Local Government Finance

Norman Lamb Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd February 2017 Commons Chamber

[Derek Thomas]

I welcome that intervention. My hon. Friend the Member for St Austell and Newquay (Steve Double) often refers to the fact that the Liberal Democrats talked about fairer funding for many years, but that it is only since 2015, when Cornwall elected all Conservative MPs, that we have really seen progress.

[Norman Lamb (North Norfolk) (LD)]

The temptation was too great.

Does the hon. Gentleman share my concern that between now and 2020 predominantly rural areas, including Cornwall and rural Norfolk, will lose out and that the proportion of total spend from council tax payers in rural areas is significantly greater than that in urban areas? This is happening under a Conservative Government. Is he concerned, as I am, about the impact on rural areas?

[Derek Thomas]

I welcome that intervention, if only to say that that has been covered in the previous two and a half hours of debate.

If we were able to achieve fairer funding for schools, police and health and fairer support for local government, and for that to be in permanent legislation, that would be a significant result that south-west MPs could celebrate. For many, many years that was unobtainable.

I will bring my speech to an end by asking the Minister to look at the Isles of Scilly immediately. The pressures are there now and we need to do what we can to help. It is not right that older people face having to move off the islands to receive residential care. Please look at the situation in St Ives and Penzance, where supermarkets seem to be benefiting from the new arrangement. High street shops are the backbone of our local economy. They drive our economy across Cornwall, yet they seem to be the unintended victims.

--- Later in debate ---

[Robert Neill]

That is absolutely true. The connectivity is important, and the culture is important as well. Many of us have come across very good medical people on CCGs who, given the nature of what they signed up to do, are not keen to be managers and budget-holders, which people in local government are well used to being. In many instances, the local authority is willing to engage, but the CCG, with the best will in the world, does not have as great a capacity in terms of its infrastructure and management systems. Those could easily be hosted by the local authority, and the two bodies could work on a collaborative basis, but because of the silo, bottom-up culture in the health service, the CCG is unwilling to engage. What is needed is a political steer from the Department of Health.

[Norman Lamb]

I totally agree with the hon. Gentleman about the difference between the culture in the NHS and the culture in local government. Does he share my view that we should aim for unified health and care commissioning in a locality, with democratic accountability through the local authority, rather than the ridiculous silo approach that exists at present?

--- Later in debate ---

[Steve Double (St Austell and Newquay) (Con)]

I am delighted to contribute to this important debate. I welcome the presence of the single representative of the Liberal Democrats, the right hon. Member for North Norfolk (Norman Lamb); they were late to the party today, but it is very good to have them here eventually. They tell us so often in Cornwall how important they think local government is, but that has not been reflected in today’s debate, sadly.

Local government is on the frontline of delivering services to our residents. I know that from my time as a Cornwall councillor and from the sheer weight of correspondence I get in my office about things that are actually delivered by our local council, whether it is picking up the dog mess, cutting the grass and filling the potholes, or more important issues such as adult social care. We must value local government, therefore, and see it as a central part of delivering services.

It is also clearly right that local government is going through a period of dramatic reform. We need to bring it into the modern age, drive out the inefficiencies and the waste so often found in local government, and make sure that it is fit for purpose and as well-run as possible.

[Norman Lamb]

I really appreciate the welcome the hon. Gentleman gave me. Does he agree with the Rural Services Network, which believes that the impact of the changes for predominantly rural councils, compared with urban councils, is

“not only discriminatory, but also unsustainable for rural local authorities”?

That will have a particularly pernicious effect in counties such as Cornwall and my county of Norfolk.

[Steve Double]

The right hon. Gentleman might have been reading the notes of my speech, because that will be my main point.

We undoubtedly need to reform local government, and I broadly welcome the changes the Department are introducing to the way local government is financed, making it much more directly accountable for raising and spending its own finance and far less dependent on central Government. I also welcome the renewed interest in the Rural Fair Share campaign to address the imbalance that has existed for far too long between the levels of funding received by rural councils as opposed to predominantly urban councils.