Business of the House

Lord Coaker Excerpts

Thursday 9th February 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lidington]

Members of LEPs on the whole do a good job in providing a forum for bringing local business and public authorities together and for trying to leverage private sector investment, along with public sector investment, to support such things as infrastructure projects. However, they have to pay regard to the fact that they are the custodians of public money and need to make sure that they have proper rules on accountability and transparency, as would be expected of anybody in receipt of taxpayers’ money. My hon. Friend may have the opportunity to raise these issues further at Communities and Local Government questions on Monday 27 February.

[Vernon Coaker (Gedling) (Lab)]

Will the Leader of the House arrange for an urgent debate on social care funding? As part of that, will he ask the Department for Communities and Local Government to publish any contact between Surrey and Ministers or aides in the Department, so that the debate can be informed? My local authority in Nottinghamshire is absolutely incandescent, as I am sure are other authorities, about the way in which, it appears, Surrey has been offered a sweetheart deal while it has been left to fend for itself.

[Mr Lidington]

As I have already made clear, there is no sweetheart deal, and Nottingham is also welcome to apply, as Surrey has indicated it wishes to do, for the full return of business rates finance to local authorities in the 2018-19 financial year. The DCLG statement yesterday gave a full account of what has happened. There has been a lot of fuss and complaint, but actually it is much less of a story than the hon. Gentleman believes.