Local Government Funding

Debate between Gordon Marsden and Simon Hughes

Monday 6th December 2010 Commons Chamber

[Simon Hughes]

I will not give way, as the hon. Gentleman has intervened several times in this debate and I want to press on.

It is not just local government that is important; I want to pay tribute to councillors, of all parties, who serve in local government and to many extremely good officers in local government. It contains some brilliant officers, some less brilliant ones and, as in any walk of life, some people who may not be in their right vocation. Southwark council has some excellent officers, and I pay tribute to them and thank them for their courteous and regularly helpful service.

We know the background to today’s debate: we have to deal with a huge economic legacy of the combination of international problems, the banking crisis and the previous Government’s policies. We know that we have to save public money and we know that local government has to bear its share. I note that the Department for Communities and Local Government has imposed on itself a larger percentage reduction in its funding than it is asking local government to bear.

There will also be good things in the settlement, according to the comprehensive spending review. For example, it is clear that there will be additional money— £1 billion a year—for personal social services, in order to deal with the fact that there are more older people and people are living longer. That is a good thing. There will also be far fewer ring-fenced grants—90 will reduce to 10—and that is a good thing for most local councillors, who want to have that choice. In addition, a set of local community budgets will be trialled around the country. We should be positive about those good things.

The Government have to take two other things into account. The first is that some councils have much more reserve than others. The second is that some councils have the ability to raise much more money through council tax than others, because they serve much richer communities. Those background considerations are absolutely relevant.

[Mr Marsden]

On that specific point about revenue-raising ability, does the hon. Gentleman agree that this is why, regardless of philosophical arguments about dedicated streams, the severe attack on area-based grants for councils with significant areas of deprivation has been so devastating?

[Simon Hughes]

That is why a debate has taken place in which some of us have been trying to discuss a formula that is fair. Some bits of funding that are nothing to do with the local government funding settlement will still go to “affluent” and to “less affluent” areas. Such funding cannot be affected by it, which means that those areas will continue to get public money because it is protected in other ways.

I hope—I was going to say this at the end of my speech, but I will say it now—that one of the things that this Government can achieve, given that they are already a Government of two parties, is to work with the Labour party to try to get a more settled, agreed formula for distributing money to local government. Of course the cake size will vary, but the way in which it is divided between county and district council, and between unitary authorities, metropolitan boroughs and London boroughs, is always the subject of terrible struggle every year and has never been entirely satisfactory. This is neither coalition policy, nor Liberal Democrat policy, but I see no reason, given that we have set up an Office for Budget Responsibility to give independent advice, why we could not have an office that does that sort of job for local government and seeks to offer independent advice as to what the formulae should be. That would take that issue out of the inevitable political bartering, which does not, in the end, necessarily produce the right answer. This involves a terribly complex set of issues and I hope that we can find a better way of doing it.

I wish to make a final generic point and then say a couple of specific things relating to today’s agenda. I know that the Government have met and heard from the Local Government Association and London Councils, which are both cross-party bodies. I shall put on the record the LGA’s five considerations, which I share. I have dealt with one, which is the desire for a reduction, if possible, of the impact of front loading. My right hon. Friend the Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Sir Alan Beith) has touched on another, which is the desire for an increase in capitalisation limits.

I raised that issue with Ministers the other day. The Government have set aside £200 million to pay for potential redundancy in local government. I understand exactly what the Secretary of State said, which was that we hope that many of the job losses will come through natural wastage and other things, not enforced redundancy. My noble Friend Lord Shipley managed well a reduction in staff when he was a council leader in Newcastle, working with the unions, in a way that mitigated all the worst consequences—that is how it should be done. There are good models for doing that, and they are very much supported by the TUC and its member unions. I have had good and authoritative reports that the real figure is much more like the one that the right hon. Member for Don Valley (Caroline Flint) and I have used and, thus, the total bill may be nearer £2 billion, or thereabouts, than £200 million—that clearly needs to be addressed. It is no good our thinking that local authorities can necessarily find the money that they will need if they are to reduce their staff costs.