Education and Local Services

Marcus Jones Excerpts

Tuesday 27th June 2017 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (Mr Marcus Jones)]

This has been a good and wide-ranging debate. I am delighted to have listened to so many fantastic maiden speeches—we have been on a tour of the UK. The hon. Members for Colne Valley (Thelma Walker), for Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill (Hugh Gaffney), for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Lesley Laird), for Oxford West and Abingdon (Layla Moran), for North West Durham (Laura Pidcock), for Belfast South (Emma Little Pengelly), for Glasgow East (David Linden), for Brighton, Kemptown (Mr Russell-Moyle), for East Lothian (Martin Whitfield), for High Peak (Ruth George), and for Nottingham North (Alex Norris) all made passionate contributions from the Opposition Benches.

I would like to take this opportunity to welcome my new colleagues: my hon. Friends the Members for Aberdeen South (Ross Thomson), for Ochil and South Perthshire (Luke Graham) and for Southport (Damien Moore). Those two new colleagues from Scotland are just two of our 12 new Scottish Conservative Members, which is great news. It was fantastic to hear the maiden speeches of my hon. Friends. They made serious but entertaining contributions to the debate and showed that they will be excellent Members of Parliament. All the new Members who have contributed to today’s debate have shown, in their own way, that they will bring a range of expertise and views to this House over the coming Parliament.

A strong education offer is essential to unlock talent, to create opportunities for our young people and to equip them with the skills they will need to help us build and maintain a strong economy that generates prosperity for all. Last year, we consulted widely on how to create more good school places and how to ensure that our schools work for everyone. We will continue to build on the constructive conversations we had with higher education institutions during the consultation, so that we can agree what more they can do to raise attainment and increase the number of good school places.

To meet the needs of our growing and rapidly changing economy, employers need access to a workforce with the skills they require. Our reforms to technical education will help businesses, young people and adults to achieve their potential, as T-levels will become a gold standard for technical excellence.

I will go through some of the points that hon. Members have raised about education. Members on both sides of the House raised the issue of school funding, so it is important to start by reiterating what the Secretary of State for Education said earlier. As she said very clearly, the Queen’s Speech was clear that the Government are determined to introduce a fairer distribution of funding for schools. We will set out our plans shortly and, as was outlined in our manifesto, we will ensure that no school has its budget cut as a result of the new formula. My right hon. Friend was extremely clear on that point.

[Lucy Powell]

Will the Minister give way?

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Jones]

Let me make some progress and then I will give way.

The hon. Member for Denton and Reddish (Andrew Gwynne) mentioned the number of teaching staff being made redundant from our schools. I say to him that there are 15,000 more teachers in our schools today than when his Government left office in 2010.

[Lucy Powell]

rose—

[Tracy Brabin (Batley and Spen) (Lab/Co-op)]

rose—

[Mr Jones]

I will make some more progress before I give way.

In responding to several Opposition Members on nursery school funding, I would like to say how important our nursery schools are. They are a vital part of our childcare sector. We have already committed to an additional £55 million a year to maintain their current funding levels to at least 2020, in recognition that they deal with some of the children from the most deprived backgrounds in our country. I point out to Opposition Members that our manifesto committed us to immediately instituting a capital fund to help primary schools develop nurseries where they currently do not have the facilities for one.

The shadow Secretary of State for Education raised the pertinent matter of school fire safety in her speech. Sprinklers must be installed in new school buildings if a risk assessment means that they are necessary or if they are required under a local authority planning policy. There are no plans whatsoever to introduce any changes that would make fire safety laws for schools less strict than they are already.

[Lucy Powell]

I want to go back to the Minister’s comments about funding, because he seems to be missing the point. The redundancies that are being made in schools now are a result not of the national funding formula but of increased costs and real-terms cuts happening to schools now. The national funding formula is on top that, and schools will continue to lose out. Can the Minister give a guarantee from the Dispatch Box that no school will lose funding as a result of those real-terms cuts?

[Mr Jones]

I can, as a result of the formula that has been put forward. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has made that very clear today.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller) mentioned social mobility and the importance of education in our primary schools. She said that we now have more good and outstanding primary school places than we did seven years ago. My hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) mentioned the importance of tackling domestic violence and welcomed the measures in the Queen’s Speech to do so.

My hon. Friends the Members for Hertford and Stortford (Mr Prisk) and for Cannock Chase (Amanda Milling) made important speeches in which they referred to the opportunities that we have as we leave the European Union. In particular, they said that those opportunities are about not just the trade in goods but the trade in services, which is also critical.

The role that local government plays in providing services is also essential to the smooth running of our society. Despite challenging financial conditions, councils continue to deliver, and council tax is expected to be lower in real terms in 2019-20 than it was in 2010-11. Councils have embraced innovation and transformed the way they work to deliver services for their local areas.

[Maria Eagle]

I accept the Minister’s point that councils provide important services, but can he explain why Liverpool City Council will have lost 68% of its resource by 2020-21?

[Mr Jones]

The Government have had to look extremely carefully at funding in a number of areas over the past seven years, because when the Government the hon. Lady was part of left office in 2010, they left behind a deficit of £150 billion—the country was spending £150 billion more than it was earning every single year.

We have also given councils financial freedoms and flexibilities to manage their own budgets. In 2015 we provided them with more certainty and stability through the offer of a four-year financial settlement, and 97% of eligible local authorities have accepted that. It enables them to plan service delivery, transformation and more effective collaboration with local partners.

[Mr Betts]

Will the Minister give way?

[Gareth Snell]

Will the Minister give way?

[Mr Jones]

I will make some more progress before I give way.

We are also responding positively to help councils meet the cost of increasing service pressures. In the spring Budget we provided an additional £2 billion to put social care on a more stable footing, and allowed relevant authorities the flexibility to raise more income through the adult social care precept. My right hon. Friend the Member for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper) and my hon. Friend the Member for Stafford (Jeremy Lefroy) raised the important issue of social care. The former mentioned the importance of social care for the working-age population and what more we can do to get people with learning disabilities, for example, into work. That is an extremely important aspiration for the Government. The latter talked about what more we can do to deal with the social care challenges that we face, on which the Government will bring forward plans during this Parliament.

[Mr Betts]

Will the Minister give way?

[Mr Jones]

I will not, because I am just coming on to the point that the hon. Gentleman raised.

Before I cover the details of local government finance, I want to mention the important points made by the hon. Member for Mitcham and Morden (Siobhain McDonagh) and my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman) about housing, which I think we all see as a critical issue. That is why we are devolving £3.4 billion to the Mayor of London for affordable housing during this spending period and why, to answer my hon. Friend’s question, we are fully committed to implementing the Homelessness Reduction Act 2017, a piece of legislation that secured agreement right across the House and on which I had the pleasure of working with him.

To answer the hon. Member for Sheffield South East—this was a point raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow East and the hon. Member for Denton and Reddish from the Opposition Front Bench—local government devolution is still very much on the agenda. The Government are committed to delivering the manifesto pledge that we made to help local authorities control more of the money they raise and we will work closely with local government to agree the best way of achieving that.

[Mr Betts]

Before the election there was a Bill before Parliament to introduce 100% retention of business rates by local councils. That was due to start in 2019. This is a two-year Queen’s Speech with no mention of that measure. Can the Minister therefore confirm that this measure will now not go ahead in 2019 as planned?

[Mr Jones]

As I have said, we are absolutely committed to allowing local government to keep more of the money it raises locally and we will work with local government to achieve that.

Some of our councils have also been sorely tested in recent weeks, dealing with major terrorist attacks in London and Manchester, and the appalling fire at Grenfell Tower. Our thoughts across the whole House are with the victims and their families, friends and communities. It is essential, as the Prime Minister has said, that the people affected get the support they need. The efforts of the fire service, the police and the emergency services have been outstanding. As the Prime Minister said last week in her statement on Grenfell Tower, we pay tribute to the London boroughs for their fantastic response. That includes a number of chief executives, who are currently working at the new central command centre, as well as the Mayor of London and leading figures from a number of councils outside London.

It is well documented that the initial response was not as good as it should have been, but since then we have acted quickly, working with local authorities on the immediate issues in advance of the public inquiry into the fire. We rapidly provided funding to help the residents affected by the tragedy and we have the Bellwin scheme available to meet the immediate and uninsurable costs of responding to the disaster. We have also guaranteed funding for temporary accommodation for those whose homes have been destroyed as a result of the fire while permanent homes are found. Funding for legal representation for residents to ensure that their voices are heard during the inquiry will also be provided.

We have seen extraordinary acts of selflessness and spontaneous acts of good will associated with these tragedies, which show just how strong and resilient our communities are. We must foster our togetherness and create the conditions for strong local public services to serve our communities. We value the important work that our public sector workers do in delivering these essential public services. This Government’s proposals will strengthen the economy, generate the tax revenues needed to invest in public services and ensure that all our citizens are provided with high-quality public services, at local and national level, at every stage of their lives. I commend this Gracious Speech to the House.

Ordered, That the debate be now adjourned.—(Craig Whittaker.)

Debate to be resumed tomorrow.