Roberta Blackman-Woods
Main Page: Roberta Blackman-Woods (Labour - City of Durham)Local Government Finance (England)
Roberta Blackman-Woods Excerpts(8 years, 10 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Dr Roberta Blackman-Woods (City of Durham) (Lab)
I have absolutely no idea what the Secretary of State was saying or where he got it from. According to headlines in our local paper, the funding settlement for Durham has been slammed as unfair by the leader of the council.
Dr Roberta Blackman-Woods (City of Durham) (Lab)
Let me begin by providing clarification to the Secretary of State about comments on fairness from Durham County Council—this is via the wonders of modern technology—that related to certain aspects of the provisional settlement and not to the total or final settlement. The council said that the settlement would put the county at a huge disadvantage, and that none of the extra cash has been targeted at areas with the greatest need. It added that the settlement was “unfair” and “far too late”, and I hope that the Secretary of State will accept that clarification.
Greg Clark
It is clear that that is a response to the statutory consultation, and to reassure the hon. Lady that I am not taking anything out of context, the section that I quoted from is entitled, in bold, “Fairness of Settlement” and states:
“In our view, no authority can now claim that this approach is ‘unfair’.”
It is as clear as day.
Dr Blackman-Woods
I think that is the fourth time we have heard that from the Secretary of State this afternoon, but that does not make it right. Durham County Council has clarified that, and it thinks that the settlement is totally unfair.
Jim McMahon
Simon Henig, the leader of Durham County Council, has just sent me a message to say that that aspect was part of the original consultation, and that it does not consider the latest round, which includes the transition fund, to be fair.
Dr Blackman-Woods
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for confirming what I have just said. Those of us in Durham think that the settlement is absolutely shocking because, once again, it hits hardest those councils with the greatest problems and highest levels of disadvantage, such as Durham. I had hoped that the Secretary of State’s comments on Monday would go some way to addressing the balance in favour of areas with the highest need, but I am afraid there was not a glimmer of that. Given the Government’s record of unfairness and widening inequalities, it is perhaps not surprising that the settlement massively favours Conservative councils. In fact, 87% of the funding announced on Monday is going to Tory councils.
Dr Blackman-Woods
I am not going to give way to the hon. Gentleman, because he would not take an intervention from me.
The only north-east council to benefit from the £150 million additional funding announced on Monday is Northumberland. That is staggering, especially as Durham is also a substantially rural area. It is odd, then, that Northumberland is the only council to benefit from the rural fund. Indeed, if we look across the country, the areas to benefit most are Surrey, with £11.9 million; Hampshire, with £9.4 million; North Yorkshire, with £9.2 million; and Devon, with £8.3 million. Examples of the reduction in core spending tell a similar story: Durham had a reduction of minus 4.1%; Newcastle minus 4.4%; and Sunderland minus 4.3%. Compare that with Surrey, which has a decrease of only minus 1.1% and North Yorkshire minus 0.3%.
Dr Blackman-Woods
I will not give way to the hon. Gentleman, just because we are very short of time.
It is very clear from those figures that shire county areas and southern authorities have received below-average reductions in core spending power, while deprived areas have received above-average decreases, continuing the unfair trend set by the coalition Government. As we have heard from other Labour Members, the very councils suffering the highest cuts have a higher demand for children’s services, evidenced by severe cuts to our children’s centres, with most closed under this Government, and greater demand for adult social care and higher levels of need for good public health. That is not, however, reflected in core spending power per dwelling. The average across the country is £1,838, but for Durham, an area of high disadvantage, it is only £1,608. By comparison, the whole of Surrey gets more than £2,000 per dwelling, while Richmond upon Thames receives £1,866. Based on current forecasts, Durham’s total savings target for the next four years is £105 million, so there will have been £260 million of cuts since austerity began—figures so large that they are difficult to comprehend.
Figures are important to understanding the gross unfairness in Government funding, but we need to take a moment to consider what this means for people who need council services. Even by dipping into council reserves, Durham faces severe challenges with regard to social care charges, the provision of essential youth services and support for vital bus services. I say to the hon. Member for Beverley and Holderness (Graham Stuart) that Durham is a rural area, too. It needs to support its bus services, but the Government are not allowing for that in the current formula, not to mention any access to leisure facilities.
The council will do its best to ensure that the most vulnerable people are protected and that, where it can, capital will be used to promote economic growth and tourism, but the Government should take no comfort from that. The statement on Monday was a disgrace in that it failed to address the needs of some of the most disadvantaged people in the country. The settlement leads to the extraordinary position whereby residents in more affluent areas are receiving services of higher standards and greater volume than in areas where a lot of the people are low waged or where historically they have high levels of poor health. That cannot be fair and no amount of loquaciousness and tongue twisting from Government Members will make it so. It is time for a fair local government finance settlement based on need, not the political colour of the local authority.
Kevin Foster (Torbay) (Con)
It is interesting to follow the hon. Member for Burnley (Julie Cooper). Perhaps this debate has given us a chance to look forward to the future, given that the Lib Dems have left the building, but it has also given us an opportunity to look back to the past. Just over a year ago, Labour had been complaining for nearly five years about various local government settlements. An election was coming and Labour Members were challenged: “What extra would you do?” Their answer was, “Nothing.” It is interesting to compare their rhetoric today with the reality.
A four-year local government funding settlement is welcome. I used to work in local government and it made no sense to find out in December what we would have to spend from April and to then base it on a budget that was set at the back end of February. Whatever anyone’s view of the overall settlement, it makes eminent sense for councils to be able to plan in a similar way to Governments.
I represent one of the few totally urban constituencies to the west of Bristol, but do I object to the recognition given to the challenges that our neighbouring county faces in delivering services? For all the fury and rhetoric we have heard about Conservative areas being favoured, it is worth noting that Exeter, the one Labour constituency west of Bristol, falls under Devon County Council, which is going to benefit. [Interruption.] Judging from what we have just heard, it seems as if Labour is working to ensure that it has no MPs west of Bristol after the next general election.
Issues affecting coastal communities are well worth looking at. In my area, we are a mixture—in some ways urban and in some ways rural—but we certainly have big social challenges and problems surrounding an ageing population. In one ward in my constituency, 9% of the population is aged over 85, and it will soon be 10%. Whatever anyone says, that makes for a real challenge.
When it comes specifically to Torbay, some lessons can be learned by other councils from its approach to the challenges presented by asking the LGA to come and work on a peer review. This confirmed the council’s viability and suggested that it needed to develop its own vision for the future. I could suggest some areas on which it might want to review its spending—subsidising the local conference centre, for example—but at the end of the day, a positive picture has been presented of how a council that wants to grapple with the issues and wants to put forward a vision can build towards the future, while facing some of the biggest demographic challenges with childcare at one end and elderly social care at the other.
I welcome aspects of the settlement. I think it is fair settlement overall—one that does not denude my area when it comes to assisting other areas. With greater devolution and more areas working together—and particularly with Devon, Somerset, Plymouth and Torbay looking to work together—it is wrong to present this false idea of little islands all working on their own that we have heard from Labour Members. That is absolute nonsense.
There are positive aspects, but yes, there are still challenges. We have heard some false anger from Opposition Members, when Labour did not pledge any extra funding in this area and argued during the election campaign that it did not even want to match our pledges on the NHS.
Dr Blackman-Woods
There is nothing false about the issues we are raising this afternoon. We are simply asking for a fairer settlement for local government that takes account of levels of disadvantage and levels of need, and for the needs of rural areas such as Durham, as well as rural areas elsewhere, to be acknowledged.
Kevin Foster
There may be nothing false about the issues, but it is somewhat false to come into this Chamber and complain about reductions in local government funding, when Labour Members had an opportunity to change the situation in their manifesto but failed to do so.