Local Government Funding: North-East
Debate between Marcus Jones and Baroness Chapman of DarlingtonWestminster Hall is an alternative Chamber for MPs to hold debates, named after the adjoining Westminster Hall.
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Jenny Chapman (Darlington) (Lab)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered local government funding in the North East.
It is a pleasure to serve again under your chairmanship, Sir David. I am grateful for the opportunity to have this debate, which I applied for so that I could set out the impact of the local government funding settlement on my constituency and give colleagues from across the north-east the opportunity to make clear to the Minister the consequences for their constituencies of the decisions that he and his colleagues have made.
I welcome the Minister—I am glad that he is here to listen—but I am disappointed. I think it would have been appropriate to have the northern powerhouse Minister, the hon. Member for Stockton South (James Wharton) here, given his stake in the region. His constituency lies in the north-east so his constituents will also be subject to the effects of the Government’s decisions. It would have been good to have the opportunity to tell him how we feel. However, I notice that the Minister is making notes and I am sure that he is all ears and will take back the clear message that we will be sending via him.
May I just tell the Minister a little about the north-east? If his colleague was here I would obviously not need to do this. We are very proud of the north-east. We love the north-east.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (Mr Marcus Jones)
My mum is from the north-east.
Jenny Chapman
Well, my mum is from Kent but I know bugger all about it. [Laughter.]
I want to convey to the Minister that we are incredibly proud of our region. Everyone who lives in the north-east is proud of it. We have a strong industrial heritage and we have an exciting future ahead of us. We are hard workers. We have a beautiful landscape and a wonderful coastline. We have vibrant cities and world heritage sites. We are keen to see the region progress and grow as we know it can, but that needs the support of a Government who understand the north-east, and I do not think that that is what we have.
Alongside all those wonderful things in the north, we have some challenges. I want to say a few things about ageing, and I know that the Minister might also want to refer to it in his response. Life expectancy is lower for men and women in the north-east than anywhere else in the country. For boys born between 2012 and 2014, life expectancy at birth was highest in the south-east and lowest in the north-east. For girls, it is the same: life expectancy is the highest in London, where they will live until they are 84, and the lowest in the north-east, where they will live only until 81. Men in the north-east who get to 65 can expect to live to 78. My dad did not get to 65: he grew up in South Bank in Middlesbrough—somewhere the Minister’s boss knows well, I think—and he died at 48 from heart disease. Lifestyle absolutely was a factor. For women, life expectancy at 65 is highest in London—they will live another 22 years there—and lowest in the north-east, where they will live only another 20 years.
The strategic review of health inequalities in England post-2010—the Marmot review—concluded that health inequalities stem from avoidable inequalities of income, education and employment, and that they are not inevitable and can be reduced. I think that local authorities have a key role to play in that reduction.
Let me give some examples. According to IPPR North, transport spending in the north-east is £5 per head compared with £2,600 per head in London— 520 times less. There are 33 projects in the pipeline for London and the south-east compared with just three in the north-east. The Government need to look at how they evaluate projects and decide where to invest. Our transport infrastructure, including the quality of rolling stock, in the north-east is clearly not good enough compared with that in other parts of the country.
According to the latest Office for National Statistics report on unemployment by region, it is highest in the north-east at 8.7 %. The largest decrease in UK workforce jobs in the last three months of 2015 was in our region—we lost 26,000 jobs. According to the Department for Education’s “NEET Quarterly Brief”, the proportion of 16 to 24-year-olds not in education, employment or training is highest in the north-east, at 20.1%—that is 59,000 young people. According to the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, average wealth in property and assets is lowest in the north-east, where it is half that in the south-east, and financial wealth is four times greater in the south-east. Those are real issues of inequality and opportunity that we think that local authorities are well placed to assist in addressing.
According to the Department for Education, the north-east and the north-west jointly have the highest rate of looked-after children, at 82 per 100,000. The lowest rate is in outer London, the east and the south-east, so we bear the brunt of that burden too. According to the 2011 census, the day-to-day activities of 22% of people in the north-east are limited by a long-term health problem or disability, compared with 18% for England and Wales—remove Wales and the figure is probably even lower. The census also shows that 11% of people in the north-east provide unpaid care for someone with an illness or a disability—a figure that is higher than the national average—and that the north-east has the highest proportion of socially rented accommodation, at 15%.
The point I am trying to make is about need. The Government do not take sufficient account of the varying degrees of need across the country, and councils serving communities with the highest levels of need are not being supported.
Mr Marcus Jones
I have already given way; I am going to make some progress.
Councils now have the opportunity to smooth their path over four years, using reserves where necessary and if they so wish. Even so, we have not made any assumptions that councils will use reserves in any published figures. Despite giving this opportunity, we have made no assumptions that councils will use their reserves in any published figures.
The settlement also responds to the clear call from all tiers of local Government and from many of my colleagues in the House to recognise the priority and increasing cost of caring for our elderly population. As such, we have made up to £3.5 billion available by 2019-20 for adult social care through a dedicated social care precept of up to 2% a year and the improved better care fund. That is significantly more than the amount asked for by the Local Government Association and the Association of Directors of Adult Social Services. We have proposed that the additional better care fund money should be distributed to complement the new council tax flexibility, so more will go councils that can raise the least from that flexibility. We will, however, consult colleagues in local government on that in due course.
We have also prioritised housing. The new homes bonus was due to come to an end, but it has been a useful contributor to the increase in planning permissions being granted. Payments since its introduction in 2011 total just under £3.4 billion, reflecting more than 700,000 new homes and conversions and more than 100,000 empty properties brought back into use.
Jenny Chapman
On a point of order, Sir David. Is it not convention in Westminster Hall to allow time for the person who secured the debate to reply? I believe it is.
Sir David Amess (in the Chair)
I was rather hoping that there might be at least 30 seconds for the hon. Lady to reply.
Local Government Finance (England)
Debate between Marcus Jones and Baroness Chapman of Darlington(8 years, 8 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Mr Jones
I will not give way, because I do not have the time.
My hon. Friend the Member for Beverley and Holderness (Graham Stuart) has been an effective advocate for rural areas, as he was again today. I am glad that he has welcomed the Government’s response to the consultation.
The hon. Member for Darlington (Jenny Chapman) made a very strong speech, but I was surprised because if she feels so strongly why did she not respond to the consultation? If she had done so or if she had looked at the figures closely, she would have seen that Darlington has actually benefited from the way in which the settlement has been prepared.
Mr Jones
No, I will not give way. The hon. Lady will see that that is the case if she looks properly at the figures.
The right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Liam Byrne) absolutely knocked the nail on the head in 2010, when he said, “There is no money.” From his speech today, he seems to have absolutely forgotten that.
My hon. Friend the Member for Sherwood (Mark Spencer) made another sensible contribution to this debate. He talked about the opportunity for councils to raise new council tax and business rates for their local community. Such councils are sensible and are doing the right thing on behalf of their local residents.
It was good to hear from my hon. Friend the Member for North Devon (Peter Heaton-Jones), who talked about his council officers welcoming the improved rural services delivery grant. I agree with him that it is a shame no Liberal Democrats were in the Chamber for this debate.
My hon. Friend the Member for Torbay (Kevin Foster) reminded me of Elvis when he said that the Lib Dems had left the building. It does not seem that the handful of them now left are representing their constituents very well.
Lancashire is a great county. It is a shame that the hon. Member for Burnley (Julie Cooper) talked at length about the negatives but did not mention that Lancashire is actually benefiting from the transitional arrangements that this Government have put in place. It will be very interesting to see whether she votes down a proposal to give more money to her county and to the services provided to her constituents.
My hon. Friend the Member for Torbay made an excellent contribution. He was an excellent deputy council leader in Coventry. He knows his onions and he knows what he is talking about. He explained the importance, particularly in his area, of councils working together to continue to deliver high-quality services for his constituents.
My hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Kevin Hollinrake) made a strong contribution. He pointed out the challenges of providing services in rural areas and the importance of the rural services delivery grant in his area.
My hon. Friend the Member for North Dorset (Simon Hoare) made his usual colourful contribution. I am glad that he did not follow up on the offer he made to the Secretary of State on Monday, but it was much appreciated. His comments were noted. He is a doughty campaigner for his constituents, and it was good that he welcomed the council tax flexibility of £5 for district councils.
This settlement meets the needs of the users of council services. It charts the path to the future accountability of local government. This is a time of big opportunity and expectation for reform in local government. The settlement delivers transition funding to smooth the path from central control to fully localised income: a fivefold increase in support for rural communities next year; a fundamental review of the needs-based formula to chart the path to full business rates retention; and support for social care amounting to £3.5 billion by 2020. I commend it to the House.
Question put.