Political Parties, Elections and Referendums
John McDonnell Excerpts(2 years ago)
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Simon Hoare
If that were true, it would be a serious matter, but I must say to the hon. Gentleman—for whom I have huge respect, and who chairs the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee with much distinction—that I do not see it that way, and neither do the Government. However, he takes me from my explanation of what the statement is not, to explaining why we are approving it. That is the nub of this issue. We see—I see—the role of this Government and of any party that has the honour to be in government in the United Kingdom as that of a pro tem custodian of our democracy. That is why we have election law, and why I am the elections Minister. Democracy is, as we discussed last week in the Holocaust Memorial Day debate, a fragile flower under huge pressure.
We believe that the statement is timely, not least because of the raft of changes that have flown through and been delivered by statutory instrument from the recent Elections Act 2022. We are also hugely cognisant of the threats to the robustness and resilience of our democracy presented by overseas interference, fake news, deepfakes, and artificial intelligence. The solemn role of pro tem custodian, and holding the flame of democracy while we serve in government, are important.
Simon Hoare
It is important to underpin, rather than undermine, the work of the commission by standing shoulder to shoulder with it in the important work that has been set before it, which I will come to when I have taken the right hon. Gentleman’s intervention.
John McDonnell
I am a member of the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee, and we warned in our report about the threat to the independence of the commission from the Government’s legislation regarding the strategy statement. I can understand where the Minister is coming from when he says that we are not using the expression “must” because that would be a direction, but the Government are repeatedly using the expression “should”. The question in my mind is: if the commission ignores this “should”, what happens? There is an implied threat around the “should”.
Simon Hoare
The right hon. Gentleman helpfully takes me to the next part of my remarks about “should”, “would” and “must”. Let us just canter through, with some degree of attention and seriousness, the priorities set out in the statement. In all seriousness—I hope the House knows me well enough to know that when I use that phrase it is not just parroting a line; I am serious in what I am about to say, because it is important—I really would question whether any hon. or right hon. Member of this House, of any party, would take exception to anything in the statement.
Simon Hoare
If the right hon. Gentleman will be a little patient, he will have his question answered. He asks his question in his way and, in the words of Frank Sinatra, I shall answer it in mine.
The first paragraph rehearses this key point:
“The Electoral Commission is the independent regulatory body responsible for giving guidance and support to Electoral Registration Officers and Returning Officers in undertaking electoral registration and conducting elections and recall petitions effectively and in accordance with the law.”
Anybody disagree with that? No. Paragraph 2 states:
“The Chair of the Commission has the responsibility in law for acting as the Chief Counting Officer at national referendums in the UK…and the staff of the Commission support the Chair in that role, when it is required, to work through local electoral authorities to deliver such events.”
The delivery of smooth and seamless referenda is not, I would suggest, a revolutionary power grab by His Majesty’s Government.
Paragraph 3 states:
“The government believes the Electoral Commission has an important role to play in maintaining the integrity of our elections and public confidence in that integrity.”
I do not think that point will get the Division bells ringing. In answer to the question from the Chair of the Select Committee, paragraph 3 continues:
“The duty to have regard does not require the Commission to give lesser priority to, or to ignore, any of its other statutory duties. The Electoral Commissioners and the Commission’s executive leadership will remain responsible for determining the Commission’s strategy, priorities, how it should discharge its duties (including day-to-day operations) and the allocation of its resources, as agreed by the relevant parliaments. It will be for the Commission to determine how to factor the Statement into its decision-making processes and corporate documents such as the Five-Year Plan.”
Paragraph 4 states:
“One of the government’s policy priorities is ensuring our democracy is secure, fair, modern and transparent.”
One could easily transpose the word “government” for “Parliament” there. Who will argue with ensuring that our democracy is secure? Who will argue that our democracy should not be fair, modern, or transparent? Paragraph 4 goes on to say that it is a priority to ensure
“that those who are entitled to vote should always be able to exercise that right freely, securely and in an informed way;…that fraud, intimidation and interference have no place in our democracy;…that we are the stewards of our shared democratic heritage which we keep up to date for our age.”
That is my custodian point again.
Paragraph 5 states:
“One of the leading government objectives is tackling electoral fraud”.
Anyone in this House in favour of electoral fraud? I did not think so—and rightly so. Paragraph 5 goes on to state that the commission should
“support continued effective delivery of voter identification by raising public awareness about the requirement to show an approved form of photographic identification before taking part in UK parliamentary elections, local elections in England and elections in Northern Ireland”.
It has done that in Northern Ireland for the last 20 years or so. This issue was raised in close questioning from the Lords Constitution Committee just the other month. The important role of the Government, the commission and other agencies in raising the profile and public awareness of voter identification was a matter that we discussed at some length.
Simon Hoare
The hon. Gentleman was obviously so busy trying to find his rebuttal point that he did not listen to my answer to the first question. I set out clearly that the duty to “have regard” does not require the commission to give lesser priority to, or ignore, any of its other statutory duties. The electoral commissioners and the commission’s executive leadership will remain responsible for determining the commission’s strategy and priorities, and how it should discharge its duties. The statement in no way undermines, countermands or double-guesses any work of the commission.
The paper goes on to talk about tackling electoral fraud, which I know we would all wish to do. Crucially, it also talks about the role of the commission in working with returning officers and others to ensure the maximum opportunity for those with disabilities to take part in the ballot on the day and in polling stations. Nobody in this place, or the other place, would think that was not a noble aim.
Simon Hoare
And at the very mention of noble aims, I give way to the right hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington.
John McDonnell
I come back to the fact that this statement in effect sets priorities for the commission, and that has not only operational consequences but budgetary consequences. What are the consequences for the commission if, like me, it thinks the Government’s statement is daft and completely ignores it?
Simon Hoare
I just do not see that happening, because the commission understands the importance of the statement. It is not a directional document; it is an augmenting document. It says—because there are difficult things facing our democracy, as the right hon. Gentleman knows—that the Government, not a party Government but Government as an entity, are in lockstep with the commission, in full support of the work that it does to preserve, protect and enhance our democracy. We felt that it was timely for the Secretary of State to provide a statement to augment and clarify matters that flow from the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000 Act and subsequent statutory instruments.
The hon. Member for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts) is right to say that the commission is, in any case, doing the things set out in the statement, in whole or in part. It will be entirely up to the commission to set its priorities from the list, and to give greater or lesser attention to matters as needed. For example, it could say, “Well, that has already been done, and this is all in hand, but we really need to augment this matter here.” The voter authority certificate is a prime example. There are things that we would all expect the commission to spend a certain amount of time on, in order to raise awareness of them.
Mr Clive Betts (Sheffield South East) (Lab)
I am speaking today as Chair of the Levelling Up, Housing and Communities Committee and a member of the Speaker’s Committee on the Electoral Commission. I also declare my interest as vice-president of the Local Government Association.
When the Minister was given responsibility for local government finance, he no doubt thought that he had got the hospital pass, which some Ministers get from time to time when they have a very challenging brief and a very difficult situation to face. Then he realised that that hospital pass was coming down the road straight away, and that he was going to have to try to justify this statement today. He did a good job of telling us what the current responsibilities are of the Electoral Commission; what he did not do was give us one example of something that the commission is not doing right at present which they will be made to do right and better by this statement. What are the problems that need addressing, and if the motion passes in this House, what will be different tomorrow from today? He did not give one example of that. That is why in the end both the Levelling Up, Housing and Communities Committee and the Speaker’s Committee said that, at worst, this statement process compromises the independence of the Electoral Commission—the commission believes that as well—and at best, it is simply unnecessary and will contribute nothing whatsoever.
I say to the Minister—and he has made this point—that democracy is of course very precious and it is the responsibility of all of us to protect it. The Electoral Commission is a very important part of that process in its oversight of elections and the electoral processes in this country, so it must be seen to be independent—not just independent in practice but perceived to be independent. Despite what the Minister said in the very detailed way he addressed the statement, the perception is that the Government are trying to do something to influence the Electoral Commission. If they are not, what is the point of this? If they have no intention of influencing the Electoral Commission, we should just let it get on with the current situation and be accountable to Mr Speaker’s Committee—that is surely where we ought to be.
The Speaker’s Committee and the Levelling Up, Housing and Communities Committee had very helpful advice from senior and authoritative officers in this House who concluded in reporting to our Committees that the statement would constitute interference with the commission’s operational independence. That is what we were advised; we were advised that no cogent explanation had been put forward for why the statement was needed. We have not heard one today either; the Minister did the best job he could, but it was not a coherent and cogent explanation. Further, we were told that it was hard to see how this statement would help the commission in its work.
The statement says that the commission should have regard to the way in which it operates, and gives it certain priorities. If among the commission’s many responsibilities some have to be a priority, others must be of a lower priority—that is pretty self-evident as a conclusion.
Those other things are less important. Either that directs the commission to concentrate its resources on the things that the Government think are important, or the commission will just ignore it and walk away; either way, we do not know what we are here for. Either we are here to interfere with the work of the commission, direct it and give it priorities, or we are simply here to say to the commission, “There are some things that the Government think are rather nice, but go away and ignore them because they don’t really matter. That’s not your statutory responsibility.”
Ultimately, the commission has statutory responsibilities. We were advised on the Committee that some of the wording in the statement differs from the wording in law, so the commission could be caught between following the law and following the guidance. It would end up in court, with lawyers making a lot of money from the conflicts—lawyers always make money where there is confusion in wording. The Government ought to be careful about what they are asking us to do.
Reference was made to other regulators. Other regulators are essentially agents of Government: for example, Ofwat exists to carry out Government policy about how our water should be kept clean. The Electoral Commission is not an agent of Government. It is therefore very different from the other regulators—the agents—that the right hon. Member for Norwich North (Chloe Smith) and Ministers have referred to.
John McDonnell
It goes back to the question that I put to the Minister. If other regulators fail to abide by the direction given by Government, they are removed. We have not heard what the consequences will be from the Government of not abiding by the range of “shoulds” within the statement.
Teesworks Joint Venture
John McDonnell Excerpts(2 years ago)
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Lee Rowley
The hon. Gentleman appears to be questioning whether the site is complex. These are not my words, but the words of the review, which many of his colleagues have used, often out of context in the past half an hour, to throw accusations around the place. He stood up once before, on 7 June 2023, to indicate that he thought the project was “a scam”. He was not choosing his words carefully then and he is not choosing his words carefully now. He should consider whether he wants to withdraw any of them.
John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)
I am choosing my words carefully. For past similar projects we have had NAO investigations after the event. Many of us have been disappointed by our own decision-making process of not producing reports soon enough. The issue here is that there are potential allegations of excess profits, so would it not be better to have the NAO vet the project with regard to excess profits at this stage, rather than run the risk of trying to learn lessons after the event?
Lee Rowley
I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for bringing that up. I repeat that we have just had an independent inquiry—an independent inquiry which went through a process that the Labour party, when last in government, set up. If the Labour party is so desperate to have an independent inquiry into the Tees Valley after one has already been completed, I would love to hear from them where their calls are for independent inquiries into Birmingham, Croydon, Slough and Liverpool, all areas where mistakes have been made by Labour administrations but which they do not want to talk about.
Inter Faith Network for the UK
John McDonnell Excerpts(2 years ago)
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Holly Lynch
I welcome the intervention. As part of preparations for this debate, I have certainly looked into any concerns about and any criticisms made of the Inter Faith Network. I do not think it comes as a surprise that there are those who are uncomfortable about inter-faith work; that is actually where such a partnership approach very much needs allies in this place.
I have looked carefully at the way the network is organised and run, and it appears to me to be incredibly diligent. I have touched on its broad membership, to which the hon. Gentleman also alluded. It is in demonstrating the critical mass of those different organisations being brought together that says to me that nobody is doing this work as successfully as the network is. It is as effective as it is because so many people trust the work it is doing and have bought into its aims and the way it conducts its business. I have been able to thoroughly satisfy myself as part of this process that it is doing very good work, is run very diligent way and is effective at what it does. I hope that, in the rest of my speech, I can satisfy any further points to that effect.
John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)
What has restored my faith and confidence in the network is how it has responded to some of the criticisms in a very open way and by inviting people into explain their views, rather than getting drawn into what could be sectarian rows or internecine strife on religious and other grounds. How it has reacted has in many ways demonstrated the strength of the organisation.
Holly Lynch
Again, I am very grateful to my right hon. Friend for that point. Some of the IFN’s publications, such as the letter from the co-chairs to the editor of The Telegraph only this week, have been very candid and transparent. It has been incredibly accountable in the work it does and the way it goes about it, so I entirely agree with him on that point.
Tackling Islamophobia
John McDonnell Excerpts(2 years, 2 months ago)
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John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)
I want briefly to raise a few points about my constituency. I have a multicultural constituency. It has been a migrant community for more than a hundred years, and there is a sizeable Muslim community. In fact, I helped establish the first mosque—the Islamic centre in the centre of Hayes—30 years ago. We rub together pretty well. At the weekend, we had an open day at the Islamic centre to talk about how the different religions work together. There was a particular discussion about the role of Jesus Christ, and I thought it was interesting and fascinating to hear people’s views. Nevertheless, we do have problems.
Before 7 October, we had an arson attack on the Muslim women’s centre in Yeading Lane in Hayes. For the women, the tragedy of it was that the arsonist burned through the room where the holy Koran was stored. The House can imagine the distress caused. I previously raised this issue with a Minister on the Floor of the House, and was given an assurance that there would be support. At the moment, we are seeking a meeting with civil servants to go through the details; any help the Minister could provide in arranging that meeting would be really helpful, because it is quite pressing. As the insurance money hopefully comes through to repair the building, we need the security put in place fairly rapidly.
Political parties have to be straight with one another on this issue. With regard to the Conservative party, Baroness Warsi has played an exceptional role—a heroic role. I cannot understand why the Human Rights Council did not carry out an investigation into the Conservative party when Baroness Warsi and others produced their report about the Islamophobia within that party, and I think it reflects badly on the HRC. I normally support the HRC—in fact, I have been on picket lines in support of its staff when there were staff cuts—but I think it needs to examine its behaviour that regard.
Turning to the Labour party, we have to be straight— I know that at the moment in the Labour party, being straight can sometimes be dangerous. I want to raise a number of points. First, the Labour Muslim Network, which was founded a number of years ago, did an excellent job in researching and exposing Islamophobia within our own party. We need to listen to that. I cannot understand how three years on, the Labour Muslim Network is trying to establish itself as a formal affiliate to the Labour party, but still has not been allowed to affiliate.
Secondly, it is accurately reported that in my local area, for example, Ali Milani—who is one of the founders of the Labour Muslim Network, and was an excellent candidate for Uxbridge in the general election—was warned off standing again in the by-election. It was made clear that he would not be allowed to stand, which is unacceptable. I put on record that any party that allows the deselection of my hon. Friend the Member for Poplar and Limehouse (Apsana Begum) is not protecting the Muslim community in the way I would expect it to. I want to send that message. I have raised these issues in private—I have written to the leader of the Labour party—and the reason I am now raising them in public is that I have not had a sufficiently positive response that addresses those issues.
The final point I want to make with regard to the Labour party is this: why is it that when someone is accused of Islamophobia and they apologise, disciplinary action is then ended and there is no issue with regard to the Whip or whatever, but in a number of instances where a person has been accused of antisemitism, the Whip is withdrawn and they spend months awaiting any form of investigatory process? In his inquiry into the Labour party, Martin Forde addressed the issue of a potential hierarchy of racism within our party, and I am afraid that the way in which we treat individuals reinforces that concern. We all condemn antisemitism and Islamophobia, but we have to treat all forms of racism with equivalence, as well as the individuals against whom allegations have been made. I think we have a job of work in our own political parties to ensure that we tackle Islamophobia effectively, in a way that will make us—particularly the Labour party—the anti-racist party that we have always wanted to be, and an example to other political parties.
Finally, I want to emphasise the point that the hon. Member for Peterborough (Paul Bristow) made: at every meeting I have in my constituency with regard to the Muslim community, I am so proud of the way that it that has come forward in a migrant community over the past 50 to 70 years and now plays such a significant role in my constituency, but also nationally. Whenever there is a problem—whenever there is an issue that I need support on and I put the call out—it is the Islamic centres and the mosques that come forward and provide the resources. In fact, the Islamic centre in Hayes was visited by the Prince and Princess of Wales only a few months ago, just to thank the people there for the work they have done in raising funds for Afghanistan and elsewhere. I put on record my thanks to the Muslim community and my gratitude for all the work they do, and my pride in being able to represent the Muslim community in my constituency.
Economic Activity of Public Bodies (Overseas Matters) Bill
John McDonnell ExcerptsWednesday 25th October 2023
(2 years, 3 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Economic Activity of Public Bodies (Overseas Matters) Bill 2022-23 View all Economic Activity of Public Bodies (Overseas Matters) Bill 2022-23 Debates Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: Consideration of Bill Amendments as at 25 October 2023 - (25 Oct 2023)
John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. May I echo the comments of my right hon. Friend the Member for Barking (Dame Margaret Hodge)? If we descend into accusations that those who do not support the Bill are antisemites, or that those who support it are Islamophobic, I think we are lost, to be honest. It is important that we are careful about our language.
There is a profound misunderstanding about what we are debating. If this is about the BDS movement itself, there are mechanisms that the Government can use to proscribe an organisation. But the debate on this Bill should be about BDS as a method, a tactic. I have supported boycotting, disinvesting and sanctioning a whole range of regimes. I campaigned with and supported the anti-apartheid movement of BDS with regard to South Africa. Actually, a large number of Members on both sides of the House supported that. I also did so with regard to Saudi Arabia and its execution—tragically, it is still doing this—of members of the gay community. I have campaigned with others across the House with regard to Sri Lanka and the persecution of the Tamils, including the murder of a number of my constituents when they visited their families. I am doing the same at the moment with regard to Bahrain because of its imprisonment of the political opposition. It is the same with Russia. I was a founder member 10 years ago of the Ukraine Solidarity Campaign and we have been calling for sanctions against Russia for years—in advance of even the Government, to be honest. It is the same with Iran. I chair the Iranian workers’ movement committee, which supports trade unionists campaigning in Iran, many of whom are unfortunately in prison. There is also the Uyghurs.
On all of those, I have urged the use of BDS because when other representations and diplomacy fail, there are not many options left. One of the options, unfortunately, is the use of arms. In not promoting that, we have tried to find a middle lane, and that is economic isolation to try to influence. To be frank, it did work in South Africa. That is why we have tried to ensure that it is a mechanism that can be drawn upon. I agree, however, with my right hon. Friend the Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Angela Rayner) on the Front Bench. The important thing is to ensure that if we use this mechanism, it is used properly and fairly and that we do not discriminate against one particular country. That is what I have not done. I have called for BDS with regard to goods coming from the occupied territories and Iran because they are against the international order.
Having sat in this House for 25 years and listened to speeches from Conservative representatives, I have learned a bit about conservatism, so what I find extraordinary is that this Bill is profoundly unconservative. Those on the Government Front Bench seem to be rejecting many of the individual amendments in front of us. I have listened to Government Members arguing that the Conservative party stands for freedom of speech, support for the law, the rights of property, the democratic rights of this Parliament, local government and other agencies, devolution of decision-making, and support for the action on the environment and human rights.
Let me turn to the amendments on freedom of speech. Amendments 28 and 3 prevent the Government introducing a gagging order on even just talking about this—having a debate about it. That is profoundly unconservative. I cannot believe that Government Members are not supporting those amendments. On the issue of rights of property, I say to the Conservative Member whose constituency I cannot remember that we are both members of the local government pension fund. The Government are overriding the rights to my property, which is my pension fund. I cannot believe that the Conservatives are doing that. That is my stored wages for over 20 years of service in local government over which I now lose control, and the amendment simply says that the members of that pension fund will be allowed to decide.
Jeremy Corbyn
My right hon. Friend will recall the days when we managed to persuade the GLC pension fund not to invest in apartheid South Africa, but, as I am sure he will agree, the fundamentals of the Bill are that it actually reduces a very large area of freedom of speech for elected local councillors. That, to me, undermines the whole principle of representative democracy within our society.
John McDonnell
I agree. I was chair of finance at that time. It was interesting because there was an awful lot of cross-party support on that, as we were then at the stage of the imprisonment of Nelson Mandela, and the worst oppressions that were going on, including what happened in Soweto.
Let me go through the amendments themselves. On devolution and local decision-making, all that amendments 5, 16, 34 and new clause 2 do is ensure that local democracy takes place. The arguments that I have heard from those on the Conservative Benches on several occasions is that local councillors should have the right to represent their local communities and, above all else, they should listen to their local communities. When there have been rows on the Government Benches, it is often as a result of councils not having listened to their local communities, and sometimes I have agreed. These amendments simply enable the local community to express their views and for that to be taken into account.
On environmental concerns, amendments 8, 10, 15 and 11 are simply reinforcing many of the policies that the Conservative party has been advocating in our attempts to get to net zero and protect animals at the same time. I have often heard Government Members saying that upholding the law is an essential part of conservatism. Well, that is what amendments 6 and 17 do. They are simply saying that the use of this mechanism can be helpful in upholding international law.
This Bill is a bad Bill. I agree that there might be the potential to gain consensus on it. One way forward is through the amendment that the Labour Front Bench has tabled to try to look at human rights in general to see how statements defining human rights can be made by Government, and that then influencing what happens in other decision-making areas, such as in local government, pension funds and so on. I believe that there is an opportunity for that, but what I come back to is that this is not the time to do something that in any way divides our communities. If the Bill is in any way amendable, let us just pull it. The Government have done that before. There has been a pause on legislation, allowing wiser heads to come together and to come back with something that actually might work.
If there are arguments about the BDS movement, and I totally condemn some of the statements that I have heard from some of the leaders associated with it, that is a separate issue. This is about a method of trying to influence individual countries to behave in line with international law, protect the environment, and so on. It is about trying to set standards in other countries that we want to promote globally anyway.
Renters (Reform) Bill
John McDonnell ExcerptsMonday 23rd October 2023
(2 years, 3 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Renters (Reform) Bill 2022-23 View all Renters (Reform) Bill 2022-23 Debates Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)
As the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) and I know, always being called last means that we have the enjoyment of listening to the whole debate. Today’s debate has been extremely valuable across the House, going into forensic detail on the Bill.
I want to make a plea for urgency, that is all. I welcomed the inclusion of this issue in the Conservative manifesto. In fact, I congratulated my then constituency neighbour, the right hon. Member for Uxbridge, on bringing it forward. I also accused him of plagiarism, because it was in our last two Labour manifestos. I congratulated him because, as many have reported today, my constituents are in a housing crisis. Most of the council housing has been sold off. To go on the housing waiting list, they must have lived in the area for 10 years, and they have to prove that with documentation, which many people cannot. Once on the housing waiting list, they will wait between three and five, maybe seven, years. Their children will have grown up by then.
Four thousand new properties are being built in the middle of my constituency, but there are barely any that my constituents will be able to afford, because the prices are so high and the wages in my constituency—despite high employment levels—are relatively low. Since 2010, rents have gone up on average by three times the rate of wage increases. In London alone, rents over the last year are up 15% on average. In some areas, they are up 20% to 25%. Basically, that means that people struggle to get a roof over their heads, whether from the council or rented, and certainly struggle for owner occupation. I do not know any firefighter, teacher or NHS worker in my constituency who lives there any more—they commute for miles because they cannot afford accommodation in the constituency.
People live in my constituency in slum conditions: damp, cold, unsafe and mouldy, as we heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Putney (Fleur Anderson). I have the phenomenon of beds in sheds. In my office, we have a moral dilemma about whether we tell the council that someone is living in a shed, because we know that if we do, enforcement comes in and that person is then homeless, with nowhere to go whatsoever.
As has been said throughout the debate, as soon as people complain about the conditions or rents, the landlords bring in section 21. That is why it was right for the Conservatives to include the Bill in their last manifesto, and I welcomed it. Landlords always use the excuse that they are moving in a relative. We would need genetic link mapping to identify the relationship between some of the tenants who move in and the family. Landlords might say that they are selling the property but, as has been said, when we tour around, we see that in fact they have not: within days, the “To let” board goes up. They scam us all the time.
My constituents live in fear of complaining at all because they know that if they do, many of them will lose their properties. It is correct that the majority of landlords are good, but it is the rogue landlords that I fear the Bill does not address.
Mr Fysh
Does the right hon. Gentleman accept that, in London, part of the problem is that the amount of rental property available for new renters on the market is 20% down? It is important to encourage good landlords, as he talked about, to have longer rental periods. Should we incentivise them to do that through things such as tax breaks?
John McDonnell
Look, the major problem is that we are not building enough council houses. On the Conservative Benches a couple of Members referred to Harold Macmillan. Harold Macmillan took on from Clem Attlee a huge housing programme and built council houses. My family was a beneficiary of that. We moved out of a slum and into a council house. We just need to build more council houses. We cannot rely on the private market, because it profiteers. In my constituency, landlords can make a profit by leaving the property empty because the price will always go up, and sometimes they do not want to be encumbered by a tenancy. When tenants complain, they get kicked out and are made homeless. In my constituency, people have been pushed all around the country. I have people living in a Travelodge in Slough. They have to bring their children into Hayes each day, which takes an hour and a half. Then there is temporary accommodation with poor conditions and hostels. We have children being brought up in temporary accommodation. I looked at the figures: 131,000 children are now living in temporary accommodation.
I fully support the Bill’s getting rid of section 21, but the problem is exactly as my hon. Friend the Member for Blaydon (Liz Twist) said. The sanctions and conditions will render it totally ineffective. Landlords will simply take a three-month hit and then rent it out straight after that. And to rely on the court system! We have to be honest with one another. The Government have closed 300 county courts. There was a cut of 35% in the Justice budget over the last period. In addition, if we are looking to local authorities to enforce, nearly 20 local authorities are under section 114 notices. In other words, they are bankrupt and do not have the staff to do the enforcement. To be frank, in many areas now the lack of access to basic legal advice—not legal aid, but basic legal advice—from local law centres is non-existent. My citizens advice bureau, bless it, works so hard, but it is rushed off its feet so it cannot provide sufficient advice on the scale that is needed.
My plea is for urgency. We have had a really good debate, a forensic analysis of the Bill: the detail and the beneficial elements, but also the gaps and the need for change and amendment. I hope the Committee will, on Report, bring back a significantly amended Bill that will scrap section 21—that is what both parties promised in our manifestos at the last election, and I believe that other political parties did exactly the same. There is unanimity in this House to scrap section 21, but we must do it with a sense of urgency and we must do it effectively.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Roger Gale)
I call the Opposition Front- Bench spokesman.
Rachel Maclean
I will make progress, because I have limited time and I must address the points that have been put to me.
First, it is right that antisocial behaviour is a discretionary ground. Judges must decide on the circumstances of a case. Having formerly been Minister with responsibility for safeguarding and domestic abuse, I completely understand the importance of taking such serious issues into account and striking the right balance between tenants and landlords. I was asked whether local authorities will have funding to carry out their enforcement duties. Of course they will have that new burdens funding, as they would with any Government legislation.
I was asked about blanket bans on benefit claimants and families with children, and I make it very clear that we are committed to outlawing the unacceptable practice of such blanket bans. We are carefully considering how to get these measures right. This is a significant reform, as I think all Members understand. We must do it in the right way, while ensuring that landlords rightly have the final say on who they rent their properties to.
Rachel Maclean
I will give way to Members if I have time, but please allow me to make my points.
There have been many questions about the ombudsman. We need simplicity and clarity for landlords and tenants. It is important to say that this Bill does not, in itself, establish a new ombudsman. An existing ombudsman could do the job and, again, we are looking at that very carefully to make sure we get the right solution for this vital part of our regulatory reforms.
I am grateful that many Members have welcomed the point about pets, and I agree that we are a nation of animal lovers. Again, this is about reasonableness. My hon. Friend the Member for Cheadle is exactly right—the circumstances she set out would constitute a reasonable ground for refusal, but we need to look carefully at how this works.
The decent homes standard has been raised again, and it is a key part of our reforms. We must make sure that the new system we introduce means people are living in decent, safe and warm homes. Everyone in this House will be under no illusion about how importantly this Government take this issue, as they can see the work that has been introduced by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State to tackle these issues, which have laid unresolved for many years. This Government brought in groundbreaking reforms in the social rented sector, and we will do so in the private rented sector to give tenants the same protections.
It is important to note at this point that the vast majority of possession claims do not end up in the courts—only something like 1% of claims go through the courts. In my capacity as Housing Minister, I work closely with the Under-Secretary of State for Justice, my hon. Friend the Member for Finchley and Golders Green (Mike Freer), who is responsible for His Majesty’s Courts and Tribunals Service. There is a wide-ranging programme of reform in the court system.
The courts have already made huge improvements. It is worth saying that over 95% of hearings are listed within four to eight weeks of receipt, and of course the ombudsman will encourage the early dispute resolution process, taking a lot of claims out of the courts and freeing up court time for more complex processes. When we bring in this reform, however, it is right that we ensure landlords have confidence in the justice system because, as everybody has pointed out, if we do not have good landlords in this country who have confidence in the systems that underpin the justice system, we will not have the rented homes in every constituency that our country needs.
We have always committed to aligning and synchronising the reform of the private rented sector with the court system; we note that that was a recommendation of the Levelling Up, Housing and Communities Committee. We do not think that a housing court is the right way to do that; nor is that the view of the sector or of the stakeholders, with whom we have engaged in huge detail. This work remains a priority for our Department and for the Ministry of Justice. We want to see landlords being offered a digital process for possession on all grounds.
Rachel Maclean
I am very happy to work with my hon. Friend on this and many other issues, but it is important that I say that we have done considerable analysis. There is no evidence, such as the estimate that he has just pointed to, that the Bill will lead to landlords leaving the sector, but it is right that any policy that the Government bring in is based on evidence. That will always be our approach.
Rachel Maclean
I want to wind up now, because I cannot detain the House any longer. I assure right hon. and hon. Members that we are focused on introducing this groundbreaking once-in-a-generation reform. I commend the Bill to the House.
Question put and agreed to.
Bill accordingly read a Second time.
Renters (Reform) Bill (Programme)
Motion made, and Question put forthwith (Standing Order No. 83A(7)),
That the following provisions shall apply to the Renters (Reform) Bill:
Committal
(1) The Bill shall be committed to a Public Bill Committee.
Proceedings in Public Bill Committee
(2) Proceedings in the Public Bill Committee shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion on Tuesday 5 December 2023.
(3) The Public Bill Committee shall have leave to sit twice on the first day on which it meets.
Consideration and Third Reading
(4) Proceedings on Consideration shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion one hour before the moment of interruption on the day on which those proceedings are commenced.
(5) Proceedings on Third Reading shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion at the moment of interruption on that day.
(6) Standing Order No. 83B (Programming committees) shall not apply to proceedings on Consideration and Third Reading.
Other proceedings
(7) Any other proceedings on the Bill may be programmed.—(Andrew Stephenson.)
Question agreed to.
Renters (Reform) Bill (Money)
King’s recommendation signified.
Motion made, and Question put forthwith (Standing Order No. 52(1)(a)),
That, for the purposes of any Act resulting from the Renters (Reform) Bill, it is expedient to authorise the payment out of money provided by Parliament of:
(a) any expenditure incurred under or by virtue of the Act by the Secretary of State; and
(b) any increase attributable to the Act in the sums payable under any other Act out of money so provided.—(Andrew Stephenson.)
Question agreed to.
Renters (Reform) Bill (Ways and Means)
Motion made, and Question put forthwith (Standing Order No. 52(1)(a)),
That, for the purposes of any Act resulting from the Renters (Reform) Bill, it is expedient to authorise:
(1) the charging of fees under or by virtue of the Act; and
(2) the payment of sums into the Consolidated Fund.—(Andrew Stephenson.)
Question agreed to.
Renters (Reform) Bill (Carry-over)
Motion made, and Question put forthwith (Standing Order No. 80A(1)(a)),
That if, at the conclusion of this Session of Parliament, proceedings on the Renters (Reform) Bill have not been completed, they shall be resumed in the next Session.—(Andrew Stephenson.)
Question agreed to.
Petition
Economic Activity of Public Bodies (Overseas Matters) Bill
John McDonnell ExcerptsMonday 3rd July 2023
(2 years, 7 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Economic Activity of Public Bodies (Overseas Matters) Bill 2022-23 View all Economic Activity of Public Bodies (Overseas Matters) Bill 2022-23 Debates Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)
Reference has been made to Bob Kerslake consistently throughout today. Bob and I were friends. I go back longer than most, because I go back to 1981, when I was a young man and a GLC councillor and Bob was a young man and a GLC officer. I fully concur with all the tributes that have been paid, but I also want to say that he was a good man. He was a very good person and a good friend, and we will miss him.
Let me come on to this debate. I do not want to repeat some of the arguments, but I want to get on record for my constituents why I am voting the way I am this evening. I will vote in solidarity with the amendment, and I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Wigan (Lisa Nandy) on her speech, but I will also be voting against the Bill, because I cannot do anything else.
The debate has largely focused on the specific BDS movement and Israel. Just to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds East (Richard Burgon), I want to talk about the right to boycott, to disinvest and to sanction as an issue. At the weekend I drafted an article, because I wanted to get clear in my own mind the whole issue around boycotts and the past history of the boycott, disinvestment and sanctions movement. To be frank, virtually all of my life I have been involved in some boycott, disinvestment or sanctions campaign, so it was almost like a flashback. Like my right hon. Friend the Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn), I was outside the South African embassy when the City of London anti-apartheid group was on a 24-hour permanent picket.
John McDonnell
He was arrested; I was not. I was there on Christmas day simply singing carols.
John McDonnell
I got off lightly. All we were singing for was the release of Nelson Mandela.
For the other one, I plead guilty. I was one of the organisers of the demonstrations over a decade ago against the royal visit of the Saudi leaders. We were calling for no public contracts to be awarded to companies operating in Saudi Arabia, because at that time they were beheading gay people for being gay. That was later focused on military support from this country for the Saudi attacks on Yemen. The list of BDS campaigns that I have supported goes on and on. I campaigned against the Bahraini regime and its ongoing brutal repression of the country’s democratic movement, and the continued imprisonment of opposition political leaders. We have met some of them over the years, and they are still inside.
I have campaigned against the Sri Lankan Administration owing to their genocidal attack on the Tamils, with their continued abuse of human rights, their use of torture, the disappearances, and the colonisations of Tamil homelands. Again, I have lost constituents who have been disappeared when they have gone out there. I campaigned for sanctions against the military junta in Myanmar to halt the attacks on the Rohingyas and to demand the freedom of Aung San Suu Kyi.
Yes, I have supported the boycott of goods coming from the Palestinian territories occupied illegally by Israel. The campaign in my constituency was undertaken by young people when the bombings in Gaza were killing young people there. In solidarity, young people in my constituency went round the local shops asking them to check where their goods were coming from and urging them not to sell goods from the occupied territories.
There has been some reference to BDS campaigns being associated with antisemitism. That is not what I have witnessed in my constituency, but if there is evidence that individuals associated with these campaigns are antisemitic, we already have laws to deal with that, and I believe that the full force of the law against racist behaviour should therefore be deployed.
More recently, I have called for sanctions against the Chinese Government for the barbaric treatment of the Uyghurs, and also because they have imprisoned a group of my Unite trade union friends who worked with me on the British Airways campaigns. All they were demanding was adherence to democracy by the Chinese, and they have been inside for two and a half years, without any form of access to their families in many instances.
The common factor in all those campaigns is that they would not have been supported by Government policy. Therefore, they would have been rendered illegal in their demand for action by public authorities to boycott, disinvest and sanction. I agree with the hon. Member for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner (David Simmonds) that there needs to be clarity about who is making foreign policy and what is being referred to, because actually the Bill makes the Secretary of State ex cathedra—infallible—and puts at his whim decisions about what is right and what is wrong across the globe, when Governments in this country have consistently got it significantly wrong. They have certainly not backed such campaigns and would have outlawed them overall.
All those campaigns have focused on pressing for action from Government, local councils, pension funds, private companies and investors. It is interesting that a few hon. Members have mentioned the focus on the local government pension fund. I declare an interest as a member of the local government pension fund, and I think it is up to members of the fund to determine its investment policies. I must say, as a constituency MP, that the campaigns have reflected the diversity of my constituency. There is not a campaign that has not involved a constituent or group of constituents or has not been asked for by my constituents. It is a matter of standing in solidarity.
The advice of every human rights lawyer I have spoken to so far, and all the briefings from human rights groups and trade unionists, have all made it clear that that range of activities will be outlawed and it will be made illegal for decision makers even to talk about the strategy. That is why I oppose the Bill. I am voting against it because we have heard today, right across the House, that not a single clause has stood up to scrutiny. Therefore, I do not believe it can be amended; it is fundamentally flawed and should be defeated.
Let me make one final point, as an aside. We should change the Standing Orders or look at “Erskine May”, because it would have been useful if the Secretary of State coming here to present the Bill had actually read it or addressed the same Bill that we are addressing in this debate. All we saw today was a diatribe of the lowest politics we have seen for a long time, which divides our community unnecessarily and, to be frank, appallingly.
Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation
John McDonnell Excerpts(2 years, 10 months ago)
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John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)
Often what will happen between a Budget being announced and its final debate is that the world can move on, so I have two warnings and a plea, if I have time.
The first warning is that we are making the Budget in the middle of a banking crisis and we need to recognise that. It has moved from Silicon Valley Bank to Credit Suisse to First Republic Bank. For those not in the House 15 years ago when we debated the start of the banking crisis, it started with Northern Rock. A lot of the signs that underlined the crisis then are evident now: failure of regulation, mismanagement and speculative gambling all leading to a crisis of confidence among customers and investors. It spreads very quickly, like wildfire. I hope it is not on the scale of 2008, but I just warn the House that it can rapidly get out of hand. Often what will occur is a lull and then it comes back with a vengeance.
The role of this House is to ensure that the Bank of England and the Financial Conduct Authority are not found asleep at the wheel during the crisis. I urge the Bank of England to again undertake stress tests on all the banks and financial institutions within its remit, and a stress test on the overall regulatory system, and to publish those tests. The Financial Services and Markets Bill introduces an element of further deregulation. I urge the Government to pause. Now is not the time to prioritise the deregulation of our financial system. To the Bank of England, I say that this is not the time to increase interest rates, particularly at this moment.
The other warning is on pay. The Government are seeking a settlement to the NHS dispute and the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers has already settled with Network Rail, but they should not consider that the issue of pay is in any way going away. That is a complete misreading of the situation. Major disputes are still happening: the Public and Commercial Services Union in the civil service, the junior doctors, the universities with the University and College Union, and education with the National Education Union. In the private sector in my constituency, Unite the union is representing the lowest paid security workers at Heathrow. The Government should not underestimate in any way the strength of feeling that workers have about the pay freezes and cuts of the last 13 years. Pay settlements of 5% or 6% still mean people will be struggling to pay the rent and feed their family. The Government should not fail to understand the anger and resentment at the grotesque levels of inequality in our society.
It is interesting that on the picket lines are young people struggling with low pay. They are unable to get on the housing ladder. In addition, they are burdened with debt from qualifications obtained through higher education. These young people have had enough. I think they will increasingly react to the injustices they see in our society and I warn the Government that that ferocity of concern has not disappeared.
My final plea is to follow up on what my hon. Friend the Member for Worsley and Eccles South (Barbara Keeley) said about unpaid carers. They are living in poverty and endure hardship, and many are exhausted because of the lack of social care and financial support. They need an income to reflect the care that they provide—a real living wage—or at least a first step by increasing carer’s allowance to maternity allowance levels. Carers are saying clearly that this Government should stop taking them for granted, given the essential role that they play in our society.
Council Tax
John McDonnell Excerpts(3 years, 1 month ago)
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John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)
The debate so far has been superb and I want to congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Angela Rayner) on the expert way in which she completely took apart the Government’s arguments. I was 20 years in local government before I came here, and the last exercise in voter suppression was the poll tax. I was in local government at the time—I was chief executive of the Association of London Authorities, which represented both Conservative and Labour councils—and we explained to the then Government what the effect of introducing the poll tax legislation would be. It might well have been advertised as a fairer way of funding local government and collecting resources, but we argued that the Government needed to be careful because it could also possibly result in voter suppression. Naively, we did not think that that was an exercise being deliberately undertaken by the Government.
Although the poll tax brought down Mrs Thatcher as Prime Minister, it ensured that a Tory Government were elected in 1992 because of what happened in many constituencies. Take my own constituency as an example, where 5,000 mainly working-class people dropped off the register. As a result, there were four recounts and I lost by 54 votes. I know every one of them and I visit them every so often, but there we are. That was an exercise that was done for one reason but actually had a sub-reason, which was voter suppression, and unfortunately I think that is what is happening today.
My second point is that, because of my local government background, I know that there is a long tradition that we listen to our electoral administrators. They are the one group of people in an authority whose professionalism we do not contest, because they serve all political parties, and they do so independently and to the best of their abilities. Most of them have limited staff and limited resources, and they are not particularly well paid either. Survey after survey shows the majority have no confidence that they can deliver this change in time for the local elections. First, they do not have the staff in place because of cutbacks. Secondly, they do not have time to have their computer systems properly tested and operating effectively. Thirdly, they do not have time to launch campaigns informing people of what they need to do to register. Even if they launch a campaign and it is sufficiently successful, the prediction is that anything up to 16% of the electorate might apply but there will not be the staff to administer it.
We should listen to the constitution unit’s report: this is an accident waiting to happen. Just in administrative terms, whatever the political motivations, this policy is not supportable and is not needed, as has been demonstrated by speech after speech. Unfortunately, not only is it a policy that will ensure some people do not get the right to vote and will cause conflict and contests at individual polling stations, but it is a policy that people will come to regret. It smacks of the dangerous dogs legislation, on which we cannot find anyone who supported it or promoted it.
My only reason for speaking in this debate, apart from my local government experience, is so that when people examine this legislation in six, 12 or 18 months’ time, or in the years ahead, I will be on the record as speaking out against it. I think this is a disaster waiting to happen.
Levelling Up: Local Councils
John McDonnell Excerpts(4 years, 2 months ago)
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Westminster 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.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered the role of local councils in levelling up.
The debate is about the role of local councils in the levelling-up strategy that the Government are pursuing. I applied for it because I had hoped that the Government’s White Paper would have been published either last week or this week. Unfortunately, it has been delayed until the new year. Nevertheless, at least the debate gives us an opportunity to feed some last thoughts into the pre-White Paper discussions in Government on the way forward, although the reality is that the most valuable dialogue will most probably come as the Government plan the detail of the roll-out and delivery of the policies set out in the White Paper.
The Government have rightly put great emphasis on levelling up the country, so much so that we now have a new Department—the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities. However, they have not yet defined what achieving levelling up would look like, what targets they have set themselves to achieve through that policy programme, or what the timescale for the programme will be. Hopefully, the White Paper will set out these things clearly when it is published in the new year.
There is widespread agreement that there is a need for levelling up. Way back in 2016, at a conference that I convened in Liverpool, I launched a similar policy with the CBI, using its regional government investment analysis at that time. That demonstrated the stark inequalities that exist. The figures are stark. London receives about twice as much capital investment per person as the south-west of England and the north-west of England receives only two thirds of the level that London receives.
Back then, I also used Department of Health statistics to demonstrate the consequences of inequality, and particularly the consequences of low incomes and poverty, with a difference in life expectancy of 20 years between Kensington in Liverpool and Kensington in London. The Minister may know that we have two Scousers in Westminster Hall today to evidence that.
The harsh reality, which we have all accepted, is that this imbalance of investment has meant that too much priority has been given to investment in parts of London and the south-east, as well as too many of the best jobs in the country. I speak as a London MP, because there are also grotesque levels of inequality within London and the south-east. Over-investment and the heat that it generates in such an particular economy has a negative impact on the area, with exorbitant housing costs that leave many workers priced out of ever owning their own home and paying a disproportionate amount of their wages in rent.
The other element, which I have drawn attention to in past debates, is the way that, just to keep a roof over their heads, families are working every hour God sends, which unfortunately undermines family life as well. The grotesque imbalances in our economy are not an accident, or even the invisible hand of the market. They are a deliberate, ongoing Government policy—one that has gone on for the last four decades, at least, regardless of the party in Government.
I looked at the detailed analysis of what the cost of levelling up would be. To bring every UK nation and region up to London’s level of funding would require an additional £30 billion in annual capital investment per year. Even to level up every nation and region to the current UK average, the capital spend required would be an additional £6 billion in funding.
To be successful, levelling up has to be about more than capital spend. It has to be about more than just physical infrastructure, important though that is. We need a comprehensive and holistic approach to building both the physical and the social capital of an area, but that cannot be done when local government funding from central Government is about £16 billion lower than it was in 2010. There has been a cumulative reduction of more than £100 billion in central Government funding for local councils over the last decade.
Ian Byrne (Liverpool, West Derby) (Lab)
It is an honour to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Miller. On the funding aspect, Liverpool has lost £450 million since 2010, with further cuts of £32 million expected in April. Levelling up rings hollow in Liverpool. The sustained attacks that we have seen, starting with the Conservative and Liberal Democrat coalition in 2010, have ripped the heart out of the fabric of Liverpool, so levelling up is hollow rhetoric there. I look forward to the next Government spending review for local councils.
John McDonnell
The message I am trying to get across is that although the emphasis in Government announcements has been on capital spending, levelling up will not become a reality in cities like Liverpool and elsewhere unless we address the issue of council funding overall. When we debate the White Paper, I hope that we can have a serious and sensible debate about how, over time, we can address what has happened over the last 11 years. We can have a political knockabout about whether or not it was justified, but I think we just have to move on and look at how we can address the situation, perhaps being more creative than we have been in the past.
The situation is serious in Liverpool, but it is not just Liverpool. In recent years, we have seen three councils issue section 114 notices, while another dozen or so have had to call in exceptional financial support from the Government to avoid the same fate. I do not know whether the Minister saw the recent evidence session of the Public Accounts Committee, but we know that there are possibly dozens more councils in contact with the Department over their financial situation.
The issue of central Government funding has to be addressed. The figures are pretty stark. Since the 2015-16 financial year, local authorities have lost 41% of their central Government funding—equivalent to the loss of £8.7 billion a year. Although I accept that some of that has been offset by the retention of business rates and raising council tax above inflation in recent years, it has still left councils with significant real-terms losses in their overall spending power. It has had real consequences for all parts of the country.
According to the briefing provided by Unison, the local government union, councils in England have closed more than 859 children’s centres since 2010, although that figure has been contested—some people think it is actually more. They listed 940 youth centres and 738 libraries that have been closed, while funding for more than 1,200 bus routes has been withdrawn. That has an impact on communities across the country that has to be addressed if we are going to genuinely level up.
I will give an example. It is difficult to see how local economies can be levelled up if childcare and support for parents is not available. How can we level up our town centres and high streets if people do not have a means of transport to get there, or even just basic public conveniences when they do? My argument is that, when we debate the levelling-up White Paper—I look forward to it—we need to debate both the revenue and capital funding that is needed. Let us look at one region, the north-west of England; this example will be relevant to my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Ian Byrne) and it is where I did the most intensive work on Labour’s policies, talking with local communities to find out what was needed. Local authorities in the north-west of England are receiving £1.2 billion less per year in 2021-22 in central Government funding than they did in 2015-16; that is a 36% cut. The calculation is that the north-west would need an extra £3.47 billion per year in capital funding just to reach London’s level. The north-west received nearly £500 less—well, £492 less—per person per year when compared with London.
We know of some councils that are so depleted by cuts that they did not have the in-house capacity to even submit bids for the levelling-up fund. These are funds that were allocated in the recent Budget, which we welcomed. We cannot have a begging-bowl approach, with councils fighting over scraps; we need a rising tide of funding that raises all local authority ships.
I want to talk about power. Levelling up must mean not just an injection of cash, but a redistribution of power as well. Councils need more than just greater resources in order to level up—they need to be given powers to do so. That is the message from all local authorities controlled by all political parties. I will watch with interest the Secretary of State’s recently floated idea for further Mayors—or governors, as he said—covering more of the country. It will be interesting to see how that can be rolled out. I am not opposed to it. I am not happy with the mayoral principle, but it has been established and it seems anomalous that there are Mayors for cities but not for other areas.
Let us talk about now. We have devolved Governments in the nations, and a dozen or so city-region Mayors in England. I hope the Government will listen to the demands from, for example, the Mayor of London for more powers. He is asking for more powers to set rent controls—powers which major cities around the world, from Berlin to New York, possess. Shelter, the housing charity, has recently published a report that explains the consequences of levelling-up infrastructure investment without taking housing need into account. I will use my area as an example; the Minister is welcome to come down and visit and we could have a discussion on site if necessary. In my area, a consequence of the welcome multi-billion pound investment in Crossrail is that land and house prices have shot up. Without new council housing or rent controls, local people are being forced out of the local housing market. Alongside the building of more council housing, a Mayor with powers of rent control would really help level up in London and areas like mine.
I hope the Government are going to listen and back the Mayors who are seeking to re-regulate the buses in Greater Manchester, Liverpool city region and West Yorkshire. It is a great policy. It is about improving infrastructure that will increase private investment, it is about a modal shift that will improve carbon emissions and improve air quality, and it is about increasing the act of travel, which has health benefits as well. I point the Minister towards the recent reports from Green Alliance, a coming together of various national environmental groups. They have pointed out how much more could be done on the Government’s climate change agenda if the powers and resources were made available to local government.
When I raised the issue before, Government Ministers have argued that council spending has been boosted by the retention of business rates and the ability to raise more through council tax in recent years. First of all, based on the National Audit Office’s figures, it is likely that councils’ overall spending power is now some £5 billion lower in real terms than it was in 2010. The Minister will also know that raising council tax has very unequal impacts: a 5% increase in Surrey raises about £38 million, while a 5% increase in Blackburn with Darwen raises £2.8 million. It is a similar story with business rate retention: councils with prosperous commercial centres can raise significant sums, whereas councils without such areas cannot.
As such, alongside discussing the levelling-up agenda in investment terms, it is now time to have a serious discussion in Government about a more radical reform of local government finance to provide a stable, locally determined income stream from councils. There have been discussions in all our political parties about options for doing so, but we need to bring those options forward more rapidly. For example, I am interested—as are a number of Conservative MPs—in some version of land value taxation that might transfer both resources and, more effectively, power to the local level.
I also want to raise the issue of debt, in the Liverpool context as well as that of other local authorities. We have a responsibility here: to be frank, central Government have encouraged local authorities to borrow, often heavily, to go into property deals in order to secure much-needed additional revenue income. The result is that the local government debt burden is now becoming crippling for some, which is why the Government should explore new mechanisms for debt relief for local authorities. I was here during the banking crash, and can remember when that whole exercise was undertaken and the bad debt bank was established to sort out the debts of the banks involved. It may well be that the most responsible thing at the moment is for the Government to take over some of that debt, and even write some of it off through a debt jubilee for some local authorities.
Finally, I am concerned that as the levelling-up policy programme is developed, it must be seen to be fair. We all have a responsibility on a cross-party basis to not allow even the perception of pork barrel politics to take hold in this country, which is why there must be the fullest openness, transparency, objectivity, and engagement in decision making about the distribution of resources. One proposal is to consider a Barnett formula-type approach, one that would be objectively based on population, to determine the distribution of capital investment alongside the local government finance formula. Another is the establishment of government structures that bring local government representatives into government more effectively. Some ideas have been floated on all sides, such as a new Cabinet sub-committee that invites Mayors and other representatives to participate, or—as suggested by the Local Government Association—a national taskforce on levelling up that, again, rebalances some of the relationship between local and central Government.
In conclusion, I hope that a central plank of the Government’s levelling-up White Paper and the subsequent policy direction will be the empowering of local government to show that councils can play their role in levelling up our nations and regions. The Minister and the Government will not find local councils lacking, either in enthusiasm or in commitment.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (Neil O'Brien)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Miller. I congratulate the right hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) on securing this very important debate. I am not sure whether he or I will be more alarmed to find that we are, as he suggested, in quite strong agreement on much of this agenda.
Neil O'Brien
The right hon. Gentleman is always convincing when he talks about the lost opportunities caused by having parts of the economy overheating where people cannot afford a house, whereas other parts of the economy are crying out for investment. I felt that his was an echo of the Prime Minister’s speech, so we all find ourselves in at least a pretty high level of agreement on the challenge.
John McDonnell
Does the Minister recognise that the Prime Minister is my next-door constituency neighbour?
Neil O'Brien
I thank the right hon. Gentleman for that intervention. We are being run by a west London mafia.
As a lifelong advocate for ending the kinds of regional disparities that run through the country, I want to reiterate the importance that I, and the Government, feel about restoring a sense of local pride right across the country. I will start by stating a very obvious point, which is that local councils are an absolutely central part of our levelling-up agenda. They have to be. They have long been huge parts of the democratic fabric of this country and I firmly believe that our huge ambitions for levelling up will not be realised unless local leaders and communities are properly empowered to deliver for their local areas.
Levelling up must now go beyond the first stage of devolution. It must be a mission that gives local leaders and communities the tools they really need, as the right hon. Gentleman said, to take control of their own destiny, boost people’s living standards and spread opportunity. It will not be an exercise in levelling down London or the south-east in order to lift up other areas; it will be one with a clear-eyed focus on using local leadership to spread opportunities to parts of the country that have long felt that Governments in successive decades have not been interested in their city or their region.
The levelling-up agenda will recognise that disparities are not just between everyone who lives north of Watford Gap on the one hand and everyone else. Cookie-cutter policies are not going to bridge the divides that exist between Leeds and Bradford, between Blackpool and Manchester, and between different boroughs in London. We recognise that there are some of the same issues in Darlington and in Hayes and Harlington. We also recognise that levelling up—I agree with the right hon. Gentleman—is a major challenge that will take some time, but work is well under way.
Nobody understands the needs of a local area as well as the people elected to serve as the leadership of that local area in local councils. We are taking forward several programmes that will press ahead with meaningful devolution, including the new county deals that the right hon. Gentleman talked about, to spread devolution across the whole of England beyond the larger cities, and new funding streams to give people the financial firepower to make the changes they want to see in their communities. For example, we have agreements with 101 towns across England that have seen £2.4 billion allocated to local projects through the towns fund and the efforts we are making to resurrect our high streets as we continue to respond to the economic headwinds of the pandemic, with £100 million of combined investment from our welcome back fund and the reopening high streets safely fund.
Those investments are just the start. My right hon. Friend the Chancellor and the Treasury have shown that they are foursquare behind the levelling-up agenda with the recent spending review. As part of that review, we committed £1.7 billion in the first round of our flagship £4.8 billion levelling-up fund, backing 105 different initiatives across the country, from the South Derby growth zone to an upgrade to the ferries to the Isles of Scilly. Both received nearly £50 million from the fund. Other successful bids that we have been funding through the levelling-up fund include the Bolton College of Medical Sciences, the reopening of the world’s oldest suspension bridge in County Durham, and the redevelopment of Leicester train station quite near to me. Those are examples of how the fund is flexible in backing the ambitions of different local places, whatever they may be. The funding builds on the foundations laid in the March Budget this year, with plans to bring regeneration, new prosperity and restored pride to 10 different places through the new freeports, which are levelling up in action. In fact, only three weeks ago Teesside became the first of those amazing freeports to open its doors for business and future investment from top-end employers.
In the time remaining, I would like to turn to local government finance. The right hon. Gentleman talked about the need to move on from the debates we had for a long time at the start of the 2010s. I think that is right. There is no point in re-rehearsing those arguments. We will not convince each other of our positions at this point. He talked about a rising tide of funding. We now have a rising tide of funding. For the last couple of years, our core spending power in local government has started to go up. At the spending review, the Treasury backed councils with an average annual increase in the core spending power of local government of 3% in real-terms per year.
Neil O'Brien
As I said, the core spending power of local government will be going up in real terms each year by 3%, on top of all the other things we are doing through the future high streets fund, the levelling-up fund and the forthcoming UK shared prosperity fund, to invest heavily in areas such as Liverpool and the wider Merseyside area. All those things are, at their heart, about investing in locally delivered early help for families of the exact kind that the hon. Gentleman would like.
John McDonnell
The example of Liverpool has been given. It would be incredibly helpful, just to bring the Minister up to speed on a specific example of what is happening, if he would meet a delegation of the Liverpool MPs, maybe with the council leader, to talk about issues there.
Neil O'Brien
I am planning to meet various leaders from Liverpool city region as part of the Mersey Dee alliance discussions, so I would be delighted to have that conversation. I am very proud of the progress we made for that city through the devolution deal, bringing new powers, new funding and the defragmentation of local government that I think we all agree on in principle.
In the months ahead we will set out in more detail our plans for the levelling-up agenda, with the White Paper that will give us the long-term blueprint, but that is not the end of the story. We have a levelling up Department that will continue to power ahead with this agenda over the coming years. The Prime Minister already gave a clear indication of our position in July when he said we take a flexible approach to devolution, so local leaders in our great cities and historic towns have the tools they need to make things happen for their communities.
Exceptional Mayors are already making a huge difference. If anyone wants to see levelling up in action, I suggest they take a trip to Teesside where, during his four years at the helm, Ben Houchen has managed to secure a brand-new economic campus in Darlington with civil servants from the Treasury, moving the Tees crossing to alleviate congestion and bringing the Teesside airport into public ownership, on top of the freeport that I mentioned. That shows that local areas do not need to be micromanaged out of SW1; they can get ahead if they are given the financial power and the local powers and leadership that they need.
There is no reason we cannot bottle and replicate the brand of leadership embodied in people such as Ben Houchen and Andy Street, our fantastic West Midlands Mayor, and apply it to other areas of the country, and so use local leadership and local government to drive forward this incredibly important levelling-up agenda that we all agree on.
Question put and agreed to.