Oral Answers to Questions
Patricia Gibson Excerpts(8 months ago)
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Felicity Buchan
Let me explain what occurred. The closure of the Inter Faith Network is a matter for the Inter Faith Network, as an independent charity; it is not a matter for Government. We have always made it very clear to all charities that receive Government funding that they need to have sustainable sources of other funding. In my response to the urgent question about a month ago, I made clear the reasons for the closure. To repeat, the decision to withdraw the funding was taken because of the appointment of a member of the Muslim Council of Britain as a trustee. Governments of various different hues have decided that they will not deal with the Muslim Council of Britain.
Patricia Gibson (North Ayrshire and Arran) (SNP)
The Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (Michael Gove)
SHiFT is an inspirational charity run by a visionary social entrepreneur, Sophie Humphreys. It works in order to ensure that young people at risk of engaging with the criminal justice system are diverted to better outcomes. On Thursday, two new SHiFT interventions will open in Middlesbrough and in Redcar and Cleveland, with the support of £3.9 million from my Department. That is proof that when it comes to intervening early to give young people a better life, it is a Conservative Government and a Conservative Mayor in Tees Valley who are delivering for the most vulnerable.
Patricia Gibson
The levelling-up funding awarded to my constituency three years ago for the upgrade of the B714 has still not been delivered. However, when I have raised concerns that the funding is insufficient for the upgrade, given inflationary pressures, the Secretary of State for Levelling Up told me to raise the matter with the Department for Transport, which in turn referred me back to the Secretary of State. Can I have an explanation from the Secretary of State as to how approved projects can proceed as envisaged, even if funding is delivered, when inflation is not factored into the funding?
Michael Gove
I am grateful to the hon. Lady for making that point. I can offer her, and also the Member of the Scottish Parliament for North Ayrshire and North Ayrshire Council, a meeting with me, so that we can deliver this project, because I know that she is absolutely committed to ensuring that the levelling-up fund—UK Government money—is spent effectively in her constituency. That is proof that we work better together.
Oral Answers to Questions
Patricia Gibson Excerpts(1 year, 6 months ago)
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Rachel Maclean
The hon. Lady highlights the problem of homelessness, which, of course, the Government take extremely seriously. I point out to the Opposition that we have already introduced the Renters (Reform) Bill, which is the biggest reform of the private rented sector in a whole generation. That key measure will abolish section 21 evictions, which are one of the major causes of homelessness. We, on the Conservative Benches, are going to end them.
Patricia Gibson (North Ayrshire and Arran) (SNP)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (Felicity Buchan)
We are encouraged by the first roll-out of voter identification, and we are confident—based on sector feedback and our own observations—that the vast majority of voters will have cast their votes successfully. We have also been pleased to see initial positive feedback to the accessibility changes for disabled people. We will, as set out in legislation, conduct an evaluation and publish the report no later than November.
Patricia Gibson
Of course, the UK Government rejected the Electoral Commission’s suggestion and advice to delay voter ID until after the council elections last month. Does the Minister agree with her former Cabinet colleague, the right hon. Member for North East Somerset (Mr Rees-Mogg)? He said:
“Parties that try and gerrymander end up finding their clever scheme comes back to bite them, as…we found by insisting on voter ID for elections”
and that the Government had
“upset a system that worked perfectly well.”
Does the Minister not accept that voter ID has disenfranchised voters across the political spectrum? Does she want more voter ID restrictions, including for postal votes?
Felicity Buchan
The anecdotal feedback is very much that this has been a successful enterprise. We will have our report come November, and the Electoral Commission’s interim report in June and full report in September. We are prepared to learn lessons, but our evaluation from anecdotal feedback is that it has been a successful roll-out.
Capital Projects: Spending Decisions
Patricia Gibson Excerpts(1 year, 10 months ago)
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Urgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
Each Urgent Question requires a Government Minister to give a response on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Patricia Gibson (North Ayrshire and Arran) (SNP)
Thank you, Mr Speaker. I know you have saved your favourite till last.
Mr Speaker
If the hon. Lady had not been complaining about my choices, she would not have been called last.
Patricia Gibson
Thank you, Mr Speaker.
The Minister has talked repeatedly today about the transformative effect of levelling up, but because levelling up is not inflation-proofed, councils that secured funding last October are facing shortfalls of about 30% in funding for projects because of soaring costs. So projects cannot be delivered as was envisaged and so they cannot level up as was envisaged—which is what led to the success of their bids in the first place. Can the Minister explain why levelling-up bids are not inflation-proofed and therefore cannot deliver on the Government’s own criteria?
Lee Rowley
We are happy to talk to councils about the challenges that they face, and we are happy to accept that inflation is a challenge. This is one of the reasons we need to get inflation out of the system. The difficult decisions made by the Chancellor will allow us to do that and will allow the money to go further, not just in the levelling-up fund but elsewhere in government, and in the private sector as a whole.
Levelling-up Fund Round 2
Patricia Gibson Excerpts(1 year, 11 months ago)
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Lucy Frazer
My hon. Friend makes a number of important points. Local councils were informed last night that we can improve on that. There were successful and unsuccessful areas, and that is because this levelling-up round was so successful. Some £8 billion-worth of bids were made, so of course there will be unhappy people this morning. However, £2 billion-worth have been successful.
On my hon. Friend’s second point, we will be providing feedback because there will be a third round and we want people to understand why they were not successful in this one.
Patricia Gibson (North Ayrshire and Arran) (SNP)
Scotland’s share of the funding is £177 million out of £2 billion—some 8.5%. That proves that the distribution of the funding is not needs-based at all and therefore, by definition, not levelling up. Around £1.1 billion of the £1.6 billion total levelling-up funding in England has been awarded to areas where there is a Tory MP or a majority of Tory MPs. The Chancellor’s constituency, one of the most affluent in the UK, has been successful; my own constituency of North Ayrshire and Arran, one of the most economically challenged constituencies in the UK, has not been successful in this round.
Let us not forget that the last successful bids, which took place last October, were based on costings at that time. However, labour and material costs have soared. Unless the funds are renewed, the bids cannot be delivered as envisaged and therefore they cannot level up as anticipated at the time. Is it not the case that the whole so-called levelling-up pantomime is more about Tory PR, spin and pork barrel politics than any attempt to reduce inequality?
Lucy Frazer
The answer to that point is absolutely not. The hon. Member forgot to mention that Scotland got £177 million—[Interruption.] The total is £349 million across both funds. The Opposition are making points about party politics, so I would like to point out that 45% of investment across both rounds has been allocated to areas held by Opposition parties.
Draft Architects Act 1997 (Amendment) Regulations 2022
Patricia Gibson Excerpts(2 years ago)
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Patricia Gibson (North Ayrshire and Arran) (SNP)
Mr Robertson, do you remember the good old days, when the UK was in the EU? We agreed mutual recognition of professional qualifications, so there was automatic recognition of European architectural qualifications—UK-trained architects could work freely in the EU, and vice versa. Today we see an end to that; instead, we have some unpersuasive and unconvincing comments about a couple of architects in Australia. We are not satisfied by that.
Brexit is increasingly closing doors, including to UK architects working in Europe, and vice versa. We have seen that as well with fishermen, artists and the creative industries. No longer do those professional people have the right to work seamlessly in the UK under the reciprocal arrangements that we had.
The UK has been a global hub for international architectural services and exports. That is increasingly threatened, as in so many other areas. We want to see more information and detail, if the Minister can give that to us. With which countries is the UK continuing to engage in dialogue on bilateral, reciprocal arrangements? What reassurances can the UK Government give that they are already in discussion with EU and European economic area countries, and indeed Switzerland, as a bare minimum?
We wish to see the same terms agreed as when we were a member of the EU. We do not want architectural business and investment in Scotland to fall through the cracks if there is any gap between the regulations coming into force and the reciprocal agreements being signed. Perhaps the Minister will set that out for us. We do not want to see global companies choosing Amsterdam and Paris as cities for their European offices, instead of Edinburgh and London, because the UK is no longer aligned with the EU on qualifications and is therefore less appealing as a European base.
This process can of course do nothing, despite our best efforts. As long as we are facing the Brexit we face, the whole process can only have a negative, adverse impact on the architectural industry. We have already seen that in the creative sector in general and across business, given the uncertainty that has been created. We need reciprocal arrangements with the European Union to be signed, because what was once a simple administrative application is now a much more complex process, with more paperwork and proofs of compliance required, which is burdensome.
The hon. Member for Basildon and Billericay talked about downturns across the whole European economy, but I gently say to the Minister that it is worth noting that Ireland is a small, independent country in Europe, and its economy is expected to grow next year by 5.4%, while the UK’s economy is expected to shrink by 0.8%. We are talking about the impact on the business sector. Those using the UK as any kind of hub for any sector must bear such things in mind, and the real consequences of Brexit for our economy.
Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill
Patricia Gibson ExcerptsWednesday 23rd November 2022
(2 years ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Levelling-up and Regeneration Act 2023 View all Levelling-up and Regeneration Act 2023 Debates Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: Consideration of Bill Amendments as at 23 November 2022 - (23 Nov 2022)
Patricia Gibson (North Ayrshire and Arran) (SNP)
Because so much of the Bill focuses on England only, I will concentrate my remarks on amendment 14. The fact that this amendment has to be tabled at all shows that the Government cannot, and do not expect to, meet their own expectations raised in the Bill. There is nothing more dangerous than raising expectations that will not be met.
This is not just a Bill in the usual sense; levelling up is not a run-of-the-mill promise that can easily be broken and forgotten. According to the Government, the very concept of levelling up is a flagship policy—a policy designed to change the face of the UK, genuinely to seek to spread prosperity and opportunity, and to make our communities better right across the board. Anyone who has such expectations based on what the Government have said about the Bill and its aims will, I fear, be disappointed. The very fact that amendment 14 exists illustrates that they will be disappointed. It is not credible that a Government so in love with austerity can be trusted to level up in any meaningful and sustainable way. Growth in the UK has been fatally undermined by both incompetence and Brexit. That is why amendment 14 matters and why we in the SNP support it.
In the absence of growth and grown-up and frank conversations about the damage of Brexit, we have instead vague missions, with no real plans for delivery—missions that are, according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies, of dubious quality. Yet still the Government have reserved to themselves the power to change the goalposts. That demonstrates that the Government are not even clear about how they will measure the success or the progress of the very missions that they have set themselves.
An annual report can apparently make everything all right, but it simply will not be enough to keep the Government on track to achieve their objectives. There is also a lack of ownership and accountability for each of the 12 levelling-up missions by individual Government Departments. None of this is news to the Government, of course, which is why they have retained that authority to move the goalposts and change their own targets if they are not going to be met. This is like someone marking their own homework and reserving the right to change the pass mark of the test that they have set themselves. That does not sound like a Government who are confident about their own delivery, even though we are talking about a flagship policy.
Simon Hoare (North Dorset) (Con)
Does the hon. Lady honestly think that there is something fundamentally wrong in a Government Department saying that it will have measures and targets, that it will review, and that it may recalibrate and tweak in order to reflect circumstances over a period of time? Governments do not straitjacket themselves. There has to be flexibility, particularly when taxpayers’ money is being deployed.
Patricia Gibson
The hon. Gentleman makes an important point. It is not about flexibility; it is about credibility. There is nothing wrong with the aims as articulated by the UK Government, but a Government cannot set themselves a task, call it a flagship policy and then reserve the right to move the goalposts as and when they fail to make progress. That is an important point.
The hon. Gentleman brings me to another very important matter. On the delivery of levelling up, what of the bids that were announced as being successful this time last year? We are in a different situation now, because the costs of labour and resources are being impacted by inflationary pressures. With regard to infrastructure projects, for example, road stone inflation is currently running at around 35%. This means that, in order to continue to support the levelling-up projects to which they have committed funds, the UK Government must increase the awards already made to take account of inflation, or councils must make up the difference because of the impact of inflation, which is difficult as council resources are already very stretched, or projects that were envisaged and costed last year are significantly scaled back. If it is the latter, that is very serious, because even successful levelling-up bids cannot have the impact that was first envisaged when the bids were made and approved. It is a mess.
There is also a significant impact on projects currently awaiting approval as they will be similarly hit with soaring inflation. I am very keen to find out how this will be dealt with. If this is not taken into account, bids already approved are hamstrung and cannot have the impact envisaged, which means that levelling up, as set out in the Bill, will amount to even less than it did before, with its vague missions and moving goalposts. It is no wonder that the Government want the ability to move the goalposts.
How ironic that, after more than a decade of Tory misrule and austerity, the UK is in a worse position than it should be, facing the worst downturn of any advanced economy in the world. No eurozone country is expected to decline as much as the UK, and, as a whole, the eurozone is expected to grow—so much for levelling up. In this context, marking their own homework and permitting changes to the mission, progress and methodology start to make the Government look more than a little suspicious. They could, of course, support amendment 14 and put all those suspicions to bed.
We are supposed to be persuaded simply by the mere passing of a Bill, vague and lacking in credibility as it is, that this Government can and will deliver levelling up. It is almost Orwellian. At the very point that we have a weakened economy, crumbling exports, rising food prices, rising energy prices, challenges with our fuel supply, and with the Government’s own forecasts predicting worse to come, the Secretary of State has the power to change the mission and progress of levelling up. That does not look like a Government who are confident and certain that they will actually deliver the meaningful levelling up that they say they want to deliver. However, if they support amendment 14, they could commit themselves in a way that would be far more credible.
Nickie Aiken
In the time available to me today, I will cover two amendments to the Bill, both of which I originally tabled. One has been taken on by the Secretary of State, for which I am incredibly grateful.
First, new clause 4, which stands in my name, is a technical amendment. My constituency covers two local government areas: the City of Westminster and the City of London. Both are subject to the rules governing the participation of councillors in formal discussion or in voting on matters where they have a pecuniary interest, as per the Localism Act 2011. The rules apply to Westminster and the City of London, but in the City, uniquely, there is an additional provision, contained in what is now section 618 of the Housing Act 1985, that bans councillors outright from discussing or voting on such matters. Contravening this ban constitutes a criminal offence.
The history of these provisions has been examined by the City’s officials, but their origin remains unexplained. These provisions have simply been repeated without comment in successive consolidations of housing legislation over the past 30 years. Members may ask why I have tabled this amendment. I do so because I believe, as I am sure everyone in this place does, that local people should be represented at council decision-making meetings, such as planning committees, when an application within a ward is being heard. As things stand, if there is a planning application that affects, say, the Barbican or Golden Lane estates in the City, a local councillor who represents Aldersgate or Cripplegate but who lives on one of those estates cannot speak at committee. To do so could lead to their being prosecuted. That is outdated and in fact outrageous.
By removing the punitive provisions in subsections 618(3) and (4) of the 1985 Act, my amendment corrects that anomaly and allows members of the Court of Common Council in the City of London to represent their residents, as every other councillor in the country does. This is a matter of equality of treatment, with which I am sure my hon. Friend the Minister will agree.
Secondly, I want to touch on Government amendment 1. The case for repealing the Vagrancy Act 1824 was made in this Chamber during debate on the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022. From conversations I have had with both the Metropolitan Police and the City of London Police, I believe alternative powers to deal with aggressive begging are already available and are being used, as we would expect. We have those powers from the Anti-Social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014, so it should be no surprise that arrests and prosecutions under the Vagrancy Act have plummeted since 2014.
Dehenna Davison
I had not planned to do so, because of the breadth of contributions that we have had today, but I am happy to write to the hon. Member on that point after the debate.
The hon. Member for South Shields (Mrs Lewell-Buck) spoke to amendments 71 and 72. She is incredibly passionate about this important matter, as she has demonstrated not only today but in Committee and in other contributions. I go back to the point that I made to the hon. Member for Wirral West (Margaret Greenwood): the Bill is designed to set out not the missions themselves, but the framework for them to exist. That is why we will not enshrine any particular missions in the Bill. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for South Shields and I had the same debate in Committee; I see her shaking her head, but I do not think that she is surprised by my response.
Let me very briefly address a point that the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Nottingham North (Alex Norris), and the SNP spokesperson, the hon. Member for North Ayrshire and Arran (Patricia Gibson), made about the levelling-up missions. They spoke about removing the ability to amend the methodology and the matrices. I am concerned about that, not because it is some kind of cynical aim, as has been suggested, but because data will be incredibly important in assessing our success in addressing the levelling-up missions. As we get new data sources, new datasets and new ways of presenting the data, it is important that we have the flexibility to access and use the data to its maximum potential. That is why I do not agree with amendment 14.
Patricia Gibson
The Minister says that flexibility is important, so can she explain what the Government will do about the first successful bids, which are now falling short because of inflationary pressures on labour and materials?
Dehenna Davison
The hon. Member will be pleased to know that I have a note to return to that in a moment.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Chipping Barnet (Theresa Villiers) and my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight (Bob Seely) raised some important points. We will come to many of their amendments on the second day of Report, when they will have an opportunity to speak on them in more detail. That will be coming soon. Both Members highlighted the passion around high streets, which, as we all know across the House, are vital to the heart and soul of any community. I am grateful to them for raising new clause 34 on compulsory purchase orders. The measures already in the Bill put it beyond doubt that local authorities have the power to use compulsory purchase for regeneration processes, but we are modernising the process to make it faster and more efficient.
As I announced in Committee, we are going even further by asking the Law Commission to undertake a review and consolidation of the law on compulsory purchase and compensation, to make it more accessible and easier to understand. As part of that work, the Law Commission will review existing CPO enabling powers to ensure that they are fit for purpose, and will make recommendations where appropriate. I do not believe that the new clause is necessary; however, I put on the record my gratitude to both Members for the incredibly constructive way that they have engaged on not just this part of the Bill but all of it, particularly regarding planning and housing matters. My hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight said that I promised a visit. I am very much looking forward to visiting the Isle of Wight in due course.
Oral Answers to Questions
Patricia Gibson Excerpts(2 years, 1 month ago)
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Patricia Gibson (North Ayrshire and Arran) (SNP)
It has been quite something to listen to hon. Members on both sides of the House arguing for more powers for councils in England while they conspire to prevent powers for the Scottish Parliament—they are better together. After several tumultuous and wasted months while the Tories fought with each other as households struggled, I welcome the Secretary of State back to his place. During the autumn statement, levelling up did not merit a single mention, yet we are told that it is the Government’s flagship policy. With deeper austerity cuts slated for after the next election, the future of the levelling-up agenda is more in doubt than ever. Does he agree that levelling up requires a long-term commitment and that a levelling-up agenda cannot credibly survive the planned Tory austerity on stilts?
Michael Gove
The hon. Lady knows that I have enormous affection for her. As one of the first and most effective advocates for levelling-up funding going to her constituency, alongside the Holyrood representative for that constituency, I look forward to working with her and her colleagues to make sure that the levelling-up fund bids from Scottish authorities, which are enthusiastically supported by many SNP colleagues, are delivered on time. It is wonderful to see so many people in the Scottish National party arguing for more UK Government spending in their constituencies—long may it be so.
Patricia Gibson
Despite what we have just heard, the Office for Budget Responsibility estimates that there will be a 7.1% fall in real-terms wages over the next two years in the sharpest fall in living standards since the second world war. That is before the Government implement their new rocket-charged austerity agenda, which will reduce living standards significantly more—so much for levelling up. With Scotland short-changed and suffering from a Brexit-inflated recession as part of broken Britain, can the Secretary of State explain if that is why the Government are reduced to seeking to deny democracy to Scotland, because Scots now know that, with all the powers of an independent country, we could do better?
Michael Gove
It is certainly the case that there are many talented politicians in the Scottish Government and on the SNP Benches, including the hon. Lady. I gently point out, however, that in England, there has been a devolution of powers to local government, and there has been cross-party consensus between Labour and the Conservatives that we should have that. Sadly, while the Scottish Government have been in power, we have seen no similar devolution of powers to local authorities in Scotland; quite the opposite: we have seen centralisation, with business rates hitting the north-east of Scotland and Police Scotland centralising powers in a way that goes against the spirit of trusting local people. I know from the many conversations I have with people in the north-east, the highlands, the islands and the Borders, that they wish to change the central belt centralisation of the Scottish Government—and I know that she agrees.
Management of the Economy and Ministerial Severance Payments
Patricia Gibson Excerpts(2 years, 1 month ago)
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Patricia Gibson (North Ayrshire and Arran) (SNP)
There was a time, not so long ago, when Governments took responsibility. Listening to the Minister, it seems that time has passed, as we heard no contrition and no humility for the Government’s calamitous decisions.
The events of the last few months in particular have been unbelievable, even by the standards of this Tory Government. “It’s all the fault of Putin. It’s all the fault of covid. A big boy did it and ran away.” People across the UK, including in my North Ayrshire and Arran constituency, are now suffering real financial harm and real financial hardship as a result of this Government’s incompetence. The Minister says there are tough roads ahead, and there are indeed tough roads ahead, but those roads will not be travelled by all equally.
Neil Coyle
The hon. Lady shows more courtesy than the Minister did.
The Minister would have us believe that the Government’s Budget had nothing to do with the 8,000 people in Southwark paying higher mortgage rates, and she would like to blame Russia. Does the hon. Member for North Ayrshire and Arran (Patricia Gibson) believe that the Government should take measures to punish those in Moscow and Russia who have profited since the war broke out, such as the Prime Minister’s family, to the tune of £7 million?
Patricia Gibson
The public are becoming increasingly wise to the snake-oil salesman approach in which one thing is said, accompanied by handwringing and head shaking, but no real action is taken to tackle those who profit in a way that most people would find obscene.
If we listened to the Minister, we would think that the so-called mini-Budget had not happened at all. The name “mini-Budget” is ironic because it makes it sound small, but the damage it has caused is very considerable. This Budget revealed, for those who still harboured any vestiges of doubt, whose side the Tories are really on. The so-called mini-Budget sought to scrap the bankers’ bonus cap, reduce taxes for the most well off, cancel the planned increase in corporation tax, refuse to bring forward an extended windfall tax and weaken the rights of trade union members.
Labour’s opposition to the mini-Budget amounted to £24 billion out of £43 billion of tax cuts, and it was left to the right hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell), as it so often is, to call this mini-Budget what it actually is:
“the most socially divisive Budget in a generation.”
I understand that Labour is a bit worried about upsetting hardcore Tory voters in England, but sometimes harsh language has to be used.
Once the markets took fright and Labour saw the extent of the mini-Budget’s fiscal irresponsibility, it demanded that the entire mini-Budget be reversed, which was not its original position. The Resolution Foundation noted that almost half the gains from the proposed tax cuts would have gone to the richest 5%, who would have gained £8,650 on average, while the poorest half of households would have gained £230 on average. Almost two thirds, 65%, of the gains from the personal tax cuts would have gone to the richest fifth of households.
Torsten Bell from the Resolution Foundation described the measures as a
“simply staggering…tax cut for richer households”.
Save the Children described the tax cuts as
“a hammer-blow to low-income families”.
There were £45 billion of unfunded tax cuts, almost exclusively benefiting the rich.
While all this was going on, the SNP in Scotland was being urged, not least by the hapless hon. Member for Moray (Douglas Ross) among others, to follow the Tories in Westminster in entering the bowels of tax-cutting hell, where the most well off enjoy the windfall of a tax-cutting bonanza. Of course, he U-turned on this, as he so often does. It is often hard to tell if he is going somewhere or coming back.
It was, quite frankly, immoral for such a Budget to be delivered when so many are struggling to pay their bills, and the consequences of announcing these measures—again, it is difficult to call it a mini-Budget given its consequences—were catastrophic. The pound dropped by nearly 2% against the dollar, to the lowest level since 1985. The IMF rebuked the Government for causing such damage to the economy, and international investors declared that the UK’s greater economic suffering than similar countries is a consequence of the “moron premium” it pays due to its terrible leadership under the Tories. The cost of this so-called moron premium stands at £30 billion.
For households across the UK, the cost of the Government’s staggering incompetence is still being counted. Forty-one per cent. of mortgage deals that had previously been available were pulled by the banks, with more than 1,700 mortgage products being reintroduced at rates 2 percentage points higher, leaving hundreds of thousands of families across the UK paying far more for their mortgage. Pensions almost collapsed, and the instability within the UK was the talk of the international steamie. The Minister talks about restoring financial stability, but such urgent measures would not have been needed had the Government not caused such instability.
Danny Kruger
It is true that mortgages are at their highest rate in 10 years, in Germany. Does the hon. Lady blame the mini-Budget for that? If not, what does she think might be happening?
Patricia Gibson
The hon. Gentleman cannot escape the fact that the markets went into meltdown after the mini-Budget. I know this Government want to pretend the mini-Budget, the consequent run on the pound and the near collapse of the pension system did not happen, but government is about taking responsibility and even saying sorry when mistakes are made.
David Linden
Would my hon. Friend also point out to the hon. Member for Devizes (Danny Kruger) that the Government cannot have their cake and eat it? They sometimes talk in this Chamber about how Germany is over-reliant on Russian gas, but simply trying to use Germany as a comparator in this argument is rather like comparing apples and avocados, is it not?
Patricia Gibson
Absolutely, and I am sure the hon. Member for Devizes (Danny Kruger) will be taking note and learning the lessons he needs to learn from that insight.
There is not expected to be a reduction in mortgage rates any time soon.
Patricia Gibson
Some estimates put additional mortgage costs at £5,100 a year, on average, by the end of 2024. I hear the chuntering from the hon. Gentleman about mortgage rates going down. He would do well to reflect on the fact that 73% of mortgage holders are worried about rate rises.
Alongside this, the UK Government are set to raise taxes. They will balance the cost of their own incompetence on the backs of those who are already struggling, and whose struggles have been made so much worse by a Government who could not find their backside with both hands. The number of Scots seeking mortgage help has nearly quadrupled, again as a result of this Government’s staggering incompetence. It is particularly galling for people in Scotland, the majority of whom roundly rejected this Government.
As if all this were not enough, inflation is soaring, rising to over 10% in September, a rate not seen since the early 1980s, outpacing normal earnings growth and expected to peak at 11%. Inflation is partly driven by sky-high energy costs, and the Government are already backtracking on the one thing they have done to bring down energy costs, with the expected bill rises early next year hammering households all over again—we could see bills of more than £4,000 in April. The shadow of recession is looming over the UK and threatens Scotland’s recovery from the pandemic, with the Scottish Government’s budget £1.7 billion lower due to the impact of inflation and the need to help households on which the UK Government have turned their back. This means that in Scotland budgets have had to be reprioritised across a range of areas to provide this much-needed support. Sadly, for the Labour party, when Wales’s budget is under pressure it is the fault of the UK Government because of how devolution works, but when the Scottish Government’s budget is under pressure Labour joins the Tories in condemning the SNP. That is why Labour is thrashing around in its death throes in Scotland, because standing shoulder to shoulder with the Tories is not working for it. The people in Scotland are not fooled.
It is bad enough that households across the UK are struggling to balance budgets in the face of soaring inflation, rocketing energy bills and huge increases in mortgage costs, and it is bad enough that my constituents in North Ayrshire and Arran are facing unprecedented financial pressures, but while they do they are watching the revolving door of Government jobs, which have been changing with breathtaking speed. The loss of a Cabinet post is compensated for with three months’ salary, and that applies even to those who were in post for only a few weeks. Sky News has reported that this ministerial churn has amounted to £709,000 in severance payments for former Ministers and Whips. A total of 71 Ministers are eligible for this pay as a result of the instability of this Government. In view of the financial stress our constituents are facing because of decisions made by this Government, they have a right to know who has taken these payments, which are due entirely as a result of the instability and incompetence of this Government. Perhaps the Minister will be able to tell us today, but I certainly will not hold my breath.
Anthony Browne
I wonder whether the hon. Lady would refresh my memory. She has been talking about the severance pay that the UK Government pay to former Ministers, but what do the Scottish Government do? I understand that in Scotland Ministers who leave are also entitled to three months’ pay, just the same as it is for the UK Government, and that they often take it up. Do correct me, but I understand that it is the same.
Patricia Gibson
Perhaps the hon. Gentleman has listened to a podcast or something and has not been listening to half of this debate. The point of today’s debate is that the instability created by this Government means that Ministers who have been in post for a matter of weeks are hoovering up huge payoffs. If he can tell me that there is a precedent for this level of instability, I am happy to sit down and let him explain it to me. I see that he is not attempting to do so, so perhaps he should sit there and reflect on the fact that he is attempting to defend tens of thousands of pounds being paid to Ministers who were in post for a matter of weeks. If he is happy to defend that, he certainly will not have the confidence of my constituents.
David Linden
Just to reassure my hon. Friend, I can confirm, as a keen and close watcher of Scottish politics, that in the Scottish Parliament Ministers do not resign on average every four days, as they appear to do in Westminster.
Patricia Gibson
I thank my hon. Friend for that, but the hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire (Anthony Browne) seems to think that this is okay and perfectly in order. Goodness knows what his constituents will make of it, but that is a matter for him.
If Labour Members are concerned about these obscene ministerial payments, they must support the amendment tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow East (David Linden), which would prevent this situation. That is really important, because we cannot allow this situation to continue. All of this adds up to an incompetent Government who have no direction or judgment. They have brought us into this mess—
Mr Deputy Speaker
Indeed. So there is no amendment and it is a straight vote on the motion.
Patricia Gibson
Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. I regret that the amendment has not been selected.
The Government have brought us into this mess, inflicted financial harm and are thrashing around to try to fix it. It is a failure of the Labour party not to be able to take on, in England, these arguments. The Labour party is preparing for government, but it has been caught out, because its interim leader, who was intended to steady the ship, will now, by himself, by default, lead the party into the next election. This is a London-centric ostrich, in common with the Tories, who thinks he can dictate, in a deluded fashion, to Scotland just how much democracy it can have. I think he will find, when the votes are counted in Scotland, that that will not have worked very well for him.
The reality is that when Labour and the Tories dictate to Scotland at election time, they are, in effect, two baldy men fighting over a comb. The voters of Scotland are sick to death of being patronised and talked down to, with their right to choose their own path dismissed and ignored by those who set themselves above them as their betters. The UK is in a mess—it is broken. Scotland did not vote for this and the incompetence of this Government is having an impact on Scotland in a way that is undemocratic, because we did not vote for this. It will never vote for a Labour party that is trying to out-Tory the Tories to win Tory seats in England with a pretence that Brexit can be good for the UK and to impose it on Scotland despite the damage it is causing. Shame on you! A plague on both your houses. Scotland will choose her own path and we will extract ourselves from this sorry mess of Westminster. Scotland will choose her own path in spite of, and because of, this shower in Westminster.
Paul Howell
No—that is the easy answer. There have been many challenges with Brexit, but we voted Brexit through in late 2019. Being in a pandemic three months later did not exactly help the process of getting things done.
Coming back to my point, since the pandemic the Government have spent billions to protect businesses. Are Opposition Members saying that we should not have spent that money—that we should not be in debt because of covid and that we should not have supported businesses and people?
Patricia Gibson
The international investment markets have talked about the UK’s suffering more economic hardship than other comparable countries, which they refer to as the “moron premium”. How does the hon. Gentleman respond to that? Are they wrong?
Paul Howell
There are so many people who have so many opinions about the different things that have happened and will put them into different contexts. We need to keep ourselves in context. To quote the numbers, the House of Commons Library estimated that the Government spent between £300 billion and £400 billion on various pandemic-related issues. That is between £4,600 and £6,100 for each individual. That is a tremendous amount of money. Before we had the chance to recover from the pandemic, Russia invaded Ukraine, causing the price of food and so on to explode. The enormous support that the Government have given in response to energy prices is expected to cost £60 billion over six months.
The Labour party are scaremongering that the support will stop in April and everybody is falling off a cliff. Nobody has said it is stopping in April. They have said that the likes of you and I, Mr Deputy Speaker, might not be receiving support—I would quite like to get support, but I do not need it. We need to ensure the money we spend is spent with those who need it, not those who just want it, and achieve that balance, but the immediate reaction on energy support—to provide it as quickly as possible—was wholly appropriate.
When people start to talk about interest rates, the rhetoric we hear from Labour about the £500 increase is selective noise, using a specific comparator of a two-year mortgage that was 1.6% two years ago, was 3.7% before we went into the mini Budget and is now probably close to 5%. The real effect on people is not a £500 difference.
Patricia Gibson
Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the £65 billion used to shore up pension funds following the mini-Budget—£1,000 for every man, woman and child in the UK—is also a testament to the incompetence of this Government?
Justin Madders
Indeed; we are all the poorer for this folly and we will all be paying the price for many years to come. And where was the Prime Minister during all this? He did not say a word; I did not hear anything from him about why this was wrong. He kept silent and kept his cards close, playing the game, waiting for the opportunity to strike. But now it is his responsibility to clear this mess up and he had better do that.
While the markets have now begun to stabilise a little, the damage has already been done for many, with those coming off fixed-rate mortgages facing payment increases of five to seven times their current deal and some being shut out of the housing market entirely. Anyone on a fixed rate, and that is many of us, will be looking ahead in despair and fear over the next 12 to 18 months at what their mortgage payments will be. Martin Lewis has warned about a ticking timebomb; it is indeed a timebomb and, worse still, this did not need to happen at all.
The impact is not solely on those with mortgages. In my constituency, the pressure on the private rental sector is extremely high, which has already contributed to increasing rents. It is now impossible to secure a three-bed family property for less than £900 a month, which is about 50% of the average income in the constituency. I am already hearing from landlords who cannot afford to continue to rent out their properties without drastically hiking the rents, something many of them know is simply not realistic. They are therefore selling their properties, which will reduce the number of available properties in the private sector and push up rents again. Other landlords are now considering issuing section 21 notices to their tenants, because they know that if they relet the tenancies they can get 20% to 30% extra on the rents; that will push yet more people into homelessness.
Finally I want to say a few words about a group who, sadly, know only too well the impact of high mortgage rates: mortgage prisoners who have been trapped on standard variable rates for years. A constituent of mine is facing the 14th year on such a rate, and in October his mortgage increased once again by £100 a month. In 2021, he was on a fixed rate of 4.54%, double the average two-year fixed rate deal available at the time. Through no fault of his own, my constituent is limited in the mortgage products he can access and while the amendment to the Financial Services and Markets Bill would have capped mortgage prisoners’ SVRs and ensured access to fixed-rate deals under certain circumstances, the Government chose to vote that down. The measures introduced to provide switching options were found to have a limited effect by the Financial Conduct Authority, and with the contraction of mortgage products, hope for mortgage prisoners is now at an all-time low. They have experienced for years the issues that are now widespread in society, leading to frustration from many that their plight was met with little coverage or understanding when it could have been addressed and mortgage rates were historically low. I recognise those frustrations.
The Government also must ensure that any measures cover not just mortgage prisoners but other people who are trapped in their homes. Many leaseholders with unsafe cladding or other fire defects, and those with egregious ground rent clauses that make the properties unsellable, will see their costs increase due to interest rates going up, but they will not even have the choice of being able to sell their properties because a lack of Government regulation has let them down by leaving them in a home that they do not really own but they cannot leave. That is a wrong that it is taking far too long to put right.
Oral Answers to Questions
Patricia Gibson Excerpts(2 years, 2 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mr Speaker
I call the Scottish National party spokesperson, Patricia Gibson.
Patricia Gibson (North Ayrshire and Arran) (SNP)
Thank you, Mr Speaker.
My hon. Friend the Member for Inverclyde (Ronnie Cowan) has raised his concerns about levelling-up funds reaching his constituency, but if levelling up is to mean anything, it should ultimately be about reducing child poverty. In Scotland, the Scottish Government are doing what they can to deal with child poverty, but in my constituency it stands at a shocking 25%, and that figure is set to increase thanks to the decisions made by the UK Government. So will the Secretary of State explain what reduction in these shocking levels of child poverty he believes will be achieved as a result of the levelling-up agenda?
Mr Clarke
The levelling-up agenda is broad and wide, but it does not take account of the levers that sit with the hon. Lady’s parent Government in Holyrood. Whether on welfare, drugs or education, so many of the things that will make a difference to children’s lives sit within the responsibility of the Scottish Government. They need to work those levers.
Patricia Gibson (North Ayrshire and Arran) (SNP)
Recently, I raised concerns about fracking being imposed on Scotland using the United Kingdom Internal Market Act 2020. The Business Secretary replied that that Act is the Koh-i-Noor jewel in the crown of the UK constitution—an unfortunate comparison given that the Koh-i-Noor was pillaged from India by the British. Then we heard a Tory MP suggest that fracking should go ahead in Scotland, instead of in her constituency. As the Secretary of State for Communities, will he make it clear to his Cabinet colleagues that there must be no move to impose fracking on communities in Scotland?
Mr Clarke
Fracking will take place only where there is community consent.
Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill (Fifth sitting)
Patricia Gibson ExcerptsTuesday 28th June 2022
(2 years, 5 months ago)
Public Bill CommitteesRead Full debate Levelling-up and Regeneration Act 2023 View all Levelling-up and Regeneration Act 2023 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: Public Bill Committee Amendments as at 28 June 2022 - (28 Jun 2022)
Patricia Gibson (North Ayrshire and Arran) (SNP)
There is a lot of interest in the idea of levelling up and its lofty and laudable aims, but warm words and good intentions, of themselves, will not reduce inequality across the UK. There is a real flaw in the Bill’s lack of accountability and ownership of each of the 12 levelling-up missions on the part of individual UK Government Departments. Amendments 3, 5, 10 and 12 and new clause 1 seek to address that lack of accountability.
Of course, the Government have given themselves the power to move the goalposts, change their targets, and look as if they are doing what they said they would do even if they are not. Rather than merely marking their own homework, they are also ready to lower the pass mark of the test if they fail it. That tells us how important the Government’s levelling-up plans are. If they really had the confidence in this flagship commitment that they profess to have, why would there be any baulking about objectively measuring their progress on levelling up?
These amendments seek to lock independent scrutiny of the progress of levelling up into this flagship Bill. Here we are, having to debate it, when it should be taken as read. The Institute for Public Policy Research has also called for an independent body, established in law, to oversee and judge the UK’s progress on levelling up. What Government with true confidence in their ability to deliver their goals, as this Government say they have, would resist that kind of scrutiny and accountability? Surely they would exalt in it; it would be the opportunity to demonstrate their success. What have this Government to fear from transparent and objective allocation mechanisms for delivery? The only conclusion that can be drawn is that the Government know that there is more bluster here than actual substance.
True levelling up, of course, requires actual investment, but the necessary financial backing appears to be absent. Any investment must be delivered in a non-partisan and transparent way. Let us not forget that the Institute for Fiscal Studies has pointed out that departmental budgets will actually be lower in 2025 than they were in 2010. How that chimes with and supports the idea of levelling up is something that I am struggling to understand.
Levelling up is an admirable principle, but if the Government are confident that they can deliver, as they say they are, what possible objection can there be to scrutiny? With such attempts to avoid independent scrutiny, it feels as if there is agenda beyond levelling up. If the levelling-up missions do not have the effect of reducing inequality across the UK, then they will have objectively failed in their goal. These amendments seek to measure that progress. Who can object to that?
If the very foundation of the Bill—the ability to deliver greater equality across the UK—is not open to full and transparent, evaluative, published scrutiny, and if that is not written into the Bill, the very principles on which it purports to stand are built on sand, will not inspire confidence and, I fear, will not deliver. I absolutely agree that we do not need the fanfare of a Bill to reduce inequality; it could just be done—a Bill is not needed. A Bill whose stated aims are not open to transparency and independent scrutiny is definitely not a Bill we need, and we are right to be sceptical.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (Neil O'Brien)
It is a pleasure to begin line-by-line scrutiny of this important Bill with you in the Chair, Mr Paisley. We have a very distinguished Committee and I look forward to some thoughtful and enlightening debates.
The Government’s defining mission is to level up our country—to close the gap in productivity, health, incomes and opportunity between different parts of the country. That goal is made all the more urgent in the face of cost of living pressures and the inequalities laid bare and deepened by the pandemic.
The levelling-up White Paper sets out that levelling up is a moral, social and economic programme for the whole of Government, not just one Department, to spread opportunity and prosperity more equally throughout the country. The Bill sets out the framework for delivering on our levelling-up missions and places a statutory duty on the Government for the first time to set missions to reduce geographic disparities and to produce an annual report on our progress.
The Government absolutely recognise that scrutiny and seeking expert advice will be important to ensuring that we deliver on our missions and level up the country. That is why we have established the Levelling Up Advisory Council, chaired by Andy Haldane, former chief economist at the Bank of England, to provide the Government with expert advice to inform the design and delivery of the missions.
The council is made up of an expert and distinguished group of people. It includes Katherine Bennett, chief executive officer of the High Value Manufacturing Catapult and chair of the Western Gateway, which brings together the research and development strengths of the Bristol region with south Wales; Sir Tim Besley and Sir Paul Collier, two of our most distinguished economists from the London School of Economics and Oxford; Cathy Gormley-Hennan from Ulster University; Sally Mapstone, principal of the University of St Andrews; Laxman Narasimhan from Reckitt Benckiser; Sacha Romanovitch from Fair4All Finance; Hayaatun Sillem, chief executive officer of the Royal Academy of Engineering; and Sir Nigel Wilson, chief executive of Legal and General. These are very independent-minded people—serious people with deep expertise. The reason why we have brought them together is that we respect and value independent, thoughtful, expert advice.
The Government are committed to enabling Parliament, the public and other experts outside the advisory panel to fully scrutinise progress against our missions. The proposed initial set of metrics have already been published in the levelling-up White Paper, in the technical annex—40 pages, which give all the different ways we will measure all the different missions in incredible, unprecedented detail. I do not remember such detail under any previous Government. The metrics were published in the White Paper and will be refined over time. The analysis included in the annual report to Parliament will be based on the metrics that are here and included in the statement of levelling-up missions that will be laid before the House.
Given the level of transparency and reporting, and the level of input from deep experts, it is unclear what value an independent body would add. The Government will be required to report on set missions within set metrics and methodologies. Instead of creating a new independent body, the Government believe that levelling-up missions can be better supported by focusing on delivering those missions themselves—by getting on with it, as the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale said. It is also wrong to argue that without an independent body, the Government’s progress towards delivering missions will not be subject to independent external scrutiny. Parliament, the public, think-tanks and civil society will all have an opportunity to comment and report on how well the Government deliver missions, in response to our annual reports.
Patricia Gibson
This has just occurred to me as the Minister has been speaking. I am curious: if child poverty does not reduce, will the levelling-up programme and mission be considered a success or a failure?
Neil O'Brien
The hon. Lady raises a really important point. The last Labour Government had a statutory child poverty target; that target was literally locked into legislation. Was it hit? It was not hit, no. That is why we have adopted the approach that we have; just writing something into law does not mean that it happens, unfortunately. That is why we have created the independent architecture around levelling-up missions: to provide both really serious external expertise in the work that we are doing—I do not think anybody disputes the fact that these are really independent, serious people; and an unprecedented level of detail, to give everybody who wants to criticise the programme all the resources and exact detail they need to do just that. I do not remember any of those things happening under previous Governments.
Missions are intended to anchor Government policy and decision making to level up the UK. However they should not be set in stone. As the economy adapts, so too might the missions, to reflect the changing environment and lessons learned. Of course, some of these things can be tightened over time; we have made remarkable progress on our missions to roll out Project Gigabit and the Shared Rural Network, which are a £5 billion intervention and £1 billion intervention respectively. Over the course of just the last two years, they have transformed the availability of gigabit internet and rural 4G.
Opposition Front-Benchers said, “Why do you have to change some of the missions? That seems very dodgy to us.” Some of the missions will literally have to change. For example, one of the missions that I am very proud of is the one to increase domestic public R&D spending outside the greater south-east of England by a third over the period covered by the spending review. Of course, that prompts the question, “What will happen after the spending review?” We will have to change that mission, otherwise it will just become meaningless. Things have to adapt over time, of course, and I think that everyone recognises that levelling up is a long-term mission; nobody thinks that any of these things, some of which are century-long problems, can be solved in the course of one or two years.
However, the Opposition Front-Benchers made a very important point: the Bill sets out that any changes to missions should be—indeed, have to be—fully and transparently explained and justified through a statement to Parliament where they occur. Nothing will happen without Parliament knowing about it.
Hon. Members on the Opposition front page—Freudian slip; Front Bench—would recognise that some of the missions will just have to change over time; there is no point locking in a three-year mission for the next 30 years. This layer of transparency enables the public and civil society at large to comment on the Government’s decisions. It is unclear what additional benefit an independent body would bring. The Bill sets out that any changes to missions should be fully and transparently explained and justified where they occur. The missions will be rolling endeavours.
Tim Farron
This is an important amendment because it allows the Government to be up front about the level of resource that they seek to deploy region by region. It is also important because it refers to areas below the level of region. As the hon. Member for York Central has set out, there is a danger that the Government might sound somewhat patronising when they talk about levelling up, thinking from their London seat that the provinces are all terribly deprived and they should throw some money at them and level them up. Of course, the reality is that inequalities within regions are greater than inequalities between them.
Members will not be surprised by my focus on rural communities. The Minister might be aware of research that has come out in the past couple of days from the Rural Services Network. It has looked at the Government’s own levelling-up metrics and on that basis it reckons that, were rural England to be a separate region, it would perform more poorly than every other geographical region of England. Not only would it perform more poorly, but it is disadvantaged for different reasons. The metrics that the Government are seeking to deploy in order to understand deprivation and inequality do not do the business when it comes to understanding the issues that face rural communities.
In my constituency there will be fewer than 500 people unemployed. We have got very close to full employment. We also have average house prices that are between 10 and 15 times average incomes. We have people in work and in poverty. The clear, huge majority of people on universal credit in my constituency and in other parts of Cumbria are in work, and not just in work but in multiple jobs, seeking to make ends meet. Potentially, they will not tick boxes when the Government’s metrics are being considered and they may not be recipients of the resources that the hon. Member for Nottingham North seeks to get the Government to be explicit about.
Let us think about some of the needs that are present in that rural region of England, which is more needy than every other geographical region of England by some distance. We are talking about incomes. We are talking about house prices. We are talking about the fact that in the south lakes alone—a community with nearly full employment—5,500 people are on a council house list, waiting for their first home. By the way, an educated guess is that there are about 10,000 second homes in the same district. It is important to understand that the discrepancies and inequalities are of that order.
It seems very black and white to say, “These are the homes of people who already have one and these are the people who haven’t even got the one,” but if we care about inequality we are going to care about that. In a property-owning democracy, we might champion people’s liberty and their right to own more than one home, but when there is a conflict between someone’s right to a second home and someone else’s right just to have any home, we know whose side we should be taking, don’t we? If we do not, this Bill means nothing at all, and nothing to rural communities in particular.
Let us look at some other issues in respect of which rural communities are disadvantaged. The vast proportion of people in Cumbria are not on the mains for their heating; they are on oil—liquid fuel—and there is no price cap for that. There is no way of taking into account inflation beyond that which most of us are experiencing when it comes to energy prices. There is nothing to assess that, nothing to allow for it, nothing to ensure that resources are available to help communities so that they can be protected from the cost-of-living crisis that is particularly hard in rural communities.
In cities such as London, Manchester and Newcastle—wonderful places—it is possible to live without a car, and many people do. That is probably good for the environment and for people’s pockets as well. Mobility is more straightforward in a community like the one we are standing and sitting in now, but in a community like mine, people need cars. The chances are that people do not live in the village in which they work, and they need to get from one place to another. Fuel prices are higher and the distances are longer, and the bus journey from Kendal to Ambleside is the second most expensive in the country, so it is very expensive to travel whether via private car or public transport.
Let us also think about access to services. For people living in Sedbergh, for instance, the nearest FE college is 10 miles away and there is no bus, so their access to services is restricted in a way that the access of people in other parts of the country is not. What about health services? What about the one in two of us who at some point in our lives will end up with a cancer diagnosis, and the one in two of those who will need radiotherapy? In a community such as Cumbria they have to make a three or four-hour round trip to Preston every day to get life-saving treatment, for weeks and weeks on end.
The things I have outlined will not be taken into account if we are not honest about what regions actually are, about the categories of places within regions—sub-regions—and about how parts of the country, even though they might be in Northumberland, Cornwall, Cumbria or Kent, have commonalities despite geographical disparity. Without being clear about the resources, we are not going to tackle that need. We are not going to tackle the lack of connectivity that puts people at risk in rural communities, where we do not have the broadband roll-out the Government have promised. We do not have the commitment to bring health services and education close to home or to address transport costs. Above all, a massive flaw throughout the Bill is inadequacy when it comes to tackling the biggest driver of inequality in this country: lack of access to affordable and available housing.
I urge the Minister to look at the Rural Services Network report and to take into account the fact that rural England counts as the most deprived region of England, compared with the geographical regions. I urge him to accept the amendment, and in doing so to ensure that resources are allocated appropriately to every part of every region of this country.
Patricia Gibson
Amendment 13 would place
“a responsibility on the Government to publish the resources made available to communities in order to level-up”.
Who could argue with that? In not arguing with it, I cannot help reminding the Minister that Scotland was promised a £1.5-billion-a-year bonanza as part of the Brexit windfall. Of course, the reality is that Scotland has received 40% less funding than it did under the EU funding agenda, and it has suffered a 5.2% cut in its resource budget and a 9.7% cut in its capital budget. Perhaps the Minister can tell us how that supports the levelling-up agenda, because I certainly cannot understand. It is quite galling that as this Government show disrespect to devolved Parliaments—democratically elected Parliaments—by impinging on devolved powers and bypassing the democratic will of the Scottish people in devolved areas, they simultaneously cut their budget in the context of levelling up.
Despite the stated goals of the legislation, the Minister has been unable to say—perhaps he will do so when he gets to his feet—whether the levelling-up missions would result in a reduction in inequality to the point where we would see a reduction in child poverty. What kind of levelling-up commitment would not address the basic social scourge of child poverty? I cannot think what the point of any of this is if we are not committed to tackling that most basic and serious ill.
Of course, as we have heard, we do not need a fanfare to tackle inequality; we just need to get on and do it. We can exalt in our success if indeed we have it, but we do not need a Bill that runs to hundreds of pages but cannot even commit to transparency or to publishing details of the resources that it is willing to use.
In Scotland, the Scottish Government have tried, with their limited powers, to instigate levelling up—for example, with the Scottish child payment of £20 per child per week. That is real levelling up, and these are the kinds of measures that the Bill really ought to tackle to build a more inclusive society. As food bank use rises, we have a real opportunity if we are serious about levelling up, but it takes targeted political will and a determination to tackle the causes of inequality. That is not an easy thing to do—we have to put in a real shift—but a Bill that runs to a few hundred pages with vague missions that objectively cannot be held to account will not convince anybody.
It is clear to see that the resources for true levelling up will not be made available, certainly from the Scottish perspective with the figures I have cited. For all the warm words, and there have been many, it is difficult to have confidence that our communities will see any tangible difference as a result of this fanfare—sorry, this Bill. The Government should have no problem with amendment 13, because they know that no levelling up can happen without resources. Presumably, if they are serious about levelling up, those resources will be committed, so why not publish them? Why do the Government not exalt in their success and the resources they are willing to expend? If this levelling-up Bill and agenda do not reduce inequality or tackle poverty, child poverty or child hunger, I honestly cannot see the point of them.
Neil O'Brien
I agree completely with the spirit behind the amendment, and we are actively working to bring about what Opposition Members want. However, we do not think the amendment works, and I will explain why. Official statistics about public spending in different places are widely available already. Her Majesty’s Treasury already publishes a regional breakdown for total current and capital identifiable expenditure per head through PESA—Public Expenditure Statistical Analyses—which is my favourite regional statistical document.
We are also taking steps to improve the quality of spatial data. The Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities has established a new spatial data unit to drive forward the data transformation required in central Government. It is frustrating to us that many of the types of data that should have existed for years still do not. The spatial data unit supports the delivery of levelling up by transforming the way the UK Government gather, store and use sub-national data, so that it can underpin transparent and open policy making and delivery decisions. It is completely in that spirit that we are acting to improve data on all levels.