Baroness Primarolo
Main Page: Baroness Primarolo (Labour - Life peer)(13 years, 3 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Chris Heaton-Harris
Even if it is over three years, it still amounts to 7% or 8% of the total savings required. Does the right hon. Lady regard that as insubstantial?
Madam Deputy Speaker
I know that the hon. Gentleman heard me earlier; he clearly saw me. Interventions must be short.
Caroline Flint
I do not know how to follow the hon. Gentleman’s intervention, because it is a good example of the grandstanding that has been going on. I should love the hon. Gentleman to send me the figures from Hampshire county council. Seven million pounds a year? I should very much like to see those figures, because I am not sure that they relate only to senior executive pay.
I have made it clear that I am not standing up for those who pay over the odds. [Interruption.] I have made that very clear, as the Minister for Housing and Local Government will see if he consults Hansard. What I am saying is that it is a distraction to suggest that the sort of cuts in executive pay that I have described, whether they involve 50% of chief executives or 25% of the senior management team, can make a significant dent in the savings that councils are having to find.
We are often told that if councils cannot use their reserves and if cuts in executive pay are not enough, they can make their savings by sharing services or merging back-room functions. Let us leave aside the fact that more than 200 councils are already sharing services or facilities, or are planning to do that. If creative service redesign could protect services and stop unnecessary job losses we would support it, as would our local Labour colleagues, but by front-loading the cuts as the Secretary of State has chosen to do, the Government have given councils no choice other than to find immediate savings, which will actually mean cuts in services and jobs.
We have heard a great deal today about Westminster, Kensington and Chelsea, and Hammersmith and Fulham, but as ever, the devil is in the detail. When we go beyond the headlines, we find that although those councils will lose more than £50 million in funding this year, savings for this year amount to only £5 million. We can only conclude either that the Secretary of State is so detached from the real world that he does not understand that, or that this is a deliberate tactical attempt to distract attention from the problems created by the Tory-led Government. In either event, councils and the communities that they serve deserve better.
Caroline Flint
Well, so far as Sheffield is concerned, part of the problem is that the Liberal Democrats are running scared. They have deferred the decisions because they think they can pull the wool over the eyes of the people of Sheffield, but I have to say to the hon. Gentleman that that is not going to work.
I want to say something about back-room staff in local government. Efficient administration: yes, of course we need that, but every organisation needs people in the back-room as well—even the Secretary of State’s Department. It is a pretence to believe that administrative jobs are not necessary. Worst of all is the unfairness. The communities who rely the most on the services that their council provides will be hardest hit. Every time the Government hit the airwaves we are told how progressive this settlement is—but I am afraid that they do not know the meaning of the word. What is fair about the most deprived communities facing cuts four times as deep as those in the most prosperous areas? What is progressive about a finance settlement in which every resident in Hackney loses £180, while people in the Prime Minister’s constituency lose only a fiver? Even Liberal Democrat and Conservative councillors know that that is neither fair nor progressive.
The Tory leader of Blackpool council, Peter Callow, told the BBC that this Government had “let down poorer areas”. Perhaps that is why David Faulkner, the Liberal Democrat leader of Newcastle council—the Liberal Democrats’ flagship council in the north-east—agreed that the Secretary of State is
“the worst Secretary of State we have had”.
Perhaps that is why, in a private e-mail sent to Liberal Democrat councillors from the Local Government Association just last week, we learnt that—[Interruption.] I know that the Secretary of State does not want to listen to this. We learnt that
“concerns about the weakness of the Secretary of State have been raised within all three of the main political groups at the LGA and the message has been heard loud and clear by leading figures in the Government. The situation has been likened to having a republican in charge of the monarchy.”
As for the big society, with every day that passes it looks more and more like a big sham. We have heard from Volunteering England, which accused the Government of undermining charities. Last week Liverpool City council had to pull out of the big society pilot because it saw how ridiculous it was for the Government to laud the virtues of the voluntary sector on the one hand, while pulling the rug from underneath it on the other. Just this Monday, Dame Elisabeth Hoodless of Community Service Volunteers warned that the “draconian” cuts to local government were “destroying volunteering”. But as the Prime Minister said earlier this afternoon, what does she know? She is only the mother of the big society, the executive director of Britain’s largest volunteering charity.
Up and down the country, as a direct result of the choices of this Government, councils are being forced to cut back funding to community groups and voluntary organisations. If they cannot pick up the reins, who will take responsibility for providing the services that this Government have dismantled?
However, Ministers’ most insidious claim is that councils that have built up good services to help poor, elderly or vulnerable people will deliberately cut those services, rather than bureaucracy, in order to cause suffering for political gain. That is an outrageous slur, and it is beneath the dignity of Ministers to level the claim. It is a sure sign of how empty the Government’s arguments are that they drag out that myth in order to slander the reputations of decent councillors.
The blame for all this lies solely and squarely with this Tory-led Government, because the biggest myth of all is that there is no alternative. Madam Deputy Speaker, there is an alternative. We do not deny that there is a deficit and that it needs tackling, but the Government’s decision to eliminate the deficit over this Parliament is a choice, not a necessity. Labour’s plan was to halve the deficit over four years. That would have meant local government cuts, but not cuts as deep as this. The Government’s decision to front-load the cuts, so that the heaviest reductions fall in the first year, is a choice, not a necessity. We would have spread the cuts more evenly over four years, giving councils time to plan where savings could be found. The Government’s decision to skew the funding system so that the poorest councils are hardest hit is a choice, not a necessity. We would have shared the cuts much more fairly, ensuring that those with the broadest shoulders bore the greatest burden. The Government have made their choice, and they must take responsibility for the consequences.
Flush with cash from their chums in the City, this Government may be laughing all the way to the bank, but local councils and the communities they serve are crying out for more help and more time. In every part of the country and in all communities, people are rallying together, standing side by side, shoulder to shoulder, against this Government’s reckless cuts. They are the real big society, and they are telling this Government that they are going too far, too fast. The teaching assistants, social workers and street cleaners marching for their jobs: they are telling this Government that they are going too far, too fast. The pensioners occupying their local libraries and clearing the shelves of books: they are telling this Government that they are going too far, too fast. The families going door to door with petitions to save their local Sure Start centre: they are telling this Government that they are going too far, too fast.
The Government are not listening but we are, and that is why, today, Labour will vote against a local government settlement that reflects none of the concerns of councillors and communities about going too far, too fast. I urge all Members to stand up for their communities and the services they hold dear, and join us in the Lobby tonight.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)
I have to announce the results of the Divisions deferred from previous days. In the Division on the question relating to the financial stabilisation mechanism, the Ayes were 297 and the Noes were 45, so the Ayes have it. On the question relating to police, the Ayes were 501 and the Noes were 18, so the Ayes have it. On the question relating to taxation of the financial sector, the Ayes were 295 and the Noes were 223, so the Ayes have it.
[The Division lists are published at the end of today’s debates.]
Andy Burnham (Leigh) (Lab)
On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I am sorry to interrupt the House, but this is on a matter highly relevant to this debate. At Prime Minister’s questions earlier today, the Prime Minister gave an inaccurate picture about Sure Start funding to this House. He said:
“On Sure Start, the budget is going from £2.212 million to £2.297 million. That budget is going up. That is what is happening.”
There are two problems with that statement. First, those figures do not refer to the Sure Start budget; they refer to the early intervention grant, which pays for 21 separate programmes in addition to Sure Start. Secondly, the budget is not going up. The Prime Minister’s figures compared 2011-12 with 2012-13. If he had compared this year’s budget of £2.483 million with that in 2012-13, he would have found that there is a cash cut of £186 million.
Councils are making some very difficult decisions on these matters right now, and it is only fair to them to put the correct figures on the record and in the public domain. I wonder whether you might ask the Prime Minister to set the record straight, Madam Deputy Speaker.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)
That is not a point of order for the Chair. The right hon. Gentleman is very experienced, and I am sure that he will find other ways to pursue those particular points about statements that have been made in this House. He is right to say that this is a very important debate on the question of local government funding. Perhaps other hon. Members might wish to reflect on what he has said, but we will move on and continue that debate.