Local Government Finance

Lyn Brown Excerpts

Wednesday 5th February 2020 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for the Northern Powerhouse and Local Growth (Jake Berry)]

I hope you will bear with me a moment, Mr Speaker, because this is the first time that I have had the opportunity to speak in a debate with you in the Chair as Speaker. As the MP for an adjoining constituency and a fellow Lancastrian, I congratulate you on the amazing start you have made as Speaker. You have restored gravitas to the office of Speaker and you are doing an excellent job.

I beg to move an amendment, to leave out from “House” to the end of the Question and add:

“welcomes the Government’s provisional local government finance settlement, which will deliver the biggest year-on-year real terms increase in councils’ spending power for a decade; recognises the pressures on adult and children’s social care as well as critical local government services, and welcomes the additional £1.5 billion available for social care in 2020-21; notes that the Government has listened to calls for a simpler, up-to-date, evidence based funding formula and has committed to consult on all aspects of the formula review in spring 2020; further welcomes the Government’s ambition to empower communities and level up local powers through a future Devolution White Paper; and welcomes the Government’s progress on this agenda already with the £3.6bn Towns Fund and eight Devolution Deals now agreed.”.

As we entered a new decade, this country voted emphatically for a new Government and a new approach. People discarded the politics of division and deadlock that had beset the previous Parliament for so many years. It was the people who gave a new mandate to my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister to drive forward his vision for our nation—a vision that will see communities levelled up and opportunity spread equally throughout the country, just as talent is already spread. We will level up every single nation of the United Kingdom and drive forward our Government’s agenda.

What have we heard today from the Labour party and the Opposition spokesman? They have learned nothing from their December drubbing—nothing from the people of Redcar in the north-east, nothing from the people of Heywood and Middleton in Greater Manchester and nothing from the people of the Don Valley in Yorkshire. Each of those areas, which had been Labour—[Interruption.] I know that Labour Members do not want to talk about the general election, which was the worst Labour performance for a generation, but we have a mandate and I intend to set out what that mandate means, in line with our amendment. Each of those areas, which had been Labour for a generation, rejected the politics that we heard from the Opposition today.

Let us not forget—although I bet he wishes we would—that the hon. Member for Denton and Reddish (Andrew Gwynne) was the general election campaign co-ordinator for the Labour party. Like a Japanese soldier emerging out of the jungle decades after they have lost the battle, he has chosen to return to Labour’s failed policies of division and deadlock. We heard him pit urban areas against rural areas, towns against cities and local government against national Government. It is absolutely clear that only the Conservative party—

[Ms Lyn Brown (West Ham) (Lab)]

Will the Minister give way?

[Jake Berry]

Not at the moment. It is absolutely clear—

[Ms Brown]

Why not?

[Jake Berry]

I will give way in a moment.

It is absolutely clear that only the Conservative party has a mandate to unite our nation as we move forward from a decade of recovery to a decade of renewal.

[Ms Brown]

rose—

[Jake Berry]

With the greatest of pleasure, I give way to the hon. Lady.

[Ms Brown]

I am really grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for giving way. Can he let me know where the Secretary of State is while we are discussing local government finance? I am grateful to see the right hon. Gentleman in his place, giving us a speech, but I would quite like to hear from the organ grinder what is going to happen with local government finance.

[Jake Berry]

I am disappointed that the hon. Lady thinks I am the monkey.

[Ms Brown]

indicated dissent.

[Jake Berry]

Well, I am not the organ grinder, as she has pointed out, so I must be the monkey. We have a broad team, and given that a lot of the claims made by the hon. Member for Denton and Reddish relate directly to the north of England, I think that as the Minister for the Northern Powerhouse I am the most appropriate Minister to respond to this debate.

--- Later in debate ---

[Ms Lyn Brown (West Ham) (Lab)]

First, I congratulate hon. Members who have given maiden speeches, particularly my hon. Friend the Member for Jarrow (Kate Osborne)—I loved her stuff about Ellen Wilkinson, who has always been a massive heroine of mine. I also congratulate the hon. Members for Orpington (Mr Bacon), for Keighley (Robbie Moore), and for North Norfolk (Duncan Baker). I was reminded of my husband complaining to his business partner after I said that I had booked a weekend away in Keighley. He said, “What, we are going to Bradford?” Never mind.

As we heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Denton and Reddish (Andrew Gwynne) and other hon. Friends, the Government’s rhetoric about levelling up is not really going to do much for the constituencies that they won in December. To be honest, I am worried about what it is going to do in my constituency too.

I would like to set the scene a little bit and introduce Government Members to Newham, which is one of areas worst damaged by austerity. If the proposed funding settlement is approved, Newham’s grant will go from £244 million in 2013 to £148 million in the coming year. In that period, our population has grown by 15%, so the cut is almost 50% per person over seven years. We have the second-highest child poverty rate in the country, made worse by cuts to children’s services. We have terrible problems with knife violence, made worse by a decade of cuts to youth services. We do have, thank goodness, strong communities, but they are struggling after a decade of across-the-board cuts.

Today I want to focus on just one point, because time is short. I talk regularly about the harm that homelessness in temporary accommodation does to our children. Going into temporary accommodation means losing a sense of security. It means losing a safe, warm home. It often means parents losing jobs, and losing the support network of family and friends, because people are moving away from their family, often miles and miles away, with no choice whatever. It means having to change schools constantly, or travel for hours to keep the one little thing that is solid and secure in a child’s life—a place at their secondary or primary school. More and more often, it means being moved halfway across the country.

We should be clear about why this is happening—it is because of low wages, extortionate private rents, and slashed housing support. That is not all the responsibility of the Secretary of State—I get that, and it is a shame that he is not here to hear it—but if council homes were available, like the one I had when I was growing up, none of those causes would lead to the extent of homelessness that we now see. In Newham, we have 27,000 families on the homelessness waiting list. They need and deserve a safe and affordable home, but they are denied that home because council houses were sold off and never ever replaced. Grants to replace those homes have now been cut. The rise in temporary accommodation has causes in Government decisions.

That has massive consequences for council finances. Our local authorities are spending over £1 billion a year on temporary accommodation, often at absurd prices for dire quality. The net temporary accommodation bill for Newham has reached £5.5 million a year. The scale of the crisis is absolutely massive. There are 7,725 children in temporary accommodation paid for by the London Borough of Newham. Newham covers 36 sq km, but we have more children living with that form of hidden homelessness—poverty, and poverty of opportunity —than entire regions of England. Let me be clear: that means Yorkshire and the Humber, north-east England, south-west England and the east midlands combined. Greater need, and greater costs for the council, are located in 36 sq km than in 63,000 sq km.

I thought the Secretary of State might be present for this debate, so I looked at his local authority, Newark and Sherwood District Council. There is deprivation and unfairness in the Secretary of State’s patch—I have seen the deprivation map—but overall the number of children stuck in temporary accommodation in Newark is 16. That is 483 times lower than the figure in Newham, so how exactly is it fair to prioritise places such as Newark over places such as Newham? Newham and Newark are not the same—none of our places are the same—and different places do not have the same level of need. They do not have the same deprivation or the same projected population growth for the very near future as we have. They do not have the same living costs for council staff, the same numbers of old people or the same numbers of children needing care. As we know, those latter two services are the most expensive council services of all. Different places cannot raise an equal amount of revenue. In Newark, a 4% rise in council tax raises £14 million; in Newham, it gets us just £3 million.

This is not actually about fairness. All these fine words are cover for a massive transfer of resources from historically Labour areas—including the seats just won by Conservative Members—to the Tory shires. The Government’s plans will not help areas like mine, and they will not solve our problems or heal our divisions, either. To be honest, they are only going to deepen them.