Local Government Finance

Debate between Steve Barclay and Jim McMahon

Wednesday 5th February 2025 Commons Chamber

[Jim McMahon]

I cannot commit to that today. What I can do is to commit, from a political point of view, that the Government are willing to work cross-party and through APPGs to understand the weight of the issue and the potential solutions. I will be honest, though: we need to manage expectations on whether we can get consensus in this place on a new form of council tax or local property tax, but that does not mean we are not willing to listen to arguments.

[Steve Barclay (North East Cambridgeshire) (Con)]

We saw one area of consensus when the Minister responded to the point made by my right hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Sir John Hayes) about internal drainage boards, and I welcome his recognition of the problem in areas such as Fenland in the Cambridgeshire fens. That was a pertinent point, and I thank him for his comments.

Will the Minister take this opportunity to tell us whether any council will be worse off when this settlement is netted against the additional costs of employer national insurance contributions and those of their suppliers? According to reports that we have been given, a number of councils will be worse off. Can he rule that out?

[Jim McMahon]

The £515 million of investment from the Treasury to help councils with the increase in employer national insurance contributions has been distributed on the basis of their net service expenditure costs. We thought that that was the fairest way of establishing an evidence base that could be scrutinised. There have been legitimate representations about third-party provider costs in some critical areas, such as social care. We accept the figures from the Local Government Association because we have no reason to dispute them, but our difficulty is that that in itself does not mean that the cost will be passed on directly to the local authority in question. Some parties are bound by contracts that mean that they cannot pass it on even if they wanted to. There will be negotiations about the ability of a provider to absorb that cost, but we do not underestimate the problem. No one is going to pretend that this settlement fixes the system. What we want to try to do is stabilise the system through a multi-year settlement with bigger reforms.

[Steve Barclay]

I commend the Minister for the constructive way in which he addressed my question, but I think it important to be clear. He seems to be saying that as a result of this settlement, a number of councils will be worse off. We understand the context, but I think he has just confirmed expressly that councils will be worse off as a result of the tax rises that the Chancellor has imposed and which this settlement does not fully meet.

[Jim McMahon]

I think that that is true up to a point, but we need to take a couple of factors into account. First, the payment relating to employer national insurance contributions goes straight to the council. Secondly, this needs to be taken in the round. For the right hon. Gentleman’s own council, the social care grant is £48 million, the social care change grant is £6.7 million, and when it comes to third-party providers, the market sustainability and improvement fund is £10 million. We are trying to meet the demand in a very complex environment, but, as I have said, there is no pretending that this will fix a broken system in one fell swoop. The reform will take time.

European Union (Withdrawal) (No. 6) Bill

Debate between Steve Barclay and Jim McMahon

2nd reading: House of Commons
Wednesday 4th September 2019 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Barclay]

The Prime Minister addressed the issue about Royal Assent during his statement yesterday and Ministers abide by the code. The hon. Gentleman says that the negotiation is a sham, yet one should look at what the Commission has said. At Strasbourg, it said that alternative arrangements had merit as an alternative to the backstop. Just last month, the Council pledged, in its official guidelines on Brexit negotiations, “flexible and imaginative solutions.” Senior European figures claim the backstop will not be required. For example, a former German MEP and member of the European Parliament Brexit steering group said there was a

“99% chance that the backstop would never be used.”

Indeed, the issue arises because of the sequencing of talks, which was at the choice of the EU itself and left insufficient time for the negotiation. In fact, this issue should be addressed as part of the future economic relationship.

In addressing issues such as the claim made by those on the Opposition Benches, it is worth reflecting on the fact that the EU position has moved, from the language of “no change” to the withdrawal agreement to now saying that changes can be made if “legally operative text” on alternative arrangements can be found. It is worth contrasting Donald Tusk’s comments in June that

“nothing has changed when it comes to our position”,

with President Macron’s comments last month that he was “very confident” that the UK and EU would be able to find a solution

“if there is a good will on both sides”.

[Jim McMahon (Oldham West and Royton) (Lab/Co-op)]

Is the truth not that Government Members just do not trust the Prime Minister any more than Opposition Members? When he went to Berlin on 21 August, the Prime Minister committed to presenting a deal within 30 days. We are now a third of the way through that timetable and the truth is that there is no deal. That is the problem.

[Stephen Barclay]

The hon. Gentleman says this is about trust in this Prime Minister, but he voted against the deal that the previous Prime Minister brought back three times. The trust is lacking in those who trusted the Labour manifesto that promised to respect the referendum result.

It is worth looking at the communiqué issued by the Commission at lunch time. I am sure Members will have read it and seen, first, very little detail on the Irish border, and, secondly, that the Commission’s objective in a no-deal situation would be

“a more stable solution for the period thereafter.”

So the Commission’s own communiqué falls short of the demand for an all-weather, all-insurance, legally operative text, which is the condition it has set the United Kingdom. The legal text by 31 October will of course set out the detail, but the test needs to be one that involves creativity and flexibility on both sides. It also needs to reflect the fact that the operational detail will be shaped by the Joint Committee during the implementation period. An illustration of that point can be seen in the response to the detail presented by the previous Government. The right hon. Member for Runnymede and Weybridge (Mr Hammond) spoke about his concerns about the detail, but he will remember that when the previous Government simply presented detail against that all-weather test, the Commission dismissed it as purely magical thinking.

Leaving the EU: Business of the House

Debate between Steve Barclay and Jim McMahon

Wednesday 12th June 2019 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Barclay]

I will take one last intervention and then, conscious of strictures, I will conclude.

[Jim McMahon]

Does the Secretary of State accept that part of the public’s anger and frustration with Parliament, notwithstanding the back and forth and even individual contributions, is caused by our failure to resolve this matter? The feeling is, “a plague on all your houses”. What message does it send if a power grab means that parliamentarians, who are sent here to make decisions, are instead sent home and excluded?

[Stephen Barclay]

I have voted for the withdrawal agreement three times; the hon. Gentleman has not. That is why there is frustration. However, that is not the primary issue before the House today. The hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central captured the matter last time we debated the subject. I hope that he does not mind my quoting him. He said:

“If we as a House are going to be asked to hand over day after day, we should know what we will be asked to vote on during those days.”—[Official Report, 1 April 2019; Vol. 657, c. 809.]

It is the nature of what the House is being asked to support today that is the issue: the concentration of control in a motion from an individual and the Speaker together; the fact that the scope is potentially so widespread; the fact that it is at odds with the manifestos on which both main parties stood. In essence, the problem is that the motion is an attempt to circumvent some of the internal tension in the Labour party that is best played out in its next conference rather than through a decision of this House. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Basildon and Billericay (Mr Baron). We heard from the right hon. and learned Member for Holborn and St Pancras what this is really about: it is to say that the Government cannot control the Order Paper. It is, therefore, a way to get rid of the Government. I ask my colleagues to be mindful of that when they cast their votes.