Andrew Bingham
Main Page: Andrew Bingham (Conservative - High Peak)(13 years, 5 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Andrew Gwynne
I will not give way—I want to make some progress.
It is a similar story when we look at the changes to long-term sickness benefit, which is being cut by £2 billion a year. Tameside will lose £11 million a year: £85.14 per head of the working age population, compared with £45.18 for Tatton or £13.18 for Kensington and Chelsea. This is hugely unfair, and it clearly illustrates who is bearing the brunt of the spending reductions.
Let me turn to how the Stockport part of my constituency will be affected. The Liberal Democrats who run Stockport council are being very evasive—to put it politely. We know that they have to make about £20 million of cuts next year, but so far they have announced only £15 million—they will not yet say where the other £5 million will come from. That uncertainty is chronically unfair on their dedicated and hard-working work force. I find it ironic that the Liberal Democrats tabled one council motion after another condemning Labour’s grant settlements—real-terms increases, year on year, on a frequent basis. Since their Government announced cuts, there has been not a single peep from any of their councillors. Nobody likes to be unpopular, least of all the Liberal Democrats, who have become past masters at blaming somebody else, but they are not being straight with the people of Stockport about where the axe will fall and what the impact will be on front-line services. Instead, they are using convenient managerial phrases such as “service redesign”, “restructure” and “reprioritise” when they really mean cuts.
Cuts on this scale mean big job losses. Only last week, Stockport council announced 250 job losses, which will mean unprecedented reductions in services that will be felt in every corner of our community—although given the previous form of Stockport Liberal Democrats, no doubt many of the cuts will hit the Reddish wards in my constituency hardest.
There is suspicion about where the axe will fall next. It is alleged, for example, that all the youth centres will be closed, including the one in Reddish, which does an invaluable job in keeping young people engaged with their education and away from trouble. This is a wider problem within the coalition Government and their ill thought-out plans regarding local government finance. How can they possibly create the so-called big society when the voluntary sector, which will be fundamental to it, will face such substantial reductions in its core funding as these local government cuts start to bite hard? Of course, as we heard earlier, many workers in the public and voluntary sectors are women who work in the heart of our communities as teaching assistants, care assistants, school crossing patrollers and dinner ladies. It is truly hypocritical of the coalition Government to talk about the big society, and then to attack ordinary people working in their local communities in a range of important jobs.
It is perhaps not sufficiently understood that many jobs in the private sector are dependent on local government and public sector funding. Demand will be taken out of the local economy, so many retail and service companies will suffer. Tameside pioneered a scheme called Tameside Works First that prioritised the granting of smaller contracts to local companies to assist them through the downturn, helping local companies such as Denton-based Anvil Masters, which provided new park railings for Granada park in the town. Tameside should be lauded for pioneering such a scheme. However, the cuts will have a ripple effect in the private sector in my constituency and in every constituency.
Finally, the poorest, those who are most at risk and those who are most in need in our communities will be affected heavily by the cuts to council services. Some of the same people will be affected by the cuts to housing benefit. Recent research has shown that about 3,700 people in Tameside and 3,600 people in Stockport will lose out because of the proposed changes to housing benefit, some by as much as £42 a week. We should not forget that since the economic downturn, some households will have lost a wage and some people will have moved to lower paid jobs. That means that there are now even more low-paid families and that even more help is needed from local council services, at a time when councils are least able to help.
There is an emerging pattern across the country of who will be affected the most by local government cuts and the changes to the way in which central Government funds are handed out to councils: poorer areas in cities and metropolitan boroughs will face the brunt. The Labour Government had a strong record of increasing funding for local authorities in such areas, and of using those authorities to deliver national priorities by harnessing the best locally. Worse still, it is clear to all Labour Members that the Government have taken no account of how areas such as Denton and Reddish will fare with the massive reductions in spending. Sadly, we face a bleak future with trepidation.
George Hollingbery
I absolutely understand what the hon. Lady is saying. If I remember rightly, the SIGOMA report includes a table—I think on page 4 —of the differential rates of council tax between authorities. I cannot tell her exactly what the numbers are, but the overall band D council tax charged in East Hampshire, taking in the Hampshire county council precept and the local parish precepts, is higher than in the SIGOMA authorities. There is already a disparity in the amount that local citizens pay in my part of the world towards the funding of their councils, which is taken into account in the grant settlement, as I understand it. As I mentioned in my earlier intervention—I apologise again for making it overly long, Madam Deputy Speaker—the amount for Hampshire county council reduced by £45 million between 2003-04 and this year, and it is expected to reduce by a further £20 million over the next several years.
Those are not the only sources of funding for local government—there is the business rate and council tax. The UK Statistics Authority says that 56% of local council revenues comes from the council grant. If we apply the cut that the Government propose to that 56% and look at the totality of what local government takes in, we find that the cuts amount to about 14%, or 3.3% a year. The Government have been brave and transparent in talking about the totality of cuts to the revenue grant allocations, because the cut across local government is rather less.
Furthermore, an article in the Municipal Journal from 4 November last year said that studies of Total Place had suggested that only 5% of all spending in a local area comes through democratically accountable bodies, which leaves 95% to come from central Government—funding that can continue to be spent without the cuts applying, even though there may be cuts elsewhere. Therefore, a lot of the talk that we have heard—about fire and brimstone, a cleansing across local government, and local businesses going out of business because there is no longer any money—needs to be taken in that context. Plainly, a great deal of Government money is still spent locally.
One or two points have been made about the Government not doing anything to help local businesses. Indeed, the converse point—that the cuts will have a disproportionate impact on areas with high local government employment—has also been made. The Secretary of State did not mention it, but the Chancellor has provided for national insurance contributions holidays, which are granted to small business formations and are specifically targeted on areas with high levels of employment in local government—or, indeed, in government across the board. The Government have therefore taken into account the fact that, although there will be cuts in local government, new business formation will be important. Much as many of my colleagues in the south-east would like the NIC holiday to come to the south-east, we have at least some understanding of why it is not.
I do not for a moment misunderstand the fact that anybody who loses their job faces a difficult time, particularly in the current conditions. Therefore, I take seriously the loss of employment in local government. However, it is also worth pointing out—to use the cliché—that when it comes to innovation, necessity is the mother of invention. De-ring-fencing has allowed local councils a world of flexibility to find new ways of doing things: to work differently with partners, and to take budgets that were predicated on particular activities occurring in a certain way and use them differently.
Various representations have been made to the Select Committee on Communities and Local Government, from people across the country and across many subjects, but I was particularly struck by one contribution—I think it was about Birmingham; it could have been about Manchester. [Interruption.] Opposition Members will have to forgive me—we have had many representations. Some 15 or 20 agencies were offering similar services to the local population. If we have such duplication of services in local councils—and I believe that in some of the large metropolitan boroughs we do—there are surely innovations to be made. There is money to be saved, and there are new, different ways of doing things. I commend that to local councils.
Andrew Bingham
For the past two or three years, the council in my constituency has shared a chief executive with Staffordshire Moorlands council, which is not only in a different county but in a different region. The councils now have a shared management team and shared services, which shows the innovative ways in which local authorities can save money and preserve local services for residents.
George Hollingbery
Indeed, and I will return to a couple of examples of my own in a moment.
There is a real need for local councils to work much more closely with third sector organisations in their areas. The hon. Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Simon Hughes) has already made the point that we must not encourage councils to take the easy way out, which is to save money by cutting direct grants to local charities.
James Morris
My hon. Friend makes a very good point. What he says is true.
The Government have asked local authorities and businesses to join forces in a bottom-up process, where they feel it appropriate, and through local enterprise partnerships, rather than top-down, regionally imposed structures. That will allow for economic development to be based on genuine local economic geographies, for investment to be tailored to local areas, and for LEPs, such as the one I have been advocating for the black country, to focus with laser precision on the particular issues affecting the 1 million people living in the black country.
That also illustrates that local authorities are capable of working together, often across political boundaries, to deliver services more proactively. In my region, Dudley, Sandwell, Wolverhampton and Walsall councils are demonstrating, by working together on shared services, such as information technology, trading standards, legal services and human resources, that we can save money and deliver better services for local people. That is happening across the country. For example, Hammersmith and Fulham, Westminster and Kensington and Chelsea councils are implementing a substantial shared-services programme across education and other services.
Andrew Bingham
My councillors would not forgive me if I did not intervene at this point. I have mentioned High Peak borough council already, but with its shared services with Staffordshire Moorlands district council, we saved more than £1 million last year, and will save a further £1.27 million this year. That exemplifies my hon. Friend’s point.
James Morris
My hon. Friend makes a very good point. This is the future of local government—working together, shared services and making savings, while delivering services more effectively.
I have long been an advocate of place-based budgets, which were touched on at the beginning of the debate. To give the previous Government their due, they introduced the Total Place pilots. Regrettably, it took them12 years to come up with the idea, but it was a good one. The implementation of place-based budgeting can radically change how services are delivered by pooling funding from a wide range of public, private and third sector organisations to tackle specific issues. I welcome the fact that the Government have announced that initially 16 areas will focus on the broad theme of helping families with complex needs. That model will help to make the delivery of services cheaper and allow for an improved focus on the needs of specific communities and individual users. This model needs to be expanded to encapsulate further policy objectives in the medium term. The Local Government Association estimates that doing so could save £20 billion a year by the end of this Parliament.
There are examples up and down the country of local authorities taking up this strategic challenge. As the Minister remarked, the recent announcements on public health demonstrate new roles and potential funding streams for local authorities that are also very welcome. However, that is not the only way to improve service delivery. The Cabinet Office recently introduced a right to provide for employees of public sector organisations. What this will mean in practice is the extension of mutuals and co-operatives in the provision of public services. The people at ground level often have a knowledge and understanding of the issues at hand, and they will now be able to start delivering services better. I am keen to see this model progressing in my constituency, and I can see the potential of mutuals in offering local services and youth services. The Government are also committed to providing local people with specific powers to improve their local area. These include devolving planning reform back to communities from unaccountable regional quangos, allowing local people to elect their own mayors and police commissioners, and extending the use of local referendums.
In summary, therefore, power is being handed back to local authorities, public sector workers and local people. Unlike what happened during the past 13 years, this will be real localism in practice, not the top-down centralisation that was passed down by the previous Labour Government. Such an approach can lead to a more personalised approach to the delivery of services, greater accountability and transparency and, crucially, given the economic mess, real savings, which the Local Government Association estimates could be as high as £20 billion over this Parliament. Local authorities need to see the current situation as an opportunity fundamentally to rethink how they deliver services, so that they can begin to do so more efficiently, more effectively and in the interests of the local people they serve.
Andrew Bingham (High Peak) (Con)
I will be brief as I believe that one more Member wishes to speak in the next 10 minutes. I have had the privilege of being a High Peak borough councillor for 11 years, and I remember the first four years, when the council was under Labour control. Labour Members tend to wax lyrical about the past, but during those four years, when we were led to believe that money was plentiful, the Labour-controlled council managed to put the council tax up by 19% in a single year. The increase averaged more than 9% a year over four years.
In 2003, we had a strangely prescient situation in which a Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition ran High Peak borough council, but even then we were squeezed by the Labour Government, with small settlements and extra duties. We were told to take on licensing, for example, but given no money to do it. We had to find that money ourselves. The hon. Member for Lewisham East (Heidi Alexander), who is no longer in the Chamber, made an accusation about us shifting the blame for taxation on to local authorities. All I will say to that is: they should know, shouldn’t they?
The council was then faced with comprehensive performance assessments, and I remember officers focusing on that week after week, month after month, and carrying out mock CPAs to get the necessary excellent rating in order to free us a little more from Government interference. That took their minds off delivering the services that we were there to deliver. It was ridiculous, and we need less of that. We still managed to set a low council tax, however, and in 2007 the Conservatives took control of the council.
Members who have been in the Chamber for most of the debate will have heard me describe our strategic alliance with Staffordshire Moorlands. We have achieved more than £2 million of savings, which can go to our residents, although many of those measures were opposed by the Labour group. The two councils now share environmental health, ground maintenance, property management, communications, human resources and finance—the list goes on. We have all heard of other councils sharing in this way, but we were one of the first to do it. I urge Members to come to High Peak borough council and learn from us how it was done. We might make a small charge, but they would be very welcome if they would like their councillors to learn about this.
In future, we need less Government control. We have seen the regional spatial strategies going, although there are some difficulties involving legal challenges and we need to move that along faster. We have heard the Opposition say that they did not know what cuts were coming, despite their having announced them in their own pre-Budget report. Last year, however, the opposition councillors in High Peak questioned our medium-term financial strategy because we were not budgeting for deep enough cuts. So, on the one hand, the Opposition say that they do not know about the cuts but, on the other hand, they behave in completely the opposite manner.
The money that we are giving to local authorities now will be a lot freer, because there will be less ring-fencing, and freer money goes further. Ring-fenced money is harder to use, and it is not put into the right areas. Labour Members are in denial; they have been since May. Perhaps it was the sun that got to them, I do not know, but they would have been forced to make cuts and savings, had they won the election. Thankfully, they did not win it, and they have now resorted to nothing more than scaremongering.