Local Government Finance (Tameside and Oldham)

Peter Dowd Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd June 2015 Westminster Hall

[Mr Jones]

I should say to Opposition Members that I will not take any further interventions after the right hon. Gentleman’s lengthy contribution. He needs to put this matter in the context of the authorities that he mentioned having far less spending power than those we are discussing in this debate.

The other way that the areas in question will no doubt benefit is through the new homes bonus. Councils benefit directly from the number of new homes built in their area and from bringing empty property back into use. We have provisionally allocated £1.2 billion of new homes bonus funding to local authorities in England for 2015-16. Of that, Oldham will receive £2.1 million and Tameside £3.5 million. Since the scheme began, local authorities have been rewarded with a total of £3.4 billion.

As well as growing their economies, the best authorities are transforming how they do business and demonstrating innovation, including in how they work with local partners. We are supporting them as they do so, helping them to achieve savings and, perhaps most important, improving outcomes for the people who use local services.

In November, the Government announced the 73 projects that were successful in bidding for the transformation challenge award. The projects will receive £90 million to improve services and ultimately will save the public sector more than £900 million. I would like to give several examples, particularly one in Manchester, but I do not have time to do so during this debate.

One critical area where the Government must work with councils to transform services is adult social care. I hear what the hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne says about her experience and I am sure that the House will welcome that experience. The Government are clear that the NHS and social care services must work together and move away from operating in financial silos. They must secure the best possible value from the local funding available for health and care in order to improve people’s lives. The Government are committed to making that happen, but just putting more money into the system is not the answer, despite Opposition Members’ comments. We need radical reform of how health and social care are delivered. The better care fund provides a new approach to protect social care services, breaking new ground in driving integration between health and social care.

Despite the challenges that I have mentioned, most local authorities have coped well. Most authorities froze council tax in 2015-16, helping people with the cost of living. The Government once again provided additional funding equivalent to a 1% council tax increase to help them to do so. This was the fifth successive year of freeze funding provided by Government, bringing the total package to £5 billion. That has helped to reduce council tax by 11% in real terms since 2010, with the average band D household saving up to £1,059. That is in stark contrast to the 13 years of Labour government, when council tax bills doubled.

[Peter Dowd (Bootle) (Lab)]

Will the Minister give way?

[Mr Jones]

I cannot, due to the length of the interventions that I took previously.

The financial constraints facing councils make it even more important that we deliver on our critical agenda of devolving power to local places and local people. That is one of the most exciting agendas in local government at the moment. Local government should no longer think of itself as a manager of central programmes, but should embrace its new power and responsibility.

The Government’s commitment has been demonstrated by the inclusion—the hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne will have seen this—of the Cities and Local Government Devolution Bill, which has started its progress in the House of Lords. Alongside the Bill, we will be talking to councils about their ideas for devolution, so that we can agree deals that make devolution a reality. The Government want the process to be bottom up and recognise that the right approach will be different in every area. We want to devolve power to cities, rural areas and neighbourhoods. The Bill will bring about the most far-reaching decentralisation of power in living memory and in particular will create a northern powerhouse with Manchester and other northern cities. It will create a directly elected mayor responsible for co-ordinating significant powers and budgets across transport, back-to-work support and health and adult social care.

Last November, Greater Manchester and the Government agreed a devolution plan that saw powers over transport, planning and housing transferred from central Government control to the Greater Manchester combined authority. In February, building on that, 10 local authorities, including a number that Opposition Members represent, came together with 12 clinical commissioning groups and NHS providers in Greater Manchester, along with NHS England, and agreed that from April 2016 they would take joint control of the estimated £6 billion health and care budget in the region. That will enable Greater Manchester to be freer to respond to what local people want, using experience and expertise from across government and the NHS to help improve outcomes and change the way in which public money is spent.

There is little doubt that the next five years will bring further financial challenges but, with the spending review approaching, hon. Members will appreciate that I cannot say much more about our financial plans today. The Government wish to work constructively with local government on these issues, and we are ready to listen to the views of councils.

Question put and agreed to.