Brandon Lewis
Main Page: Brandon Lewis (Conservative - Great Yarmouth)(13 years, 5 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Mr Marsden
Not at this point, but I may do later.
I shall not stray far from the motion before us, but I want to mention, in passing, the significant assistance provided by the Northwest Regional Development Agency, and the same point applies to seaside and coastal towns elsewhere.
Mr Marsden
I would like to make a little progress before giving way. As I was saying, the regional development agencies provided a significant benefit.
What has happened since June this year? First, we had the area-based grants cuts in the emergency Budget. If we look at the figures on the cuts in seaside and coastal towns generally, and particularly at those in Blackpool, we find that in most cases the cuts were twice the level of those made in other areas. It is not necessary to take just my word for it; let me cite the words of Peter Callow, the leader of Conservative-controlled Blackpool council. On Radio Lancashire, commenting on the cuts, he said that
“it is 33 million for a part year remember which equates to £4 million for the whole year, that is a sizeable sum and what I have got to explain to government and what I am doing is saying look behind the glitz and the glamour of Blackpool there is deprivation, we are one of the most deprived areas in the land and we shouldn’t be singled out like this, I understand some of the leafy lanes of Surrey and places have got away with it, well that can’t be right”.
That is what the leader of our Conservative-controlled council said back in June.
Steve Rotheram
I thank my hon. Friend for those comments. Having been a bricklayer and an apprentice, I know the construction sector all too well. I once described myself as the only bricklayer in Parliament; unfortunately, one of my colleagues, who is not present, also did an apprenticeship but he was not indentured, so I can still legitimately claim to be the only indentured bricklayer in the House of Commons.
In addition to the statistics I have quoted and the bodies I have mentioned, the Centre for Local Economic Strategies has noted that the areas most at risk are those with relatively few private sector jobs, high levels of unemployment, poor transport links and high vulnerability to national public sector job losses.
Brandon Lewis
The hon. Member for Blackpool South (Mr Marsden) made some comments about coastal towns, and my constituency fits that bill. When Labour came to power, Great Yarmouth had a couple of the most deprived wards in the country and they were still in the handful of most deprived wards when it left power. Surely the hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton (Steve Rotheram) must agree that it is time to try something different.
Steve Rotheram
I would love to ask the people of Great Yarmouth whether they would like some money with strings or no money at all. I think they would rather have money with strings than what you are proposing—cuts across the board. [Interruption.] That is about local authority spending, not how much money you get. You cannot have it both ways.
Brandon Lewis (Great Yarmouth) (Con)
Our residents across this country have been losing interest in local government for years. Turnout in local elections, and particularly local government by-elections, shows that many people are not interested. From speaking to residents, I have learned that the biggest reason for that is that over the past 10 years and more councillors have often, rightly, said that they cannot deal with a given issue because it is under central Government control.
It has already been said in our debate that the previous Government gave money but it always had strings attached. That was the problem. During the 11 years I spent as a councillor and council leader while a Labour Government were in office, my experience was never that we had plenty of money or that we could ever do things without strings attached. Every single time we looked at doing something for our residents, we had to go through some aspect of the tick-box culture. There had to be a consultation on a proposal, for instance, even if that proposal had been in the local election manifesto, or we had to do something differently to make sure that we kept one quango or another or the Audit Commission happy, because officers’ views were often that if we did not do so, we would be punished somewhere else, with a different grant being cut or changed in a different area.
I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for South Derbyshire (Heather Wheeler) that a key problem is the stranglehold that has been put on local government for years. I also agree that the fact that the previous Government held local government to ransom over their finances made it almost impossible for local councils to say that they were able to do very much directly for their local residents, even in areas where they were not struggling. That was because they were having to find money to cover bus passes, swimming pools or licensing. They were also then being handcuffed in respect of planning rules.
It has been a difficult time for local government and I understand why residents have started to switch off and disbelieve what they read in election manifestos. After all, under Government statutory requirements those in local government who were working to an election manifesto would probably still have to consult on any measures afterwards, so what was the point of the manifesto?
I hope that the ending of ring-fencing, the freeing up of local government and the localism Bill when it is introduced will result in councils being able to go back to concentrating on actually delivering for residents, instead of ticking these boxes, which are so often caught up with a financial string. If that happens, elections will actually matter again and people can believe that when they vote for a councillor and a party in a local election, that party can deliver on its manifesto. People will be able to expect to have local manifestos on which they can hold the party and council to account, rather than just always being fobbed off with, “We can’t do that, we are restricted on this, or there’s got to be consultation on that.” That is a huge issue for local government. I sometimes think back to my time as a councillor and the amount of officer time that was spent on ticking these boxes and on putting bids together for money we may or may not get, depending on which box we tick.
Brandon Lewis
I am talking about a whole range of funds across the board. We would have officers spending a huge amount of time on every single matter. That was even the case in respect of initiatives like the comprehensive performance assessment. The sums involved would be up to £250,000 a year. If we added up the amount of officer time spent in that way, we would find that local government could save a huge amount of money. I know that from speaking to my local authority in Great Yarmouth. I am proud to be able to say that, when the announcements were made earlier in the summer, our managing director and councillors said, “We can deal with this.” We were one of the hardest hit local authorities, but they felt they could deal with it. They are now, rightly, looking at how they might share services.
One of the problems we had with the previous Government was their approach. They had to have estimates—even for unitary government. We debated that topic in the Chamber just a couple of weeks ago. The argument was that there could be a couple of million pounds a year in savings from having unitary authorities for Norfolk and Exeter, but one of the problems in respect of Norfolk was that we would still keep the county council and all the councils we had, and just convert one city council to a unitary. I would, therefore, still dispute whether there would have been any saving in officer money and time from moving to unitary status. However, the previous Government wanted to do that in the belief there might be savings down the line, when in fact what we are now seeing in Norfolk is authorities coming together to look at how they can share services, both county with borough and district councils and district councils across each other.
We are considering some of the savings that have to be made and—as other Members have commented—the salaries earned by some people in senior management in local authorities. We should also consider sharing services and focusing on local accountability, with members representing their residents. It should not be based on where a person’s office might be or whether they work in one, two or three authorities. They are there to deliver a service, not tick a box for Government. If we were to do that, we could start seeing huge savings across the board.
The key is getting back to what local authorities are for. I fully support the Government’s position and will be voting against the motion because it harks back to the bad days of the past 10 or 15 years when Government held local government at arm’s length but were then able to blame it for being unable to deliver because, as Labour Members have already mentioned, there were strings attached. Instead, we should set councils free and give them power not to be ring-fenced and to make their own decisions. That will make them more accountable—transparency is a huge part of this. People will then understand that their local authority is the authority responsible for specific areas, that it has the power to deliver and that it is accountable at an election, which is really what democracy is about. That would be a big step forward for local government.
I know that other Members are keen to speak, so I am happy to conclude on that point.
Siobhain McDonagh (Mitcham and Morden) (Lab)
May I say to the hon. Member for Great Yarmouth (Brandon Lewis) that if he thinks that councillors had a bad time under the Labour Government, he really has not seen anything yet? I say that as someone who was a councillor between 1982 and 1998. I spent eight of those years in opposition and eight controlling the council, with only two of those years under a Labour Government. I watched the poll tax come in and I watched what we had to do during those times, so I suggest that he has lived through a pretty easy time in local government. If he thinks that by not having to tick boxes constituents are going to come out to vote in local elections, he underestimates the need for all politicians, national and local, to engage with our electorate. I suggest that engagement with our electorate is the thing that matters.
Brandon Lewis
The point that I was making was that by not being focused on ticking boxes for central Government and quangos, councils can go back to focusing on delivering services for residents, and that is what matters.
Siobhain McDonagh
Perhaps now I should take the opportunity to explain to the House and the hon. Gentleman just why I am not sure that my local residents will feel exactly the same way. Most Members will not have heard of my local council—Merton. It is a quiet, low-profile London borough. It is not the poorest or the most exciting. It generally gets on with it, whether it is Labour or Conservative-run. It is a council that likes to sweep the streets, collect the rubbish and look after people as best it can. Its services are not perfect and could improve, but most of the time it does its best. I suggest that the same applies to most of the councils represented by hon. Members.
Merton council needs time to change and to get about sharing services, but that time does not exist if those spending figures are to be released next week. Next week, we will learn the figures and by 5 March my council has to say what its budget is for next year. If I know anything about local government, it is that huge reforms are not brought about in three months.
Merton council will have to make cuts of £24 million this year—that is for the cuts it anticipates and those it will have to make because of an expanding need for services, such as school places and care for the elderly. That is £24 million out of a budget of £150 million. The people on that council are not people who squeal and they are at a meeting tonight just trying to get on with it, but how will they do this? They have already identified £10 million of cuts this year, which is the largest figure ever at this point in a financial year for the next. They hope to get to a figure of £14 million by January, but the following £10 million will be really hard to find.