Liverpool City Council Funding

Debate between Luciana Berger and Jake Berry

Tuesday 29th October 2019 Westminster Hall

[Jake Berry]

I will come on to address the hon. Gentleman’s specific points, but it is worth focusing on what happened in Liverpool. Across this House, we want to be optimistic for the people we represent, and there is real optimism in Liverpool. There are challenges, and have been for as long as I have known the city, which is my entire life, but on many occasions, sometimes in this building, people from across public life want to talk down to Liverpool. I want this debate to be an opportunity to celebrate everything that is fantastic about that city.

[Luciana Berger]

I share with my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg) and the Minister their categorisation of Liverpool as that vibrant, optimistic and positive city. Over the course of what will soon be a decade, however, the city has done so much in spite of the Government, and not because of it. My hon. Friend laid out many things that have happened, and I have a whole list in front of me of cuts, including to our fire service, the police service, the health grant formula—that is the current reality—or the early intervention grant to give every child born in Liverpool the best chance of the best start in life. Despite the cumulative impact of all those things, Liverpool has soldiered on—but that does not take away from the reality of what the city is contending with after nearly 10 years of cuts.

[Jake Berry]

It will come as no surprise to the hon. Lady that I disagree with her. Lots of what I am talking about—the £900 million devolution deal, the £1 billion for the Gateway crossing, the £330 million from the local growth fund, and the £140 million upgrade of Lime Street station, which I am pleased about, because it was awful when I was growing up, and it is a fantastic building now—is a partnership. I hope that this debate can be about what Liverpool, the Government, the mayors and the metro Mayor can do together to drive the city. I know that that is the spirit in which the hon. Lady would wish me to respond to the debate.

Liverpool City Council has some challenges with funding, as well as other issues. It has £100 million of uncollected council tax arrears, which it should do something about, because that is very high from a national perspective. Its chief executive’s remuneration package is £461,823, which is absurd and not something that should be supported by the council, although it is, because it will have been voted on by the council. In fact, the council has 57 employees across Merseyside who earn more than £100,000 each. The age of austerity might be writ large over many parts of the council, but it has not yet reached the chief executive’s remuneration package, and there are things that the council could do, such as recover some of the £100 million of council tax arrears.

The partnership approach, however, which I hope Members across the House support, is part of the story of renaissance in Liverpool. I agree with the spokesman for Liverpool City Council who, earlier this year, said that Liverpool is undergoing a regeneration boom, with £14 billion of development schemes being delivered or in the pipeline. I pay tribute to the work of the city council in transforming the city, despite having maybe played its part in the decade of recovery from the global economic crash. Despite reductions in the amount of money the city has to spend, it is thriving and booming. People do not need to take my word for it, because anyone can visit the city—in fact, I recommend that they do. And we have not even talked about having the best football team in Europe, although that might be controversial; I do not know whether any Evertonians are present.

Why does all that matter? It matters because the Government are serious about delivering a northern powerhouse—a growing northern economy for all our constituents, including mine and yours, Sir George. Liverpool must be at the heart of that regeneration, and of the renewal of the north of England. That is why I am so pleased that the Prime Minister recently set out his agenda to level up all the powers of the metro Mayors—to ensure that Steve Rotheram has the same powers as Andy Burnham—so that we can drive Liverpool’s economy. I fully support that, and I hope and believe that Steve Rotheram, who has had discussions with me and with the Prime Minister about that agenda, will come out in support of it.

That is also why we have levelled up education funding. The hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby, started the debate by talking about a school in his constituency, and I echo his tribute to all those working in our public services in Liverpool, Merseyside, the wider north-west and our entire country. That is why we are increasing funding for the NHS and the number of police on our streets. It is the poorest in our society, wherever they may be in England, who rely most heavily on the NHS and public services. That is why I applaud the Prime Minister’s ambition to level up.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Luciana Berger and Jake Berry

Monday 28th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Luciana Berger (Liverpool, Wavertree) (Lab/Co-op)]

Today’s Centre for Cities report is absolutely devastating, highlighting that cuts have fallen hardest on deprived communities in the north of England—including Liverpool—that are enduring the highest poverty rates. It is very disappointing to see the Minister grimacing and laughing, because this is a very serious matter for the communities we represent. Does he agree with the conclusion of the Centre for Cities that the Treasury review of public spending, which is due for the autumn, must find extra funding for all councils if authorities are to remain sustainable?

[Jake Berry]

Issues of future funding are, of course, for the Treasury. As someone who was born and bred in the city of Liverpool, I delight every time I visit to see that this Government’s mayoral devolution is driving Liverpool’s economy in a way that we have not seen for a generation.

Tobacco Packaging

Debate between Luciana Berger and Jake Berry

Thursday 7th November 2013 Commons Chamber

[Luciana Berger]

I thank my hon. Friend for that important intervention. The figures that came out just the other week do show a drop in the number of people who are quitting smoking through NHS services. I am very concerned about that. As I said at the start of my contribution, 200,000 young people still take up smoking every year. That is exactly what we are seeking to address in this debate.

We have reflected a lot on the Australian experience. The former Australian Health Minister, Tanya Plibersek, reported that there was a

“flood of calls…in the days after the introduction of plain packaging accusing the Government of changing the taste of cigarettes.”

She went on to say:

“Of course there was no reformulation of the product. It was just that people being confronted with the ugly packaging made the psychological leap to disgusting taste.”

That is a significant point. Far from there being no evidence, there is a swathe of evidence.

The second claim raised during our debate is that standardised packaging would increase the trade in counterfeit cigarettes, or impact on the printing trade. Again, it is important to clarify that we are talking about standardised packaging. I have heard hon. Members use the term “plain packaging”, but we are not discussing that. I know I am not allowed to demonstrate this at the Dispatch Box, Madam Deputy Speaker, but standardised packaging is clearly printed; it is not a plain pack. Current packaging is already so easy to forge that covert markings enable enforcement officials to identify counterfeit cigarettes, and all key security features on existing packets would continue on standardised packets. Standardised packaging would make pictorial warnings more prominent and packaging harder to forge.

We heard in an important contribution that standardised packaging might lead to an increase in illicit trade, but that is simply not true. Andrew Leggett, deputy director for tobacco and alcohol strategy at Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, stated in oral evidence to the House of Lords European Union sub-Committee on Wednesday 24 July:

“There are a number of potential factors that weigh on counterfeit packaging”,

but that if standardised packaging was introduced, it was

“very doubtful that it would have a material effect.”

[Jake Berry]

I thank the hon. Lady for giving way to give her a chance to find her place. Does she acknowledge that the Government’s current policy on standardised or plain packaging is exactly the same as it was under the previous Government?

[Luciana Berger]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention but more than three years have passed since that point. I am immensely proud of everything the Labour Government did through their tobacco strategy to reduce smoking. We heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Barnsley Central about the many measures we introduced, but we must do more and go further, and in my concluding remarks I will say why I am disappointed with the Government’s current approach.

The third claim I want to counter is that the proposed changes to tobacco packaging are somehow a symptom of the nanny state. People should, of course, be allowed to make their own decisions, but we should not be standing by while industry sets honey traps and uses every means at its disposal to try to make those decisions for them. Nearly all new smokers are children, we are dealing with an addictive product that is clinically proven to kill, and smoking rates are higher among the most vulnerable groups in our society, particularly children in residential care. That is why today’s debate is so important.

I will conclude with my most important point, which is why we cannot afford to delay. The Minister has previously made it clear that the Government’s position is to wait and see. Her predecessor did the same, despite saying that she personally had been persuaded of the case for standardised packaging a few months previously. Just today, about 570 children across the country, none of them older than 15, will have their first cigarette, and approximately 71 will have done so while we have been debating this subject. If we wait and see, we will be standing idly by while hundreds of thousands of young people become victim to this deadly addiction.

The Opposition have made their position clear. If the Government wish to bring forward legislation to make standardised packaging a reality, they can count on our full support. That was our position before the Government changed their mind about this issue in July, and it is our position now. The Children and Families Bill is making its way through the other place. Labour has tabled an amendment to that Bill to introduce standardised packaging that will be debated in the coming weeks and voted on later this year. That simple measure would make a huge difference and is clearly supported by Members on all sides of the House. On behalf of those 71 children who have started smoking during this debate, and the 200,000 who will start every year, I urge the Minister and her Government colleagues to do the right thing and support our amendment. Let us save future generations from the perils of smoking.