Oral Answers to Questions

Nick Raynsford Excerpts

Thursday 25th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Pickles]

I have to say that that is the future of local government. We expect local authorities to merge services and to protect the front line. Prudent councils are doing that. Councils that are more content to use the poor and the vulnerable as a battering ram against the Government will seek to protect the centre and not seek to protect front-line services, whereas good councils will protect the front line.

[Mr Nick Raynsford (Greenwich and Woolwich) (Lab)]

4. What progress has been made in devolving more powers and financial autonomy to local authorities.

[The Minister of State, Department for Communities and Local Government (Greg Clark)]

In six months, the coalition Government have ended the ring-fencing of all but two revenue grants, simplified over 90 separate funding streams for local government to fewer than 10, scrapped comprehensive area assessments and abolished 4,700 central targets on local government. The localism Bill will give many more new powers to local councils, including a general power of competence. This Government are reversing decades of top-down control, which has led to Britain being one of most centralised countries on the planet.

[Mr Raynsford]

The Minister may be aware that, in responding to his Department’s recent paper on proposed changes to social tenancies, Councillor Richard Kemp, leader of the Liberal Democrats in local government, described the proposals as “an irrelevant fantasy” and added:

“No council with any sense of the realities on the ground is going to be interested in this”.

Does the Minister—and, perhaps more interestingly, do his coalition partners—agree?

[Greg Clark]

The consultation my right hon. Friend the Minister for Housing and Local Government has launched has been well received across the sector because it introduces a right, not an obligation, and when we have a homelessness crisis, I think it is right to give registered social landlords more flexibility than they currently have in allocating to homeless tenants.