(5 years, 10 months ago)
General CommitteesIt is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir David.
It is good to be here again talking about devolution. Hon. Members may expect me to rush straight into an attack on how superficial the Government’s devolution is, but before I go there, I congratulate the leaders of all seven local authorities in the area on what has been achieved, in what has been a very testing time for local relationships. The Government could have approached things differently. They could have been far more inclusive and created greater opportunities for further devolution to the existing local authorities, which are more than capable of delivering far more. They are tried and tested, delivering good value for money and good public services, and they should not have artificial requirements laid upon them.
When it was clear that a deal could not be done, some local authorities naturally took a pragmatic view of how best to attract more investment from Government. Let us not fool ourselves about what the order is and what it is not. At best, it is a light-touch mayoral devolution package. The type of powers being devolved do not even come close to the existing devolution deals across the country. The type of money being devolved down to local authorities in those areas pales into insignificance compared with the austerity cuts that they have faced since the coalition Government—cuts that continued with the majority Conservative Government.
Local leaders are sick of waiting for the Government to come to their aid with investment and an idea for the future economy. Instead, they are developing their own visions for their local identity. There are good examples of that right across the north-east from Labour-run local authorities, which are showing real leadership of their place. The Government, to be frank, have walked off the pitch entirely. Given the type of powers being devolved in this order, my question is: why stop there? Local authorities in those areas can deal with far more than is being given in the devolution settlement.
Powers are one thing, but we need serious money. Let us look at the amount of transport investment across the north-east. Compared with most other regions, bar Northern Ireland, it gets nowhere near its fair share of capital or revenue investment. We know how important transport is for boosting local economies, connecting people to jobs and attracting inward investment. If the Government are determined to see a golden era, as the Minister said, where is the cash? They cannot do that on the cheap. Despite the best endeavours of local politicians, their economies have been left for a very long period to fight for themselves while Government have turned a blind eye to underinvestment in those areas. I credit those councils for negotiating the devolution deal on offer, but where is the Government cheque book?
It strikes me that since George Osborne walked away—or was moved to one side—the Treasury has just not been committed to devolution. From a Conservative point of view, it was originally a Treasury-led expedition—perhaps for different reasons, but that is where it came from. At the time, I was negotiating as one of the leaders on the Greater Manchester combined authority. In those devolution deals that were being struck, I witnessed a real tension between the Treasury and other Departments about where powers sit and how power is to be wrestled away from Whitehall.
The construct of some of those deals was quite odd, but they were reflective of the struggles and the frustration in Government. I do not see any of that here; I see a Government desperate to show that devolution is still making progress, when actually it is fairly superficial. I see a Minister who, perhaps for the best reasons—although he hides it well—is trying to make progress. But I am not seeing any real power given away from central Government. I am certainly not seeing any significant money being given away from central Government. The Government have realised—we have known this all along—that those best placed to deliver decent public services and make the best of limited resources in public investment are people in their local communities.
The question still remains: given their track record of delivering good public services, why should councils that could not quite get over the line on a mayoral devolution deal be cast to one side, without any devolution proposed at all? Will the Minister explain why local authorities are not fit to take on more budget responsibilities in adult education, for instance? Why can they not take on more responsibilities for getting people into work? Why are they not capable of taking transport capital investment from the Government and using that as a catalyst to attract inward investment? Why can local authorities that are tried and tested, and trusted by the public not do those things?
It is great that councils have come together. Again, I pay tribute to the council leaders who have created the deal, but if the Government are clear that there has to be a devolution deal for the whole of England, they cannot be so prescriptive about what that devolution should look like. With all due respect, it is a bit hypocritical for a Minister who is not directly elected to say to local politicians that if they want a fraction of the power that is held by a Government Minister who is not directly elected, they must move to a directly elected model in return. We do not directly elect our Chancellor, our Minister for adult education or Ministers in the Department for Work and Pensions, and the Minister here today is not directly elected either. For a fraction of the power from this place, local communities are mandated by Government to have a mayoral model or they get zero. I do not think that is in the spirit of a balanced and equal relationship. For me, that is still central Government telling local authorities what they can and cannot do in a very old, tired and untrustworthy way.
If the Government are really determined to see power shifted and to give people back the control that we know they demanded during the referendum, at some point—and pretty quickly—they will have to introduce a devolution framework that covers the whole of England, so that every community is included without having one set against the other. We want to see not only powers and legislation passed in this place, but genuine resources devolved down.
It cannot escape the attention of anyone in this room that the region most affected by a hard Brexit—which is what some Government Members are looking for—will be the north-east. It will take a hit the likes of which it has not seen for decades. In that context, it is legitimate to ask whether the devolution on offer is sufficient to meet the challenges that lie ahead. It is progress and it is a step forward, but it cannot be the end. I say to the Minister: this is not “Game over”. This is not the end. The devolution on offer should be seen as minor progress—progress, by the way, that is mainly to the credit of local leaders in the local authority. The Minister needs to step up, get back round the table and ensure that further power and resources are devolved as soon as possible.
(5 years, 10 months ago)
Westminster HallWestminster Hall is an alternative Chamber for MPs to hold debates, named after the adjoining Westminster Hall.
Each debate is chaired by an MP from the Panel of Chairs, rather than the Speaker or Deputy Speaker. A Government Minister will give the final speech, and no votes may be called on the debate topic.
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This is a really interesting debate, which is broader than London. It could be argued that if we develop a real settlement that pushes power down to communities, that ought to benefit every community in England. That will be the spirit in which I approach my response to some of the points that have been made.
A lot of the devolution debate and discussion, certainly over the past five or six years, has been about trying to get power from Westminster down to the next level, wherever that might be; in London, it is the capital, but elsewhere it will be metro areas or even some county deals in which counties have come together. That has been necessary because we are still a very centralised country, and too much power is contained not in this place—people who work here who believe that they are powerful are seriously deluded—but in Whitehall, where it still sits. We want to wrestle as much power as possible from civil servants, who are disconnected from the communities that are affected by the decisions that they make, and give that power back to local people.
That has to be at the most appropriate level, because the organisation of services is complex. Some are absolutely rooted in a localised geography, but in other cases it will make far more sense for a service to be decided and delivered at a different level—whether it is a district, a metropolitan or London borough, London itself, or a regional grouping—but it has to be right for that circumstance and for the decision that is being devolved down. The assumption should always be local.
If any power is devolved, a test should be in place to ask the question: where is it best to place this new power that is being devolved? For example, in places where we see devolution of the adult education budget, there has not really been a conversation about whether a combined authority or even a Greater London arrangement is the best place for that budget to sit, versus a local authority. That is odd, because that debate is taking place in other areas—such as Greater Manchester, which has the most advanced health devolution settlement in England; that settlement is devolved to the 10 local authorities, not to the combined authority or to the Mayor.
This move that we are taking as a nation is interesting, but it is not neat, it is not pretty and it is massively confusing for a lot of people. That does not mean that it is not necessary. We need to prove concept and prove that devolution can be made to work. We need to prove that to people who do not believe that devolution can work, and who believe that to get fairness and equity across the country, we should organise from the capital so that everyone gets the same. They are the people we need to convince.
The hon. Gentleman is making a lot of good points, and we agree on many things. Does he accept that an area such as mine, right on the edge of Greater London, is totally different from places such as Westminster, Kensington and Chelsea, or Islington? More powers should be given back to us in our area so that we can work with the Essex councils; that is where we are. Does he agree that centralising everything in London is not the way forward? A central area is obviously needed as our capital, but the wider London region has different needs and priorities. That should be much more decentralised.
I agree with that point. If the assumption is devolution, the bar to sending something up to a higher level should be high. There should be a proper and rigorous test in place. A danger in the development of new structures or institutions of local government in city regions—perhaps this is more of a danger outside London than in it—is that if real power is not devolved from Westminster and Whitehall to those regions, they will, by the nature of government and politics, take up power to justify their existence.
To me, the responsibility for that lies with local politicians who must ensure that they are absolutely clear about what a devolved settlement looks like for their neighbourhoods and communities. There is, however, also pressure on the Government to prove that they can really devolve power and responsibility down. In a lot of the country, people do not believe that the Government are listening to what they say. I shall not stray from the subject of the debate, but anyone who speaks to people in Lancashire at the moment will find that they are massively frustrated that their local decision to reject fracking was overturned by a Government hundreds of miles away. If we are serious about devolving power, it has to be the power that people are asking for: the power to determine what type of place they want to live in and their families to grow up in.
That is different from identity and people’s sense of belonging. I feel strongly that that is a complex debate—we could have a debate for an hour and a half on what identity is and means, because it is complex. Devolution so far has not been about trying to rewrite people’s historical and rooted identity, or about changing the entrance signs to places where people live to names that they do not recognise. That is very different from the 1974 reorganisation outside London, which tried to do just that.
I am glad that the hon. Gentleman made that point. That is exactly the problem we face. A “Welcome to Essex” sign has been placed on the boundary between Romford and Brentwood. Suddenly, we have been told that we are no longer Essex, because Essex County Council will only put the sign on the boundary of its area. That is nonsense. The traditional identity of the counties is being lost because of a failure by local government bureaucrats to understand true local identities. I would understand if the sign read, “You are now entering the Essex County Council area”, or whatever they want to call it, but instead it reads, “Welcome to Essex”. In my area, we are Essex, and a lot of people resent that identity being removed because of a failure to put signage in the correct location.
Perhaps I may prove my credentials. When I became the leader of Oldham Council, it stood out to me just how frustrated people were about their historical identities being challenged by a local authority that was artificially created in 1974. It did not work for either party: Oldhamers were frustrated that people in the surrounding district seemed to have an angst about them, because of this issue; and people in the district were frustrated because they did not feel that their identity was valued by the local authority. One of the first things I did on taking control of the council, therefore, was to change all the boundary signs back to reflect the district crest and the local identities of those places, which I believe are important.
That is sometimes a cause of confusion. The lines we draw on maps for administrative convenience—basically, we are talking about the most efficient administrative area for delivering and organising our public services—are often adopted to create a new brand identity for a place. I see that happening where I am. Oldham, as a place, has one foot in Lancashire and one foot in the west riding of Yorkshire. Some people think they are Mancunian and others think they are Oldhamers, but identities travel even beyond that. It is true of every community in England, including every borough and town in London and Essex, that people do not stay in one place. They travel to work. Their relationships with places, communities, neighbouring towns and the heart of the capital, which the hon. Member for Romford (Andrew Rosindell) referred to, are complicated.
Let me make some practical suggestions. Power has been given to communities through the neighbourhood planning process. Communities can self-organise and decide what physical developments take place in their area, and they get some sense of being able to control what their community looks like at the end of that process. We do not do the same for revenue spend in local government. Think about the scrutiny we give to capital investment. When a capital project is initiated, it has to go through a number of gateways to get sign-off and be approved, and it then goes through evaluation and monitoring. We do not do that for revenue spend. We spend billions of pounds of public money every year, but we do not make the same assessment of whether it is invested in the right place or have a clear view of what return on investment we should expect. Equally, communities generally are not involved in organising that.
There is no reason why people at neighbourhood level—whether that is a ward or a collection of wards that make up a town’s identity, which the hon. Gentleman mentioned—could not organise a community plan to corral all the public services in their area and decide where the local GP practice ought to be or how the police ought to organise. Local people should be able to decide how public servants work together to ensure that services are delivered in the right context for that place.
Clearly, there will always be a role for local authorities, and for strategic authorities that cover issues that naturally transcend local boundaries. We have already heard about transport, but policing now transcends those boundaries, too. Policing is far more complicated than it was before the 1960s, when we had local police forces with their own identities. We need a police force that can meet the challenges of cyber-crime, terrorism, cross-border crime and many other issues, but not at the exclusion of neighbourhood policing.
In some places, because of austerity—let us be clear that it costs money to do this well—and the demands of terrorism, cyber-crime and all the other new crimes that are really stretching the police force, resources have been transferred from neighbourhood level to the centre so the police can meet significant cost demands. People see that, because of austerity, public services are becoming more and more removed from the communities in which they live, and that hugely affects the connection they feel. We should look at that.
We need a clearly articulated devolution framework for the whole of England—London would be a beneficiary of that—rather than ad hoc deals that are agreed behind closed doors. We should not pit one place against another but have a comprehensive settlement—a framework for power to be devolved. We should start at the grassroots and work upwards, with an assumption in favour of devolution. That should be supported by fair funding to meet need and demand in local areas.
That at least would allow us to test the ideas we are debating and to see whether one framework for the whole of England works. Without that, we will always be looking in the rear-view mirror at the consequences of what has been agreed. We need to get organised. We need a plan. This offer has been made before, but Labour Members are willing to work across party lines on the issues that are not party political. Much of this is not party political—it is about people and place.
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Romford (Andrew Rosindell) on securing this debate, which is both hugely important for his constituents and nationally important in the wider framework of devolution. It is very timely and deeply appropriate given the situation we find ourselves in.
The debate has been about the future, but let me dwell for a moment on the history of local government reform in London, which to some extent put us in this situation. I do not have to tell my hon. Friend, who is proud to have been born and bred in Essex, about the 1960 Herbert commission, but it is worth focusing briefly on the Greater London Council years. We can learn a lot from our history. During those years, when the current shadow Chancellor was chairman of the finance committee, what we used to refer to as “loony left” politics came to the fore. Of course, that is now mainstream Labour politics. As someone from the city of Liverpool, I was interested to see the Labour party, at its conference in that city, move back to endorsing the views of Derek Hatton: that councils should set illegal budgets and that there should be a general strike.
I suppose I ought to intervene, given that I was more or less invited to by that comment. To be absolutely clear—this came from the leadership of the Labour party a couple of years ago, so it is not a new response: we do not support the illegal setting of council budgets. We think councils have been given a rotten settlement, and in many places they struggle to meet their legal obligations.
The question for the Government is how they can provide the resources councils need to be confident that they can set a legal budget that provides security for the people who need it, particularly in adult social care and children’s safeguarding. The failure is not on the part of council leaders. No one proposes setting an illegal budget in any local authority in the country, but there are leaders who say, “We don’t think we can meet our legal obligations if this carries on.” So far, the Government have failed to provide a convincing response.
Order. Now the politics are out of the way, I am sure we will get back to local government reform in Greater London.
Well, of course the GLC was in league, through the Militant movement, with Derek Hatton’s Liverpool Labour party. It is worth focusing on the GLC. The hon. Member for Oldham West and Royton (Jim McMahon) parades the veneer of a gentle left—of herbivorous, lentil-munching, north London lefties—but the people of Liverpool and those who lived under the GLC know what the hard-left Labour party is really like. Labour councillors went around Liverpool handing out 30,000 redundancy notices to the people who worked in that city. As someone from Liverpool, let me take the opportunity to say that we will never forget that we could not get our bodies buried or our bins emptied. That is what the hard left of Militant and Momentum does to cities.
I will in a moment. It is all very well the hon. Gentleman saying that that is not the view of his party, but for a shadow Minister to endorse that view on the main platform on the first day of the conference was an absolute disgrace. I will give way to the hon. Gentleman, which will afford him the opportunity to apologise for that, and to apologise to the people of Liverpool for the devastation both there and under the GLC.
Order. Before the hon. Gentleman intervenes, let me say that I want us to get back to local government reform in London very quickly.
My response is simple: what on earth does that have to do with local government reorganisation in London? The Minister has an opportunity to lay out something that has been absent during his tenure. What will the Government do to push real power down to local authorities—not just to newly created institutions through deals done behind closed doors? We need a genuine framework that pushes power down to people, communities and neighbourhoods and addresses the issues raised in the debate. That is what we are here to discuss, and we look forward to hearing his reply.
I will take your guidance, Mr Hosie, and segue neatly from history to geography, which was always my favourite subject at school, but let me say briefly that the Labour party does not like the fact that the mask slipped. We should take every opportunity to inform the public in London and in our wider United Kingdom what lies behind that mask.
I move on to the geography of the Greater London Authority. I am sure that my hon. Friend the Member for Romford has noted that, in fact, the GLA and the Mayor have had some notable success since their establishment. I am sure that he, like me, celebrates the London Olympics hosted by the former Mayor of London, my right hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Boris Johnson).
Perhaps I should have stuck to history, which may be a slightly safer subject for me to talk about. My hon. Friend may think that it should have been called the Essex Olympics, but I am not sure that that would have had the same international cut-through as the London Olympics. It was a significant event, not just for London—and Essex, where it took place in the traditional Essex town of Stratford—but for our entire nation.
Those Olympics, which were thanks in no small part to the late, great Baroness Jowell and the Mayor of London at the time, my right hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip, showed how the GLA and London can be at their best. Another previous Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, introduced the congestion charge, which was extremely well implemented and significantly reduced traffic levels in the city. The Oyster card is also hugely popular, which the GLA and the Mayor were responsible for.
My hon. Friend said that today should be the start of the debate about the future shape of mayoralty and local government in London. He will understand that starting the debate for change will be hard; it will be a long road and probably require primary legislation. Most importantly of all, it will require consensus. From the Government’s point of view, we hope any changes would come from a ground-up movement rather than a central diktat from Whitehall. That plays very well with my hon. Friend’s desire for his constituents to have more control of their lives.
We must not forget that the Conservative party is the party of English devolution. We did not create the Mayor of London but we have successfully created six Metro Mayors, who were elected in May 2017. Since that date, a Mayor of Sheffield has been elected and, subject to the consent of the House, next Monday we will finalise the creation of a Mayor north of the Tyne, in Newcastle. Those elections have brought the biggest single transfer of power from Whitehall back to the people of England since the first world war. As Conservatives, we should celebrate that and be deeply proud of it. All those mayoral devolution deals have been about transferring power.
The Minister talked about the biggest transfer of power since the second world war—
The first world war. Does that take into account the power that has been removed from local authorities, particularly on housing and education?
I assume the shadow Minister is talking about the Greater Manchester Combined Authority and the transfer of power up from local authorities to the Mayor across the country. In areas of devolution, it has been done by consensus; he was a leader of one of those local authorities that are now part of the combined authorities, so I guess he would support that.
This debate is very important when looked at in the wider context of English devolution. The Government will shortly publicise their devolution framework, in which we will talk about what devolution should look like in the rest of England and give a clear roadmap for devolution across England, in compliance with a Conservative party manifesto commitment.
In London, there is an opportunity to talk about how we might improve the scrutiny and accountability of the Mayor of London and of Mayors in general. For inspiration, my hon. Friend could look to the mayoral model put in place by our Government in Manchester, where rather than having an additional tier of GLA governance, it is a combined authority, with representatives—the leaders of those borough councils—working with the Mayor in a collaborative partnership, but with a strong voice for their borough in that relationship. London should look at new solutions like that, on the proviso that they are always ground-up and locally supported.
Yes, I am. I hope that is helpful, and I congratulate my hon. Friend’s new council leader on winning the election.
Another reason why it is appropriate for boroughs to lead the conversation about whether the existing GLA boundaries and structures are appropriate is simply that they have not changed since the 1960s. Our world has changed very much since the 1960s. A lot of the debate about English devolution is driven by a wider debate about the future of our country after Brexit. There is an ambition and desire out there for what I refer to as “double devolution”—taking a very European idea of subsidiarity and embedding that in the relationship between local government and national government.
The Government have committed to come forward with the devolution framework to try to stimulate the debate about what devolution should look like across England. As we start with year zero of creating a new, ambitious, globally competitive country, what part can the constituent local authorities—in some cases, parish councils and unitary authorities in our local government family—play in driving forward our nation’s ambition?
I will touch on some of the specific points made by my hon. Friend in his excellent speech. When he started speaking, I wrote at the top of my piece of paper that the people of Essex want to take back control, although he got round to saying that himself. That plays into a much wider debate we should be having about people’s identity. As a proud Member of Parliament representing Lancashire, I am aware of the strength of the Lancashire identity, which in many ways was undermined in local government reform when we lost the city of Liverpool, the city of Manchester and large parts of Greater Manchester. There is a real role for Members of Parliament and local councils in reinforcing those historic county boundaries.
My hon. Friend spoke passionately about his identity as someone born in Essex and representing Essex but having been sucked into the London agglomeration in some way. I feel similarly about Lancashire. Of course, Lancashire is one of the few county palatine boroughs in our United Kingdom, having been awarded the status by the King for protecting England from marauding Scots—something we occasionally see today. We in Lancashire are deeply proud of that county palatine status. We love our friends north of the border, with whom we have a great relationship, but we also like to be cognisant of our history.
My hon. Friend was edging towards saying, without realising it, that the GLA may be better represented or reformed with a Manchester model: a combined authority with a strong voice for the boroughs. The late, great Tony Wilson, of Manchester music industry fame, said:
“This is Manchester—we do things differently here.”
Where Manchester leads, many parts of the country can follow. The GLA was set up in 2000, and the debate has simply moved on. That is why the Government, and I as a constituency Member of Parliament, see this as a welcome time to debate the future of the GLA.
The nearest equivalent organisation is London Councils, where council leaders across the Greater London area come together. Could that organisation be given combined authority status, with powers similar to Greater Manchester’s and the Mayor possibly taking the chair? Is that where Government thinking is leading?
If the hon. Gentleman had listened to my earlier remarks, he would have heard me say that the Government are not suggesting that the GLA should be abolished, and we are not suggesting the creation of a combined authority. That is because the Conservatives, the party of English devolution, believe that devolution works best in England when it is ground-up and locally led. It is not for Whitehall to dictate what devolution should look like in Manchester, as he will appreciate, or to dictate what the changes—if any—that come forward for the GLA should be. It is for local politicians, led by Members of Parliament having this debate, to come forward to Government with ground-up proposals that the Government will look at, as we do with all such proposals.
I am sure the leaders of Yorkshire will be delighted with the spirit of that. Does that mean that we are heading towards a one Yorkshire devolution deal?
I think the leaders of Yorkshire are always delighted when they hear me talk about devolution. As the hon. Gentleman knows—I do not want to be drawn too far from the subject of the debate—the Government have been clear: we remain committed to the implementation of the south Yorkshire city region deal, known as the Sheffield city region deal.
As someone who has lived in Sheffield, I am keen to see the near-£1 billion of Government money go into that economy. In that city there is the bizarre situation where four Labour authority leaders cannot agree collectively about what power they should have to release that money. The hon. Gentleman spoke of the challenges faced by boroughs across England in local government spending, and it strikes me as a little bit odd that when the Government are saying to four Labour boroughs, “Here is £30 million a year that we would like to give you to invest in growing your economy,” those Labour boroughs are more interested in fighting each other than in drawing that money down. However, we are straying.
I will not, because we are straying a long way from the subject of the debate and I want to conclude my remarks.
This has been an interesting debate. I welcome the lead role that my hon. Friend the Member for Romford is taking in driving the debate on the future of the GLA and the mayoralty, and the relationship between the two. There has been no change since the 1960s. Although we cannot guarantee that any change will come, if he can command a broad coalition of boroughs across London who would like to talk to the Government about what change could look like, we will welcome those discussions.
(5 years, 10 months ago)
Commons ChamberI agree that land banking should be looked into. The hon. Lady will be aware that my hon. Friend the Member for North Dorset (Simon Hoare) is currently looking at that issue. Interim findings have been published and more findings will be coming out shortly. I hope that she will be happy to wait for the findings of those reports.
Nor are we proposing to change any other arrangements for charging premiums. It will rightly remain a matter for local authorities individually to decide whether and what premium to charge. In making these decisions, local authorities should of course consider local circumstances, as we have discussed, as well as the guidance issued by the Government.
It is right that we target particularly the homes that are empty for excessively long periods in this way. To be sure, they are likely to be few in number— potentially 11,000, as we heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Walsall North (Eddie Hughes)—but where they exist, they can indeed be a nuisance and a blight on their community. Such properties may even become sites of crime and antisocial behaviour. It is right that local authorities are equipped with greater powers in these difficult cases, where a 100% premium may be ineffective. We are proposing that these higher premiums come into effect slightly later than the original measure, which was announced at last year’s autumn Budget. This will give homeowners sufficient notice of the change. The 200% premiums will come into effect from 1 April 2020, and the 300% premiums a year later. The original proposal, of which people have had good notice, will come into effect from 1 April 2019, as planned.
We recognise the crucial importance of ensuring that premiums are applied fairly. That is why in 2013 the Government published guidance reminding local authorities to take into account the specific reasons a local property is empty, as indeed we heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman). In the light of this amendment, I can confirm that the Government will take a fresh look at the guidance with the aim of publishing revised guidance ahead of the introduction of the 200% and 300% premiums. This refreshed guidance will be subject to consultation, of course, and we will welcome the opportunity to benefit from the experience of local authorities, council tax payers and others when the time comes. In particular, we are keen to ensure that the guidance clarifies that premiums must be applied with due consideration to issues facing low-demand areas and cases of hardship. We expect to revisit the wording of the guidance to set out clearly the Government’s expectation that premiums are not applied where homeowners can demonstrate that their properties are genuinely on the market for rent or sale and appropriately priced.
Another area we expect to consider is cases where homeowners, as my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow East noted, are struggling to complete or afford renovations that are necessary before the property can be occupied or sold on and where they can demonstrate progress and hardship.
I am delighted to bring forward this amendment, which has been termed the escalator amendment. I am grateful to all colleagues, the Select Committee and partners in the rating agencies for helping to get this amendment and this Bill to the House. By strengthening the incentive for owners of long-term empty properties to bring them back into use, this amendment will surely come as good news for local government, for families seeking a place to live and for the affected local communities as a whole. I commend it to the House.
It takes a very good education to be able to talk at length without saying much at all.
We are at the end of a process as we reflect on the Lords amendment, which I should say is entirely in line with Labour’s manifesto. If anything, it could have gone much further. While the Lords have suggested a 10-year period regarding the charge on empty properties, the Labour manifesto proposed that after a year, because we recognise not only that there are lots of people on the housing waiting list and many people who are homeless—sofa-surfing and on the streets—but that these properties are often a blight on their local communities. It is right that the owners of the properties are held to account, and a charge is one way of doing so. Of course we welcome the amendment, but we would have liked it to go much further.
We have heard in Committee and in the Chamber that the staircase tax was about listening to the interests of business and how the business rates system was adversely affecting them, but it is slightly odd that of all the issues that businesses are raising when it comes to business rates, this is the sole one that has been picked out for this place to address. There is absolutely nothing about the condition of our high streets and town centres, and nothing about business rates’ impact on our pubs. There is no recognition that while we have rural rate relief for the last pub in a village, council estates are not given the same luxury for the last pub on the estate. Businesses are raising plenty of important issues.
Fundamentally, we see with rates the same thing that we are seeing with council tax: we are incrementally putting more and more pressure on what is a diminishing resource in many places. We have seen that with the revaluation, where the value shifted to London and the south-east, and certainly away from my region. The Conservative party has been in power for 10 years, through the coalition and more recently with the support of the Democratic Unionist party, and the housing shame in this country is a national scandal.
The hon. Gentleman says that the Government are doing nothing to tackle some of the issues on the high street. Is he not aware of the Government inquiry that is led by Sir John Timpson on the difficulties the high street is facing and what we should do about it? Is it not a sensible starting point that we gather some evidence before we decide what we should do?
If all we had was time, we could carry out an inquiry and a review every few months, but the fact is that that leads to almost no change. Our tax base system is getting to a point where it will not be fit for purpose. How can we have a situation where someone’s ability to get adult social care in later life will be predicated on their local authority’s ability to raise money from a diminishing base of council tax and business rates, thereby putting more and more pressure on the communities that can least afford it? How can it be right that a child’s ability to get the protection they need will be based on house values in 1991 when the Government walk off the pitch and end revenue support grant completely? How can that be fair?
The hon. Gentleman is being generous in giving way. Will he set out his party’s policies on rejuvenating the high street and replacing business rates?
I know. I have allowed Members to generalise. I do not want to narrow down what the shadow Minister has to say. I allowed the Minister to spread his wings—perhaps I was a bit too open in allowing that. I do not want to concentrate on just one area.
Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. I will not abuse the purpose of the debate; I will stick to the Bill and the Lords amendment.
Many of these issues on council tax and business rates need not be party political. Most people recognise that high streets and town centres are at a point where they cannot take much more pressure. Most people recognise that council tax is taking on a disproportionate burden to fund local public services and, increasingly, people services, too. These are not party political points; they are self-evident when we see the condition of council budgets, and our town and city centres and high streets.
I have offered from this Dispatch Box to sit down with the Minister and work out where there is common ground and where we ought to be working together. I am afraid that all these offers of visits to constituencies around the country are taking away time that could be spent in this place working through some of these complex issues, in which have been ignored for so long.
Clearly, we are not going to oppose the Bill, in which very sensible steps are being taken. We support the Lords amendment, so we do not suggest opposing that either. However, we do want a bit more courage from the Department. There is a brand-new Secretary of State in place, who I hope has more access to the door of No. 11 than previously and can finally get a conversation about how we can properly fund local government services. We ought to be working together to find a long-term, sustainable solution to ensure that every man, woman and child right across the country gets the public services they need and deserve.
(6 years, 1 month ago)
Commons ChamberMy hon. Friend rightly raises the issue of releasing public sector land, which is a priority for this Government. The land for homes programme aims to release centrally held land for 160,000 homes over the coming years. We are also supporting local authorities to release land for a further 160,000 homes.
We have all seen the shocking impact of police cuts and rising crime, but that has to be put together with real-terms cuts of 59% to crime reduction, 85% to community safety and 33% to CCTV monitoring, plus very deep cuts to youth services and community development. Does the Secretary of State believe that any of those cuts have had an impact on the increase in crime and antisocial behaviour?
Yet again, Labour fails to understand the reason why we have had to make savings—because of its public service delivery failures when in government. Steps such as this Government’s troubled families programme are about preventive work, as we heard earlier, and they are having an impact on our communities.
(6 years, 1 month ago)
General Committees(6 years, 1 month ago)
General CommitteesI beg to move,
That the Committee has considered the draft Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Combined Authority (Business Rate Supplements Functions) Order 2018.
The draft order, which was laid before the House on 7 June, will confer powers on the Mayor to levy a business rate supplement in line with the devolution deal. I commend the draft order to the Committee.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Robertson. We do not object to the draft statutory instrument. However, we want the Government to be more proactive in building strong relationships. We are aware of the letter that the Secretary of State sent last week, which put a question mark over the £400 million to be devolved as part of the next stage of investment. We really need to get people around the table and have a mature conversation about what is next for devolution.
Question put and agreed to.
(6 years, 1 month ago)
Commons ChamberIt is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship today, Dame Rosie. I should like to start by reiterating this Government’s commitment to supporting the sustainable growth of farming and horticultural businesses. We firmly believe that the agricultural exemption from business rates plays an important role in supporting this aim and boosting agricultural productivity. This measure will therefore help to drive our ambitions for a more dynamic and self-reliant agricultural industry. Until a Court of Appeal ruling in 2015, the long-standing practice of the Valuation Office Agency had been to apply the agricultural exemption to all plant nurseries. However, the ruling clarified that the exemption did not apply to plant nurseries in buildings that were not occupied together with agricultural land, and used solely in connection with agricultural operations on that or other agricultural land. This does not reflect Government policy, and neither does it reflect our commitment to growth in the rural economy. The Bill will therefore amend the Local Government Finance Act 1988 and enable the Valuation Office Agency to return to its former practice of exempting all plant nurseries solely consisting of buildings. It will also enable the VOA to exempt those plant nurseries that have been assessed since the ruling.
The Government have been consistently clear that they would take action on this matter. In March 2017, we set out our intention to legislate in a written ministerial statement. A further written ministerial statement was made in 2018, restating our intention to legislate and for the first time confirming that the measure would have retrospective effect in England from 1 April 2015. In Wales, the measure will have effect from 1 April 2017. The Bill delivers on that commitment and, once enacted, it will restore the previous practice and enable refunds to be provided to the handful of plant nurseries that have already been assessed for business rates as a consequence of the Court of Appeal ruling. While the Bill will restore the practice of exempting plant nurseries and buildings, it will not otherwise disturb the existing boundary of the agricultural exemption. The Bill amends schedule 5 to the Local Government Finance Act 1988, which determines the extent to which certain hereditaments are exempt from business rates.
Turning specifically to clause 1, it amends paragraph 3 of schedule 5 to the 1988 Act, providing that a building that
“is or forms part of a nursery ground and is used solely in connection with agricultural operations at the nursery ground”
will, subject to the passage of this Bill, be exempt from business rates. Clause 1 also contains a provision that the measure will have effect from 1 April 2015 in England and from 1 April 2017 in Wales, as requested by the Welsh Government. That will ensure that the measure has the intended retrospective effect and that refunds can be provided as necessary.
Dame Rosie, you will be pleased to hear that the Bill is non-contentious. It simply fixes the position as it was before the 2015 Court of Appeal ruling and, on that basis, the Opposition are happy to allow the Government to go ahead without objection.
It was said both in the press and when the Local Government Finance Bill was in Committee before the election that the Government were pledging to right the wrong of the Court of Appeal’s hearing after listening to businesses’ concerns, but several other similar representations have been made. For example, in towns where the banks have closed and there is no post office, a convenience store might step in to install a cash machine, but it would straight away be taxed on the turnover of the cash machine, which could take the store over the threshold for small business rate relief. There have been calls for that issue to be examined, but we are yet to see any progress.
Another big issue affecting many high streets and town and city centres is the impact of business rates on the viability of retail. We see companies go under on an almost weekly basis because they cannot afford to meet the high running costs of operating in primary locations. Communities resent seeing their local high streets and town centres go downhill, and businesses and representatives of other organisations have made the same point, but the Government have offered nothing comprehensive in response, because there would be a big bill.
However, the truth is that if we want to save our town centres and high streets, we must be bold and fully examine how such premises are taxed if they are to have any future. This goes beyond business; this is about communities. When people talk about how well or badly their communities are doing, they will often point to their town centres and high streets as a barometer. When people see the roller shutters pulled down or boards over windows, that has a material effect on how they feel about their community, and the Government ought to take note of that.
When the Local Government Finance Bill was in Committee, the Opposition made the offer that where there were non-contentious issues on which local government was seeking progress, we were happy to sit down and go through a plan for the legislation that ought to be brought forward. That would be done away from partisan interests because it is the right thing to do for our communities, and I look forward to the Minister arranging such a meeting.
I am delighted to speak in support of a Bill that rights a wrong that was clearly never intended in the first place, and I have the honour of being the Member who first raised this issue when the Local Government Finance Bill was in Committee last year. Unfortunately, however, the Conservative party’s majority was not the only victim of last year’s general election, because that Bill fell at that point and the amendment that was likely to be made to it could not be passed, hence the need for this new Bill.
Plant nurseries play a vital role in this country’s food production supply chain. At a time when we want to increase domestic food supply and become less reliant on imported food, it is right to do all we can to support an important industry and ensure that we do not impose a further tax on producers that would see them struggle with the additional costs. Many of them would face the possibility of going out of business, with the loss of jobs that that would entail. The Bill sets out to put in place what the Local Government Finance Act 1988 always intended and to ensure that the exemption for nurseries continues. It will support our rural economy, ensuring that we support food production and that jobs are retained in the industry. I am therefore pleased to support the Bill to ensure that it becomes an Act as soon as possible.
(6 years, 1 month ago)
General CommitteesI beg to move,
That the Committee has considered the draft Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Combined Authority (Business Rate Supplements Functions) Order 2018.
The draft order, which was laid before the House on 7 June, will confer powers on the Mayor to levy a business rate supplement in line with the devolution deal. I commend the draft order to the Committee.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Robertson. We do not object to the draft statutory instrument. However, we want the Government to be more proactive in building strong relationships. We are aware of the letter that the Secretary of State sent last week, which put a question mark over the £400 million to be devolved as part of the next stage of investment. We really need to get people around the table and have a mature conversation about what is next for devolution.
Question put and agreed to.
(6 years, 1 month ago)
General CommitteesI was going to say that it was a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Paisley, but I think you might have just got me the sack.
The draft order is not contentious. The same thing has been done in other areas, and we know that other combined authorities want to work towards this approach. It would, however, be remiss of me not to place on the record the Opposition’s concern. It is all very well investing in infrastructure—that is something that we support, particularly outside London and the south-east, where there have been regional imbalances for decades—but we cannot take our eye off the ball when it comes to the revenue cuts that have been made to the component local authorities, which will feed through to the combined authority.
By way of example, we have seen transport cuts of 43% in Coventry and 27% in Wolverhampton. In one year alone, £20 million has been taken away from bus routes in England. If we are genuine about delivering a powerhouse or an engine, or even just making sure that every region can thrive, we have to build on the best possible foundations, and critical to that is revenue spending. I urge the Minister to speak to No. 11 and make the case for local government. For far too long, it has borne the brunt of austerity, while the civil service in Whitehall has grown. Let us fight collectively for the sector and do the best for our local authorities.
Question put and agreed to.
(6 years, 2 months ago)
Commons ChamberThis Government have ensured that all local authorities have increased resources to deal with all the various services they have to provide, including children’s services, on which, I am pleased to say, over £9 billion will be spent this year. The hon. Lady mentions reserves. She may know that last year reserves in her local authority were actually higher than they were five years ago.
We all want to live in a Britain where young people are safe, well cared for and nurtured, but for too many real life is very different. They rely instead on council safeguarding services to give them the protection they need, the very services that are facing a £2 billion funding gap and that have already overspent by £600 million. The question is simple: when can we see real action, with real money going directly to children’s services?
As I just said, £9 billion is going to children’s services just this year. As the hon. Gentleman knows, we are undertaking a fresh review of the relative needs and resources of all local authorities. As part of that work, there is ongoing work with the Department for Education to understand in detail the specific drivers for children’s services up and down the country. I look forward to his contributions to that piece of work.