Provisional Local Government Finance Settlement

Lord Greaves Excerpts

Thursday 13th December 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend for the points that she makes and the general welcome she gives to the settlement, which is fair and right. I acknowledge the challenge faced by the high streets. I am sure she would acknowledge the help announced in the Statement relating to them. Part of this is because of the changing nature of the high street. We cannot, Canute-like, stand in the way of that. What we can do is look at the position relating to the taxation of digital and online sales. My right honourable friend the Chancellor has announced that he is looking at this. I will not name the companies; we all know them. This is a way to deal with that. It is not inherent to the Statement on local government because that does not relate to general taxation policy.

On money for roads, it is for local authorities to determine how they can repair and improve their roads. There will be more detail on that spending and how that money will be distributed to local authorities in an additional Statement that I hope will supply the information my noble friend needs.

Lastly, my noble friend rightly mentioned Salisbury as an important town affected by policy on the high street. It is remarkable how resilient Salisbury has been throughout the difficult period after the Novichok incidents. The Government have given support to Salisbury to help it through, and I have been in touch with the cathedral on a fairly regular basis to see how the community is faring.

[Lord Greaves (LD)]

My Lords, I remind the House that I am an elected district councillor. Although I am not as excited by the settlement as other noble Lords, my council benefits from a bit of Maundy money above what it thought it would get.

Does the Minister understand that when people talk about the council, look at their council tax bill and say, “What do I get for it?”, a lot of the things that impinge on them directly are provided by local district councils in two-tier areas? I have a huge list here that I will not read out, but it is basically recreation and leisure services, street-level services and community-based problem-solving—town centre problems that directly affect people. A lot of ordinary district councils up and down this country are in dire straits. I would love the statistics that were read out for the average or aggregate cuts to government funding and local authority spending to be the case for the district councils in east Lancashire. They are in a much worse position.

Does the Minister accept that, while there is a bit of sugar on the pill this year, we are in the middle of a three-year settlement where councils all had to sign on the dotted line to say that they agree to it, while it is really asking them whether they want to lose a leg or two arms? The Government have provided a little bag of sweeties this time by saying, “Okay, we’re not going to refuse them”, but unless they tackle these basic-level services that do not fit into the high priorities of social care, health and so on, vital though they are, local government as people know it will collapse in quite a few parts of the country within two or three years.

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth]

My Lords, I acknowledge the great role that the noble Lord plays in his local authority district in Pendle and I recognise the great work done by local districts up and down the country. He will appreciate, however, that there are a lot of areas that are unitary, where there is not this two-tier system. A lot of what I have talked about, in answering questions and in the Statement itself, relates to the county councils, but much of this will benefit the district councils, where they exist, such as the business rate retention system. Again, Lancashire is a beneficiary of this and it is worth recognising that as well. I recognise the challenges that exist and I know that many local authorities struggle with the financial position. That said, we need to see how costs may be contained and where some back-office costs can be shared. That need not necessarily be via unitisation; it could be done by sharing some of the costs and back-office functions.

I should also say, on the multi-year settlements that the noble Lord referred to, that many councils—perhaps most councils, most councillors and most people offering services—would recognise their importance and desirability, because it gives a guarantee of how payments and settlements will be made into the future.