Local Government Finance

Debate between Jim McMahon and Alison McGovern

Wednesday 17th December 2025 Commons Chamber

[Alison McGovern]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right to highlight how we have to do things differently in rural areas, and we have tried to take account of that need. That is why we are including a journey times adjustment in our assessment of cost for all services. We are also increasing the cap in the home-to-school transport formula from 20 miles to 50 miles, in recognition of the fact that the original distance cap would penalise local authorities that have no choice but to place children further from home. We are also including a remoteness adjustment in the adult social care formula to address the point that he mentions. Overall, the point cannot be made enough that we have to do things differently in rural areas, and we all need to take account of that.

[Jim McMahon (Oldham West, Chadderton and Royton) (Lab/Co-op)]

The fair funding review is significant. It is the first multi-year settlement for a decade, and the first real attempt at fairly distributing resources based on need, cost and the ability to raise revenue locally. It represents a serious piece of work by decent public servants, and I pay tribute to the finance team in my hon. Friend’s Department. The consultation asked councils to make their case for adjustments. London councils asked for housing to be included in the measure of deprivation, and we can see that in some of the changes that have been made, but that sees a significant shift towards London. The recovery grant has made a significant difference and I am pleased to see it continue, but it shows that fundamentally the formula is not yet picking up the real cost pressures being felt by local government as a result of the previous Government.

Much has been said about council tax, but the inequality goes much further, as the Minister knows: our car parking income is £2 million, but Westminster city council alone generates £90 million. That is more than the entire recovery grant for Manchester, Liverpool, Newcastle, Sheffield and Leeds combined, so there are much wider structural issues that need to be addressed. My hon. Friend will also know that, despite best endeavours, councils will still find this settlement very challenging and that bigger reforms are needed, so can she make the case—I know she will—to her colleagues in the Treasury that, if the Government want the benefit to be felt on every street in every community, in the end local government will need more money put into the pot more generally?

[Alison McGovern]

First, I must pay tribute to my hon. Friend for his work on this. I might be putting the ball in the net today, but he was the midfielder who created the goal. It is his work to reconnect deprivation and council funding that we are delivering today, and I pay massive tribute to him. He asked whether we might go further to persuade our Treasury colleagues to invest in local government. I think that the best way to do that—I will welcome his support in this—is to show the results that councils get when they are properly invested in. We see that nowhere more than in his home city region of Greater Manchester and his council of Oldham, which show time and again that they provide value for money and they are growing our economy.

Women and the Vote

Debate between Jim McMahon and Alison McGovern

Wednesday 8th June 2016 Commons Chamber

[Alison McGovern]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his kind intervention. It is certainly true that there is progress to be made for women across the whole United Kingdom, definitely including Northern Ireland.

I believe that the reading by my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Jess Phillips) of the names of the women killed by men this year will be a significant moment for this House that few who heard it will forget. As Women’s Aid has highlighted, however, women who have fled to refuges to escape domestic violence remain disfranchised because they are unable to register anonymously. Thousands of women, whose voices are crying out to be heard, are silenced because of arcane regulations.

Mr Speaker, you were present last night at the lighting of “New Dawn”, a work of art which was commissioned to mark the anniversary of the 1866 petition. I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Romsey and Southampton North (Caroline Nokes), my colleague on and Chair of the Speaker’s Advisory Committee on Works of Art, who led the project brilliantly. The artist, Mary Branson, has created a beautiful installation, lit in the colours of the votes for women movement. It is a special work of art, representing not just an individual, but an idea, and not just an idea, but a force of change. Any number of worthy people could have been represented—any number of the signatories to the petition, the anniversary of which I am marking this evening—but I am unsure that that would have been right, because political change is never down to an individual. Political change happens because all of us change our minds. It happens when we stand up for that terribly simple idea, one which we know in our heart to be true but which is often forgotten, that every one of us is equal. The many discs, lit up by the tide of the Thames, represent the sweeping power of change and the light of hope.

[Jim McMahon (Oldham West and Royton) (Lab)]

I thank my hon. Friend for agreeing to give way when I approached her earlier today, because the anniversary is important from an Oldham perspective. I am leading the fundraising campaign for a statue of Annie Kenney, who was a working-class suffragette leader and an inspiration to many. I also want to reflect on the fact that although there is no doubt that men can be part of the problem, that does not mean that men cannot be part of the solution. It is important that we work together to remind people of the sacrifices that were made by so many.

[Alison McGovern]

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. I commend his efforts to remember a working-class member of the fight for women’s votes.

The new work that we lit up last night is bold, daring, and imaginative. It is a tribute, yes, but it will also serve, just as the archway leading from Members’ Lobby to the Chamber does, as a reminder.

You may know, Mr Speaker, that there were protests outside this building last night, in part against the violence that I mentioned that too many women still face. I say to those who protested last night outside St Stephen’s entrance and shouted with furious anger, “Dead women can’t vote,” that they are right to be angry. They are right be angry with violent men, but all of us must choose how we use that anger: whether to hold our placard and do no more or whether to take up the right that our sisters fought for not just to vote, but to hold office and seek the real power to take decisions on behalf of women and men.

In 1866, women hammered on the door of this place because they had no other choice. Hammering on the door was the only way to make their voices heard, to stand proud and to say, “Here we are. These are our numbers. We have the right to be valued and we count.” This is the real point about 1866: it was never about equal votes for women; it was always about equal worth for women. A new dawn, Mr Speaker, but a very old fight —a fight that is as alive in 2016 as it was 150 years ago.