Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government

Lord Beamish Excerpts

1st reading: House of Commons
Tuesday 2nd July 2019 Commons Chamber

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

I would like to begin by addressing the remarks of the hon. Member for Oxford West and Abingdon (Layla Moran). I am sorry, but her party, the Liberal Democrats, were not innocent bystanders in austerity. They were active participants. She says she wants to look to the future—fine—but the effects of the decisions taken under the coalition Government are still biting today, not just in local government but across a whole host of Government policies. I am sorry, but people need to keep being reminded of that.

The National Audit Office and the Centre for Cities produced very robust reports on the effects of the cuts by the coalition Government and this Government to local government funding. Those cuts have been, as my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts) said, most severe in their effect. They have also not been very fair. For example, the most deprived areas in the north have borne the biggest share of the cuts, while areas such as Surrey and Wokingham have had few cuts that have had very little effect.

Durham County Council has faced massive cuts. Since 2010-11, its budget has been cut by £242 million. It has also been put at a disadvantage. As my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield South East alluded to earlier, the Government have been moving funding from central Government to locally raised taxation. That puts authorities such as Durham at a huge disadvantage, because we have a low council tax base and a low business tax rate base. Some 50% of properties in County Durham are in council tax band A, so its ability to raise local taxation, even if it wanted to, is limited compared to others that have a larger and more diverse council tax base. If that was not bad enough, in addition to what is coming down the road with the fairer funding formula, County Durham will have to find another £39 million of cuts over the next four years. Under that strangely named fairer funding formula, County Durham loses an additional £10 million. Even though it is a deprived area, since 2011 it has already faced a higher than average core spending cut. Yet if we look at the average across the country, Durham is below average, so I do not know how that can be fair.

There is an idea, not just in local government funding but in education funding and everything else, that somehow every single part of the country is the same. We heard it from the hon. Member for The Cotswolds (Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown), who argued that the Cotswolds could somehow be compared to an inner-city borough such as Hackney. It is quite clear that deprived areas such as County Durham have a huge call on their resources from the two great drivers, adult social care and children’s care.

In 2018, there were 1,157 looked-after children in County Durham. Wokingham, which has not had the savage cuts that County Durham has had to face, looks after 141 children. We not comparing like with like. These are not services that councils can pick and choose from either; they fall under statutory provision. I have to say that Durham does them very well, but they create huge demands on the council budget that are not reflected in the support received from central Government. The cut in core spending has been dramatic in County Durham. Government figures show that the average core spending per dwelling is £1,908. In Durham, it is £1,727. In Surrey, which I would argue is a little bit more affluent than County Durham, it is £2,004. If we were brought up to even the England average, County Durham would get an additional £44 million.

This is about not only the savage effects of austerity on local government, but the pork barrel way in which the Government have distributed the money, clearly favouring areas that have supported the Conservative party and its coalition partners in the past, and punishing northern councils. In addition to the cuts that have taken place already, we have the public health funding formula, on which I led a Westminster Hall debate a few weeks ago. How can it be right that County Durham will lose £19 million a year—35% of its budget—while Surrey County Council increases its public health budget by £14 million a year?

Those funding decisions are clearly designed to support certain areas. [Interruption.] The right hon. Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh) chunters from a sedentary position, but the facts are there in black and white. It has been a deliberate policy of this Government since—[Interruption.] Oh, he has got tired and gone off for a sleep. Clearly, as my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield South East said, we need not only to look at fairer funding for local government but to ask what we need it to do. Like him, I feel that we will end up in a situation where some councils go bankrupt—some already have—and others struggle on delivering services, while being blamed by the Government for not doing so, when they have limited ability even to raise council tax locally.

In the 1980s, when I was first elected to local government, the Conservative party was a proud party of local government. It actively supported local government, cared about it and, as my hon. Friend said, thought it was an important part of the glue of democracy and of how we provided for communities. Alas, that seems a distant past: as I said, local government clearly will not be a priority for whoever wins the Conservative party leadership contest. This cannot go on, or we will end up in a situation where the people we were elected to serve suffer and councils throughout the country become unsustainable.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Kevan Jones]

My hon. Friend is making some good points, but does he also agree that one of the Government’s mistakes in terms of devolution is holding to the idea that that can be done only if there is a mayor? That has led to some very strange situations. For example, in the north-east we have a hotch-potch of different responsibilities in different areas.

[Gareth Snell]

I entirely agree, and the same goes for LEP boundaries. If we are going to do this, there has to be a way forward that fits local area needs.

According to the NAO, £6 billion is currently tied up between section 106 agreements and the community infrastructure levy. That is a huge amount of money, but the CIL aspect of that cannot be spent on building new affordable housing because it is for low-level infrastructure. I urge the Minister to review that. It is a pot of money that exists in local authorities that could be unlocked to readily transform the way in which our local authorities work.

At its best local government is flexible, lean and hungry to do things, but that agility is fast becoming fragility, and I fear that if there is one more knock to the system everything will shatter.

Local Government Finance

Lord Beamish Excerpts

Tuesday 5th February 2019 Commons Chamber

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

Let me start with a couple of facts: there has been a 49.1% reduction in Government core funding to local authorities and a 28.6% real terms reduction in spending power, which means Government funding plus local council tax, since 2010; and there has been a 32% real-terms reduction in spending on non-social care areas. Those are not my figures, but those of the National Audit Office.

My hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg) mentioned the Centre for Cities report, which shows that those cuts have not been fairly distributed; they have been targeted at northern cities and northern councils. Some of the more affluent areas, such as Wokingham in Surrey, have had no reduction in core spending at all. This Government have used local government funding like a pork barrel, putting it into areas that support the Conservative party and penalising areas that do not. Since 2010, Durham County Council has lost £224 million in its budget, and it is predicted that in the next four years it will have to slash another £39 million. That is being done by a Conservative Government, but I do not want to let the Liberal Democrats off, because they also signed up to these cuts when they were in coalition.

On the ability to raise finance, Durham has a similar problem to that outlined by my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, West Derby, as 55% of its properties are in band A. The more core funding from national Government is cut, the more Durham County Council’s ability to raise funding is limited. In addition, Durham can raise only a limited amount through the retention of business rates compared with what can be raised in Westminster and other places. So the future does not look bright for Durham County Council, a well-run authority, under this Government’s proposals. If we look at core spending power per dwelling, which is what the Government are looking at, we see that the national average is £1,908 whereas the figure for Durham is £1,727 and Surrey’s figure is £2,004. Areas of deprivation in Surrey would not even register on any type of social index compared with what we have in Durham, a former industrial area, which just shows us the way in which this Government have used the system to reward their own areas.

My hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts) raised the issue of public health funding. If the Government go forward with the notion of the fair funding formula—that should be getting done under the Trade Descriptions Act—Durham County Council is forecast to lose some £19 million, or 35% of its public health budget. That is happening in some of the most deprived communities anywhere in the country. It is a rural county, but it has deprivation on a par with some inner cities and parts of the former coalfields. How can it be right that under that formula Surrey would gain, and deprived areas such as County Durham would lose? The Government are taking political decisions about where the funding goes. There is this notion among those on the Government Benches that somehow every single council is the same, but I am sorry, they are not. The demands on my local council and councils such as Liverpool in respect of adult social care and looked-after children are a lot more severe than the demands in some of the areas that are getting extra funding.

In her statement on Europe on 10 December, the Prime Minister said:

“It means working across all areas to make this a country that truly works for everyone, and a country where nowhere and nobody is left behind.”—[Official Report, 10 December 2018; Vol. 651, c. 25.]

I am sorry, but the policies of this Government over the past eight years have run counter to the Prime Minister’s promise. That just shows how hollow her words are.

Northamptonshire County Council

Lord Beamish Excerpts

Tuesday 27th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid]

I thank my hon. Friend for the work that he has done and continues to do for the people of Northamptonshire. He is right to raise the pressures being felt by Northamptonshire County Council and many other councils, particularly on adult social care and children’s social care. He will know that at last year’s spring Budget there was a record settlement, with an additional £2 billion going into adult social are. Looking to the long term, that is exactly why we have the Green Paper, and I hope that he will provide input into that process.

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

The Secretary of State talks about being crystal clear. What is crystal clear is the mess that Northamptonshire County Council finds itself in as a result of the incompetence and mismanagement of local Conservative politicians. Will he therefore issue an apology to the electors of Northamptonshire, on behalf of the Tory party, for the mess that they have found themselves in?

Local Government Finance

Lord Beamish Excerpts

Wednesday 7th February 2018 Commons Chamber

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

The Secretary of State talks about core funding. I think the average for county councils—[Interruption.] Mine is Durham, by the way, for the Parliamentary Private Secretary who is looking it up. [Laughter.] The average is a 2.1% increase, but for Durham it is only 1.4%. The reason for that—[Interruption.] Durham County Council—the PPS has got the wrong one! [Laughter.] The reason is the low council tax base, as 55% of properties in County Durham are in band A, which affects the council’s funds—County Durham, if the PPS has still not got it.

[Sajid Javid]

The hon. Gentleman is obviously familiar with the numbers for his own council, which is good to see, and his council is getting an increase. As I have said, and this will be a theme throughout the settlement, we have to always make sure that we are striking the right balance between providing increased resources and keeping any burden on taxpayers to an absolute minimum. I hope that the hon. Gentleman would support that.

We are creating a whole system of local government that is fit for the future. The current formula for financial allocations has served local areas well over the years.

--- Later in debate ---

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

Since 2010, Durham County Council has had its expenditure cut by £224 million, although after hearing the Secretary of State speak today, we might think that local government is somehow in a strong position. My hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts) was right: the root cause of this is the austerity during the last seven years. I will not let the Liberal Democrats off the hook for their responsibility for that, because they were in government and agreed to it.

This year alone, Durham County Council faces pay inflation of £4.8 million and general inflation of £3.2 million. The impact of the national living wage increase of 4.4% means another £3 million. There is a £3 million cost relating to the demographics of elderly people, and an additional £5 million due to pressures on children’s services, which has been mentioned. That means that, in 2018-19, Durham County Council will have to make further savings of £15.3 million.

Much reference has been made to the fairer funding formula, but I think it should get done under the Trade Descriptions Act, because the Government are doing what they have been doing for the last seven years. This is about the pork barrel—they put the money where they can get the votes. That is why, for example, it is not surprising that rural sparsity funding is going to Conservative-controlled areas. Lo and behold, even though Durham is a beautifully rural county, it does not get any of that funding.

If we look at core spending power, the average increase for county councils for 2018-19 is 2.1%; for County Durham, it is 1.4%. The reason for that is what we heard in our debate on police funding: it comes back to areas with a low council tax base. If we look, for example, at the effect of a 1% increase in council tax, it is not surprising that the ones that score for core spending on that are Wokingham, with 0.8%, and Buckinghamshire, Surrey and Dorset. It was interesting to listen to the hon. Members for Wellingborough (Mr Bone) and for Corby (Tom Pursglove) talking about Northamptonshire, because under the system that is being brought in, their core expenditure will rise by 3.8%, compared with County Durham’s at 0.5%.

The root cause lies in the clamour for so-called fairer funding back when the coalition Government entered office. I hear what people say about need, but the needs assessment was taken out of the formula, and that has continued under this Government. As a result, the formula does not recognise that areas have particular needs, such as in relation to looked-after children or growing demand for elderly care. Instead, the Government are rewarding their own areas. I do not for one minute accept the idea that there is not poverty in rural areas—there is—but, as my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham West and Royton (Jim McMahon) said, the evidence does not prove that it is more costly to deliver services in those areas than in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Gareth Snell), for example, or some other urban conurbations.

Government Members are comparing apples and oranges, and we should think about the pressures in urban areas such as those of my hon. Friends the Members for Stoke-on-Trent Central and for Nottingham North (Alex Norris) regarding looked-after children, to take just one example. I am sure that the number of looked-after children in those areas is larger than that in some rural counties—even one such as County Durham—and that creates great pressure. It is not one of those services in which councils can pick and choose what they deliver. They have to deliver the service, and, whatever anyone says, it is very expensive to provide.

In 2010, the Government set out, as my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield South East said, to make savings from local government. I was interested in what my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham North said: the Treasury could guarantee getting the money because it was the councils that would have to do the implementation. We are now suffering as a result, however. If we are to make local councils more reliant on raising finances from council tax, areas such as mine—55% of its properties are band A—will always be at a disadvantage, even though our elderly population is growing and the demands on our services across the piece are growing.

I agree with the hon. Member for Wellingborough about social care. We need to take a cross-party look at this, because the problem will not go away, whoever is in government. The situation is not made any easier, however, with some of the nonsense in this funding formula, such as the 7% cut to public health, which will have a direct impact on that area. What we have is more of the same: a Conservative Government rewarding Conservative areas and dressing that up as a funding formula, when it is actually a pork barrel. Unless we address the situation fairly and prioritise need, this scandal in local government—and it is a scandal—will continue.