Social Cohesion and Democratic Resilience: Khan Review

Debate between Mark Hendrick and Lee Rowley

Tuesday 30th April 2024 Westminster Hall

[Sir Mark Hendrick (in the Chair)]

Order. The Minister talks about being temperate and using temperate language. Could I please remind him to observe that when he makes his comments?

[Lee Rowley]

With absolute pleasure, Sir Mark. I absolutely intend to do so. As has been outlined, my concern is that it is important that we are very clear and very careful about the language we use, which I have sought to be, and about suggestions as to the motivations of others, which I have sought to be. Equally, it is important that we are robust about calling out cases where that care is not taken. All of us have a responsibility in this place and elsewhere to utilise the best and most careful language, assertions and arguments. Today has been an indication of where that is not occurring in places, and I will come on to that more in a moment.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Mark Hendrick (in the Chair)]

Order. Interventions are meant to be short.

[Lee Rowley]

I thank the hon. Lady, who makes some of my case for me. However, turning to her comments, I agree with some of what she says. It is important that we build a shared understanding and a shared set of values in this country. I agree that we should be temperate with language. Where she has called out inappropriate behaviour—I do not agree with all her points—I accept that no party is perfect. I accept that some of my colleagues will have made mistakes. I accept that some words have been looser than they should have been.

However, I hope the hon. Lady will accept that that is not limited to my party or to the Government—there have been multiple examples. However, if we just trade off on the basis of who said what where, or make some kind of case that one political party is worse than the other, when we know that they have all had significant issues with community relations over many years—only one party got into the place it did with regard to antisemitism a number of years ago—we will be much poorer in the debate about this issue.

The hon. Member for Bradford West referenced facts, and I am happy to talk about some of the challenges around the facts she provided a moment ago. She knows that the Inter Faith Network’s funding was withdrawn because of a decision to appoint somebody who had a background in a particular organisation—that was a choice that the organisation made, and it appointed that person. The policy of non-engagement with the Muslim Council of Britain has been in place since the Labour party was in power. Indeed, it was the former Labour Member for Salford—the Secretary of State in the predecessor to my Department—who started that policy of non-engagement with the Muslim Council of Britain in 2009, which my party continues to this day. It is perfectly logical to extend a policy that was introduced and endorsed by the Labour party, on the basis of logic put forward by the Labour party, because of the challenges that we now have. The hon. Member for Bradford West shakes her head, but those are the facts on the assertion that she made.

[Lee Rowley]

I am afraid I will make progress. I have given way a number of times.

The hon. Member for Bradford West made a number of comments about populism and raised a number of concerns about extremism and its definition. When she next speaks in debates like this, she needs to define the specific issues she has with the definition of extremism, because that was not part of her speech when we strip back all the criticisms about individuals. We can always have a robust debate, but if we want to have a mature one, which the hon. Lady claims she does, it would be better to focus on concerns about the specific definitions the Government are trying to bring forward, and what they do and do not achieve, as opposed to spending much more time talking about individuals.

I will probably leave it there. I have many more things I could say about the hon. Lady’s speech, but maybe it is better to deal with those in another forum at another time. I will just say that I do not agree with much of her speech, and I hope that, in time, she will reflect on many of the points that were made.

Putting aside some of the challenges mentioned in Members’ speeches, and what was contained in at least one of them, I think today has shown that all of us feel extremely passionately about ensuring that we build a society that is cohesive and resilient for the long run, and about seeking to utilise what the Government can do to move forward the things we see in our individual communities, whether that be Stoke-on-Trent, Blaydon, North East Derbyshire, Bradford, Strangford—the hon. Member for Strangford is no longer in his place— or elsewhere. We also want to identify the issues that we need to deal with in the years ahead, which is exactly what the commissioning of the Khan review sought to do.

Despite the robustness of the debate, and despite my fundamental disagreements with some of the points that were made, I think it has been a useful debate and a good debate. Again, I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent North for giving us the opportunity and space to have the debate, and I am glad that he and my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent South have had the opportunity to raise specific they are concerned about within their great city. I hope that such robust debates—next time, the language will hopefully be slightly more cautious and temperate—highlight the interest and need of everybody, wherever we sit on the political spectrum, in terms of getting this matter right and making progress for the long run, which is something we all want to achieve.

[Sir Mark Hendrick (in the Chair)]

I call Jonathan Gullis to wind up the debate.

Council Tax and Revenue Support Grant

Debate between Mark Hendrick and Lee Rowley

Tuesday 31st January 2023 Westminster Hall

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (Lee Rowley)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Mark. I am grateful for the opportunity to respond to the debate. My hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset (Chris Loder) is an extremely vocal and proud champion of his local area in West Dorset. We have already spoken about this issue on a number of occasions in the short time I have been in post. He strongly advocates for his constituency’s position and the importance of rural Britain being heard in debates such as this one. I congratulate him on securing the debate and highlighting important points, even though there was a gap in the middle for other reasons.

This is an important issue, and I accept that. My hon. Friend has outlined some of the points that affect his constituency and the supporting unitary authority. It is important we discuss these issues fairly regularly. There will never be a perfect methodology, and there will never be a single answer for everything. There will always be these necessary discussions, but it is important—I say this as someone who represents a semi-rural area as well—that the voice of rural Britain is heard. He has made that voice heard loud and clear today.

In response to my hon. Friend, I want to talk briefly about the broader situation and then answer a number of the points he raised to the best of my ability in the time we have. His point is both broad and narrow. It is broad in that people should have confidence that the system works for all parts of Britain, broad in that we want a local government settlement that reflects need, and broad in ensuring that all parts of our country get the resources we are able to offer. In the usual way, there is a challenge around the allocation of resources in a system that has infinite and worthy demands on it, but very finite resources to support it.

My hon. Friend also makes a more specific and narrow point about the RSG. He has highlighted how that has changed for a number of areas across the country over a number of years. He has highlighted that Dorset has had, for a number of years, a zero or negligible grant. It has gone up slightly this year.

[Sir Mark Hendrick (in the Chair)]

Order. First, I give permission for Members to remove their jackets if they wish. Secondly, I ask the Minister to address his points through the Chair, rather than with his back to the Chair.

[Lee Rowley]

I will do that, Sir Mark. The RSG has been in place since the late 1980s. It has been a feature of the financial and settlement landscapes for a number of years. But, as my hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset has indicated, the utility of the RSG and the way in which it is applied to individual areas, such as Dorset and elsewhere, has changed over recent years. That is to be expected as the local government funding landscape changes over a 20 or 30-year period.

That plays out within the context of a broader settlement, and in order to have these kinds of conversations we have to acknowledge what is within that broader settlement—not just the RSG but all the other grants, and the overall envelope within which it is offered. While I absolutely accept that there are a significant set of challenges at the moment, I hope the sector has recognised—in my experience from speaking with the sector, from unitary councils and districts to county and metropolitan boroughs, it has done—that a significant amount of money has gone into it. While there is still a challenge with inflation, it looks like £60 billion-worth of taxpayer subsidy, in one shape or form, in England will be allocated in the provisional local government finance settlement that was announced for consultation before Christmas. We will make decisions and finalise that for the sector shortly.

That figure represents a significant increase across all councils. We have also provided additional clarity about what is likely to come in the financial year 2024-25, which has been a long-standing request of the sector, irrespective of the way in which it funds its individual services. That has been welcomed by the sector, and I hope we can build on it in future years, once we are through the current spending review period.

Although it has tended to be more relevant for non-unitary councils than unitary councils, we have also given a one-off funding guarantee that meant the provisional settlement contained a floor that ensured that individual councils were able to obtain some uplift prior to deciding what they wished to do or not do about council tax. The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) is no longer in his place, but he raised an important point about his concerns regarding local government finance. I hope that with the provisional settlement and the clarity that we will provide shortly with the financial settlement, we have demonstrated our willingness to respond where we are able.

That is all within an extremely challenging global financial context, which we all know about, even if those on either side of the House disagree in part on the reasons for it. That is all down to challenges that were discussed at the Budget and that have been visible for a number of years—both within the immediate post-covid era and stretching back longer—across many western democracies as debt has risen, as the recovery from the global financial crisis has been attempted and as we seek to accommodate spending decisions that were made a number of years or decades ago, which still have overhang even now. We have to contextualise decisions about the financial settlement as a whole, which will hopefully be finalised soon, and how it is distributed within the very challenging financial context.

My hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset talked powerfully about the particular pressures on children’s services and adult social care, and he is absolutely right to highlight that there have been significantly increasing challenges around both those areas in the last decade or so. That is not unique to Dorset, but is absolutely the case in all other councils, as the hon. Member for Luton North (Sarah Owen) highlighted from the Opposition Front Bench when she spoke of her own experiences of adult social care.

That has been recognised in the last number of years of the financial settlement with the creation of, and then increased funding for, grants earmarked for adult social care and children’s care, including the social care grant. Over recent weeks, we have seen an additional amount made available for adult social care through the discharge fund, of which at least a portion will go through local authorities to support additional social care provision within individual localities, to help the NHS get through the winter challenges. My hon. Friend will probably also be aware of the market sustainability and improvement fund, which is due to come in in the next financial year. So there has been a response to the increasing pressures, and one that reflects greater linearity between grants that are provided by the centre and the challenges and pressures that individual authorities are facing. I hope that that further additional context is helpful.

My hon. Friend talked powerfully and at length about the specific aspects of rural funding. He made a strong point, and I will absolutely consider it more. As he will be aware, councils that have a significant proportion of rurality have already received additional funds through the rural services grant over the last few years. As part of the provisional settlement, we confirmed that that will continue in the coming years. I know that there is a debate about the quantum of that grant, but we have sought to do that. Within the funding formulas for other grants, there is a recognition of need, irrespective of rurality. As my hon. Friend rightly indicated, need is not necessarily related only to urban areas, but is also present in rural areas. I hope that, at least in part, the overall funding settlement is able to reflect that.

I want to talk about three points that my hon. Friend raised—I am not sure he will fully agree with me, but I want to touch on each of them. He made a number of points about the difference, both perceived and actual, between how different parts of the country and different authorities allocate their resources, and about the different funding that comes to different parts of the country, both in terms of what is provided centrally and what is raised. He highlighted a differential between London and other parts of the country, and that is returned to regularly. As somebody who was a councillor in London for eight years and who is now happily back home in Derbyshire as a Member of Parliament, I have seen both sides of the equation. As I say, nothing in life is perfect—no methodology is perfect, and no funding formulas are perfect. However, if there were an equivalent number of Members of Parliament here from urban areas—I know this because I used to be part of this conversation—they too would make a strong case that there are challenges, issues and problems in their areas that need attention. That is not to take anything away from my hon. Friend’s point about comparison, but it offers some context.

There are different pressures in urban and rural areas, in different geographical areas and in areas with different demographics. Ultimately, different choices are made. I have served in councils where there are significant choices around how social care is approached and where different choices are made around how leisure services and library services are approached. If we accept the principle of devolution—I know that my hon. Friend was not making this point per se—we also have to accept that there will be differences in the choices that are made, while recognising that some of those choices are down to the ability to determine things locally and some are more influenced by the overall process and decisions made elsewhere.