Oral Answers to Questions

Stephen Timms Excerpts

Monday 28th February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Robert Neill]

The Bill will introduce neighbourhood planning measures and the community right to build, which will enable the incremental growth of villages. This will empower local communities, particularly in rural areas. Also, as I have said, we are revising the whole national planning priority framework, which will enable us to ensure that we have genuine sustainability—the right development in the right places to meet the right needs—while removing the top-down targets that have often resulted in inappropriate development being foisted on rural areas.

[Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab)]

3. What recent estimate he has made of the likely change in aggregate levels of employment among local authorities in the next four years.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (Robert Neill)]

No estimate has been made of the change in aggregate employment levels among local authorities in the next four years. It is for individual councils to make their own decisions about how their local work forces are organised and managed to ensure the efficient delivery of services for local taxpayers.

[Stephen Timms]

I think there should have been such an estimate. The Office for Budget Responsibility has projected a net loss of 40,000 in public sector employment in the next financial year, yet the Conservative-led Local Government Association says that 100,000 jobs will be lost in local government alone in the coming financial year. How have the Government got this calculation so badly wrong?

[Robert Neill]

It is precisely because it is down to local authorities to configure their work forces to meet local needs and priorities that the Government have not sought to make a calculation and therefore cannot get any such calculation wrong. The right hon. Gentleman might also like to reflect on the fact that some of the figures being bandied about relate not to actual reductions in jobs but to consultations on potential changes that might not come to pass.

--- Later in debate ---

[Grant Shapps]

Yes, my hon. Friend is absolutely right: there is no chance of, or way in which, a social tenancy can be broken or changed for anybody already in council or housing association homes.

[Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab)]

T9. Once the financial year has started, will the Secretary of State give us a report on the reduction in local authority employment over the past year?

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (Robert Neill)]

I have already indicated to the right hon. Gentleman that it is for local authorities to decide how best they configure their work force. Let us see what eventually happens. It is important to remember that some of the figures that have been quoted do not bear in mind the fact that the HR1 forms, which are necessary for the purposes of consultation, do not result in job losses. Furthermore, job reconfiguration takes place by many other means that do not result in the figures suggested.