Local Government Finance (England)

Debate between Preet Kaur Gill and Lord Beamish

Monday 24th February 2020 Commons Chamber

[Preet Kaur Gill (Birmingham, Edgbaston) (Lab/Co-op)]

My right hon. Friend is making an excellent speech. Does he agree that the Government have to stop running councils into the ground with their cuts, and should instead invest properly to halt and reverse the real-world implications of their ideologically driven austerity policy?

[Mr Jones]

That has to be what we want local government to do. The Chairman of the Select Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts) said that, too. It is no good deluding people if, locally, more than 60% of the budget has been taken up by two areas. As my hon. Friend the Member for Denton and Reddish (Andrew Gwynne) said, most people do not have any visibility of that. When they pay their council tax, they see their bins emptied and environmental improvements, but if 60-odd per cent. of a council’s budget—I think the figure is higher for some councils—is going on two sectors, that will be difficult to explain to people.

A decision has to be taken about what proposals will be put forward on business rate retention. If it is not, the lack of the clarity that local government needs will create real problems for councils such as Durham County Council. There is an opportunity to grow the business rate. I will explain to the hon. Member for North West Durham (Mr Holden) why Durham County Council decided to downsize its headquarters and move to the centre of the city: to open up an area for investment and create up to 7,000 jobs in order to grow the council tax base. It is doing exactly what the Government want. In addition, it has moved jobs away from County Hall to places such as Crook in his constituency. I do not hear him arguing against moving county jobs to his constituency. Dog-whistle politics is fine, but he needs to look at the facts first.