Fire and Rescue Services

Debate between John Healey and Kevan Jones

Wednesday 5th September 2012 Westminster Hall

[John Healey (Wentworth and Dearne) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Houghton and Sunderland South (Bridget Phillipson) on securing this important and timely debate in Westminster Hall. It will help to underpin and underline the strong cross-party concern about the future funding of our fire services.

I pay tribute to the former Minister, the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Robert Neill). He understood the fire services and had a long track record in local government. I hope that he may yet emerge from this reshuffle with another post. I also welcome the new Minister to his post and hope that he picks up the brief in the same way as his predecessor. May I say to him that we are here to help, as are his hon. Friends, the hon. Members for Birmingham, Yardley (John Hemming) and for Altrincham and Sale West (Mr Brady)?

Essentially, we are all here to argue our case. Many of us representing parts of the six metropolitan areas of South Yorkshire, West Yorkshire, Tyne and Wear, Greater Manchester, Merseyside and the West Midlands feel that the year one and year two cuts in the fire and rescue services were unfair, unequal and hard to justify. Let me explain. The settlement for the first two years brought cuts to the budgets of most of the 31 fire and rescue services across the country. It brought especially deep cuts in the six metropolitan areas, but it also brought funding increases to six of those fire and rescue authorities. The hon. Member for Meon Valley (George Hollingbery), a member of the Select Committee on Communities and Local Government—and the Minister’s hon. Friend—who represented one of the winning authorities in the first two years, described that situation as “ludicrous”.

The previous Minister said that he was surprised by that result. Some of those in fire and rescue authorities looking at grant increases over those two years were astonished, and many of us in the six metropolitan areas were angry. We heard and we took at face value what the Prime Minister and the Chancellor had said about all being in this together. We believed that the previous Minister misspoke in the Commons Chamber when he said that the poorest would have to bear the greatest burden in paying for the deficit. The situation that we faced in these first two years was indefensible. While six of those authorities were wondering how to spend the extra cash they had, the six metropolitan areas were working out how to cut 1,258 full-time firefighters, 69 retained firefighters and more than 550 other staff in this spending review period.

In South Yorkshire alone, we have to cut one in seven of our full-time firefighters. The fire chiefs have been reasonable and restrained in their response. They have accepted the year one and year two settlement. They have come together for the first time ever to make a joint case and they have produced strong evidence and strong reports. They have concentrated their concern on years three and four, on which the Minister will have to make decisions in the next month or so, and they have argued not that there should be no cuts but that there should be a flat-rate percentage cut for all 31 fire and rescue services across the country.

Many of us as Labour MPs in the six metropolitan areas believe that there is a case for reversing the pattern of cuts in years one and two in years three and four. We see the situation as iniquitous and inexplicable as well as indefensible. We are ready to back the fire chiefs and we have worked across area and across party to make that reasoned and restrained case to Government.

[Mr Kevan Jones]

Does my right hon. Friend not think that that would entrench the unfairness in the formula funding, and certainly would not help County Durham and Darlington fire service?

[John Healey]

My hon. Friend underlines the modest case that the fire chiefs have been making, which many Labour MPs have been prepared to back. Indeed my hon. Friend the Member for Houghton and Sunderland South did so today. The scheme does entrench the unfair pattern that we have seen in years one and two, but, from the fire chiefs’ point of view, it recognises that the Fire Minister, unless he is going to renegotiate the settlement with the Treasury for years three and four, will have to find cuts worth more than £130 million in the next couple of years.

Local Government Finance Bill

Debate between John Healey and Kevan Jones

Monday 21st May 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Kevan Jones]

As my right hon. Friend the Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Mr Raynsford) pointed out, the Bill has not changed greatly since we last debated it. The underlying theme remains. As the Minister made clear, it has nothing to do with reform or enabling councils to implement a local scheme; it is actually about the Government’s deficit reduction targets. That is why they are so keen to aim for implementation in 2014.

The Minister seems to think—and I recall that the hon. Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Annette Brooke) said this during our last debate—that all local authorities are on a level playing field, but they are clearly not. The Minister suggested that, following the 10% cut in council tax benefit, councils could make up the difference if they wished to, which may be all well and good for councils in areas where the benefit is being increased. I hate to return to my favourite example of Wokingham, but a few weeks ago a very good article in the Financial Times stated that its budget was rising by 3%—unlike the budgets of authorities such as Durham, which are declining by as much as 15%.

We are not dealing with level playing fields; we are dealing with a strategy that the Government have worked out quite well. As we can see from the playbook according to which the Conservative part of the coalition is working, it is nothing new. The same strategy was adopted by the Conservatives in Canada in the 1990s. They made savage cuts in public services and devolved decision making to local level: in their case, federal level. What they were saying was “We are giving you freedoms, but we are ensuring that you take all the blame for the cuts.” The flexibility that councils will be given will, in fact, cause them great difficulty, unless they are in Wokingham.

That very good article in the Financial Times, published on 7 May, was headed “The well-to-do towns that austerity forgot”. I think that it is worth looking at, and not just because it makes it plain that the Government are rewarding their own councils while penalising poor areas. Let us look at the calculations for Wokingham. It is among the 8% of local authority areas—out of a total of 152—that are expecting a real increase in local government spending over the period set out by the Government. Meanwhile, 20% of councils, including Durham, are taking cuts in excess of 15%.

We are being told that we are all in this together and that what is being done is fair, but let us look at the difference between Wokingham and Wigan. In the index of multiple-deprivation, Wokingham scores 5.5 whereas Wigan scores 26. On average, there is an additional 1% increase in local government spending cuts between 2009-10 and 2011-12. Not only are local authorities in the north-east and other deprived areas suffering because their grants are being cut, but they are now going to be hit again by the council tax benefit cut. Local authorities will be told they are being given the flexibility to administer the scheme, but the result will be a 10% cut.

[John Healey]

My hon. Friend mentions Wigan in the north-west and authorities in the north-east, but the case he makes is equally true for many authorities in Yorkshire and the Humber, such as Barnsley and Rotherham. As he has access to the figures, he might care to look at them in this regard. Wokingham may be facing an increase in its grant, which is astonishing given that local government is taking such a hit across the board, but Barnsley and Rotherham are facing double-digit reductions in their grant, despite increasing need and increasing pressure on services in their communities.

[Mr Jones]

I agree. My right hon. Friend’s authority and mine are among those that are having to take £152 million out of the budget over the next four years. In Wokingham, however, the council is planning to overhaul its town centre at a cost of £30 million, and it is not closing its libraries and its voluntary sector groups have not lost their funding. In communities such as mine and that of my right hon. Friend, councils are having to find savings—and they are having to find them in areas such as libraries and non-statutory services.

In Durham, the bulk of expenditure goes on adult social care. The Labour-run local authority is rightly making sure the most vulnerable are protected, but that restricts where savings in the budget can be made. I send a clear message to the Liberal Democrats sitting on Durham county council that, as a result of their Ministers’ actions and their Members’ votes on this Bill, Durham and other local authorities are having to make savage cuts. The idea that they can be found simply through efficiencies is complete nonsense. No organisation could reduce expenditure so much without affecting front-line services.

[John Healey]

Does my hon. Friend agree that not only is the current settlement unfair, but it is the baseline for the future system, and the Bill will lock in that unfairness for at least a decade?

[Mr Jones]

That is a very important point. That will limit the ability of my council in County Durham and my right hon. Friend’s authority to effect any change. That will lock in the unfair and disproportionate effects, which have been caused by no account having been taken of deprivation. We have just heard a Minister saying this Bill takes account of equality, but it must be the first Bill in history that supports a system by which the poorest in our society and those councils with the largest need—growing aged populations and increasing numbers of looked-after children, for example—will suffer the most.

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[John Healey]

I am glad to see my hon. Friend in his place. He has been an active participant in all debates on the Bill, including on Second Reading and in Committee. I have seen that work by the House of Commons Scrutiny Unit, which I think is useful and supports the point I am making to the hon. Member for Manchester, Withington (Mr Leech). If anything, the 16% figure is probably on the conservative side. My local authority in Rotherham calculates that non-protected, non-pensioner claimants of council tax benefit are likely to lose, on average, 19% of their support.

[Mr Kevan Jones]

To clarify my earlier point for the hon. Member for Manchester, Withington, who is obviously having problems with earwax tonight, I was not suggesting that pensioners should be taken out of that protection; I was making exactly the same point as my right hon. Friend is making. The fact of the matter is that the hon. Gentleman will go into the Lobby tonight to vote for some swingeing cuts to the lowest paid, including some of his constituents in Manchester, who no doubt will have their revenge at the next general election.

[John Healey]

My hon. Friend makes clearly and succinctly the points he made earlier.

I am concerned about the percentages, whether 16% or 19%, and the averages, such as the LGA’s calculation that non-pensioners are likely to lose, on average, £6 a week from the support they currently receive to help pay council tax. Percentages and averages are one thing, but the family, household or individual—the one in eight people currently entitled to council tax benefit who are in work but do not earn enough to cover their council tax bills without help—will face a reduction of perhaps £10, £12 or £15 a week, at a time when other costs are being loaded on them and they are struggling to make ends meet. They will find such a difference really hard to deal with. I hope that we do not lose sight of the sort of pressure that the Bill and the changes the Government are making will put on many households, including many that are working hard and have an entitlement that they simply will not have under the new system.

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[Mr Kevan Jones]

Is not this yet another example of the Secretary of State’s schizophrenic approach to local authorities? His previous edicts have given advice on everything from pot plants to levels of chief executives’ pay to publications. He wants to give the impression that he is giving up powers, but in fact he is retaining them.

[John Healey]

To be honest, no Minister of any Government is immune to that temptation. I am sure that it would be possible for the Minister to find one or two examples where I myself might have made such moves as a Local Government Minister. However, we in this House have a right to challenge the Government on what they claim is the underpinning principle of the Bill and to point out how the principles they claim are not matched in their legislation. There is a strong, principled case for the Secretary of State to back off, loosen the reins, and let those in local government devise the schemes that they will be obliged and required to run.

There is a principled case and a practical case for the amendments. If the Government are able to set the key constraints and parameters of any scheme, and to do so at any time, it is entirely possible not only that local flexibility—the ability to tailor to local circumstances—will be undermined, but that local authorities will devise their schemes, set about implementing them, and then find that they have to revise them because the Secretary of State has decided to step in and make regulations under the many regulation-making powers that he has available to him in this primary legislation. If it is pensioners today, could it be carers tomorrow and ex-service personnel the day after?

[Mr Jones]

It could be cat lovers.

[John Healey]

Perhaps that is not as serious a case to put to the Government as ex-service personnel and carers, but my hon. Friend makes the point. If the Secretary of State had a particular concern about cat lovers, he could indeed use these regulations to make special provision for council tax support for them.

[Mr Jones]

I am sure that my right hon. Friend agrees that given their desperate state after the drubbing they got in the local elections, Ministers would do anything if it got them votes.

[John Healey]

Perhaps, Mr Deputy Speaker, I had better not pursue that. However, it is certainly true that given their drubbing a couple of weeks ago, the Liberal Democrats will have to chase votes wherever they can find them.

Amendment 1 is designed to challenge the Government to concede, and to give a commitment to this House, that should they use their powers under the Bill and make stipulations about the schemes that local authorities will run, they will at least consult local government before doing so.

Amendment 3, which also stands in my name, exemplifies my belief that, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Greenwich and Woolwich argued, this is a rushed reform that has been introduced without an ear to proper consultation or a thought to the consequences. The amendment attempts to flush out whether the Government have properly considered the impact of the Bill in relation to the provisions of the Localism Act 2011, which allows a local authority, in setting its budget and its council tax, to put to the vote in a referendum a level of council tax that it might want to propose for its area, and allows local residents to veto what they may regard as excessive council tax rises. Under those powers, a local authority must hold a referendum no later than the first Thursday in May of the financial year to which the council tax would relate. In practice, that means that a local authority will have to run contingency spending plans, budgets and council tax levels until the result of the referendum is known, and if it is unsuccessful, those contingency budgets will need to be put in place and new council tax bills issued. That process must take place around the turn of the financial year, and by early May at the latest, yet the Bill requires that the council tax support scheme must be designed and in place by January—before most local authorities finalise and agree their budgets and council tax levels, and certainly before the level in any referendum might be established.

That mismatch indicates that this reform is ill thought out, rushed and likely to be wrong, and it reinforces the arguments that my right hon. Friend made about his amendments 6, 7, 10 and 13, to which my name has been added. There are good reasons for making this part of the benefits system local, but there is no justification for doing it by making harsh cuts to the national and local totals of spend available, by capping the totals against any future rise in needs or costs, by requiring local councils to carry all the risk of any increases in claims, or by forcing very big cuts in council tax support for many of those who need it most.

When we last debated this in Committee in January, my right hon. Friend and I noted that councils were faced with an extraordinarily tight timetable of 12 months until the point at which they would have to have these new schemes in place. That period is now eight months. There is no time to consult local residents, to design the computer software systems necessary to run these schemes or to test them and put them into practice, to work out how the tapers to the new universal credit system will have to work with the council tax support system, or to plan for the new local scheme in the context of next year’s budget planning by local authorities.

This is a disaster waiting to happen. The Government have not done the work needed for local government to do the work that it needs to do. I say this to Ministers: take a leaf out of the Health Secretary’s book, pause, listen, and be prepared to put back the start of this scheme from April next year to April 2014.

Local Government Finance Bill

Debate between John Healey and Kevan Jones

Tuesday 31st January 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Jones]

My hon. Friend says that the figure is 56%. Only 2% of properties in Surrey are in band A. The ability of councils in the north-east to raise additional funds is severely limited.

[John Healey]

My hon. Friend is talking about plugging the hole caused by the 10% cut and highlighting the feeble arguments from Ministers about the flexibility around the second home discount. Has he asked himself why the Government have not considered the single person’s discount, which is worth £2.4 billion in total—more than five times the 10% cut?

Local Government Finance Bill

Debate between John Healey and Kevan Jones

Wednesday 18th January 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Kevan Jones]

The reason the Bill is being taken on the Floor of the House is that there is no business—the business is in a logjam up in the other place.

It is important that the Bill gets detailed scrutiny. As my hon. Friend the Member for Warrington North (Helen Jones) said, in a Public Bill Committee, we would have been allowed not only to scrutinise the Bill, but to take evidence from councils, professionals and others with such expertise. We will not have that opportunity. As one who sat on one of the very first pre-legislative scrutiny Committees back in 2001—it was on the Civil Contingencies Act 2004—I was converted and became a great fan of such pre-legislative scrutiny. That Committee was given the chance to look at the proposals in detail, and as my hon. Friend said earlier, the Bill will bring about a radical change in local government finance in this country.

We had just over three hours last week on Second Reading.

[John Healey]

Two hours for Back Benchers.

[Mr Jones]

As my right hon. Friend says, we had two hours on Second Reading for Back Benchers. What we will see with this Bill is what we have seen with a number of Bills. They fly through the House at the speed of light only to land in the other place to be picked apart slowly but surely because of their terrible drafting and the draconian implications they will have for many of our constituents. I can foresee exactly what will happen with this Bill. When we look at the next few weeks of business programmed for the House, we can see that we could have unlimited time to debate the Bill, but time will be limited, and the Government will push the Bill through with undue haste because they are determined to do so.

As has already been said, the time scale set out in the Bill leaves councils with a huge dilemma, which is why I support amendments 20 and 21 to 25. I said this on Second Reading, but I will say it again: the Bill is highly political in the sense that the Government are shifting blame from themselves to local councils under the guise of localism. A good example of that in the Bill is the administration of council tax benefit. The measure contains a poison pill. Local councils must defend their decisions on implementing a 10% cut locally. Clearly, the Minister and the Secretary of State will turn round and say, “It’s not us, Guv; it’s local councils.” That has been the Government’s approach to responsibility throughout. It is nothing to do with localism; it is a highly political and cynical attempt to deflect the blame from where it should lie—it should lie with the Government, not local councils.

[John Healey]

My hon. Friend makes an important point that counters the assertion of the hon. Member for Poole (Mr Syms). He said that Opposition Members argue that the Government are going too far too fast with the Bill because we do not know what to say about it. Does my hon. Friend agree, to the contrary, that the local authorities that must implement the Bill are worried about the rapid time scale? Authorities in Yorkshire and the Humber have told us that they are concerned about

“the rapid timetable for these reforms, given the huge levels of complexity involved and the radical implications they will have on councils’ ability to fund services to local communities”.

That is why my hon. Friend the Member for Warrington North (Helen Jones) was so right to table the amendments.

[Mr Jones]

I agree totally with my right hon. Friend. The Bill also has the backdrop of councils having to introduce draconian cuts—County Durham must take £125 million out of its budget over the next four years.

That is alongside the uncertainty in the Bill. Neither hon. Members nor councils know about the regulations, and they will not know exactly how the rebate system will work. When they are budgeting for future years, it is important that councils know what they can do. The time scale in the Bill means that they are walking into the new arrangements blind. They do not know what they must deduct, because we do not have the regulations before us.

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[Mr Kevan Jones]

Is my right hon. Friend surprised that we are returning to having a Conservative Government who are quite clear that they will reward the areas that vote for them and write off whole swathes of the country, including the north-east?

[John Healey]

Like my hon. Friend, I am not surprised by that. I seriously question whether the scheme will work even on its own terms, but I support the principle of a system that provides some rewards and incentives to local authorities so that they better support growth in business, jobs and the economy. The cost of doing that in the Bill and under the new system is very great given that they take no account of need or resources, and do away with the decades-old principle of equalisation.

Future of the NHS

Debate between John Healey and Kevan Jones

Monday 9th May 2011 Commons Chamber

[John Healey]

The independent sector treatment centres played a part in clearing the backlog and improving waiting lists. They introduced the extra capacity that allowed the Labour Government, through a combination of investment and reform, to achieve the highest levels of patient satisfaction with the NHS ever and the lowest waiting times ever.

[Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)]

My right hon. Friend will have seen the nauseating, sanctimonious and preaching sermons of the right hon. Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Simon Hughes) after the election results on Thursday. Does he understand why the right hon. Member for Wokingham (Mr Redwood) and others are concerned that the Liberal Democrats are going to scotch a policy that they have been signed up to from day one?

[John Healey]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and he makes the point that I have begun to make to the House. The Liberal Democrats have been up to their necks in this for the past year, and welcome though their late conversion is, the House is entitled to ask exactly why the Deputy Prime Minister now believes that radical changes to the Health and Social Care Bill are required.

National Insurance Contributions Bill

Debate between John Healey and Kevan Jones

Thursday 13th January 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that the NHS will incur another huge cost—a cost that will not go towards improving patient care—owing to the announced reorganisation of the NHS? For example, with the abolition of the primary care trust in my constituency, most of the money will go on redundancy and organisational costs, which will be another burden and, basically, a cut in the NHS budget.

[John Healey]

It is an extraordinary state of affairs that a series of serious and significant pledges, set out formally in the coalition agreement in May, should have been broken in the White Paper produced by the Health Secretary in July. My hon. Friend is right: the one thing that the Government promised not to do in the coalition agreement was to go ahead with a top-down internal reorganisation, but that is exactly what is now planned. It could cost up to £3 billion. It is high risk and high cost; it is exactly the wrong thing to do at this stage, when the NHS is facing such tight financial pressures. I also have to say to the Minister that his colleagues are already showing signs of strain.

I am anxious to return to the amendment that the House is discussing. The House will notice that it refers to the National Audit Office, which is an independent, authoritative body. The Minister will appreciate the assessments, analyses and authoritative views of independent bodies. He and his colleagues set up the Office for Budget Responsibility. Its independence has—shall we say?—been put on perhaps a slightly more questionable footing than that of the NAO, but it is nevertheless an important organisation. Indeed, the problems of the hon. Gentleman and his colleagues were compounded when their Office for Budget Responsibility updated the economic forecast and the fiscal numbers in November. One of the significant changes in its independent, authoritative assessment of this country’s economic prospects was to its forecast for inflation, thereby changing the deflator—in other words, the amount by which the Government and everyone else anticipate that costs in general, and Government spending in particular, will rise. Instead of a GDP deflator for 2011-12 of 1.9%, as set out in the OBR’s June report, its updated economic forecasts in November gave a deflator of 2.5%.

In other words, even before we take into account the double-counting of funding for both the NHS and social care, we have, instead of the wafer-thin rise of 0.1% for England that the Chancellor promised, a much heavier cut, of 0.5%. That has been confirmed by the Library, and by independent, authoritative bodies in the health field and the Select Committee on Health, which said in its report into public expenditure on 14 December that

“the Government’s commitment to a real terms increase in health funding throughout the Spending Review period will not be met.”

So the Government are breaking their promises to protect NHS funding in England, Scotland and Wales. Next year, Scotland is now being short-changed in NHS funding by £70 million, while Wales is being short-changed by £40 million. In total next year, there will be a shortfall from the promise made by the Government to the British people in their coalition agreement of more than £1.3 billion—not a rise in NHS funding next year, but a cut. On 20 October, the Chancellor promised to increase health spending over and above inflation. That promise is being broken by £1.3 billion.

Our amendments today, including amendment 8, are intended to be helpful, as I said to the Minister. They are intended to demonstrate how the Government can deal with the problem, if they have the will to keep their promises on funding for the NHS. We endeavour to act as a responsible Opposition, as our leader promised we would. The amendment is therefore designed to show helpful ways in which the Government can use this legislation to keep good both the Chancellor’s word and the Government’s promise to protect NHS funding, and thereby to see a real increase each year in this Parliament, and not, as at present, to deliver a real-terms cut.

The amendment suggests having an independent assessment and a report carried out by the National Audit Office. The independence is important: it is designed to try to give the public more confidence in what the Government are doing; to give this House more confidence in what they are doing; and to give everyone more confidence that what was a central promise from the Government and a personal promise from the Prime Minister is in fact being met.

This subject came up at the last Prime Minister’s Questions before Christmas, and it was interesting to note that the Prime Minister told the House:

“I am confident that we will fulfil our goal of real-terms increases every year in the NHS.”—[Official Report, 15 December 2010; Vol. 502, c. 902.]

That will not happen next year. The Exchequer Secretary is a talented Minister and he has an opportunity to give his big boss, the Prime Minister, the confidence that he clearly wishes to see by accepting the amendment and allowing the NAO to do an independent report, demonstrating the extent of the shortfall and the extent to which the Government are breaking their promise fully to fund the NHS. By doing so, he would do the House and perhaps even himself a favour.