Local Government Reorganisation
Tom Gordon Excerpts(1 week, 2 days ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Urgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
Each Urgent Question requires a Government Minister to give a response on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Jim McMahon
The hon. Member makes a fair point. We are clear in the White Paper that we want to see devolution rolled out at an ambitious pace. We are doing that, and are pleased with the responses that we have had. We want to see local government reorganisation because we believe that efficiencies can be drawn out and reinvested back into frontline services that people see, feel and value. We also accept that that cannot be at the cost of local people feeling connected and empowered in the places where they live. Local empowerment and powers for the local community are central to the White Paper, and to our agenda going forward.
Tom Gordon (Harrogate and Knaresborough) (LD)
My constituents in Harrogate and Knaresborough recently underwent local government reorganisation. As part of that, the North Yorkshire (Structural Changes) Order 2022 granted five years to develop a new North Yorkshire council-wide local plan. Work on local district plans halted to prioritise that new plan, which has now been compromised by the introduction of new housing targets under the national planning policy framework.
Will councils undergoing new rounds of local government reorganisation receive transitional arrangements, or will they fall into the same trap as Harrogate and Knaresborough and North Yorkshire, where speculative planning applications will see endless concreting over the green belt and issues with getting housing where we actually need it, rather than where we want it? Will the Minister meet me to discuss the legacy issues of that local government reorganisation, and outline what lessons have been learned from previous reorganisations?
Jim McMahon
The hon. Member is conflating two separate issues. One is the process of reorganisation, and his area of Harrogate has been through that process, including the postponement of elections to facilitate it. On housing development, if he wants to stop speculative development and to have control of what is built in local communities in Harrogate, the best way to achieve that is to have a plan in place where developers can be held to account.
Provisional Local Government Finance Settlement
Tom Gordon Excerpts(1 month ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Jim McMahon
That is exactly right. We have approached this year as very much a recovery operation. We could see that councils were in the ditch and needed to be pulled out and taken home, and that is exactly what this one-year settlement will do. However, what they need and deserve is a multi-year settlement that gives long-term security and stability, and for that long-term settlement not to be the continuation of a broken system, but a system that has been rewired and put right. With the fair funding review, the multi-year settlement and the reform agenda, putting prevention at the heart of public services, we will begin to achieve the end to which my hon. Friend rightly points.
Tom Gordon (Harrogate and Knaresborough) (LD)
We have heard a lot from colleagues about the delivery of rural services. Harrogate and Knaresborough was one of the areas that saw local government reorganisation, and we are now geographically the largest council in England. So what reassurances will there be on making sure that rural services can be provided? One of the biggest barriers the council faces is being able to deliver home to school transport, the cost of which has gone from £5 million just a few years ago to what is expected to be over £25 million this year.
Jim McMahon
I have covered the rural services element before, so I will home in on the home to school transport issue, which I know is a huge issue in many county council areas, where children are carried further away to get to schools. I will be honest and say that some of that is absolutely required, and has always been required, but quite a lot of it is the result of a broken system in which education is not being provided in local communities and parents have been forced to move further out. The plan we have to rebuild education and to invest in schools, some of it funded through impositions on private schools to get that money into the state sector, is about rebuilding local education provision so that parents have the choice and the confidence to go to the state school nearest to their home. That will have an impact on council budgets for home to school transport.