Local Government Finance

Debate between Jonathan Brash and Bradley Thomas

Wednesday 11th February 2026 Commons Chamber

[Bradley Thomas (Bromsgrove) (Con)]

I will keep my comments brief, and they will be focused on council tax. The reason they will be brief is that I was hoping to intervene earlier on the Secretary of State. He said that he did not want to dodge difficult topics and wanted to talk about promises, but he did not take an intervention from me, probably because he knew what was coming.

I will talk about broken promises and about difficult topics. The primary one affecting my residents right now across Bromsgrove and the villages, as well as people across Worcestershire, is the Government’s collusion with Reform to hike council tax by a staggering 9%. That will be the highest council tax increase that Worcestershire county council has imposed on its residents. It will likely be the highest increase in council tax across the country this year, and it is reprehensible, because prior to the general election in 2024, the Labour party stood clearly on a manifesto that said it would freeze council tax. Labour Members know as well as I do that they have no will to deliver that.

[Mr Brash]

Will the hon. Member give way?

[Bradley Thomas]

I will not give way, because the Secretary of State would not give way to me. I will not give way and be lectured to by Labour MPs who are not upholding their promises.

The Government stood on a manifesto to freeze council tax, knowing full well that they would not be able to deliver that. Worse still, last May, prior to the local elections, the Reform party stuffed leaflets through the doors of residents across Worcestershire and across the country pledging that it would cut council tax. Reform spoke about this DOGE—Department of Government Efficiency—programme for local government. It is interesting that not a single Reform Member of Parliament is here in the Chamber today to defend their record.

Where is this DOGE programme? Why has it revealed nothing? Reform thought that it could turn the sofa upside down, give it a good shake and £100 million would fall out. Well, that did not happen. Instead, I can tell the House what has happened in Worcestershire. Since last May, the overspend by the Reform administration has been £100 million. As a result, it has come cap in hand to the Government for emergency funding and for a council tax rise way in excess of inflation and of the 5% threshold for a referendum.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Jonathan Brash (Hartlepool) (Lab)]

May I start with the hon. Member for Bromsgrove (Bradley Thomas), who did not give way when I asked him to? I will happily give way in a moment should he wish to correct the record, but he said that the 2024 Labour manifesto on which we stood promised to freeze council tax. No such promise exists in that manifesto, and I invite him now to correct the record.

[Bradley Thomas]

Residents across the country knew ahead of the general election that the Prime Minister had made various very public pledges that the Labour party would freeze council tax should it come to office. If there is a mistake on my part and those words were not in the manifesto, I apologise for that, but—here I return to my point about trust in politics—if we want residents across the country to have faith in the political system, it is important for politicians to stand by their promises, whether they are written in a manifesto or uttered on television.

[Mr Brash]

I would say that if we want there to be trust in politics, we need to be accurate in what we say in this place, but I appreciate the hon. Gentleman’s correcting the record.

The Minister understands exactly what I am going to say. I know how sympathetic and supportive she is in this respect, and I hope that in the coming days we will be able to deal with the issue that I am going to raise. I thank her for her support in recent weeks.

I want to be clear about what Hartlepool is facing, and about why I cannot regard the current settlement to be fair and also believe it to be self-defeating. Hartlepool now has the third highest number of children in care in England. That pressure has been made worse by other local authorities placing families in my town, leaving us with a £6 million overspend in children’s social care alone. My brilliant Labour council has already taken decisive action, halving that projected deficit in-year and establishing a robust, credible plan to eliminate it entirely. That plan is exactly what the Government say they want to see: it means fewer children coming into care, more early intervention, stronger families and better outcomes. It includes strengthened early help and family support, a dedicated edge-of-care team, a refreshed in-house foster care model, safe reunification pathways, wholesale SEND reform, enhanced support for care leavers, and better workforce planning. This is a serious, preventive change, not a sticking plaster solution.

But here is the problem: these reforms require short-term stability to succeed. The settlement does not recognise the sheer number of children in care in my constituency. It undermines prevention, which means that we are likely to see more children in care, more long-term costs, and worse outcomes. That is why I see this settlement as self-defeating. Ministers will rightly point to percentage increases in funding, but those percentages mean far less in Hartlepool than they do almost anywhere else, because our baseline is already so low. The cost of a child in care is exactly the same in Hartlepool as it is anywhere else.

When we look at it in cash terms, the reality is stark. The increase in the Government grant for Hartlepool this year is just £3 million, which is equivalent to funding around six children in care. After weeks of discussions and representations, the final settlement for Hartlepool has remained unchanged, yet down the road—this sticks in the craw for me—Reform-led Durham county council has received an additional £3.7 million this year, which means that it is reducing the amount by which it is increasing council tax. The increase in Durham’s final settlement is more than our entire increase this year. I cannot describe that as fair funding.

As we have heard from many Members from across the House, the unfairness is compounded by a broken council tax system. Hartlepool has one of the weakest tax bases in the country, with a high proportion of homes in band A. A 1% increase in council tax in Hartlepool raises a fraction of what it raises in wealthier areas, yet our residents already pay far more, both in real terms and as a share of their income, than those living almost anywhere else in the country. The settlement simply does not change that reality.

Governments of all stripes talk about core spending power, but half of that core spending power is achieved by raising council tax. That hammers the poorest communities the most, and it is a regressive tax. That is not fairness; it is entrenched inequality. To make matters worse, changes to deprivation measures and population assumptions mean that Hartlepool’s needs are being systematically underestimated. Official forecasts put our population at under 94,000, yet the Office for National Statistics data shows that it is already closer to 100,000—growth that is driven in large part by other councils discharging their homelessness duties into my constituency. Hartlepool is not asking for special treatment; we are asking for support to deal with a problem that is not of our making.

Victims and Courts Bill (First sitting)

Debate between Jonathan Brash and Bradley Thomas

Committee stage
Tuesday 17th June 2025 Public Bill Committees

[Bradley Thomas (Bromsgrove) (Con)]

Q Do you support the publication of sentencing remarks in the interest of transparency, supporting victims and their families, and wider public confidence in seeing justice delivered?

Baroness Newlove: I certainly do. The media give out information, and I have learned more about my sentencing remarks because I never got them until very long afterwards. Every victim, not just those of sexual crimes, has a right to see those sentencing remarks, because it gives them time to digest. You leave the courtroom thinking that you know everything, but as your memory and emotions come, you start asking yourself questions.

Sentencing is very technical: you hear a sentence, then it is reduced if they have been on remand—there are boxed-off things. Also, as I found out, there are tariff reviews for juveniles, which even the probation service was not aware of because there are very few of them. If you look at the crime rate, you will see that we are getting younger offenders in prison. We have to prepare families for the tariff review, which means that offenders go to appeal to reduce their tariff, so you go through that.

It should not simply be a case of saying, “There are the sentencing remarks.” There are implications, and every victim has a right to see the sentencing remarks. It is about them, and it affects the decisions about what the offender will do, and it should be the victim’s right to have that information. They do not have any advocates to speak for them, and the prosecution pursue their own case. If the media can get things out there, why can we not give it to victims and families?

Katie Kempen: From our perspective, accessing sentencing remarks is an issue for victims. They would like to be able to access them. We welcomed the pilot and its continued roll-out.

I have a nuanced response because victims’ needs differ. If there is to be wider publication, we need to see whether any protection is needed for individual victims, rather than carte blanche, “Yes, publish them all.” A key issue is explaining the sentencing remarks to victims. Again, in our “Suffering for Justice” report, where victims did not have the sentencing remarks explained to them, it caused them real anguish and distress. They should be able to have the sentencing remarks explained to them, and where they do, it helps their recovery journey and brings closure. My answer is yes, with some nuance. We need the explanation, and we need to treat the victims like a human being who has gone through a traumatic experience.

Dame Nicole Jacobs: I agree.

[Mr Jonathan Brash (Hartlepool) (Lab)]

Q We have talked a great deal about the changes in definitions around victims. We have also talked about the role of social landlords. Is not one of the challenges in implementing this Bill making the many stakeholders that come into contact with victims clear that they are dealing with a victim, and them knowing what a victim is and what their responsibilities are once they realise that?

Katie Kempen: Yes. Particularly when looking at antisocial behaviour, we absolutely welcome the additional powers for the Victims’ Commissioner. Brutally, the Victims’ Commissioner knew what the issues were surrounding antisocial behaviour—the last time she was in office, she wrote a fantastic report that has still not been fully implemented and enacted.

At Victim Support we would like to see an ASB charter so that victims of antisocial behaviour have clarity on their expectations and rights, and on the responsibilities of each organisation. Victims are far too often ping-ponged between different organisations. They do not hear their rights in terms of the reviews.

As Baroness Newlove has said, there is a cohort of victims who slip through the net in accessing victim support services. Their case may not reach the criminal threshold that gets them to victims code rights, but they are still finding that their lives are essentially ruined by antisocial behaviour. Those cases are complex, difficult to resolve and take significant advocacy. We need some clarity on rights and responsibilities in that arena.

Baroness Newlove: I add a request to get rid of the term “low level.” The police start by thinking that antisocial behaviour is low level, and if you train your police officers with that narrative, they will not give respect to victims. Antisocial behaviour is horrendously violent to the individual. For my last report I met victims whose houses were nearly burned down, but the local authorities never came. I have met a victim of arson against their car, which nearly murdered the family because she was sleeping on the sofa—the police never came out, but the fire officers sat there for two hours.

We have to get away from looking at antisocial behaviour as low level, because it is the route for violence upon violence. I do not want to talk just about me, but my husband was murdered. Before that, it would have been treated as antisocial behaviour. If he had lived, it would have just gone through the system. If you leave antisocial behaviour, it is like a cancer; it will spread and spread.

That is where it helps communities, if you really want to get to the nub of all this. As Victims’ Commissioner, I am delighted about being able to go to a housing provider, but you are quite right about the implementation and accountability. This is going to take many attempts, but it has to start with the police to stop the ping-ponging. There is a human there who is feeling suicidal. You will act if they take their life, like Fiona Pilkington or David Askew did, and that is too little too late.