Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation
Debate between Baroness Keeley and Greg Clark(9 years, 1 month ago)
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Greg Clark
As the right hon. Gentleman knows, provision was made in the local government financial settlement and the spending review to allocate up to £3.5 billion for adult social care by the end of the Parliament. The directors of social services and the Local Government Association actually asked for £2.9 billion, so our provision went beyond that. We also need to bring together the treatment of our elderly members of society so that councils and the NHS can, between them, look after those people well. After all, those requiring health care and social care are often the very same people. I know that, as a former Minister in the Department of Health, the right hon. Gentleman will favour that. Part of the devolution deals that we are pursuing will do that. We are seeing it happening in Manchester, and I hope that he will follow that with interest.
Greg Clark
I am going to make some progress, as I have said.
This Budget announces a number of new devolution deals establishing combined authorities for the West of England, Greater Lincolnshire and East Anglia, and there are more to come soon. Far from erasing local diversity, the deals make the most of it—for example, by bringing together shire, unitary and district authorities to work together for the common interests of their area. The Budget announces further transfers of power to the Liverpool city region and to Greater Manchester. This shows that establishing a combined authority, with the accountability of a directly elected Mayor, is just the beginning: a democratic basis for the ongoing devolution of power.
Growth deals are another front for the advance of localism. Through the business-led local enterprise partnerships, we are devolving control over the £12 billion local growth fund. The Budget explains how we will allocate the latest tranches of the fund. It will be done on a truly competitive basis to encourage ambition, innovation and the productive use of taxpayers’ money. I am also delighted to see the announcement of new city deals in Wales and Scotland. Specifically, the conclusion of a deal with the Cardiff capital region and the opening of negotiations with Edinburgh and south-east Scotland are important steps forward.
From north to south and from east to west, devolution is transforming our nation. In 2010, the UK was one of the most centralised countries in the free world. There were no combined authorities, and only one big city mayor. Nearly 80% of local government expenditure was centrally controlled. By 2020, there will be combined authorities across the country, and at least eight big city mayors. Local authorities will keep 100% of the income that they collect. This Budget describes and accelerates a process of profound change involving the revival and rebalancing of our economy, the rebuilding of our national infrastructure and the redistribution of power from the few to the many. I commend it to the House.
Local Government Finance (England)
Debate between Baroness Keeley and Greg Clark(9 years, 2 months ago)
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Greg Clark
I will not give way.
More elderly people living in our communities is a good thing—they are our parents and grandparents, and it is an advance that they are living longer than anyone thought possible—but we need to pay for their care needs. It is no reflection on the efficiency of a council if care costs increase because the number of older people is increasing in their communities.
Greg Clark
I will not give way.
A 2% precept is the equivalent of an annual £23 increase in the average bill for a band D property. That money can be used only for social care, and council tax bills are required to be transparent about the purpose for which the money is raised.
By the end of this Parliament, local government will retain all the business rates it raises. It is a huge transformation from a world in which, just three years ago, every penny that councils collected from local businesses had to be handed over straight to the Treasury. That meant that councils were dependent on the central Government grant. At the start of the last Parliament, nearly 80% of council expenditure was in the form of a grant from central Government. By 2020, all local government spending will be raised by local government. Councils and local people will reap the benefits of reviving economic growth, just as central Government and the country will benefit from the rising prosperity that the Government’s policies are fostering. With services financed locally, councils are even more accountable to their electorates, rather than to Ministers in Whitehall. Even as a Minister in Whitehall, I say that this is how it should be.
Greg Clark
The hon. Gentleman and the hon. Lady should be patient. I have given way to their hon. Friend, and I am going to make some progress.
That point was made repeatedly during the consultation by councils from all across the country and under the leadership of all political parties. That is why I will conduct a fundamental review of the needs-based formula to govern the change to 100% business rates retention, which I have described. It is not only the changing needs of different areas that need to be recognised, but the differing costs of providing services to residents depending on the area a council serves. As my hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Neil Parish) was saying, the rural services delivery grant, which recognises the extra costs encountered by rural authorities in delivering services, is bringing £15.5 million into such councils this year. This settlement increases the grant more than fivefold to £80.5 million, which will ensure that there is no deterioration in Government funding for rural areas, when compared with urban areas, for the year of this statutory settlement.
Greg Clark
I am going to make some progress, but I will give way to the Chairman of the Communities and Local Government Committee in a few moments.
Another important provision of the settlement is the continuation of the new homes bonus. It had not been guaranteed that the existing scheme would continue through the spending review period. I believe that the bonus has been a valuable source of funding for councils and a spur to much-needed house building, so I am very happy that the scheme will continue, subject to the changes on which I am consulting.
The settlement provides flexibility for councils with a record of keeping costs low by permitting a de minimis £5 a year council tax increase without requiring the cost of a referendum. We will consult on plans to permit well-run planning departments to increase their fees by, at most, the rate of inflation, as long as such income is used to decrease the existing cross-subsidy of the planning function by other council tax payers. Importantly, the settlement makes it clear that as revenue support grant declines, no council will have to make a contribution to other councils in either 2017-18 or 2018-19—something that was considered to be unfair in the provisional settlement by certain respondents.
Let me say a few words about the reductions in revenue support grant over the spending review period. As I have said, we are moving from one world to another; from a world in which the Government grant accounted for nearly 80% of local government expenditure in 2010 to one in which, by 2020, only 5% of local government spending power will come from the revenue support grant. In the same period, with the implementation of 100% business rates retention, the proportion of council spending power from local sources—council tax and business rates—will grow.
The reason for the change is not just financial. A council that is almost entirely dependent on central Government will, consciously or unconsciously, end up looking to central Government to be told what to do. Of course, since time immemorial, Governments have attached strings to the money they give out. My excellent predecessor, my right hon. Friend the Member for Brentwood and Ongar (Sir Eric Pickles), abolished 4,700 targets, measures and indicators to which every council in the country had to subjugate itself to obtain revenue to provide services for its residents.
That is no way for the proud towns, cities, counties and districts of this country to be governed. Places, many with a history as long and distinctive as our country itself, should not be reduced to complying meekly with Whitehall’s presumptuous demands. That is why a shift to funding from the people and businesses that councils exist to represent and serve, rather than all eyes being fixed on London, is so vital.
Our councils have been the strongest campaigners for this long overdue change, but in the consultation period that followed the statement on the provisional settlement, councils and colleagues made the compelling case that the transition to this new world needs to be sensibly managed and that the first two years of the settlement would pose particular challenges.
Barbara Keeley
Indeed; Tory Trafford. I was a councillor in Trafford, by the way, and I have to tell the Secretary of State that the council leader is not called Stephen Anstee; he is called Sean Anstee. The right hon. Gentleman has referred to him twice this week as Stephen—
Cities and Local Government Devolution Bill [Lords]
Debate between Baroness Keeley and Greg Clark(9 years, 6 months ago)
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Greg Clark
I will give way to my hon. Friend and then to the hon. Lady, but after that I must make some progress.
Greg Clark
In view of the proposed violence of my hon. Friend’s enthusiasm, I am glad that he is sitting over there rather than closer to me. He was my friend and mentor in local government, and we did a lot together on the basis of our knowledge, as councillors, of our local area. I think that is very much reflected in what we are doing now. For all the discussions we will have, today, in Committee and on Report, this is, for all of us, a big opportunity to do what many of our predecessors sometimes hoped but failed to do: give capable leaders across the country the ability to make a difference to their communities. It is right that my hon. Friend pays tribute to the potential of local leaders.
Barbara Keeley
I hope the Secretary of State will not regret giving way, because I am going to intrude on the somewhat rosy view he is developing about Greater Manchester. There was a sense of shock there about the health devolution and the imposition of an elected mayor. Manchester is not a city; the unit we are talking about is 10 separate places. I represent Salford and I have been a councillor in Trafford, and I know that feelings run high about that imposition. The real concern is about health and the role of MPs once this health devolution goes ahead. The British Medical Association is very concerned that doctors were not consulted before that decision, and neither were MPs in Greater Manchester. We find ourselves too far outside the loop, and there are real concerns about the role of an MP in expressing their constituents’ concerns on health matters in the future. This is not at all clear.
Greg Clark
I am grateful for the hon. Lady’s intervention. All I would say is that the proposals on health devolution came from the Greater Manchester authorities—they were not proposed by the Government—and reflected their feeling that their local knowledge and experience could make a material difference in improving health outcomes for people in Manchester. This is important. Of course, the national health service will always continue to be accountable through the Health Secretary, the Prime Minister and Ministers to Members here, and I encourage all authorities and Members to take the opportunity to work together and not only scrutinise but influence these arrangements. I hope they will do that.