Council Tax: Government’s Proposed Increase

Steve Double Excerpts

Monday 25th January 2021 Commons Chamber

[Steve Double (St Austell and Newquay) (Con) [V]]

I was not informed that the time limit had been cut, but I will try to keep to three minutes.

As a former councillor and cabinet member of Cornwall Council, I know at first hand the important role that local authorities play in the lives of our constituents. There can be no doubt of the important role played by Cornwall Council, and councils up and down the country, in supporting local communities as we have faced this pandemic. In particular, I place on record my thanks to town and parish councils for the incredible work they have put in to support their local communities.

The Government have shown their recognition of the role that councils play with the support we have provided to local councils throughout this pandemic, amounting to billions of pounds. Cornwall Council alone has received more than £555 million to support the people of Cornwall. I am therefore pleased that this motion today gives us the opportunity to highlight the important work that councils do.

I am not surprised, however, that the Labour party’s motion misses a number of important points. First, it misses the Labour party’s own record on council tax. I remember when the Labour party was in government, when council tax doubled. Even now, Labour-run councils cost the taxpayer £84 a year more and Liberal Democrat-run councils a staggering £132 a year more than the average Conservative-run council. If we want to know what a Labour Government would do with council tax, we only have to look to Wales.

Secondly, the motion misses the point by saying that the Government should provide funding, but without saying where it should come from. It is all taxpayers’ money; whether raised centrally or locally, someone has to pay.

Are the Opposition suggesting that tax rises should be put in place to fund local authorities across the country? That would mean taxpayers in Cornwall paying so that Sadiq Khan can subsidise travel for Londoners. I do not believe that would be right. Or are they saying that we should take money away from other essential public services to fund the council tax from other Government budgets? If so, they need to say where the money would come from.

I am sure that the Liberal Democrats and independent councillors who run Cornwall Council would love to hide away their spending from local taxpayers, but the whole point of council tax is that councils are answerable to local taxpayers for the decisions that they make. In Cornwall, we have many examples of the Lib Dem-independent administration wasting money, such as funding an office in Brussels, even though we have now left the European Union—wanting to continue it at a cost of tens of thousands of pounds a year—or a £2 million failed IT system that hardly anyone has used.

I believe it is right that local council tax is raised by local councillors who have to answer to their electorate for the decisions that they make.

Hospitality Industry: Government Support

Steve Double Excerpts

Monday 11th January 2021 Westminster Hall

[Steve Double (St Austell and Newquay) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Stringer. I rise to speak as the chairman of the all-party parliamentary group for hospitality and tourism. I thank all the petitioners who signed the petitions, in particular the 400 residents of the St Austell and Newquay constituency who put their name to a petition and whom I have the honour of representing.

I place on the record my thanks to the Minister: I believe that we have a Minister for hospitality—that may not be in his title, but I know from my work with him over the past year, he has always been available to me and colleagues across the House to address the concerns of the sector. He has also worked closely with the sector, so although I recognise the call for a Minister have “ hospitality” in his name, I do not accept the premise that we do not have a Minister for hospitality, because we very much do.

I also place on the record my thanks to, and recognition of, all hospitality businesses across the country for the way in which they have approached the past 10 months, and for the way in which they have adapted, taken a positive attitude to making their premises safe for visitors and worked together to get us through this pandemic. I thank and recognise them for all that they have done.

There is no doubt about the vital role that hospitality plays in our economy, as other colleagues have mentioned. One in six new jobs created over the past 10 years has been in this sector. It is a great vehicle for social mobility, for people from all sorts of backgrounds to get into a career and into management quickly. It impacts every community. The Government have recognised that with the unprecedented level of support that they have given to the sector. Although I would join calls for the need for more support, we should recognise the incredible support that has been put in place and is very much welcomed by the sector.

One of the key points to reinforce, which I do not think has been fully recognised in the support that the Government have made available, is the impact on hospitality of having to close quickly when decisions have been made to protect public health. Those decisions have been right, but the impact that they have had on the hospitality sector has been disproportionate. It is very different for a clothes shop having to close—six or 10 weeks later, the clothes will still be there. The food in the fridge and the beer in the seller will not last, however, and has to be thrown away. More support needs to be given to the sector to recognise that.

I join the calls made by many others: we need to extend the support for the sector. I very much look to the Chancellor, in the Budget, to extend the VAT cut—many businesses have not been able to make use of it, because they were closed for so long—and the business rates holiday. I would add that the opportunity should be taken to reform business rates in this sector. They have been unfairly impacting the sector for far too long. Let us take this opportunity to reform business rates, as well as extending the holiday.

Provisional Local Government Finance Settlement

Steve Double Excerpts

Thursday 17th December 2020 Commons Chamber

[Robert Jenrick]

It would not be right for me to say in public the self-reported estimate of costs provided to us by Bedford Borough Council because that has been done in confidence. None the less, across the whole country, as I have said, the sum of money that we have provided to local councils well exceeds their self-reported covid-19 expenditure. With respect to Bedford, I can say that the total funding provided this year has been £20.9 million so far. For Bedford’s businesses, we have provided £27.8 million, supporting 2,300 businesses. Looking to the future and the recovery of Bedford’s economy, it is likely to be a recipient of the towns fund, and it certainly has received £1 million in accelerated funding to support new infrastructure, skills, culture and business development.

[Steve Double (St Austell and Newquay) (Con) [V]]

May I welcome my right hon. Friend’s commitment to maintain the rural services delivery grant, which is so important in recognising the additional costs that rural councils face? Many of these councils have also seen a significant drop in income due to loss of revenue through things such as car parks and other services. Will he lay out what steps he will take to support these councils that have lost significant income during this year?

[Robert Jenrick]

I appreciate that this will have been a particular challenge to Cornwall Council with its array of car parks and other attractions for the tourist sector. That is why we created the sales fees and charges scheme earlier in the year, which provides 75p in the pound to councils for losses in that regard. Already, we have paid out, I think, more than £500 million to local councils. I am sure that Cornwall Council has already benefited and will do so in the future and it is expected that that scheme will provide over £1 billion, if not significantly more. It is without cap, and we have announced in the settlement today that we will be rolling that forward to the middle point of next year. Cornwall Council will be able to rely on that to plan its future to the summer of next year, and, of course, we all hope that people will be in Cornwall enjoying its beaches and attractions in the summer of 2021.

Oral Answers to Questions

Steve Double Excerpts

Monday 20th July 2020 Commons Chamber

[Robert Jenrick]

I pay tribute to the work of faith groups across the country. I have been regularly meeting with faith leaders from all the major religions through our places of worship taskforce. I am extremely grateful for the hard work of that organisation, which has helped us to reopen places of worship safely. I am aware of the financial impact that the pandemic has had on many places of worship and faith organisations. The schemes created for charities by the Chancellor were open to those from faith organisations and many have taken part in them.

[Steve Double (St Austell and Newquay) (Con)]

Town and parish councils across mid-Cornwall have done an incredible job of supporting their communities through the pandemic, going out of their way to provide extra services. As a result, they have incurred extra costs, as well as seeing their income drop because of car parks. I know the Government have made money available to Cornwall Council to support these hard-pressed councils, but so far it has declined to pass that on. Will the Minister join me in thanking town and parish councils across the country for all the work they have done in recent months? What more can the Government do to ensure the money they have made available gets to these parish councils?

[The Minister of State, Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (Mr Simon Clarke)]

I thank my hon. Friend for his question. There is no question but that we owe an enormous debt to town and parish councils for everything they have done throughout the pandemic. We have encouraged principal authorities to discuss the funding provided with their town and parish councils where they are delivering covid-related services. The grant funding of £3.7 billion is un-ring-fenced, recognising that local authorities need to make appropriate decisions about how to meet major covid-19 service pressures in their local area. I certainly hope that Cornwall Council will give that proper consideration.

Non-Domestic Rating (Public Lavatories) Bill

Steve Double Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading: House of Commons
Thursday 16th July 2020 Commons Chamber

[Steve Double (St Austell and Newquay) (Con)]

I am sure that the Bill, with its title, “Non-Domestic Rating (Public Lavatories) Bill”, is not, for most people, the most exciting or inspiring Bill that will come before the House, but for me it marks the culmination of an eight-year personal mission. In 2012, I was the cabinet member for Cornwall Council with responsibility for public lavatories. At that point, this newly formed unitary council was running—if I remember correctly—272 sets of public lavatories across the whole of Cornwall and had made the sensible decision that this was not something that a unitary authority covering the whole of Cornwall should have responsibility for and devolved it, wherever possible, to town and parish councils.

I spent the summer of 2012 touring the public lavatories of Cornwall, from Bude to St Keverne, from Torpoint to Penzance, and many places in between, and consulting the local parish councils about whether they would take on their running. In many cases, I found they were keen to do so, and rightly so, because these facilities can be run much more effectively and efficiently locally, where they can be managed to meet the particular needs of the local community, rather than centrally.

One of the biggest barriers, however, to small parish councils taking on these facilities was the cost of the business rates. I was shocked that public lavatories were even liable for business rates. It seemed nonsensical. I wrote to the then Secretary of State, now the right hon. Lord Pickles, and suggested that public lavatories be exempted from non-domestic rates. He wrote back saying he thought it was a very good idea and he would look into it. Three years later, I was elected to this place.

Coincidentally—I checked my diary—it was five years ago this very day that the then Prime Minister, David Cameron, came to Cornwall. My hon. Friend the Member for North Cornwall (Scott Mann) and I had dinner with him that evening and put to him the case that public toilets should be exempted from business rates. He was equally shocked that they were even liable for business rates, and he agreed with us and said that the Government would do something about it. Well, it has taken five years to get from the then Prime Minister agreeing to do this to the Bill at last coming before the House. For me, then, this is a very important day and, as I said, the culmination of an eight-year mission.

I want to place on the record my thanks to those who have helped get us to this point: to the Minister today, who has at last brought the Bill before us, after many years of frustration for me, to previous local government Ministers, including my hon. Friend the Member for Nuneaton (Mr Jones), and the current Chancellor when he was a local government Minister and worked with me to get this through, and to the previous Chancellor, Philip Hammond, who first committed the Government to doing this in the 2018 Budget. It has been a team effort. I should also pay tribute to my constituency neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for North Cornwall, who has worked with me since those days in 2012 to get to this point.

Public toilets are essential, especially in rural and coastal areas, where people can find themselves many miles from other facilities. They are essential in supporting our tourist industry. As has rightly been pointed out by the Minister and the shadow Minister, they are very important for the elderly and for people with health conditions that mean they need the lavatory more often and, as has also been pointed out, to many workers, delivery drivers and some of our other key workers who need to use the toilet during the day. It is important that everything possible is done to maintain the facility that public lavatories provide, particularly in rural areas.

Let me place on the record my thanks to the many town and parish councils across Cornwall that I worked with back then, and particularly now in the constituency I represent. They have not only taken on the running of public lavatories, but over the past few weeks they have worked incredibly hard to reopen them, despite the challenges they currently face. At the risk of leaving some out, I will name a few: Newquay Town Council has worked particularly hard, as has St Austell Town Council, Mevagissey Parish Council, Gorran Haven Parish Council, and many others I am sure, who have gone out of their way to ensure that public lavatories stay open during this pandemic.

I believe the total cost of these measures to the Treasury is around £8 million, which in the current scheme of things, and given all the costs we are facing, does not seem a huge amount of money. To small parish councils, however, whose total precept may be only £20,000, that can represent a significant sum in reducing the costs that they incur in running public toilets. This Bill is important in the overall scheme of things to many parish councils.

Many parish councils currently face huge pressures. Many have lost income, perhaps because they run car parks, and they face additional costs. Many have gone out of their way to provide incredible support to communities, and to ensure that elderly and vulnerable people are looked after during the pandemic. The fact that this measure will be backdated to April will be of significant help to many parish councils in reducing costs this year, and helping them with the pressures they face. What mechanisms will be put in place to ensure that those parish councils that might already have started to pay business rates on these facilities get a rebate in a timely manner? If they have paid out and are due a rebate, it is important that that happens as quickly as possible.

Although the Government have made funding available to primary authorities—in our case Cornwall County Council—to support small town and parish councils, the council has not as yet passed on that support. It has refused to do that, which is concerning because many of our parish councils are currently struggling. Even though the Government have made funding available to Cornwall County Council, it has declined or refused to pass that funding on. What more can the Government do to ensure that where funding has been made available through primary councils to support our town and parish councils, the money gets to where it should go? Parish councils are doing an incredible job in supporting their communities, and where the Government have made funding available, it is important that that money gets to them.

I welcome the Minister’s comments about Changing Places toilets and the work that the Government are doing—another issue that I have pushed for over a number of years. It is increasingly important in our communities for Changing Places toilets to be widely available, and I applaud the Government for the steps they are taking to ensure that happens. I welcome the Bill. In the overall scheme of everything that we as a country currently have to face it may not seem like big a deal, but for someone like me who has been waiting a long time for this Bill to come before the House, it is incredibly welcome. The Government are taking an important and sensible step, and I am pleased to give them my support.

Oral Answers to Questions

Steve Double Excerpts

Monday 17th June 2019 Commons Chamber

[Steve Double (St Austell and Newquay) (Con)]

T8. What plans are there to continue to support Cornwall’s unique culture and language?

[James Brokenshire]

I commend my hon. Friend for highlighting Cornwall, which I have a close affinity to, given that my family all come from there and my son was born there. I am very keen to see support for Cornish heritage, culture and language. We committed £100,000 to Cornwall Council over two years and continue to work with it to encourage the promotion of Cornish culture, which I know he will continue to champion, and I am pleased to support it on his behalf.

Shared Prosperity Fund

Steve Double Excerpts

Tuesday 14th May 2019 Westminster Hall

[Steve Double (St Austell and Newquay) (Con)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Barnsley Central (Dan Jarvis) on securing this debate. I agreed with many of the points that he made in his very good opening speech.

I represent a Cornish constituency. It is well known—it has already been mentioned in this debate—that Cornwall has been one of the biggest recipients of European economic support funding. Yet as the Minister pointed out, Cornwall voted by a fairly substantial majority to leave the EU. There are reasons for that. It is largely because of the way in which European regional development funding has been spent in Cornwall, and there is a view that much of it has been wasted. During the past 20 years, Cornwall has received almost £1 billion of European funding, yet it has not achieved anywhere near what it was set up to achieve. In 2000, when the programme began, Cornish GDP was at 75% of the European average. The latest assessment is that we are at 68% of the European average, so despite three rounds of ERDF funding and almost £1 billion, we have fallen behind the rest of Europe.

There are good reasons for that: the European programmes are over-bureaucratic and difficult to access. In fact, the people in Cornwall who are most upset that we are leaving the EU are the consultants who have made a small fortune out of advising Cornish businesses on how to apply for European grants. They are the most upset people because their gravy train is coming to an end. Also, the programme has been far too prescriptive. We have been part of a centralised European programme that has not allowed people in Cornwall—the businesses and the local authority—to invest the money in the things that Cornwall really needs.

The shared prosperity fund is a brilliant opportunity for us to get it right. We can have a programme that is much more fit for purpose, less expensive to run, less bureaucratic and far more easily accessible to the businesses that need to access it in Cornwall. As many Members have said this afternoon, we have to grasp the opportunity to get a programme that is fit for purpose and delivers investment into our most deprived areas and really does the job.

Some things are absolutely essential, as other Members have mentioned. Whatever fund is put in place has to be locally administered, because local people know better what local areas need. It has to be more easily accessible and less bureaucratic, and there has to be a single dedicated pot for places such as Cornwall so that we are not put in a position where we have to be competitive and therefore miss out. I urge the Minister to do all that he can to ensure that the consultation is brought forward as soon as possible.

Stronger Towns Fund

Steve Double Excerpts

Monday 4th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Steve Double (St Austell and Newquay) (Con)]

The Secretary of State’s announcement today has caused a great deal of concern in Cornwall. We were told that the allocation would be based on need and deprivation, yet Cornwall, an area that has some of the lowest wages and productivity and some of the highest levels of deprivation in the country, has been put in with the south-west and received one of the lowest allocations. Will the Secretary of State please explain why Cornwall has had such a low allocation, and will he reassure the people of Cornwall that the criteria used for this allocation will bear no relation to the criteria used for the shared prosperity fund when it replaces European structural funding once we leave the EU?

[James Brokenshire]

I can give that assurance to my hon. Friend. The UK shared prosperity fund is a completely different process and we look forward to consulting in detail on that. I recognise the challenges Cornwall faces. I have a really positive sense of what Cornwall can be from the exciting projects my hon. Friend showed me on my visit to parts of his constituency last year. The notional allocations have been set out based on productivity, income, skills, deprivation and the proportion of the population living in towns, with all those criteria weighted together. I want him to remain ambitious. I am ambitious for Cornwall: what it can do, the opportunities that are there, and how the £600 million, as part of the overall fund, provides huge potential, alongside all the other great initiatives that I know are happening in Cornwall.

Economic Growth: South-west

Steve Double Excerpts

Tuesday 5th February 2019 Westminster Hall

[Steve Double (St Austell and Newquay) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow my fellow Cornish Member, my hon. Friend the Member for St Ives (Derek Thomas). I thank my hon. Friend the Member for South West Devon (Sir Gary Streeter) for securing this debate. We have already had discussion about where the south-west actually is. For those of us in Cornwall, we kind of think that anything past Taunton is the midlands. We very much see the south-west from our perspective, which is looking from the far end of it, but there is no doubt that Cornwall in particular faces a number of unique economic challenges, and those are largely down to our geography. I do not think enough reference is made to the fact that being a peninsula creates a number of unique challenges that nowhere else in the UK faces. That is shown by the figures that my hon. Friend the Member for St Ives commented on. GVA is 35% below the rest of the country, and our wages reflect that. There is a desperate need to address that productivity gap to grow the Cornish economy and create better paid jobs so that we can start to see the Cornish economy catching up with the rest of the country. Much of that is because our economy is based on traditional sectors that have been low paid, particularly tourism, agriculture and food.

Cornwall has a rich history and heritage of being an industrial heartland. Many of the great advancements in industry and technology started in Cornwall. The invention of the steam engine by Trevithick sparked the industrial revolution. In more recent times, Marconi sent the first transatlantic telegram from Cornwall. My hon. Friend the Member for St Ives mentioned Goonhilly, which received the first transatlantic satellite TV signals. Cornwall has always been at the heart of industrial and technological advancement. My great hope is that Cornwall can once again recover some of that history and put itself on the map as a place for great advancement in technology and industry.

There are some opportunities before us that I want briefly to touch on. It is good to see the chief exec of our Cornwall and Isles of Scilly local enterprise partnership in the Public Gallery. I commend its production of an excellent publication called “10 Opportunities”, which lays out the opportunities before us for Cornwall’s economy. I will touch on three. The first is the space sector, which is well known. I am sure my hon. Friends will be sick to death of me talking about the potential of the space port coming to Newquay, but it would remiss of me not to mention it again. We need to see it delivered. As my hon. Friend the Member for South West Devon said in opening the debate, this has to be the year of delivery. If we can get the space port to Cornwall, it will unlock huge potential for investment and new jobs.

The second is lithium. We are all aware of the growth in demand for batteries. Cornwall is rich in lithium deposits. Only yesterday, I met the Cornish company Cornish Lithium and the Under-Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, my hon. Friend the Member for Watford (Richard Harrington) to see how Government can support the extraction of lithium. Various figures are quoted, but we are talking tens of billions of pounds of precious metal in Cornwall that would revive our mining industry. No longer will it be “Poldark” tin and copper; it will be a new generation of precious metal extracted for battery production.

The third is renewable energy. My focus is particularly on geothermal. The Minister will know, as I have been working with him on this for some time, that we are already digging our first geothermal well in Cornwall, but there is potential for much more. Cornwall has a unique landscape and is the only place in the UK where geothermal energy is possible. It could unlock some great potential for our economy.

We need the Government to support the Cornish economy in the development of those new sectors. Part of that has to be the replacement of the European regional development programme. I am a huge supporter of leaving the EU, but Cornwall has been the biggest beneficiary of economic support through the EU. I never say “from” the EU, because it is UK taxpayers’ money that it recycles and gives back to us with a whole load of strings attached. The fact is that the programme has failed, because Cornwall is still reliant on it. If the programme had been successful after its three rounds, we would not need it any more. We still need it, therefore I believe we can do better with our own UK-based programme. Will the Minister update us on the shared prosperity fund, which will be absolutely essential for supporting the Cornish economy going forward? I know that there have been delays in the consultation, but perhaps he will use his offices to try to push it forward. Those of us who work in Cornwall on the future of our economy need some certainty about what the programme will be so that we can start to work towards it, and any further delay will hinder progress.

I very much believe that there are great days ahead for the Cornish economy. The opportunities before us are substantial. There is an absolute appetite in Cornwall to unlock potential and see things come to pass, but we need the backing and support of the Government. I acknowledge that in my time in this place we have seen a Government who are hugely supportive of the Cornish economy. We have touched on the investment that we have seen in our infrastructure—our roads and railways and the Government’s support for our air connection from Newquay to London. The recent announcement that that connection will be switched to Heathrow will be hugely welcomed. We need the support to continue, the shared prosperity fund put in place as quickly as possible, and Cornwall’s potential opportunities unlocked. I simply ask the Minister to do all that he can to make progress on the spaceport, support for lithium mining, and the shared prosperity fund as soon as possible.

Oral Answers to Questions

Steve Double Excerpts

Monday 28th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Rishi Sunak]

It was a pleasure to meet the hon. Gentleman and his constituent, who made a powerful and compelling case for Government action. I am pleased to tell him and all campaigners that we will outline the consultation before the Easter recess to take this important measure forward, and I look forward to his contribution.

[Steve Double (St Austell and Newquay) (Con)]

T7. Coastal erosion is a growing issue in Cornwall due to our more extreme weather patterns, and there is particular concern about the risk to cliff-top developments. The Newquay neighbourhood plan seeks to limit clifftop development through declaring the whole parish coastline a coastal change management area. Will the Minister join me in congratulating the neighbourhood plan team on their proactive approach? What more can we do through the planning system to limit inappropriate cliff-top development?

[The Minister for Housing (Kit Malthouse)]

My hon. Friend is continually effective in bringing the issues of his constituency to this House. He will know that I am unable to comment on a specific neighbourhood plan, but I confirm to him that planning policy is clear that planning done through neighbourhood plans should be safe and should take coastal change into account.