Communities and Local Government (CSR)

Neil Carmichael Excerpts

Thursday 13th January 2011 Westminster Hall

[Mr Betts]

I have already said that I generally agree that councils should have greater freedom to make choices about spending decisions. In general terms, I welcome the power of general competence to give local authorities even more discretion. Having greater ability to spend but their resources cut is the ironic position in which most of them will find themselves.

[Neil Carmichael (Stroud) (Con)]

I am from Gloucestershire, and I have been dealing with this matter with Gloucestershire county council. I echo the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Brigg and Goole (Andrew Percy) that the Labour Government left councils in a bit of mess by being so prescriptive about areas where they should spend money. The great thing about the present Government is that we will introduce so much more flexibility. Total spending power for front-line services in my area has not been cut as significantly as the hon. Gentleman is suggesting.

[Mr Betts]

I have given the overall figures, and I accept that some areas have done slightly better than others, but all authorities throughout the country had real-terms increases under the Labour Government. I challenge anyone to come back with an authority that did not have a real-terms increase in its spending. Generally, I support that, and I will not defend everything that the Labour Government did. Ring-fencing should be reduced, and I did not agree with separation of the schools grant. The Government have not been willing to challenge that, or give school grant funding back to local councils. If we believe in the freedom for people to spend and choose priorities at local level, perhaps that should have been done. Equally, I am not terribly happy about the free schools policy. It could take money out of local authorities and separate it from the system.

I support allowing local authorities more control over general Government spending in their area—the “total place” approach. I am a little disappointed in the Committee budgets; they are narrowly focused and down to 16 authorities, and that point was made in the Communities and Local Government Committee. However, I welcome the comments made by the Minister of State, when he said that the Government would listen to proposals from local councils if they came forward with wider or more innovative ideas about how Government spending could be better dealt with, so that councils could take the lead as accountable democratic bodies. That was a helpful comment, and I hope that we will see good examples of councils coming forward, and that Ministers will respond positively.

Finally, I would like to look at housing. I welcome the Government’s assertion that they will carry forward reforms to the housing revenue account. That places powers and responsibilities at local level, which is a helpful and welcome move. Local authorities will be disappointed—as am I—that they will not be allowed to keep all the receipts from any right-to-buy schemes, as they could under the previous proposal. I am concerned that the Government have the powers to reopen that settlement at any time. However, the Housing Minister has said that such a move would take place only in certain circumstances, and there is no general presumption that the Government would open the settlement without a reason.

I am concerned that the Government want to impose greater controls on local authorities’ ability to borrow for housing purposes—that goes against the idea of localism. Are not the prudential rules sufficient? Why do further controls need to be brought in as part of the reform? That does not seem to run with the grain of localism promoted by the Government.