Oral Answers to Questions

Barbara Keeley Excerpts

Thursday 21st October 2010 Commons Chamber

[Greg Clark]

The right hon. Gentleman and I agree, I think, that it is highly desirable that we should transfer power from the centre to local communities, and that involves councils, too. I do not expect them to pull up the drawbridge in the town hall when we decentralise power and resources to them. I look to councils to increase their contacts with the voluntary sector as part of the decentralisation initiative, which affects everyone.

[Barbara Keeley (Worsley and Eccles South) (Lab)]

There are

“real fears that spending cuts will impact adversely on the capacity of the charitable and not-for-profit sector. Far from taking on more… it may be able to do rather less.”

That comment on the big society was from the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy and the Society of Local Authority Chief Executives. Can the Minister tell the House just how he expects expansion in a sector that will suffer loss of grants and support—as we have heard, it is already happening—due to the 28% budget cuts over the next four years that this Government have forced on to local councils?

[Greg Clark]

May I welcome the hon. Lady to the Dispatch Box? She has long experience in local government, which I know takes these issues very seriously. One thing that councils and central Government have had the chance to do in the past is to hold on to power and to avoid bringing in the voluntary sector as of right. I think we need to change that. The hon. Lady will see that, in the localism Bill, we are going to entrench rights for community groups to take over some of the services of local authorities if they can demonstrate that they can have a more effective outcome. Rights, I think, rather than discretion, is the best source of guarantees for the sector.