Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Heather Wheeler and Lord Pickles
Mr Pickles
I commend Barnet for freezing council tax for four successive years. It proves that councils can run their services efficiently and encourage growth without increasing taxes on local people. The council tax went from being a modest sum in people’s budgets to being absolutely overbearing, and it is exactly right that the most vulnerable people—pensioners and the like—have benefited from this freeze.
Heather Wheeler (South Derbyshire) (Con)
20. I thank my right hon. Friend for his earlier reply. As council tax is such a large bill, especially for those on fixed incomes, will he congratulate my local South Derbyshire district council on keeping its council tax at a zero increase for the past four years? We hope that this year’s settlement from the Government will help it achieve a record five years of frozen council tax.
Mr Pickles
On behalf of the Government, I say bless you, South Derbyshire. You have done a fantastic job. You have looked after the coffers very carefully and you have fulfilled good quality services at a reasonable cost, without going for the incremental rise every year.
Local Government Finance
Debate between Heather Wheeler and Lord Pickles
Mr Pickles
I would have thought that the hon. Gentleman would be delighted that the spending power per household in his constituency is £2,421, which is much higher than in many Government Members’ local authorities, and that the drop in spending power represents only 2.7%. I have some faith in the entrepreneurial spirit of the people of Sheffield; the hon. Gentleman seems to want to keep them in chains. His point about pensions is frankly not worthy of him. A relatively small number of councillors have taken this up. It costs £7 million a year. It is perfectly acceptable to me, and I think that they will probably get a better deal, if they use part of the sums they receive out of the public purse to make their own arrangements.
Heather Wheeler (South Derbyshire) (Con)
I congratulate the Secretary of State on his statement, which is about realism in the financial situation that the country faces. I declare an interest in that my husband is the leader of South Derbyshire district council, the most forward-looking council in the midlands and probably in the whole country. It is interesting that where councils see that they have a future when they look at the new homes bonus, the new businesses that are coming in, and the retention of business rates, they are entrepreneurial in going out there and getting business. That is the future for councils, not “The state will provide.”
Housing and Planning
Debate between Heather Wheeler and Lord Pickles(12 years, 3 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Mr Pickles
I will happily name and shame them in due course.
The question of the green belt is very straightforward. I think people forget what the green belt is about. It is there to act as a buffer between the major conurbations. A certain degree of tricksyism occurred under the previous Government, whereby they said that the green belt was growing but essentially pinched the green belt from high-pressure areas where it was needed and redesignated it in places where it was not. We want to make it absolutely clear that the green belt is immensely important, both to London as a green lung and to the wider countryside as part of ensuring that our communities are sustainable. Within the green belt, however, is a lot of land that was previously developed: unused quarry sites and scrap yards, for example. It seems to me to be common sense that we should be able to use this opportunity to swap land—to take a greenfield site that is not in the green belt and to put it in, and to use the former developed land to get development going.
The right hon. Gentleman asked about permitted development rights and I fully recognise that he is a millionaire and an aristocrat, who is probably unused to being able to measure land other than in acres, but speaking as a working class lad who is proud to own a detached house and whose garden is smaller than the right hon. Gentleman’s croquet lawn, I must say that we will clearly retain the rights to ensure that the curtilage of houses is respected. Nobody will be able to build beyond halfway up their garden as a maximum and we will not be building enormously into the sky. All those things are related and we will not be building a big extension on Dove cottage in Grasmere.
Heather Wheeler (South Derbyshire) (Con)
I thank the Secretary of State for today’s innovative announcement and for the written statement. I particularly welcome the regeneration aspect, which will be led by the community, hand in hand with developers. It is very important to all our constituents that they know that this is not the floodgates opening and that it will be done hand in hand with the community.
Mr Pickles
I am most grateful to my hon. Friend. Of course this is about localism; it is about working closely with local authorities. It has been very refreshing to work with local authorities that are willing to renegotiate. The right hon. Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn) should feel fairly cheerful, as many of them have been Labour authorities—we work with anybody. We have been very willing to help and be part of the process, because many local authorities perhaps lack the necessary experience to renegotiate a section 106 agreement. My hon. Friend is absolutely right that this is about putting the community in control.
Local Government Finance
Debate between Heather Wheeler and Lord Pickles
Mr Pickles
The hon. Lady should know better. Frankly, there is no point in just hurling vulgar abuse across the Chamber. She knows, and we know, that under this system a proud city like Hull has a better chance of being able to enjoy the fruits of its labour in bringing in investment. The hon. Lady should start speaking up for the city of Hull rather than decrying it. It is a fine city in the mouth of the Humber; it is time that she spoke up for Humber.
Heather Wheeler (South Derbyshire) (Con)
I welcome my right hon. Friend’s announcement. The people of South Derbyshire, with their go-ahead South Derbyshire district council, will be at the forefront of bringing this forward. For four years, we have been saying that we are open for business. This is absolutely excellent; this is what we need in the midlands today.
Local Government Finance
Debate between Heather Wheeler and Lord Pickles
Mr Pickles
The right hon. Gentleman is a very distinguished Member of the House, and he should know not to believe everything he sees in the newspapers. I settled with the Chancellor three days—I think—before the final settlement. I have no idea why the stories that I was an early settler came out. I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman will be delighted that Coventry faces a cut in its spending of 5.9%, and 3.9% the following year. The substantive point is this. I listened to the chief executive of Coventry council this morning on the radio, and given what the council has been doing in terms of greater efficiency and amalgamating services, what we have been able to offer through this process has meant that Coventry has received considerable protection. The levels of cuts are in single figures. This time last week, Opposition Members told us that we were going to see reductions in spending of 20% or 30%. We were told it was going to be Armageddon, so they would have settled for 5.9%.
Heather Wheeler (South Derbyshire) (Con)
While I congratulate the Secretary of State on looking after the most vulnerable people in society, may I press him to give some comfort to middle England and the district councils, particularly given the situation that we face over disabled the facility grant and other issues that are coming along, especially in South Derbyshire?
Mr Pickles
We are all paying a great deal of attention to the squeezed middle, not least those on the Opposition Benches. One of the consequences of our decision to put substantial moneys into adult social care, as well as the move-across on the bus grant, is that the district councils, by proportion, received a much smaller amount. That is why we put in some additional sums of money in order to protect them. I think that middle England is safe with the coalition.