Leamside Line

Debate between Richard Holden and Lord Beamish

Tuesday 8th February 2022 Westminster Hall

[Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson) for securing this important debate. I do not propose to go over all the reasons why it is so important to reopen the Leamside line—she has eloquently covered that—but we need a degree of realism and honesty about why we are in the current situation.

The reopening of the Leamside line has cross-party support, cross-business support and cross-community support. The North East Combined Authority, representing local authorities south of the Tyne, and the North of Tyne Combined Authority support it, along with Transport North East. I congratulate Transport North East on its 2021 to 2030 transport plan, which sets out a comprehensive and ambitious plan for the region’s transport. It talks not just about rail, but about other modes of transport as well, which will not only lead to economic benefits for the north-east but improve the air quality in the environment in which we live. The only people who do not support the plan are the Government, who left it out of their integrated rail plan, announced towards the end of last year. In doing so they said that the project could be part of a city region deal that they hoped to negotiate sometime in the future. I suggest that that is part of the Government’s wider agenda on devolution—it is jam tomorrow so long as regions agree to tinker around with their governance structures.

In the levelling-up White Paper, which I read over the weekend, there was a very good history lesson on the origins of the Venetian city state. One of its main themes was leadership, but I would argue that we have leadership in the north-east in the ambitious plan being put forward by Transport North East and the united support of the political leadership across parties and businesses. The only thing missing in support of that plan is the Government. Instead, we have the vague ideas that were talked about in the levelling-up White Paper last week of devolving powers without resources, or resources being devolved but having to be bid for from central Government. That is not proper devolution; it is a different control mechanism from Whitehall.

Instead, there is the inefficient and expensive Beeching reversal fund. From the two examples that have been awarded so far in County Durham, its only main benefits seem to be to provide expensive press releases for local Conservative Members of Parliament or to fund rail consultants. People’s expectations are raised, and we know from some of the examples that they will never be met—it is not achievable.

Let me give the finest example of that, and I am glad that my neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for North West Durham (Mr Holden) is here to hear it. It is the proposal to extend the Tyne and Wear metro system to Consett. The feasibility study has so far cost £50,000. The price tag for delivery given in that study is £640 million, and it will rip through either my constituency or that of my hon. Friend the Member for Blaydon (Liz Twist). That price tag is more than the entire £500 million that has been allocated to the Beeching reversal fund. If that were not bad enough, the Lib Dem-Tory council in County Durham is committed to push the project on to the next phase, spending more money and employing more consultants, knowing that it will never be achieved.

[Mr Holden]

Does the right hon. Member agree that that is plain to see the support of the Labour-led Gateshead Council for the project between Consett and the Tyne, as well?

[Mr Jones]

They have clearly not read the report. If the hon. Gentleman tells me that any Government are going to provide him with £640 million of public money for a railway to Consett, he is deluding himself. That is not going to happen. The point is to be honest with people. I know that he came out with that flippantly when he did not think he would get elected as the Member for North West Durham, but he did and, therefore, he feels he has to follow through. It is not going to be achievable.

I object to the fact that the public are being deluded, and that more public money has frankly been wasted on highly paid consultants. The hon. Member for North West Durham referred earlier to the Weardale line, which is another example of similar amounts of money being suggested. That line will not be achievable, because the amount of money being argued for will not be forthcoming. Why not just be honest with people?

The strategy is clear: throw around all these projects to give the impression that something is happening when it is not. We have a real example with the Leamside line where, if the Government concentrated on putting in the money, it would create benefits. The hon. Member for Darlington (Peter Gibson) is right that it would improve his constituency and those on the east coast main line, due to capacity. However, I wish he would not argue about the new timetable for the north-east coast line, which would mean that an hourly service would be introduced from Chester-le-Street. The hon. Member and the Tees Valley Mayor complained that that would reduce the number of trains to Darlington. I am sorry; we need an hourly service and that needs to be addressed. It would be addressed if we got the project.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Richard Holden (North West Durham) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone. I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson) for bringing this debate to the House today.

Like other Members, I was very proud to be elected on a manifesto of levelling up. The right hon. Member for North Durham (Mr Jones) was right to say that my election in 2019 was a slight surprise, but if he had spent more time on the ground rather than grandstanding down here in Westminster, he probably would not have been as surprised. He would have understood the issues affecting local people in my constituency, and he would not have seen such a massive decrease in his share of the vote at the last election.

I am very supportive of the Leamside line, which is vital to the levelling-up agenda for the north of England. Alongside education and employment opportunities, transport and transport infrastructure are really important parts of the agenda. I am here to support the Leamside line because it is vital for the whole north-east, particularly because it would help to improve capacity on the east coast main line. It may also play into one of the schemes in my constituency, the Weardale line, which was supported by my hon. Friends the Members for Sedgefield (Paul Howell), for Bishop Auckland (Dehenna Davison) and for Darlington (Peter Gibson). We are looking into extracting minerals from Weardale—lithium exploration is currently under way—and the Leamside line could enable direct rail transit and avoid the need for freight to trundle through the constituency of the right hon. Member for North Durham via road. Instead, it could go via rail, bypassing all the issues. There is a broader strategic aspect to the line, particularly with the gigafactories opening around Nissan, which I was happy to visit not long ago with the Prime Minister.

The Leamside line is important for access to the local area as well, as hon. Members have said. It is about capacity, but it is also about enabling people in our communities to move readily between them and to access employment and education opportunities that are not there at the moment. As the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne Central (Chi Onwurah) and others have said, enabling greater freight service use would also help with the reliability and greater frequency of services—perhaps even the services to Chester-le-Street that the right hon. Member for North Durham mentioned.

The Leamside line has to be part of a wider transport plan. That plan cannot just be about rail; it has to be about road as well. That is why I am delighted to support the A68 changes that have been proposed in a levelling-up fund bid by my hon. Friend the Member for Bishop Auckland. I hope that, down the line, we will also be able to support the A693 upgrades for the right hon. Member for North Durham.

I will address a couple of broader issues that were raised about levelling up the country. It is vital that we look at all sorts of schemes. If some hon. Members had spent the two decades since they were elected actually campaigning for reconnections to places such as Stanley, Annfield Plain and Consett, we might be a lot further advanced in these plans than we are today.

[Mr Kevan Jones]

The hon. Member knows as well as I do that the main answer for a lot of communities in his constituency and mine is the bus network. The fact is that because of the Conservative Government, who have been in power since 2010, Durham County Council has lost £224 million in central Government allocation, and that has led to bus services and subsidies being withdrawn. I am sorry, but I will not take any lectures off him about transport in Durham.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Holden]

If the right hon. Gentleman listened to one of his own local councillors, who represents Chester-le-Street and with whom I campaigned to get the feasibility study going—the former Labour leader of Durham County Council—and if he listened and worked with people like me, rather than listening to people who want to live in the past as he does, he would be on side now.

[Mr Jones]

£640 million.

[Mr Holden]

The right hon. Gentleman shouts from a sedentary position, which he should not do. He could stand up and try to make another intervention if he wished. It is true that these schemes would be expensive, but if he had been campaigning for them for a longer period of time, rather than carping from the sidelines, as he is doing—

[Mr Jones]

Will the hon. Member give way?

[Mr Holden]

No, I will not give way again; the right hon. Gentleman has had plenty of time to have his own say during the debate. If he had campaigned for these measures for a longer period of time, perhaps we would be further advanced. Of course it is about buses. I am fully supportive—

Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Bill (Third sitting)

Debate between Richard Holden and Lord Beamish

Monday 13th September 2021 Public Bill Committees

[Mr Jones]

Q I agree, but the danger in the legislation as it is written is about those individuals. My concern is more that foreign states that want to change the direction that we argued for on freedom of speech in this country will use this to challenge academic institutions, and will be allowed to.

I mentioned earlier the issue of the operation in our universities of the United Front of China. They will be able to take cases and argue them and no doubt they will be well financed. There is a danger that they will use it to get their own way through their very deep pockets.

Sunder Katwala: You are going to have to have a transparent policy on which cases are decided. That is where my principles are about “What can you say about gays, women or Jews?” and “What can you or can’t you say about the lurid conspiracies that don’t seem to have any value to academic freedom?” How do you deal with those tensions?

[Mr Richard Holden (North West Durham) (Con)]

Q You have raised three interesting points at the margins. The entire point of the legislation is that there are things that are not in these extreme examples that are currently being challenged at universities. That is basically the evidence that we have received from the academics who have appeared before us in these evidence sessions.

In light of that, do you not think that any Government in a liberal democracy such as ours would find that those three specific issues––clashes with the Equality Act, those advocating against academic freedom and those with very extreme views that they try to cover with academic freedom––could easily be contained within that direction of free speech, thereby ensuring what we all want: the extension of free speech by the academics who tell us that they are mass self-censoring now, so that the professors who just appeared before us can be allowed their academic freedom? We are actually protecting the freedom of perfectly reasonable people, not people who are doing the things that you suggested. Do you see where I am coming from?

Sunder Katwala: In principle, I think the approach you have is very good. We have been having this debate about free speech on campus in society more broadly for several years and we never really get to the difficult issues.

What I would like is for people on both sides of the debate––there should not be sides––to look through the other end of the telescope. If you are someone who is very worried about racism and hate crime, you have got to be clear about the robust, tough stuff that you are going to allow so that you can be clear about where you draw the line.

The liberal or left side of the debate has a reputational point. The people worried about the incursion of free speech have not yet gone to these hard cases and said, “That is what we would do on this boundary, this boundary and this boundary.” If, instead of always just using their overall slogan, the two sides engaged with the value of the point on the other side, we would actually get to the hard cases.

Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Bill (Third sitting)

Debate between Richard Holden and Lord Beamish

Monday 13th September 2021 Public Bill Committees

[Mr Jones]

[Mr Richard Holden (North West Durham) (Con)]

Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Bill (Fourth sitting)

Debate between Richard Holden and Lord Beamish

Monday 13th September 2021 Public Bill Committees

[Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)]

[Mr Richard Holden (North West Durham) (Con)]

Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Bill (Fourth sitting)

Debate between Richard Holden and Lord Beamish

Monday 13th September 2021 Public Bill Committees

[Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)]

Q The problem with the Bill as it is written is that there is no stipulation that, per your very sensible suggestion, people would have to go through the internal complaints process first, which is the usual thing for ombudsmen and anything else. If we are not careful, we could end up with people resorting straight to law if they want to make a political point. That is going to cost the universities a lot. In some cases, they will settle just to get rid of them.

Professor Layzell: That is why you would want the full internal and existing apparatus to be fully utilised before we go into that final stage.

[Mr Richard Holden (North West Durham) (Con)]

Q Professor Grant, I agree with your analysis that the bigger concern seems to be self-censorship, but we are a little unclear on the levels of evidence around this. Could you outline some of the evidence of self-censorship that you have seen? Is this something that affects you in your department at King’s?

Professor Grant: This is one of those things that is really hard to get good evidence on. In the survey we did of 2,000 students, about a quarter said that they felt unable to express views in their university because they were nervous about disagreeing with their peers. That is a big number; if a quarter of the students in a class are nervous about expressing their views, that worries me. We then followed up that survey data through focus groups. In those groups, this was the issue that the students landed on. Focus groups are by definition small numbers so we need to treat some of this evidence carefully, but they were saying that they felt that reading lists in certain topics were biased to one view or another and were not balanced, and that lecturers quite often had some political view that they would express in the classroom, and if the students disagreed with that, they were nervous about expressing contrarian views in that context.

We followed that up with a focus group with a mix of vice-chancellors from the UK, Australia and the US. What was interesting for me was that when we put that evidence on the table, the response from the vice-chancellors was “We cannot tell our lecturers what to put on their reading list because that would breach academic freedom.” What I find interesting in the Bill is that tension between the desire to promote free speech––and cool the chilling effect––and the concept of academic freedom, and how it is actually the academic who decides what to teach in the classroom. That is why I am not convinced that regulation or legislation is going to solve this. I think it is deeper: it is cultural, it is values-driven.

Armed Forces Bill (Second sitting)

Debate between Richard Holden and Lord Beamish

Wednesday 31st March 2021 Public Bill Committees

[Mr Holden]

Not at this moment, no; I am making a very brief point.

I know what happened just after 2010, after the right hon. Member for North Durham left the MOD: a huge amount of programmes were massively over-budget and had to be axed at the last minute, at the cost of hundreds of millions of pounds in some cases.

[Mr Jones]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Holden]

Not at this stage, thank you.

We must be realistic, especially as we are looking at totally new threats from across the globe; our adversaries are operating in the grey zone, and we need to look at ways to counter them. If Opposition Members are going to propose different things, they need to explain how we can achieve them.

[Mr Jones]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way, but say to him that that did not stop the Conservative party in 2009 and the 2010 general election, when it proposed a larger Army and an increase in the Defence budget. Yet the first thing they did was cut it. The hon. Gentleman should practise what he preaches. I do not know whether he was an adviser in 2010, but statements on the record and in the manifesto were completely turned over when the Conservatives entered the coalition Government; the first thing they did was cut the size of the armed forces and make people compulsorily redundant.

[Mr Holden]

I thank the right hon. Member for his comments, but, as he will know, immediately after the general election there was that lovely note left on the Chief Secretary to the Treasury’s desk by the outgoing Chief Secretary to the Treasury saying that there was no money left. He will also know that a lot of the programmes that had to be axed following the 2010 general election had gone massively over-budget, which was only discovered in later years, due to obfuscation by members of the outgoing Labour Government about the actual state of the programmes. So I just say that it would be particularly helpful if, rather than trying to put more and more on the never-never as the last Labour Government did and the Opposition are proposing today, they were honest, straightforward and realistic with the British people about the choices that have to be taken.

Armed Forces Bill (First sitting)

Debate between Richard Holden and Lord Beamish

Thursday 25th March 2021 Public Bill Committees

[Mr Jones]

I will come on to that—I was going to address that in the second part of my contribution.

There has been change in terms of the duty of care of individuals. Ofsted, for example, now inspects places such as the Army Foundation College, and the practices that the Army has in place to ensure that there is a duty of care around those young people set an example that many other institutions could follow. In terms of the opportunity it gives people, I would not want, by banning under-18s, to stop many young people getting the positive move forward in their lives and the opportunities that the Army gives them.

There are two issues on which I do agree with the hon. Member for Glasgow North West, relating to early service leavers. That is not just an issue for under-18s, but for those who join post 18. To be fair to the armed forces, they have done quite a lot on ensuring that early service leavers have support. That is an issue that I raised when I was in the Ministry of Defence, because some of those individuals end up in the social services network, homeless and so on.

The question is about when people leave, if they are under 18 and decide that the armed forces, or the Army in particular, are not for them. I stand to be corrected if I am wrong, but I think there is a package around those who have left care and joined the armed forces. Anything that can be done to improve their experience is the right thing to do.

I am not against new clause 2, but we need to look at what happens in practice. There are quite good reasons why people have to sign on for a certain period of time, because of the commitment. From my experience, however, there is a mechanism to enable most people who do not want to stay in the Army and other armed forces to leave. I do not think it is such an onerous straitjacket as has it been described by some individuals.

I understand where the hon. Member for Glasgow North West is coming from, and I accept that there is a difference of opinion, but overall, my experience is that service in the armed forces gives great opportunities to many young people who would not get them if we did not recruit under-18s. The important thing to say is that many people who join at that age go on to have very good and fulfilling careers in the armed forces, and they also gain life skills and technical skills that they use when they leave the Army and move into civilian life. That is why I do not support the new clauses.

[Mr Holden]

I agree with a lot of what the right hon. Gentleman has said. I have had constituency cases of young people who have really benefited from going to Harrogate at age 16, who are thoroughly enjoying and making the most of their time in the armed forces, and who have been joining up with our local regiment, the Rifles, as part of that. I urge hon. Members to think properly about the new clauses and the impact that they will have on some young people who have found a real path in the Army, with the extra training and support that it can provide both educationally and more broadly.

Shotley Bridge Community Hospital

Debate between Richard Holden and Lord Beamish

Tuesday 6th October 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing the debate. He is right about the community support in not only his constituency but North Durham, which the hospital also serves. If the moneys are in place, that is welcome news, but there seems to be confusion locally about where the site will be and whether there will be 16 beds. Does he have an update on those details?

[Mr Holden]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for mentioning that. My understanding is that there are still three sites under discussion, but it will be around Consett. I am pushing the Minister on whether there will be 16 beds, because that is what was in the Secretary of State’s letter to me, and I want to ensure that that is the case.

[Mr Kevan Jones]

Those community beds are needed for respite and other things in the area, and the hon. Gentleman is right about the cancer treatment done at the trust, but the CCG wrote to me this week saying that there is not yet clarification about whether there will be 16 beds.

[Mr Holden]

We are both pushing the Minister on that exact point.

Crucially, I would like the Minister to confirm that Government funding from the hospital programme will cover the difference between moneys sourced so far from local trusts—the £17 million confirmed last year—and whatever will be needed for this facility. It is great to see capital investment delivering on the levelling-up agenda on which I was elected. It is not all about capital—it is also about investment in schools, so it was great to hear the investment announced last week in skills and training—but part of it is, because communities like mine feel that over decades, they have not been given a fair crack of the whip and have been left behind.

I would also like the Minister to confirm that this will not be done under any form of private finance initiative deal, which my constituents have mentioned. They are concerned that, over the last few years, and especially under the last Labour Government, hospitals have been left with essentially very large debts, which caused them problems in the longer term. That has afflicted hospitals and facilities across County Durham.

Finally, I want to highlight the great work done at Shotley Bridge and by all the great NHS staff across County Durham and Darlington, some of whom were seriously ill, and a couple of whom died from covid. There are a lot of local questions about covid at the moment. Could the Minister talk a bit about the work he is doing to ensure that none of the measures taken at either a local or national level—including those asked for by local authorities in our area—will be in place any longer than they need to be? We want to see our communities back up and running as quickly as possible and providing the healthcare services that people want across the board.

Policing (England and Wales)

Debate between Richard Holden and Lord Beamish

Monday 24th February 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mr Jones]

I do not disagree, and I shall come on to some of those points. Even if we get 20,000 more police officers, the population in this country has grown since 2010 from 62.8 million people to 67.2 million. The idea that 20,000 officers would make up for that difference, and enable local police to deal with the responsibilities and pressures on them, is absolute and complete nonsense.

Take the example of County Durham. I am glad that my new neighbour, the hon. Member for North West Durham (Mr Holden), is here. Since 2010, Durham constabulary has lost 380 police officers. Through the money being provided by the Government, it will gain 226. There will still be 154 fewer police officers than in 2010. No doubt in this debate we will again hear a lot about levelling up—it is the in phrase. I doubt that in the police and crime commissioner elections, Conservatives will go around saying, “The Conservatives have cut 154 police officers in Durham,” but that is the fact. The issue is not just the numbers; it is also experience. We have lost a huge number of officers with many years’ experience. Since 2010, some have taken early retirement and others have left the force. The idea that we can replace that expertise and knowledge with new police officers is complete and utter nonsense.

Demands on our police are increasing; Members have referred to fraud and cyber-crime, and as my right hon. Friend the Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott) pointed out, there has been a withdrawal of services in other sectors as a result of austerity. Mental ill health, for example, is creating a huge issue for local police; unfortunately, in many areas, because of cuts, the police are the last resort when it comes to mental health, though they should not be. Youth services and other services that have been cut have led to the issues being generated on our streets.

Police do not work in silos. They are part of our community. The Minister said that the Conservative party was the natural party of law and order. I am sorry, but the record speaks for itself. Putting aside the soundbite of 20,000 extra police officers, let us look at what the Conservative party has done. There are 20,000 fewer police officers, and there has been a 20% cut in real terms to the police budget. We can have as many more police officers as we want, but if the court system cannot cope, it is no good putting police on the beat. In the last 10 years, 25% of the Crown Prosecution Service’s lawyers have been cut, and a third of its staff have gone. I am sorry, but dealing with crime in this country is not all about the police, and they would recognise that.

We can add to that the closure of courts. Since 2010, 162 courts have closed, and 50% of the courts estate has been axed. In my area, we used to have magistrates courts in Consett, Chester-le-Street and Durham. There is now one, in Peterlee, in the east of the county—not the easiest place to get to for those in my constituency and that of the hon. Member for North West Durham. That is a capacity problem, and it has also broken the key link between magistrates and their local area. I am not criticising them in any way, but those on the magistrates bench in Peterlee are not connected to many local communities. That makes a fundamental difference to their being able to understand the nature of the people who come before them.

[Mr Holden]

I agree with the right hon. Member about Ron Hogg, who was very much part of the community in County Durham and was well respected. Does he agree that the police and crime commissioner is the essential link with the community, and that someone with police experience, like Ron Hogg, is exactly who should represent the community in our great county?

[Mr Jones]

Ron was a very good friend of mine, but he was not a typical police officer. The hon. Gentleman may be trying to portray him as a hard-line “hang ’em and flog ’em” person, but Ron was far from that. We see that in his invention and implementation of Checkpoint, the alternative justice system, which is making a real difference in Durham. If the hon. Gentleman is saying that the only qualification needed by the police and crime commissioner is being a former police officer, then I am sorry, but I do not agree with him. Ron played a variety of roles in his life, but what he brought to the post was a passion for community, and for making sure that the underdog was listened to; those were the important things. He was not afraid to take on those, including members of the Conservative party, who accused him at the last PCC election of being soft on criminals because he introduced Checkpoint. He was far from soft on criminals, but he wanted to ensure that the systems that he put in place solved the problem, rather than just getting a soundbite for a headline, which unfortunately is what the Government are doing.

Do we need more police officers on the streets? Yes, but we cannot get away from what has happened in the past 10 years. I am sorry, but it is no good the Minister saying that this is a great settlement; looking at what has happened in communities, it is not. Policing is not in a silo; the prison population, for example, is bursting at the seams, and if we do not soon get a system that enables people to be diverted away from prison, I am not sure how the system will cope. There is nothing worse than the victims of crime seeing perpetrators get away, not because the police cannot detect them, but because the court system is incapable of dealing with them.

If the Government wanted a new start, I would have preferred it if they had looked at the criminal justice system as a whole, instead of focusing on what would get them headlines. “Twenty thousand more police officers” is an easy soundbite to remember; “25% more CPS lawyers”, for example, does not have the same ring to it, because many of our constituents are not aware of the vital role that those lawyers play in ensuring that very bad people get taken off the streets.

Local Government Finance (England)

Debate between Richard Holden and Lord Beamish

Monday 24th February 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mr Richard Holden (North West Durham) (Con)]

With a 7.1% increase for County Durham today in the local government finance settlement and a 7.9% increase in police funding, both above the national average, I am delighted that the Opposition are not voting against these measures, especially given that the hon. Member for Denton and Reddish (Andrew Gwynne) wrote a letter to me just a few weeks ago saying that actually we were going to be facing cuts. It looks like quite the opposite is the case. I am looking forward to his letter outlining the increases we will be facing and welcoming the Government’s approach, especially given that Labour-controlled Durham County Council is still spending more than £50 million building a council headquarters on a floodplain, although this is a massively opposed by local people. I would quickly like to declare an interest in respect of the one point I would like to make in this debate.

[Mr Kevan Jones]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Holden]

I am going to be very quick today. I wish to declare an interest, in that I am co-chair of the all-party group on local democracy. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Nickie Aiken), who said that she wants the most bottom-up approach possible when it comes to councils. As such, I urge my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State to reintroduce the Bill to exclude public lavatories from business rates. That is exactly what most local councils want. It would save Wolsingham parish council in my constituency £750 a year, and it would save local councils throughout the country more than £8 million a year.

In conclusion, I welcome what I hope is the start of levelling up, from both the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government and from the Home Office in the form of the police settlement. I hope this is the start of things to come.

--- Later in debate ---

[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.

[Mr Holden]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way, as he is attacking me directly?

[Mr Jones]

In a minute. If he wants to say that he does not welcome county council jobs to Crook, that is fine; I will have them in Chester-le-Street.

[Mr Holden]

I would be very happy if the county council was just downsizing its current office; what I do not understand is why the Labour-controlled county council is spending £50 million building a brand new centre on a floodplain. Why not just make better use of the current site?

[Mr Jones]

If the hon. Gentleman has been in the current building, he will know that large sections of it are empty.

[Mr Holden]

Exactly!

[Mr Jones]

Wait a minute. It was built in the 1960s, it is full of asbestos and it is very energy-inefficient. If he wants to put capital—public money—into it, fine, but it will not happen, because the money is not there, and what he suggests would cost a lot more than what has been proposed. In addition to that, the council is going to save somewhere in the region of £300,000 a year in running costs. In terms of trying to grow our council tax base in County Durham, that is what the Government want us to do. That is a good, prudent way in which the council is operating. As I say, if the hon. Gentleman is against jobs going to his constituency, please redirect them to mine, because I will have them. [Interruption.] Well, I just ask him to learn his facts. If he wants dog-whistle politics, which he obviously does, then fine, but let us see what is to the benefit—[Interruption.]

[Mr Jones]

I am sorry, Mr Speaker—I never had this problem with the hon. Gentleman’s predecessor.

The Secretary of State referred to the grants on public health. Again, this issue needs to be addressed, because it is a driver of inequalities. In the police precept debate earlier, we talked about mental health and support for the most vulnerable in our community. The Advisory Committee on Resource Allocation came forward with a formula that meant that from April 2020 County Durham would have lost £19 million whereas Surrey would have gained £14 million. I say in a spirit of genuine co-operation with the hon. Member for North West Durham (Mr Holden) that I hope he is going to argue, and lobby his Government, to ensure that this inequality, which has been there for the past 10 years, will not continue.

Let me turn to the new homes bonus, which, again, disadvantages not only Durham but other councils. The top-slicing of the new homes bonus leads to a situation where, again, southern councils are gaining from this allocation and Durham and others are losing. That cannot be fair in any type of system. I therefore look forward to the new, radical approach that has been announced by the Secretary of State in arguing that we will level up these grants and the new formula will recognise need, because if it does genuinely recognise need, then the likes of County Durham will gain through this process. It is not acceptable to say that we can wash away the past 10 years as though they did not happen; they did happen. Without the fundamental question about what we want local government to do and how we want to fund it—

[Mr Holden]

If the right hon. Gentleman wants to talk about a year zero starting last year, I wonder whether he would like to talk about a year zero starting in 2010—as if nothing was a problem then, when this country was borrowing £1 in every £4 it was spending due to the policies he had voted for since 2001.

[Mr Jones]

I do not want to get off the subject, but the hon. Gentleman will have to try better than that, because I was a Member then, and I remember, for example, the investment in Sure Start in County Durham, in my constituency and his constituency. I remember the six new schools, two new hospitals and three new doctors surgeries that were built in my constituency—all that investment. With regard to this nonsense that Labour spent too much, he should look back to just before the crash. What were David Cameron and George Osborne, and their Front Benchers, doing then? They were not just matching our spending—they were calling for more expenditure. So if we were profligate, then they, frankly, were completely reckless. When I was a Defence Minister, if I had followed what they wanted to do then, we would have increased the defence budget by billions. What did they do when they first came in in 2010? They slashed it by 16%. So I shall take no lessons from anyone on the Conservative Benches about Labour spending too much, because the Conservative party at the time was calling for more. I was going to —[Interruption.] I will carry on if those on the Front Bench want me to.

The hon. Member for North West Durham cannot ignore the fact that his party, in coalition and in government, has been in power for 10 years. Decisions being taken now are affecting the lives of his and my constituents, and we must put those right. I am prepared to work with him to argue for more money for Durham County Council and others, but I will not get into the petty dog-whistle politics of his portrayal of Durham County Council.

I genuinely think that there is an opportunity here. If the Government get this right and follow through on a fairer funding formula, they will have my full support, but it must be fairer. There was a time when I was in local government that it was not only a proud achievement for many Labour politicians but it was something that the Conservative party was proud of too.