Buckinghamshire (Structural Changes) (Supplementary Provision and Amendment) Order 2020
Lord Livermore Excerpts(4 years, 1 month ago)
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The Minister of State, Cabinet Office (Lord True) (Con)
My Lords, this order has been laid before this House and the other place, which approved it on 18 March 2020. It will update the membership arrangements of the Conservation Board of the Chilterns Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty to take account of the restructuring of local government in Buckinghamshire. We expect that this will be the final statutory instrument connected to local government restructuring in Buckinghamshire.
The order bringing about local government reorganisation in Buckinghamshire came into force on 23 May 2019. It provided for a reorganisation date of 1 April 2020, when the new Buckinghamshire council will assume the full range of local authority responsibilities and the five existing councils—the county council and the four district councils—will be wound up and abolished. That order established a shadow authority and shadow executive, which has been managing the transition to the new council. I am very pleased that all the councils have been working closely together to deliver the new unitary council and I thank them for their hard work and dedication.
The Conservation Board of the Chilterns Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, which is the subject of this order, is made up of members appointed by the relevant local councils, parish council representatives and members nominated by the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. The board’s composition is set out in the Chilterns Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (Establishment of Conservation Board) Order 2004. The conservation board is responsible for conserving and enhancing the natural beauty of the Chilterns and increasing the understanding and enjoyment of its special qualities, which are so loved and well known by so many.
As I have said, local government restructuring in Buckinghamshire will abolish all five of the Buckinghamshire councils that currently nominate a member of the board. Some changes are needed to the board membership arrangements to take account of these changes. The Chilterns board currently has a total membership of 27: one representative for each of the 13 councils specified in the 2004 order, two parish council members for each of Buckinghamshire, Hertfordshire and Oxfordshire, and eight members nominated by the Secretary of State. Without this order, the new Buckinghamshire council will only be able to appoint one member, instead of five, to the conservation board. However, 50% of the Chilterns Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty falls within Buckinghamshire. The shadow executive of Buckinghamshire Council has, therefore, requested that the status quo be maintained so that the new council will nominate five members to the board to provide adequate representation for the area. It considers that the current membership arrangements, with five board members for Buckinghamshire as a whole, better reflect the extent of the Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty that falls within the new council area, and the Government agree. Furthermore, the Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000 specifies that at least 40% of the AONB board membership must be from local authorities and at least 20% from parish councils. These changes ensure that that statutory requirement continues to be met. There are no other changes to the membership of the board.
In conclusion, this order will amend the membership arrangements of the board of the Chilterns AONB to retain a total of 13 members nominated by local councils, five of whom will continue to be nominated from the Buckinghamshire area, for the reasons explained. There are no changes to membership of the board otherwise. I commend the order to the House.
Lord Livermore (Lab)
My Lords, it is a pleasure to speak in this debate on behalf of my noble friend Lord Kennedy. The issue of restructuring local government in Buckinghamshire has been discussed by this House previously and is settled, so I do not intend to dwell on it today. This minor order is, however, the final statutory change necessary for the restructuring process and the House will recall that the initial public consultation on the creation of a Buckinghamshire unitary authority found that a majority of respondents opposed the change. I would therefore be grateful if the Minister confirmed whether the Government believe that the people of Buckinghamshire are now fully behind the merger.
Moving on to the order before the House, there are two small issues on which I would appreciate clarification. First, as the House will be aware, a shadow authority for the new unitary council has been in place since mid-2019, as part of the effort to aid the transition. Can the Minister confirm whether, during this period, a representative of the shadow authority has been sitting on the board of the AONB? Secondly, as this change will result in the five representatives who are currently distributed equally between the five authorities being replaced with five representatives of the new Buckinghamshire council, can he confirm that the new council intends to appoint five individuals from across the county, rather than multiple representatives from any single area?
Lord True
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for his response and for speaking on behalf of the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy. On the question of transformation, which is slightly wider than this order, the process has obviously been the subject of repeated discussion. My understanding is that the shadow arrangements have been working well. I am sure that, over time, consent will continue to grow so far as the changes undertaken are concerned. The appointments will be a matter for the Buckinghamshire authority, but I am sure that it will take note of the noble Lord’s remarks. As a responsible local authority, it will obviously be able to decide that matter for itself.
I have a feeling that the noble Lord asked another question that I did not initially know the answer to, but I will look it up and respond to him; I am grateful for the response. This is a technical change but, as I explained, it is required for statutory reasons to keep the numbers up. The size of the area of outstanding natural beauty in Buckinghamshire also justifies that change.
I may be getting an answer to the noble Lord’s other question. The board membership will have been drawn from the membership of the shadow authority, as it comprises all elected members in Buckinghamshire. I ought to have been able to think of that answer myself, but I come late to the Buckinghamshire issue, given the coronavirus crisis, which I want to conclude on.
All of us are dealing with this matter. This is one of a number of small orders that are dwarfed by what is going on, but I am sure everybody in this House wishes that the day will come, after this period of enforced confinement, when the people of this country can go out and again enjoy the beautiful area of the Chilterns, for which the board is responsible. I commend the order to the House.
Budget Statement
Lord Livermore Excerpts(4 years, 1 month ago)
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Lord Livermore (Lab)
My Lords, the numbers that matter most today are clearly not those that we might normally focus on in a debate on the economy—not numbers relating to growth, inflation or productivity, but instead the numbers of people who, in the UK and around the world, have been diagnosed with the coronavirus or have died from this pandemic. Alongside this tragic human cost and health crisis, there is now a growing economic cost and financial crisis for business owners, employees, their dependants, pensioners and pension investments. Already we have seen stock markets fall and the global economic outlook deteriorate dramatically in just a week since the Budget.
The Chancellor was right yesterday to recognise this as an economic emergency. He moved swiftly in announcing a further £330 billion of government-backed loans for business, the equivalent of 15% of GDP. His statement that more support will be available is also welcome, as help is still needed for workers ineligible for sick pay and for renters. The Government must act urgently to underwrite wages in exchange for businesses not laying off staff, as has been announced in Denmark, Sweden and Norway.
The required economic measures are unprecedented in their scale, yet in the Budget last week the Chancellor presented an economy already with a number of serious underlying weaknesses, raising substantial questions about its ability to sustain and support the necessary action in this crisis. The OBR’s focus was already for extraordinarily weak economic growth, averaging just 1.4% a year—well below even the 1.9% average growth in the post-financial crisis decade that we have just lived through. Even last week, the Budget forecast looked optimistic. It assumed that the economy would grow by 1.1% this year and 1.8% next year. This was in contrast to the OECD’s forecast, suggesting the UK would grow at just 0.8% in both those years. Simply replacing the OBR’s forecast for this year and next with the OECD’s forecast brings the UK’s annual growth down to an average of just 1.2%—the worst average annual growth forecast for the UK ever recorded.
As the widespread impact of this pandemic becomes clearer, there will need to be further, even sharper downward revisions to reflect the impact of lost working hours, deferred consumer and investment spending and business failures. A recession is now surely unavoidable. Capital Economics has estimated that the UK economy could contract by 15% in this quarter alone, compared with a 6% drop from the peak to the trough of the 2008 financial crisis.
The Budget also illustrated how Brexit will continue to further weaken the British economy. Although unmentioned by the Chancellor, the OBR put the cost of Brexit so far at around 2% of GDP, or £40 billion a year. Yet the Government continue to pursue the most distant possible relationship with the EU, introducing significant non-tariff barriers to trade, which the OBR now believes will reduce UK trade with the EU by 15%.
The Government have refused to publish an economic impact assessment of their proposed trade deal, but in the OBR’s forecasts we can clearly see the cost: GDP will be some 4% lower over the next 15 years. With such profound risks to the global economy from the pandemic crisis, the fiscal policy response will come at huge cost to the Exchequer while tax revenues collapse, inevitably significantly widening the fiscal deficit. Indeed, a deficit of between 6% and 10% now seems likely.
While the Government are right not to focus on the deficit now, the Chancellor and his Budget presented not a sound platform from which to respond but already rapidly deteriorating public finances. As a result of the failed economic strategy of the past 10 years, UK net debt has doubled from £1 trillion to £2 trillion. In just five years, the Government’s ambition has swung wildly from trying to shrink the state in order to run an absolute budget surplus to growing public spending to almost 41% of GDP and actively aiming to borrow more than £60 billion each year.
The Chancellor set out unfunded spending commitments growing twice as fast as the economy, and debt was already forecast to rise relative to national income. If growth turns out even worse than expected, as it now surely will, debt will begin to move decisively upwards, now clearly heading to over 100% of GDP. To paraphrase a former Chancellor, the risk is that they did not fix the roof while the sun briefly shone.
As the Government shape their immediate and longer-term response to this crisis, policy could reasonably be governed by three guiding principles: sustainability, fairness and consistency. The Chancellor made clear in the Budget that he has no attachment to the existing fiscal rules. He maintained very little headroom against the current budget balance target, despite huge economic uncertainty, and in practice jettisoned the goal of debt falling over time, so it was no surprise that he announced a review of the fiscal framework. While maximum flexibility should govern his response to the immediate crisis—providing the economy with whatever support it needs—ultimately reviewing the fiscal framework should not lead to the removal of all fiscal anchors nor the abandonment of the idea that, in the end, day-to-day public service spending should be financed from taxation rather than borrowing. Here, ensuring that the burden is borne fairly must be paramount. Looking back, the austerity of the years after 2010 hit the most vulnerable disproportionately hard. While some of the richest working-age families gained £1,000 a year, the poorest lost £3,000 a year—15% of their income.
In this Budget, despite the Government signalling that austerity is over, the signs are not encouraging that their distributional approach will be significantly different. As a result of the tax and benefit changes announced in this Budget, the poorest decile is worse off in cash terms, while the eighth and ninth-richest deciles are the biggest winners, gaining over £100 a year. Despite significant increases in spending, the Budget did nothing to off-set the welfare cuts put in place by George Osborne in 2015, so child poverty is now set to reach record highs.
Finally, the Government’s response to coronavirus requires an unparalleled consistency of purpose. It is inconceivable that the Government have the time or capacity to respond adequately while also seeking to renegotiate the UK’s entire economic relationship with our closest trading partner. Reports that the negotiation period may now be extended are therefore welcome. This is an argument not about Brexit but about the pandemic crisis. Unless the Government are able to devote their entire attention to what is happening now, they will fail to produce an adequate response.
This does not feel like an economy in a robust position, capable of coping with the profound shocks it is now experiencing. The Chancellor’s forecasts will clearly need to be downgraded further, and he will need to reassess much more of his fiscal strategy than appeared to be the case just one week ago.
Universal Credit
Lord Livermore Excerpts(6 years, 5 months ago)
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Lord Livermore (Lab)
My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lady Hollis for holding this debate today. She is a consistently powerful voice for those who too often have no voice of their own, and I admire her greatly for it.
During 10 years working in the Treasury, I was privileged to play a small part in the introduction of the tax credit system. The principles underpinning those reforms remain relevant and right: to ensure work always pays more than welfare, to prioritise support for children, and in so doing to reduce child poverty.
Tax credits boosted the incomes of the poorest families, lifted millions of children out of poverty and helped many, including many lone parents, into work. Originally, universal credit looked to build upon the principles of these reforms. One benefit rather than six should help improve the visibility of rewards for work, boost take-up, and ensure claimants receive the money they are entitled to. Most importantly, the single taper is the embodiment of the “making work pay” goal, which should in theory greatly strengthen work incentives. Such a bold and far-reaching reform would, I think, have appealed to the Treasury I knew and the Chancellor I served. Unfortunately, under this Government a number of serious flaws now put the original aims at risk.
With relatively few working families currently on universal credit, the six-week lack of income is right now the most visible problem. But, in time, the consequences of the very significant cuts made to in-work support since the reforms were first announced will do even greater damage to the lives of the very families universal credit was created to help. The steady accumulation of cuts means universal credit will now be £3 billion a year less generous than the tax credit system it replaces. Some 3.2 million working families will be worse off, with an average loss of £48 a week. Some 600,000 of these will no longer be entitled to any support at all. Families with children will be hardest hit, with lone parents losing an average of £26 a week. Why, then, given the damage they will do, have these cuts been made?
The first reason is the previous Chancellor’s decision not just to reduce the deficit, which was of course a necessity after the financial crisis, but to tighten his fiscal rules still further, aiming to run a surplus. He made this not just an economic priority but an ideological goal, claiming that not doing so would be more than an economic failing: it would be a moral failing. Yet the Government have failed to meet a single one of the fiscal targets, and Britain now faces a third consecutive Parliament of austerity.
The second reason for these cuts is the choices the Government made about how to allocate resources within this fiscal straitjacket. At the same time as the previous Chancellor chose to cut working-age benefits in 2015, the Government also chose to cut £8 billion from inheritance tax. Indeed, since David Cameron introduced what he called “the age of austerity” in 2010, a cumulative total of £78 billion will have been spent by this Government cutting inheritance tax, all the while cutting £3 billion a year from low-income and middle-income families.
The IFS has calculated the distributional impact of changes to tax and benefits since 2015. The entire bottom half of the income distribution will see their incomes fall. The second-poorest decile will lose over £1,600 a year, while the second-richest will gain £400 a year. While the second decile will see an 8% fall in their income, the ninth decile will see a 2% rise. These are quite some choices the Government have made. They are not the inevitable consequences of reducing the deficit, nor the necessary result of living within our means, but deliberate policy choices reflecting their values: the choice to cut ever deeper into working families’ incomes, not out of economic necessity but ideological determination; the choice to cut £3 billion a year from the very poorest in society, while finding nearly £80 billion for the very richest; and the choice to see not meeting deficit targets as a moral failure, while failing to even measure child poverty targets.
You can see why. By cutting support for working families with children, the introduction of universal credit, far from reducing child poverty, will now increase it by over 1 million to 5.2 million, the highest ever level since records began. With 68% of children in poverty living in working households, universal credit should be tackling the problem of low pay, yet in fact it now does almost nothing to improve financial incentives. Working 25 hours a week will now leave a lone parent only £2 better off than working 16 hours under tax credits. Second earners will now keep only 37% of their pay. A family paying for childcare for two pre-school-age children will now keep only 6p in the pound, an effective marginal tax rate of 94%.
These reforms break the Government’s promise that work would always pay more than benefits, they betray a generation of children, and they expose a Government systematically targeting the poorest in our society while handing billions back to the better-off.
Public Bodies: Israel Boycotts
Lord Livermore Excerpts(8 years, 2 months ago)
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The Lord Privy Seal (Baroness Stowell of Beeston) (Con)
My Lords, I think that the House wishes to hear from my noble friend Lady Eaton.