Flooding

Debate between Joan Walley and Lord Pickles

Monday 10th February 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Pickles]

I am most grateful to my hon. Friend for his remarks. It is perhaps good to make the point that my hon. Friend the Member for Bridgwater and West Somerset (Mr Liddell-Grainger) cannot be with us today—he is down there dealing with flooding matters. I am sure he would have made similar points.

I felt it was about time somebody apologised to the people of Somerset and I was happy to do so. The Prime Minister has endorsed that apology. It is true that the advice was solidly given, and that the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs last autumn started some preliminary dredging on the two rivers. That was due to start up again, and it will do so, but in a more enhanced role. That decision was taken by the wisdom of the Secretary of State.

[Joan Walley (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Lab)]

Today we have had a summary of the short-term, overdue measures that the Government are taking, but what about the long-term implications? What about climate change? Will Cobra, when it meets, look not only at adaptation, but at mitigation? Will the right hon. Gentleman speak to the Chancellor and ensure that we implement the fourth carbon budget review?

[Mr Pickles]

Of course, we take climate change into consideration in all the modelling we do with regard to flooding, but the hon. Lady will accept that the weather patterns we have had have been truly remarkable—nothing like them have been seen since the latter part of the 18th century. I will ensure that her remarks on flooding are passed on to my right hon. Friend the Chancellor.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Joan Walley and Lord Pickles

Monday 17th December 2012 Commons Chamber

[Joan Walley (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Lab)]

T3. The Secretary of State is leaving the financial settlement for local government until the last minute, and there is great unfairness among the most deprived councils in the country. For example, in Stoke-on-Trent we are having to pay an extra £130.75 per person because of cuts, whereas in the Secretary of State’s own constituency the sum is £29.40. Will he take that into account in the financial settlement before he finalises it, so that there is fairness for local councils?

[Mr Pickles]

Of course there will be fairness in the system, but we need to understand that one reason why the hon. Lady’s authority is facing a larger cut than mine is that it receives a much larger amount. I think Labour expects my authority not only to contribute to the pot but to have its entire grant removed, and then it expects us to increase taxation. I remind her that it was Labour that left a number of vulnerable authorities dangling over a cliff edge and the coalition Government who put money into pulling Labour’s irons out of the fire.

Local Government Finance

Debate between Joan Walley and Lord Pickles

Wednesday 9th February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Pickles]

I feel a certain degree of camaraderie and fraternal friendship with the hon. Gentleman, because unlike his party’s Front Benchers, he has said that Labour’s cuts would have been just slightly less than those that we are presenting. I think that is probably true, but the challenge facing local government means that just a couple of million quid would not make all the difference. There are very challenging circumstances.

[Joan Walley (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Lab)]

Will the Secretary of State give way?

[Mr Pickles]

In a moment—I need to respond to the hon. Member for Dudley North (Ian Austin) first.

Let us consider a number of local authorities. Some have been talking about thousands of redundancies. I do not want to appear partisan, but Sheffield is talking about 250. Sunderland, a Labour council, is not planning percentage cuts in its Supporting People provision. Walsall is not planning to make an overall cut in its voluntary sector funding. It is possible to deal with the situation.

[Joan Walley]

Will the Secretary of State give way?

[Mr Pickles]

In a moment.

The hon. Member for Dudley North has to understand that these are local decisions. We have ensured that there are sufficient funds to protect the vulnerable, but ultimately local councils have to make local decisions.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Pickles]

We have done three significant things. First, we moved the relative needs threshold to 83% from 73%, which makes a considerable difference and is far more than the Labour Government ever offered poorer communities. We then divided up authorities based on their level of funding, from the most dependent on grant to the least dependent, and ensured that the most dependent received smaller cuts. Then we managed to find an additional transitional amount to ensure that no authority loses more than 8.9%. I will have a further announcement to make about that.

[Joan Walley]

My constituents do not want the House to make politics of what is happening. Everybody understands the situation in respect of the cuts as a whole, but in areas such as Stoke-on-Trent, where we have deprivation and people out of work, we have made representations to the Secretary of State and his Ministers to say that we want time: we want time to plan how we can keep what is most important. This finance settlement gives us no encouragement whatever that this is anything other than the Government blaming local councils for what is happening.

[Mr Pickles]

The hon. Lady and her councils were given quite a lot of time. The former Chancellor, the right hon. Member for Edinburgh South West, made it clear that changes were going to be made, and a number of the most vulnerable areas were hit by the fact that it was made clear that the working neighbourhoods fund was going to end in March this year. It seems to me that a number of councils did not make any provision for that and blithely assumed that the money would continue, despite the fact that the Labour Chancellor made it perfectly clear that it was ending. Ladies and gentlemen on the Labour Benches who cheered his Budget announcement did not raise any objection at the time.