Local Government and Social Care Funding

Richard Burden Excerpts

Wednesday 24th April 2019 Commons Chamber

[James Brokenshire]

I know that Bromley does incredible work for its local community. It has innovation, efficiency and real quality at the heart of its efforts. Equally, my hon. Friend raises an ongoing issue in respect of our fair funding review—the review of relative needs and resources. As we reflect on the submissions we have received to date in respect of how that balance is struck, we will certainly give careful consideration to a range of factors to ensure that the funds are applied in the appropriate way to recognise the relative needs and resources of individual authorities.

[Richard Burden (Birmingham, Northfield) (Lab)]

Does the Secretary of State not recognise that in the case of Birmingham, cumulative cuts of £775 million over a 12-year period are simply not sustainable for a city that has 42% of its children growing up in poverty? Whether or not he accepts that, will he at least do something about the historical underfunding? He will know that the formula for Birmingham was changed to recognise historical underfunding in 2016-17, but because that was not backdated to correct underfunding in the previous two years, Birmingham has been short-changed by £100 million. Will he at least put that right?

[James Brokenshire]

I say gently to the hon. Gentleman that Birmingham is one of the authorities with the highest funding per capita. Equally, I am looking carefully at the representations that he and other Birmingham MPs have made to me. The ongoing strike action in Birmingham, with the non-collection of rubbish and the impact that that is having on communities, clearly has not helped. I therefore urge him to support the council in dealing with the challenges caused by the industrial strife that is being felt very firmly in Birmingham, with all the manifestations that that is creating.

Budget Resolutions

Richard Burden Excerpts

1st reading: House of Commons
Thursday 1st November 2018 Commons Chamber

[Richard Burden (Birmingham, Northfield) (Lab)]

The thing that struck me while listening to the Chancellor on Monday and to Government Members today is the yawning chasm that exists between the picture they paint and the reality for my constituents—the people who come to my office for help day in, day out. The reality of their lives is illustrated as well as anything else by the numbers who are currently turning to food banks.

Several food banks serve my constituency. The biggest, the B30 food bank, is run by the Trussell Trust. It distributed 7,501 emergency food parcels in the last year, which is up by a third from the year before. This is a picture that led the Bishop of Birmingham, the Right Rev. David Urquhart, to comment two months ago:

“In one of the richest countries in the world, it is a scandal that people go to bed hungry and families have to choose between eating and heating.”

That is the reality of too many people living in Birmingham today.

Around a third of the people who come to the food bank are in work, but their incomes mean that they cannot make ends meet. In work, on a low income or out of work, 54% have had to turn to the food bank because of delays and changes in benefits—yes, this is an area where universal credit is live. I want to echo the powerful points made by my right hon. Friend the Member for East Ham (Stephen Timms). He talked about not only the problems with the delays built into the universal credit system, but the way that the system interacts—or rather, does not interact—with legacy benefits, which means that more and more people are coming off legacy benefits, with their claims cancelled, and yet are not receiving any support under universal credit for weeks. That spirals them into debt, and the consequence of that can be seen in the figures for those using food banks.

In the short time I have left, I want to say one further thing. It is not just a failure to fund public services that is the problem; it is the fact that the advice and support that have been there in the past from the statutory sector and the voluntary sector for people in need are simply not there any more. Without that lifeline, what could be a problem is becoming a crisis for too many families in this country. That is why I appeal to the Chancellor and those on the Treasury Bench that if they really want to bring austerity to an end, they need not just to fund our public services properly—important though that is—but to ensure that they fund the advice and support mechanisms in our voluntary sector and our statutory sector, so that people get the support they deserve.

Local Government Finance

Richard Burden Excerpts

Wednesday 7th February 2018 Commons Chamber

[Richard Burden (Birmingham, Northfield) (Lab)]

I know that I will not be alone in observing that the level of casework coming through my constituency office these days has never been so high. The reason it is so high reflects a number of things. It certainly reflects the fact that 7,500 people used just one of our local food banks, the B30 food bank, last year alone; it reflects the changes in the benefits system; it reflects the persistent problem of low pay; and it reflects real problems of crime and antisocial behaviour that was covered in the previous debate.

The reality, though, is that so many of the cases that I take up today relate to services provided by Birmingham City Council. Yes, Birmingham does not always get things right, but then neither does any other local authority. However, as a council under Labour, it has continued to prioritise children’s services; kept most libraries open when many other authorities have closed theirs; and taken an active role in boosting jobs and skills for young people, leading to initiatives to manage and reduce the numbers of young people not in education, employment or training. It is also leading in the co-ordination of the response to the collapse of Carillion locally. It is building homes and has a programme to improve fire safety in tower blocks—we are waiting for a Government response on this—which needs and deserves help from the Government.

The truth is that so many of the problems that I see at my advice desk are down to the fact that Birmingham City Council is simply not allowed the resources by Government that it needs to provide the services that my constituents deserve. Figures in the provisional local government finance settlement show that Birmingham’s core spending power will drop by 2% over the period between 2015-16 and 2019-20, even if Birmingham City Council raises its council tax by the maximum 3% each year. In comparison, over the same period, Hampshire’s spending power will increase by 4.8%, Surrey’s by 4.7% and Warwickshire’s by 7.5%. Government funding to Birmingham City Council has been cut by almost £650 million since 2010. That is more than 75% of the current net budget. It has lost 40% of its workforce, and adult social care, which has rightly attracted a lot of attention in this debate already, has had to be cut by 48%. We all see the consequences of that.

Fairways, a day care centre in my constituency, is under threat of closure. In proposing that closure, Birmingham City Council has got it wrong. I hope that service users and I will persuade them to change course. However, the council has been put in this position and is on the brink of making the wrong decision due to the 48% cut in the budget for adult social care.

But the point I really want to make is not just that Birmingham needs more support, but that it deserves a fair deal in the formula used by the Government. The Government have failed to correct an historical error in the funding formula, which means that Birmingham is £100 million worse off today than it should be. Why? Because the Government cut grant allocations to local authorities in 2014-15 and 2015-16, pro-rated to the level of grant received, and they disregarded the ability to raise council tax income. The result was that the authorities receiving more Government grant because they were least able to raise council tax income—because of the generally higher levels of deprivation—received the largest cuts proportionately.

Birmingham City Council met the Government to discuss changes in approach to the distribution of the cuts made to local government, so that the cuts would take account of the ability to raise council tax. I am pleased to say that the Government did change their approach to allocating cuts from 2016-2017 in order to take that into account. However, the inherent unfairness of the first two years’ cuts remains. Based on the latest local government finance settlement, Birmingham City Council estimates that it will receive £100 million less funding in 2018-19 than if the cuts were made fairly.

Like all local authorities—particularly those with the highest levels of deprivation—Birmingham needs greater support from the Government. But I am not just making a special case for Birmingham because of that. I am asking that all local authorities are treated equally in the level of cuts made annually. And if they are to be treated equally, Birmingham City Council should receive £100 million of extra funding. The Government have not agreed to that. My question is, why not?

Grenfell Tower

Richard Burden Excerpts

Monday 5th February 2018 Commons Chamber

[Dominic Raab]

My hon. Friend makes a broader point. We have two important streams of work under way to ensure that lessons are learned. The first relates to building regulations. We have had the interim report from the Hackitt review and we look forward to the full report. We are also conducting a series of workshops for social housing tenants across the country. We have held something like 100 events, and I have attended two of them, in Basingstoke and in relation to Grenfell. That is the right way to proceed. We must ensure that we listen to social tenants with an open mind and an open heart, and that we learn the lessons as we take forward our reform proposals.

[Richard Burden (Birmingham, Northfield) (Lab)]

The Minister has said that no local authority has been refused assistance when it has asked for help to keep its tenants safe. He will know that Birmingham City Council requires £31 million to ensure that its tenants are kept safe. It has asked the Government for £19.4 million towards that. Will the Government agree to provide it?

[Dominic Raab]

We are in conversation with that local authority, as we are with others. We are continuing to talk these issues through, and I can assure the hon. Gentleman that we have not declined any requests for financial flexibility. We will make sure that we get it right so that the residents in his constituency are kept safe.