career as a sub-postmaster at the age of 18, but after prosecution and conviction she has faced unemployment and financial ruin at a time when her adult life and independence should have begun. Another sub-postmaster whose life was turned upside down was bankrupted by legal fees and shunned by the community he had so diligently served. His neighbours would not speak to him, and his daughter was spat at on the bus to school. In one of the most tragic examples, one sub-postmaster took their own life, such was the shame, anxiety and stress that the Post Office’s heavy-handed pursuit of them brought on. Sub-postmasters who were implicated in Horizon’s IT failures have been wrongly labelled as criminals, had their lives turned upside down and, in some cases, faced decades of debt and social disgrace.
On 11 December, while we were all busy with our election campaigns, the sub-postmasters’ fight for justice took a huge step forward. The Post Office agreed to pay a £58 million settlement to the 557 sub-postmasters who brought court action against it. Mr Justice Fraser noted in his ruling that the Post Office felt entitled to treat sub-postmasters
“in capricious or arbitrary ways which would not be unfamiliar to a mid-Victorian factory-owner.”
That falls far below the standards we would expect from one of Britain’s most recognisable and trusted institutions. Mr Justice Fraser also raised concerns about the structure of accountability within the Post Office, stating that it appeared
“to conduct itself as though it is answerable only to itself.”
That was evident in the way in which the Post Office handled its litigation; it was noted that the Post Office pursued the trial with the resources and effort of a blue-chip tech company.
It is worth remembering that litigation was brought to address the errors of a Government-owned company, which was ultimately found at fault for the vicious pursuit and prosecution of hundreds of sub-postmasters. The Post Office is a Government-owned company. A civil servant sits on the board and its only shareholder is the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, so more should have been done to address the scandal before it was allowed to fester to this extent.
In the light of the number of wrongful convictions, a group expungement of the criminal records of those convicted seems the most suitable way forward. Unfortunately, the Post Office has resisted that idea and would prefer each sub-postmaster to bring their own legal action to overturn their conviction. That is completely outrageous. People who have lived for many years through the scandal and lost everything, including their savings and reputations, are now being asked to go back to court to give their own evidence, despite Mr Justice Fraser’s finding that the Horizon computer system by Fujitsu was at fault. The Post Office was alerted to those faults many years ago, so it should not have any illusions about the system’s effectiveness.
It is striking that the Post Office seems to have learned nothing from the unnecessary prosecutions of 557 hard-working sub-postmasters or from the huge amount of anger expressed by judges, parliamentarians and the public. Instead, it forges ahead as though it has done nothing wrong. I urge the Minister to work with colleagues in the Ministry of Justice to move towards overturning, quickly and fairly, the convictions of the sub-postmasters affected by Horizon.
Serious questions need to be answered about the relationship between the company and the Government. The Government have been content to parrot the Post Office’s line throughout the process, claiming that the December settlement was the end of the matter. Nothing could be further from the truth for the people who are still fighting for justice.
Mrs Hodgson
My hon. Friend, who chairs the all-party parliamentary group on post offices and has long been an advocate on this issue, is making a powerful case. Does she agree that, although the scandal is outrageous and should never have happened, the Government and Select Committee investigations need to follow the money? People lost their livelihoods to pay that money back, so where did it go? Where was the shortfall? Somewhere, there are bulks of money that obviously went to the Post Office, which should use it to pay the legal fees as part of the compensation.
Gill Furniss
My hon. Friend makes a key point. People have paid money, so where is it? That must be at the heart of any investigation.
Unfortunately, fundamental corporate change within the Post Office seems a long way off, given the close relationship between both current and previous Post Office officials and the Government. The Post Office is being allowed to mark its own homework, meaning that a culture of denial is likely to persist. Could the Minister explain why Paula Vennells, the former chief executive of the Post Office, whom Judge Fraser noted was practising
“the 21st-century equivalent of maintaining the earth is flat”,
serves in the Cabinet Office?
The management and governance of the Post Office were severely criticised by the judges, so I raised the issue with the previous Minister. Will the new Minister call for a full review of the governance and management and of the relationship between the two? Furthermore, will he look closely at the way in which the National Federation of Sub-Postmasters, which is fully paid and resourced by the Post Office, has acted throughout the affair?
It is important that the taxpayer is not left to foot the bill for mistakes made by management. In December 2019, BEIS paid the Post Office £50 million as a network subsidy payment to cover the operating costs for the network. Will the Minister assure us that not a penny of that public money will be used to fund the December 2019 settlement or any future litigation?
The consistent failings of the Post Office, spanning more than two decades, have caused immeasurable damage to hundreds of lives. Only now is the full picture beginning to emerge. I welcome the commitment from the Prime Minister for a full public inquiry into the issue. I have already written to ask him to confirm that that is the case, and to give me timescales. Unsurprisingly, I have not received a letter back to that effect.
The convictions we have discussed today, however, must be dealt with as a matter of urgency. The Post Office and the Government must wake up and use every influence to ensure that the seriousness of the situation is realised. I hope this debate is one step in helping to move this process along. We must secure an independent, judge-led inquiry to quash the convictions, to pay up what the convicted have lost and, most of all, to clear the names of those hard-working decent people.
Paul Scully
I will not for now, because I must give my hon. Friend the Member for Telford a minute at the end.
I do not want to step on the toes of the CCRC’s investigation or of the things that are happening at the moment. Clearly, however, we need to ensure that lessons are learned. Over the coming days, we will look to see what more we can do.
I want to cover the CCRC cases specifically. The litigation that concluded with a judgment on 16 December last year only resolved the civil case—it cannot deal with criminal matters. Claimants with convictions are therefore seeking to have those convictions overturned by going through a process with the CCRC, which has the power to refer cases to the Court of Appeal. The independent CCRC plays a vital and valuable role in maintaining confidence in the criminal justice system. It is important to pay tribute to it for its process. The key role of the commission is to investigate cases in which people have been convicted and have unsuccessfully appealed, but believe that they have been wrongly convicted or incorrectly sentenced.
The CCRC received 57 applications, all of which are being reviewed—the first 20 in 2015 and the most recent 22 following the settlement in the civil case in December 2019. A small number of those applicants pleaded guilty at the magistrates court and, normally, they would have no ordinary route of appeal, but the CCRC provides a way to ensure that we can go through those cases. The CCRC has a team of three case review managers working on the cases, supported by a group leader, a commissioner and other advisory staff. They have obtained and are reviewing thousands of pages of material from the Post Office and other public bodies, and expert forensic accountants have been instructed, with the substantial task of examining transaction data from a sample branch.
Gill Furniss
I fear that the Minister does not get it. He is still parroting exactly what has been said by previous Ministers to me. If this had happened to him, and he had lost everything and had his reputation done, he would want an independent judge-led inquiry. In this Chamber, we have all made it very clear that that must be the outcome.
Paul Scully
I am grateful for the hon. Lady’s intervention, but she used up a lot of my time. Specifically, we are talking about the CCRC. I want to ensure that I leave my hon. Friend the Member for Telford some seconds at the end. I will continue to look at that. We will continue to ensure that sub-postmasters can feel that they will have justice, recompense and the confidence to move forward.
EU Structural Funds: Least Developed Regions
Gill Furniss Excerpts(5 years, 5 months ago)
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Gill Furniss (Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to speak under your chairpersonship, Ms McDonagh. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield Central (Paul Blomfield) for securing the debate.
It has been three years and three days since the EU referendum. During that time, the Government have failed to negotiate a decent Brexit deal, and that has resulted in uncertainty in our economy, for my constituents and throughout the country. My constituents voted to leave the European Union but they did not vote for their rights to be watered down, for their jobs to be at risk or for a less prosperous future for their children.
South Yorkshire has had its challenges and its triumphs. I am proud of our region’s strong manufacturing base, which has remained resilient despite the devastation of the 1980s under the Thatcher Government. European structural funds, particularly from the European regional development fund—the ERDF—for infrastructure and the European social fund for employment, have been important elements in rebuilding our regional economy since those days. I have seen how the funds have had huge impacts in my constituency of Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough. We have fantastic facilities such as SOAR Works, which is a managed workspace at Parson Cross funded through the ERDF, and Building Better Opportunities—a great scheme to get disabled people in Sheffield into employment that has received £2 million from the European social fund.
Sadly, the Government’s record on supporting the north has been a travesty and has held back the economy in our area. Everyone in Sheffield remembers that one of the very first actions of the coalition Government was to cancel a crucial £80 million loan to Sheffield Forgemasters—a clear sign that investing in the north was not a priority. The Government still talk of a northern powerhouse in slogans, but warm words will not cut it. The north needs investment to turbocharge our economy and to give communities the jobs, skills and opportunities that they deserve.
Under the EU system we would be entitled to a higher level of investment. As the report notes, South Yorkshire would be entitled to more than €500 a head in the next six-year period, which could amount to around £30 million for my constituency alone: a massive amount of money. We have seen food bank use rocket, particularly after the roll-out of universal credit. If the Government fail to invest in areas such as South Yorkshire, we will see more people struggle and rely on food banks to survive.
The 2017 Conservative manifesto stated:
“We will use the structural fund money that comes back to the UK following Brexit to create a United Kingdom Shared Prosperity Fund”.
The fund is to be targeted, flexible and devolved, and it is intended to promote inclusive growth. But although they constantly refer to it as the means by which they will
“tackle inequalities between communities...especially in those parts of our country whose economies are furthest behind”,
the Government have yet to offer any clarity on how it will work or the mechanisms by which it will be distributed.
As we know, the Government said they would consult on the proposals, but here we are in June 2019 and the consultation is still not forthcoming. Will the Minister take this opportunity to assure my constituents in Brightside and Hillsborough that the Government will cover any shortfall that results from leaving the EU? Furthermore, the Minister will be aware that the framework for distribution of the ERDF in the period from 2021 to 2027 has the funding of low-carbon schemes at its heart. Will the Minister commit to a similar focus in the shared prosperity fund in response to the climate emergency?
Siobhain McDonagh (in the Chair)
I am sorry, but Members must go down to three-minute speeches, so will everybody be circumspect about making interventions?
Parks (Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough)
Gill Furniss Excerpts(6 years, 5 months ago)
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Gill Furniss (Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough) (Lab)
Even amidst the most built-up cities, we are blessed with parks and pockets of green space. Those spaces improve air quality, lower temperatures near congested cities and even harbour wildlife, but they are also the lifeblood of our communities. As we face an obesity crisis and concerns over public health, parks offer free and accessible opportunities for exercise and enjoyment. At a time when families are living in ever more cramped conditions and unsuitable housing, parks provide a much-needed environment in which children without access to other opportunities can enjoy being children. In an era of extreme loneliness and isolation, they are bringing people of all ages together, and in an age of unprecedented privatisation and commercialisation of public space, they remain free for everyone to use and benefit from.
According to the indices of multiple deprivation, my constituency is one of the most deprived in the country. Government figures suggest that we might expect to see far fewer parks and open spaces in such areas than in wealthier areas. However, Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough, despite its legacy as a highly urban formerly industrial area, is an exception to this, having substantial areas of parks and open space across the constituency.
Sheffield can lay claim to being the greenest city in Europe, with a third of our city boundary lying within the Peak district and a history of prestigious prizes won, including the 2005 Entente Florale gold medal. We are blessed with hundreds of parks and open spaces, and residents have access to a huge range of facilities, from small play parks to ancient woodlands. The National Trust funded research in 2016 on Sheffield’s parks, which highlighted the huge value and benefit they hold for local people and the financial value that they represent to health and other public services.
I did not call this debate to bemoan a lack of parks for my constituents, nor are parks facing any kind of crisis of usership, with the city council reporting significantly increased numbers of park visitors in recent years. Last year, the Communities and Local Government Committee produced an excellent report on public parks. I agree with the thrust of its recommendations, as indeed do the Government, and hope that these can help improve parks nationwide. However, I wish to bring attention to the challenges of maintaining parks after years of austerity and the problems that having large parks alongside significant local deprivation can have.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I thank the hon. Lady for giving way; I sought her permission to intervene beforehand. My constituency of Strangford is an area of outstanding natural beauty, which is wonderful. Does she agree that, whatever the increasing need for housing and facilities, we must ensure that parks are protected and enhanced, for they surely enhance quality of life and benefit all in our communities?
Gill Furniss
I completely agree and will say more about that as I continue.
The additional issues I have mentioned are often worsened by the funding shortfall. Since 2010, Sheffield City Council has suffered a staggering £430 million a year in cuts. The council looks after the vast majority of parks and open space in my constituency, but its maintenance of them is not a statutory duty. This contrasts with the situation for libraries; like parks, they are vital for young people’s development and enjoyment, but councils have a statutory duty to provide them. As councils have to make their Government-imposed cuts, parks and open spaces are of course facing drastically reduced spending.
In 2010-11, £40 million of Sheffield council’s £1 billion services budget was allocated for parks, sports and open-space facilities. This year around £30 million is budgeted. That is a real-terms cut of over 40%. That reduction is even more difficult to sustain as the council has not closed a single park in this time; maintenance has simply become incredibly stretched.
Sheffield’s parks funding cut is severe, but Sheffield has kept parks spending at a higher level than some comparable authorities. In recent months, there has been significant coverage of councils taking decisions to reduce parks spending even more drastically. It is not for me to criticise authorities who have utterly unenviable spending choices after years of cuts; however, I am glad that Sheffield has chosen to keep parks as a spending priority even under such difficult conditions. Figures from the National Trust’s research suggested that in Sheffield the savings from health and wellbeing benefits far outweighed the money spent. This is yet another example where cuts that councils have had no choice but to make have ended up costing far more down the line.
Turning to the impact of these cuts, like all Members, I get feedback from casework and constituency visits on the state of our parks, but this is inevitably a partial picture. To inform tonight’s debate, I launched an online survey for local park users. This is not scientific standard research, but I received 260 responses from local people and it has given a fascinating view of people’s thoughts and concerns.
It is concerning that nearly 40% of people feel park maintenance has declined over the past 10 years, but this is perhaps inevitable with the cuts that have been faced. More importantly, a quarter of respondents felt that the state of their parks was not acceptable. The council acknowledges that less than half the green space in my constituency meets the Sheffield standard—that it has been assessed as safe, clean and welcoming. This represents a divide in some parts of the city, which I will address shortly. Parks assessed as achieving the Sheffield standard represent up to 80% of the total number.
There still are basic maintenance budgets to cover upkeep, but the standards have inevitably been reduced for grass cutting and horticultural work. Alternative plans such as keeping some areas with longer grass with wildflowers are prominent in parks across my constituency. Alongside the general reduction in budget and the resulting challenge to general maintenance, council parks officers identify major problems in maintaining high-quality parks. One is the lack of money to replace equipment and facilities in parks and to regenerate more severely run down parks, and I will address this point later. No doubt parks nationwide suffer from this.
A second major issue is that of antisocial behaviour. Countless studies in recent years have shown that more deprived areas bear the brunt of antisocial behaviour, and police figures from my constituency unfortunately confirm this. We also know that local authorities such as Sheffield, which have higher overall levels of deprivation, have suffered disproportionate cuts. Antisocial behaviour gives councils a significant problem when looking after parks today. Many of our parks suffer frequent damage of all kinds, with issues ranging from motorbikers riding over the grass to bin fires. Many of the parks have no working swings for local children, with replacement swings delayed or sometimes shelved until the antisocial behaviour decreases.
These incidents serve to make our parks less safe, and, put simply, the budget of the Sheffield City Council parks department cannot cover the frequent repair and maintenance associated with higher levels of misuse. This is deeply unfair on the vast majority of people who use their local parks responsibly and are deeply proud of them. To give an example, residents recently expressed concern about the state of Longley park, a large local park that many residents feel is not being kept in the state that they expect or have been promised. It is very close to where I grew up, so it holds a special place in my heart. At one time during my childhood, it boasted an outdoor swimming pool, which is a rare thing these days. It was partly the concerns expressed to me and to the local paper that crystallised my thinking about the need for this Adjournment debate.
Longley park is a prime example of antisocial behaviour affecting people’s enjoyment of their parks. It is a large park but it lies in a wider area of deprivation. It also has a difficult geography, in that large parts of it are not overlooked, making antisocial behaviour more prevalent. In my survey, one constituent who lives close to the park said:
“I don’t feel comfortable spending much time in it. Most times it has kids on motorbikes going round the paths which means you have to walk with dogs and kids on grass that hasn’t been cut and is full of dog waste.”
As people see their local park looking less well kept, less care is generally taken to respect the space. This situation is not a major problem for every park, but where it is, it really is a vicious circle.
The answer is not simple. The problem is a consequence of the general slashing of local government and community policing budgets. In common with all Labour Members, I have long been concerned and vocal about cuts across the board, but parks embody the problem of the effects of cuts multiplying. One concern expressed locally and in my survey was that parks in other parts of the city received more maintenance compared with local parks in my constituency. Although that is not the case, the damage caused to many of our local parks can make it appear to be the reality.
The additional maintenance needed for parks in deprived areas is not the only concern. There are myriad other issues as well. It is more difficult to sustain commercial activity such as events, funfairs or cafés in poorer areas, so there is less additional income to invest, compared with parks in wealthier areas. Facilities such as cafés can also mean that staff are regularly in a park to deter and report antisocial behaviour and other problems. I am positive about the plans that the council is making to bring more facilities and income to the largest parks in my constituency, but the income in parks in the wealthier parks of Sheffield has meant that, with some exceptions, they will always receive more in additional income to assist their maintenance.
As I mentioned earlier, councils across the country are struggling to fund upgrades and replacements for park facilities that are reaching end of life, particularly play equipment, which is notoriously expensive. If not replaced, the equipment becomes dangerous, more easily broken and less attractive to use. Where parks have faced high levels of misuse, replacements are not only needed sooner, but parks officers rightly look to replace damaged equipment and structures with more resilient items. With the decimation of council capital budgets and concerns about the sustainability of lottery funding—an incredibly important source of funding for park upgrades —parks face a maintenance crisis. The ending last year of “Parks for People”, the largest lottery funding pot for parks, leaves the future uncertain at best.
We have brilliant friends’ groups in our parks and open spaces that devote time and energy to maintaining and improving the places they, and we, value so much, and I place on the record my thanks to the many groups in my patch. I am pleased to have been as supportive as possible to as many of these groups at their events. In some cases, such as at the wonderful Wardsend cemetery, volunteers have taken the lead role in restoring a precious historic green space, but, again, volunteers disproportionately benefit parks in more affluent areas. It is a simple fact that in many parts of my constituency there are fewer people who can spare the time to volunteer, which makes it harder to gather people together to sustain the friends’ groups that can make long-term improvements to a park.
Jim Shannon
Does the hon. Lady accept that councils also have a responsibility for health and safety? Roundabouts, swings and so on must be maintained, but councils must also deal with dog owners and dog waste. Both issues need to be addressed to make a park accessible and safe for everyone.
Gill Furniss
I absolutely agree. That is the thrust of my speech tonight, and I have already detailed the effects of cuts to budgets for policing and public services.
It would be easy to ask the Minister to consider making parks statutory services, so that councils could be held to account more easily for their maintenance. However, my local parks would not be helped one bit by that without the Government backing up the change with serious funding for local authorities to meet this requirement. Labour and the Conservatives have different views about local authority funding, and I do not think that we will resolve this difference tonight. As much as local authorities can innovate in developing and maintaining parks, it appears to be an unfortunate truth that there will always be higher costs. I ask the Minister specifically to ensure that councils have enough capital funds to create parks that are resilient to the challenges they can face. I also ask him to work with the Minister for Sport to ensure that lottery funds specifically support parks facing difficulties with misuse and the lack of commercial income that I have outlined. As welcome as the “Parks for People” programme was, its focus on heritage meant that parks in the most challenging areas sometimes lost out in favour of parks in traditionally leafier suburbs.
I thank Members and the Minister for attending tonight. I also thank local people, interested organisations and local parks officers who all offered a wealth of information, so much of which I could not touch on tonight. I hope that I can make a small contribution to ensuring that we have resilient parks and green spaces in every part of my constituency and in every city. Maintaining and improving parks for every citizen is an absolute necessity if we want to create a more equal, healthy and happy society.