Antisemitism in Modern Society

Jim McMahon Excerpts

Wednesday 20th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Jim McMahon (Oldham West and Royton) (Lab/Co-op)]

This has been a difficult debate to listen to, and it is one we have repeated. This is not the first time that we have had this debate but it is important that we have done so, and I hope that if we have such a debate in a year’s time, we are reflecting on a year of progress, particularly in my party. I take no pleasure at all in—in fact, I am very hurt by—the experiences of people in my party and what they have to go through on a regular basis.

I pay tribute to a number of people who have spoken today. My right hon. Friend the Member for Barking (Dame Margaret Hodge) talked about her family history and told us some very human stories. When someone looks at their family tree and goes into the stories of people from many generations ago, those stories are not distant or abstract. They form part of a person’s identity and who they are. When someone reads stories that are so harrowing, it affects them as a person. I know that from my own family, although it is nowhere near comparable with the type of loss and suffering of members of the Jewish community.

My hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Riverside (Dame Louise Ellman) spoke about how people’s motives are being questioned. If legitimate views that a member of the Jewish community might have are posted online or are stated in the press, they are questioned on a range of motives. People ask, “Why is that being done? In whose name is it being done? Who are you really working for?” and I just find that sickening. I think that the questioning of motive that has infected our political debate is fundamentally damaging for democracy.

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw (John Mann) for his outstanding work on the all-party parliamentary group—he has shown real leadership. He told a very personal story about the impact antisemitism had had on his family. We choose to come into politics—we stand for office and we know what comes with that—but we are all hugely protective of our families, their privacy and their right to be normal, non-political people and to live their lives, and when they become the target of abuse in the way he explained, it hurts all of us who believe in common decency and fairness.

My hon. Friend the Member for Bury North (James Frith) talked about—celebrated, if you like—his life and how special it was. The hon. Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Luciana Berger) said that about 100 members of her family had been affected by the holocaust. I want to mention her in particular. Until a couple of days ago, she was a fellow co-operator in Parliament—one of our finest—and in case any members of the Labour party are celebrating the loss of someone like her from our movement, allow me to say this: we are much, much poorer for not having her part of it, and I am so sorry for what she has had to go through.

I believe in the Labour party. We do not have a right to exist, but I think we have a purpose to exist. There is a reason the Labour party was born, and that need is still very much here, but, as has been explained today in very human terms, we have a lot of soul searching to do—who are we and what are our values? I take responsibility, as does every fair-minded member of the parliamentary Labour party, for trying to address that. That is why I am at the Dispatch Box today—not to apologise for a system that is not fit for purpose or right, or for a party where people feel marginalised and as if they ought not to be a member, but because I believe we must all work together in solidarity to make it the party we want it to be.

We have a lot of work to do, not just to improve processes, not just to say it, but to live and breathe it, and we can only do that through our actions. It is important that the backlog of complaints be dealt with, and additional capacity has been put in, but Members are rightly questioning whether some of the judgments made were the right judgments, given that we ought to be taking a zero-tolerance approach. I apologise to other Members for focusing on the Labour party, but it has been a large part of the debate so it is right that I do.

There is an iconic poster from 1945 that reads: “Now let’s win the peace”. I reflect on that quite a lot. Many members of my family served in the armed forces, and it matters to me that every generation coming into this place should take on that responsibility. Every day, when I look at the news, when I go on social media, when I see what happens in my own community, I feel we are far from winning the peace. I take a generational responsibility in doing what I can do to win the peace, but at the moment I would say we are falling backwards. When I look at the rise of racism, at how people are being marginalised, at the tone of political debate and how polarised it has become, it does not seem to me that peace is valued or that we understand the sacrifice people made to give us the type of society we hold dear today.

I pay tribute to the work of the CST, the Board of Deputies, the Jewish Leadership Council and the Shomrim volunteers, who work to protect, educate and make sure we never forget one of the biggest human tragedies in history. This is no theoretical or abstract debate; rather it goes to the core of who we are as a country and a society. I hope she does not mind, but I will conclude by quoting my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent North (Ruth Smeeth):

“It is time to be counted in the battle to remove antisemitism from the Labour Party, as it is a battle for the heart and soul of the labour movement.”

I agree with Ruth.

Draft Local Government (Structural and Boundary Changes) (Supplementary Provisions and Miscellaneous Amendments) Order 2019

Jim McMahon Excerpts

Wednesday 13th February 2019 General Committees

[Jim McMahon (Oldham West and Royton) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Davies, in these wonderful morning Delegated Legislation Committees.

The order has been a long time in the making and we are towards the back end of the process, so there is no point spending the morning going through its history, but I have some questions to ask of the Minister. First of all, I welcome a principle and a culture that is not about changing the identity of a people and a place, but is instead about administration in an area. I just hope that when the changes have been made and the new authorities are fully functioning, that culture is followed through in everything the authorities do. We cannot believe that administrative boundaries are anything like the historical, trusted, valuable identities that people feel.

Let us be honest: there have been a number of Delegated Legislation Committees considering reorganisation in shire areas, and the reason why councils in those areas are considering reorganisation is their financial foundation. They are struggling to meet the increasing demand for adult social care and children’s services; their budgets are being hit year on year, in the same way as every local authority in England. They are increasing council tax, often to the maximum, but that is still not enough to replace the grant that the Government have taken away. The Government have refused to meet the social care, children’s services and homelessness demands that the Local Government Association has highlighted, and I am afraid that unless we deal with the crux of the issue, which is that £8 billion funding gap, reorganisation will not fix the problem. It will save some money, but it will not save the important neighbourhood services that make places what they are.

We cannot have a situation in England, which will be the outlier in the UK, in which councils are in effect just providers of social care and almost nothing else matters. That is not why councils come into existence or why councillors stand for election. People stand for election as councillors because they believe passionately in the power of their place and their communities. The idea that we should starve them of the resource they need to make those places better is, I am afraid, simply not in the spirit of a thriving Britain. As we approach Brexit—who knows when that will be—that demand for a better Britain has not been laid out and the offer has not been made to the people of this country. I strongly believe that local government is a foundation on which we will build a stronger country, but that cannot be done when we starve it of essential resources.

Obviously, we are embarking on the fair funding review, which will seek to address some of these issues. We know that the Government are keen for rural service unit costs to be taken into account, and Labour welcomes that, although we have repeatedly observed that the removal of deprivation as a factor in a number of service areas is not in the spirit of a fair funding review. A genuine review of council funding that takes into account all funding pressures must take both rural service unit costs and deprivation into account. Some services will be more expensive in rural areas; some will be more expensive in urban areas; and for many services, whether the area is rural or urban will have no bearing on cost.

In this reorganisation, for example, one of the biggest pressures is adult social care and children’s services, yet in the Government’s 2014 review of unit costs adult social care was not found to be more expensive in rural areas. It is assumed that the geography requires more downtime, with staff travelling from one appointment to the next, but when costs such as staffing and fewer children’s placements are taken into account, it is cheaper to deliver social care in rural than in urban areas. Given that is the lion’s share of the budget pressure for those local authorities, it prompts the question whether a fair funding review will fix the foundations of funding in this area. I press that point: what is the Government’s vision for fair funding? How do they intend to address the weak foundations that this reorganisation is being built on?

There are also the practicalities that are not often debated in this place but are really important. When many local authorities are brought together, they inherit different cultures, ways of working and staffing structures, which will of course change. They will also inherit different ways of collecting data, with different systems, programs and ways of recording jobs for a range of services. It would be comforting to hear that the Government have considered those points in the reorganisation, to ensure that, in the transition of many different data programs retained by councils, essential information is not lost.

Data and information technology have moved on but can be a significant bugbear. When I was council leader in Oldham, I often got the blame for the 1974 reorganisation; I had to point out that I was not born then but it was still a bugbear. When the councils reorganised, many district councils destroyed a lot of social care records as part of the transition, as district town halls closed to form the new metropolitan borough.

We need to ensure that, in the transition to a new authority, those practical matters are taken into account and that there is proper funding in place to ensure that it can be done efficiently.

Local Government Finance

Jim McMahon Excerpts

Tuesday 5th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Richard Graham]

No, let me make this point first.

I remember how Labour grew the cake in Gloucester: by shrinking the economy; by spending furiously on public services while 6,000 of my constituents lost their jobs in business, apprenticeships dried up, and engineering and manufacturing were on the verge of closure, as my Labour predecessor blithely ignored the fact that we had the second worst-performing secondary school in the country; by churning out youth unemployment; and by closing the King’s own post office. We know all about Labour growing the cake, going bankrupt, increasing unemployment—like all Labour Governments—and then complaining about austerity when Britain calls for the Conservatives to sort things out.

Let this House not forget that it was the last Labour-run—

[Jim McMahon (Oldham West and Royton) (Lab/Co-op)]

indicated dissent.

[Richard Graham]

The hon. Gentleman should listen to this. It was the last Labour-run city council in Gloucester that sold the car park for a pound and bought it back for a million. Let us also not forget that the current Leader of the Opposition claimed that 672 Gloucester City Homes tenants had been thrown out, although the actual figure was eight.

We do not need to take any lectures from the Opposition on growing the cake, but does that mean that every Conservative Government get it right? No, of course not. I wish to highlight briefly some of the issues for us in Gloucester. Library research confirms that Gloucester is in fact the worst-affected council, with a year-on-year spending decrease between this year and next of 4.4%. The council’s core spending power fell by more than 8% over the past four-year period.

In today’s world, we know that all second-tier councils must do as much as they can to generate efficiencies, whether by generating savings from increased productivity, merging their back offices, sharing space with other authorities or scrapping the mayor’s car—you name it. That is what every good council should be doing and it is what Gloucester City Council has done. The truth is, though, that as an urban district authority, it is difficult for us to grow and generate new homes bonus, because we have only 5 square miles of land. We are penalised by the deadweight calculation, which is the starting point of the number of homes, and we do not benefit as much as we could from business rate retention, although we are part of the pilot project in Gloucestershire.

The council is a good one. It is well rated by peer group reviews and respected in the city. It is leading on creative physical regeneration, with an award-winning bus station that is much admired in Cardiff and elsewhere, and making real progress on human regeneration by making sure that rough sleepers are helped into housing through the social impact bond and gearing up for a new homelessness hub, both of which are funded by the Government. None the less, the additional costs of dealing with homelessness issues are greater than the extra revenue we were given.

The Minister, who did see Gloucester and Cheltenham councils, at my request and that of my hon. Friend the Member for Cheltenham (Alex Chalk), has made some pragmatic decisions, but they do not, I am afraid, resolve the financial problems that my city council faces. These include issues such as pension contributions and the business of council fees and charges income. Despite being able to raise our precept, we will not, I am afraid, be able to match the costs if our city expects the delivery of the services that it so values at the moment.

I would love to ask the Minister this: will he have not a full blown review of local government funding, as the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg) called for, but arrange for a senior official to look specifically at our city council and offer advice on whether the system is working for us and fair, and what more we can and should do to raise the revenue to deliver the services that are so valued across our city of Gloucester?

--- Later in debate ---

[Jim McMahon (Oldham West and Royton) (Lab/Co-op)]

We have not heard a great deal today. We expected, perhaps, a rabbit to be pulled out of a hat. Word had it that the Prime Minister had a few quid to give out, but we have not seen much of that today. It could have been used in a morally just way: it could have been sent to the areas that have suffered the biggest cuts although they also suffer the most significant deprivation. Those areas have been targeted by the Government, as has been set out today in the many excellent speeches made by Labour Members in particular.

My hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts) said that people now questioned why they were paying council tax at all, given that the neighbourhood services that they received were being reduced. My hon. Friends the Members for Liverpool, Riverside (Dame Louise Ellman), for City of Chester (Christian Matheson) and for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg) made the same points about the human cost of removing vital public services. My right hon. Friend the Member for North Durham (Mr Jones), my hon. Friend the Member for West Ham (Lyn Brown) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Liam Byrne) outlined the very real community impact of austerity and the Government’s targeting of our communities. Through to my hon. Friends the Members for Redcar (Anna Turley) and for High Peak (Ruth George), we heard story after story of the human and community cost of austerity.

What shift did we get from the Government? Absolutely none. Why? This has not happened by accident, and the Government will not suddenly wake up and realise that they have made a horrible mistake. The policy has been deliberate and targeted from day one. The Institute for Fiscal Studies said:

“In England, cuts have been much larger for poorer, more grant-dependent councils than their richer neighbours.”

Why?

“This pattern arose directly from the way central Government allocated grants.”

That was deliberate and targeted and it has not stopped today. Despite our calls and our outlining the real human cost, the policy continues.

[Mr Jim Cunningham]

If the Government were serious about helping women and bringing an end to austerity, they could have funded local authorities to give free bus passes to the women they robbed of their pensions. Surely they could have done something like that.

[Jim McMahon]

The Government have been very good at shifting money from those who need it most to areas that will secure the support of their Back Benchers. How many times today have we heard Conservative Back Benchers praising their Front Benchers and thanking them for giving in to their lobbying? So much back patting has gone on as Government Members congratulate each other on taking food off the tables of the poorest in society to shift funding to the richest.

We have heard time and again from Conservative Members how much more expensive services are in rural areas. There is no doubt that some services are more expensive to deliver in rural areas by unit cost. However, let us look at the evidence. In 2014, the Government commissioned a report that examined every single service that local authorities deliver throughout England. It showed that it is true that some, but only 15%, of services are more expensive in rural areas. In urban areas, 31% of services are more expensive, and whether areas are urban or rural has no bearing on the delivery of 50% of services. The evidence therefore shows that services are more expensive to deliver in urban areas. That is because the deprivation is ingrained and generational. It is tied to the local economies, and councils are there to try to keep it all together.

When our communities have asked for hope and direction, what have they been given? Not even warm words or an acknowledgement of the human cost. Now more than a million older people do not get the social care they would have got in 2010. Children who are at risk of violence and abuse are not given the protection they need, because the Government have walked away and said that it is nothing to do with them. It is everything to do with them. When other Departments were fighting their corner, where was the Ministry? When austerity first struck, local government was hit hardest. We have lost 800,000 members of staff from local government. We have the lowest number of staff since comparable records began, yet the central Government workforce is the largest since comparable records began. Local government has taken more of a hit than any other Department. Within local government, Labour-controlled areas have taken the hit, and that is politically motivated.

The Government had the chance to put this right today. They have failed to be fair and just, and failed the people we come into this place to serve. Shame on the lot of you.

Draft Buckinghamshire (Structural Changes) (modification of the local Government and Public Involvement in Health Act 2007) Regulations 2019

Jim McMahon Excerpts

Monday 4th February 2019 General Committees

[Jim McMahon (Oldham West and Royton) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Austin. The Opposition do not intend to divide the Committee on these regulations, but we have some questions about the Government’s approach, and it would be helpful to get some feedback on those.

We accept that the initiation of a review has been locally led, but that is not the same as saying that the Government’s current position has universal support at local level. I will highlight a couple of points: first, as has been mentioned, there was an extensive public consultation to which there were over 3,000 responses. However, only 35% of those who responded supported the proposal for a single unitary council covering the whole of that geography. A greater number of respondents —47%—supported the creation of two unitary councils, so it is not correct to say that the current proposal for a single unitary council has local support. It is also the case that four district councils have opposed the plan that has been tabled.

Of course, the county council is supportive, but that brings me to a further concern: it is my understanding that the Government have decided to impose on the new authority the leadership of the county council leader, and I would like the Minister to explain why the Government think that is appropriate. Surely the leader of any local authority should command the support of that authority, and be either directly elected by the population or elected by the membership of that body; I am not sure that it is in the spirit of localism for the Secretary of State to impose a leader on a local authority. I wonder whether the Minister could point to an example of that action being taken in recent times, so that we can understand a bit more about why the Government have taken that decision. It would always be controversial—there has always been a disproportionate amount of power in a county council compared with the district councils. To move forward in a unified way on a shared platform, surely it would be helpful not to make such a contentious decision right at the start of that new relationship.

My second point is about the drivers for the change. As I understand it, quite a lot of them were the efficiency savings that can be realised when local authorities come together, and I recognise some of the numbers that have been referred to. However, those local authorities combined used to receive £88 million of central Government funding, but by 2020 they will receive zero. Many local authorities around the country are forced to look at new ways of saving money and being efficient—something which many central Government Departments could learn from.

The Government have refused to invest in people-driven services; meanwhile, demand is going through the roof. In particular, in adult social care and children safeguarding, the Local Government Association points to an £8 billion gap in local government funding, which the Treasury has refused to fund. In those circumstances, it cannot be the case that reorganisation is being led solely by the starving of funding from central Government. It is not acceptable that, even when reorganisation is seen as needed, or at least as needing review, central Government come in and impose a plan, which does not have majority support of those who took part in the consultation, involves a difference of opinion between the district councils and the county council, and in which the Government decide that they, instead of the membership of that new authority, should determine who its leader should be.

The Minister needs to outline why the Government have arrived at that decision and point to a very recent example of such a case that we can look at after considering this statutory instrument, so that, hopefully, we can move forward in a way that creates not just a unified local authority, but a sense of common purpose. If the Government do not listen to local concerns and continue to impose a model from the top down, against local public opinion, against where the district councils in that area are at, and then, on top of that, impose a leader, I fear that that is not in the spirit of localism and will not create a sense of common purpose at all.

--- Later in debate ---

[Andrew Percy]

I will finish my point, if I may, but I will give way before I sit down.

There can never be total consensus. When Durham County Council was unitarised in 2009, there were probably people opposed to that. The shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Oldham West and Royton, made a comment about leadership being imposed, but that is not unusual in such reforms. As he will be aware, when we created the combined authority in the Greater Manchester area, the then police and crime commissioner —the hon. Member for Rochdale (Tony Lloyd)—was appointed as interim mayor without any election. Such a situation is not unusual.

[Jim McMahon]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Andrew Percy]

No, because the hon. Gentleman and I sat on all the Delegated Legislation Committees on the matter at the time. I have heard many similar speeches from him, he has heard many similar speeches from me, and I suspect that we have nothing new to add.

Oral Answers to Questions

Jim McMahon Excerpts

Monday 28th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call Jim McMahon.

[Jim McMahon (Oldham West and Royton) (Lab/Co-op)]

indicated dissent.

[Mr Speaker]

I beg your pardon; I am getting ahead of myself. I call Neil Coyle.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Speaker]

I call Jim McMahon.

[Jim McMahon (Oldham West and Royton) (Lab/Co-op)]

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I was frantically trying to think of a question when you called me just now. I refer Members to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests.

The number of children in need is up, the number of looked-after children is up and the numbers of child protection plans and child conferences are up, yet the Government grant has gone down. This year, children’s services face a £1 billion funding gap—£3 billion by 2024-25—and the Local Government Association, the Children’s Commissioner, Action for Children and our councils have all warned that children will be at risk. So where’s the money?

[Rishi Sunak]

The hon. Gentleman should know that last year £1 billion more was spent on children’s services than when we came into office and that the recent Budget announced an extra £420 million that could be spent on children’s services. Government Members are, however, concerned with outcomes, not just the amount of money we plough into things, which is why the Department for Education is working closely with the best-performing areas to spread best practice across the country.

Local Government Funding

Jim McMahon Excerpts

Tuesday 15th January 2019 Westminster Hall

[Jim McMahon (Oldham West and Royton) (Lab/Co-op)]

Thank you, Mr Walker; it is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Preet Kaur Gill) for securing this absolutely critical debate at such a critical time, as local authorities enter their budget-setting cycle. The council meetings will take place over the coming months, and councils will be forced again, for another year, to make absolutely devastating cuts to their local communities.

That is what this is about. When we talk about council cuts, it does not gain a lot of interest, but when we talk about people and communities, the impact on the future life chances of our young people and the way older people are cared for, it absolutely matters and is crucial to our communities. In truth, the fabric of our communities—the very foundation on which the Government are trying to rest future English devolution—is fragile and near breaking point.

There has been passion in the room today: 16 speakers on the Opposition Benches and four speakers on the Government Benches, including the Minister, who will speak shortly. That shows the real interest in the issue. None of us comes to Parliament to make our communities worse off. We have heard the desperate pleas from hon. Members who really care about the impact of the cuts on their communities, not for political advantage or to try to embarrass the Government, but because we live in our communities and see the impact on our neighbourhoods: the lack of funding in our schools, the effect on all those who cannot get the social care that they need, and the young people who have been denied the best possible start in life because children’s centres are taking cuts or being closed entirely.

One of the Minister’s colleagues has said that the way to revive our high streets is to open libraries on them, when hundreds of libraries are closing every year because the money is just not in the system. We need radical change and radical reform, because quite frankly, we have seen tinkering around the edges far too often, and that does not get to the crux of the issue. The crux of the issue is this: council tax and business rates have a role to pay—they are important property taxes—but both have limitations and will be pushed to breaking point if the Government do not do something.

Council tax is a hugely regressive tax. It takes 7% of low-income families’ incomes, compared with just over 1% of higher-income families’ incomes. The more pressure that is applied to council tax, the greater the pressure that is applied to low-income families. Time and again, the Government duck their responsibilities to provide central Government funding to support local communities, and the burden falls on council tax payers. Council tax will again be increased this year to the maximum level of 6%. On top of that, more money is required to go to the police, and in the case of combined authorities or mayors, even more money is applied to that precept as well, because the Government are walking away, saying, “Well, it’s not our problem,” when it is a problem absolutely of the Government’s making. Those are political choices.

It was absolutely right that austerity meant that every Department had to take its fair share of cuts, but the evidence says that local government has lost 800,000 members of its workforce—it is at its lowest level since comparable records began—while the central Government workforce figure is at its highest level since comparable records began. That is not a fair distribution of cuts or austerity. Local government continues to take the pain and the burden.

Many important points have been made today and I would love to go through the list of hon. Members who spoke. One thing that inspires me about Parliament is just how rooted in community our parliamentarians are—particularly Labour parliamentarians. I congratulate my hon. Friends on giving their communities a voice. The Minister, who is respected in local government—I am not trying to make a ding-dong match out of this, some real questions need real answers—has an opportunity to set out his stall, to say what he stands for and what he believes in, and to stand up for the pressures that local governments face. Any Minister at the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government who presided over a local government family that can barely afford to make ends meet would not be fulfilling their responsibilities.

[Mr Charles Walker (in the Chair)]

Thank you. I will call Ms Gill to make her final remarks at fifteen seconds past four. I call the Minister.

Oral Answers to Questions

Jim McMahon Excerpts

Monday 10th December 2018 Commons Chamber

[Jake Berry]

If I may respond in Cornish, I take the opportunity to wish my hon. Friend and all his constituents Nadelik lowen. With only 109 shopping days to Brexit, I can reassure my hon. Friend that the UK shared prosperity fund will be simplified and targeted, and will tackle the challenges of our whole country, including those facing Cornwall.

[Jim McMahon (Oldham West and Royton) (Lab/Co-op)]

This weekend, the mayor of Liverpool, Joe Anderson, resigned from the Northern Powerhouse Partnership. He says he no longer sees the benefit, given that it was set up by a Government who just do not want to listen to it. At the same time, the Institute for Public Policy Research North paints a stark picture, where the north gets £2,500 less per head in investment on transport than London. The northern powerhouse Minister literally has one job to do. What’s going on?

[Jake Berry]

As Harry Enfield and his chums would say about anyone from Liverpool, including me: “Calm down, calm down.” I can confirm today that we have announced £38.4 million for Liverpool. I completely refute the IPPR figures. They exclude 60% of spending across regional boundaries. They do not apportion spending where the benefit is felt. If the hon. Gentleman wants to give some advice to his chums in the left-wing IPPR think-tank, he might say that next time they produce such figures they should print them on softer paper.

Local Government Funding: Merseyside

Jim McMahon Excerpts

Tuesday 30th October 2018 Westminster Hall

[Jim McMahon (Oldham West and Royton) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone.

I would say that it is also a pleasure to respond to the debate, but it is not a pleasure at all; it is heartbreaking, when we consider the human stories that sit behind the numbers that we have heard today. However, I pay tribute to my hon. Friends the Members for Garston and Halewood (Maria Eagle), for Liverpool, Riverside (Dame Louise Ellman), for Wallasey (Ms Eagle), and for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg), my right hon. Friend the Member for Knowsley (Mr Howarth), and my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Luciana Berger), for how they have stood up to represent their communities in the face of absolutely devastating cuts to vital public services.

I should declare an interest as a vice-president of the Local Government Association and I will use some of the LGA’s information in my speech. The truth is that austerity is not over, but it was never going to be over, because as things stand the Government do not believe in strong local public services. We have heard talk today about how the Government do not like a big state. The truth is that the Government actually do not mind a big state, provided that it is a big national state, because the workforce data today says that the national Government workforce is the biggest since comparable records began, compared with local government, which is now at its smallest since comparable records began. The disproportionate cut has not only been to local government; within England the most deprived communities have been the hardest hit. The most deprived communities have seen cuts of about £220 per person, compared with about £40 per person in the least deprived, so austerity has been targeted on local government and then within local government it has been targeted on the areas that could least afford to take the hit, in the way that we have seen.

The Government have completely ignored pleas from the cross-party LGA to do two things: first, stop the in-year cut of £1.3 billion; and, secondly, fund forward the £5.8 billion that would have addressed homelessness, adult social care and children’s services. Let us be honest—when it comes to the £410 million that is being put forward, the majority of people who work in social care are paid the minimum wage. When the national minimum wage goes up in April, those people will rightly be uplifted, but there is a cost to that for the providers. Much of the money announced in the Budget will go not to additional care for over-65s who need it, but to pay people who are being paid the lowest possible rate for providing an essential community service. I do not believe that is fair, the LGA does not believe that is fair and councils across the country do not believe that is fair, but again we see the Government turning a blind eye to it.

We all know where the real impact has been felt; we know the numbers on adult social care and the fact that 1.2 million people who would have had care in 2010 do not get that care today. We know that there are more young people who have been taken into care because they are at risk if they are kept at home, and the cost of that to local authorities. We also know, because the Government have walked away from their responsibilities, that the only way that councils can fund that care is to reduce eligibility and take the money from vital neighbourhood services.

The services that council tax payers see and value that come from the council tax that they pay have been the very services that have been taken away to fund the pressures on people’s services in every community in the country. The public say, “I’m paying more council tax, but the bins are being emptied less often, the local library has closed and the park doesn’t get maintained in the way that it used to.” All those really important services have been affected.

I hoped that when we had a change in Secretary of State that the new Secretary of State would finally have the ear of the Treasury, so that they could finally get a fair hearing and make the case for these vital community services, but it strikes me that one or two things have happened. Either the Ministry did not bother making the case in the first place, or—it could be both these things—the Treasury just does not care about the human impact of austerity and how we have seen it distributed across the country.

What I want to know, what people in the Chamber want to know and what people in England want to know is, what will the Minister do to address such chronic underfunding? It will be on his watch that an older person will die because they do not get the social care they need, or a child will be made to feel vulnerable because they are not getting the protection they need. Where will the money come from?

--- Later in debate ---

[Rishi Sunak]

Thank you, Mr Hollobone. I think the hon. Lady was being snide about the fact that Merseyside is a business rates retention pilot. I am sure that the £54 million that Merseyside will keep this year in additional funding as a result of the pilot is nothing to be snide about, and will make an enormous difference on the ground, helping the people I know she cares about. Many other local authorities across the country would be happy to be one of the pilot areas, so if she thinks that Merseyside would rather not be one and would give up the opportunity to others, I would be happy to talk to her afterwards.

[Jim McMahon]

Will the Minister give way?

[Rishi Sunak]

I will try to make some progress.

Business rates retention is not the only incentive for local growth, as it sits alongside the other support the Government give to local authorities’ wider ambitions through local growth deals. For example, £2 million has been invested to create the first dedicated digital skills academy in the UK, at the City of Liverpool College, and more than £13 million has been invested in a highway infrastructure scheme comprising a series of essential and integrated improvements along the A565 corridor. In sum, the Government strongly support Merseyside’s economic growth, whether through direct investment or business rates retention, and thus enable it to fund services over the years to come.

Homes (Fitness for Habitation) Bill

Jim McMahon Excerpts

3rd reading: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Friday 26th October 2018 Commons Chamber

[Ms Buck]

I am very grateful to my hon. Friend for his intervention and for his congratulations. I totally agree that in addition to the legislation we pass in this House it is crucial that we use all the tools of government communications to get a message out that people have rights, that they need to be able to exercise them, and that they need to know how and where they can go in order to do so. I am sure that the Minister will support that point.

This Bill will enable all tenants, whether private or social, to take action on the same issues and standards as local authorities, following recommendations made by the Law Commission and the Court of Appeal dating back some two decades. This is therefore very much a legislative updating whose time has come. The effect of the Bill will be that the tenant will be able to take action against the landlord to make them put right any problems or hazards that make their dwelling unfit, and the tenant could seek compensation when the landlord has not done so.

[Jim McMahon (Oldham West and Royton) (Lab/Co-op)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on introducing this important Bill. Many of us will have received representations from private landlords who are screaming about the impact of this Bill on their ability to make profit. Let us be absolutely clear: if someone cannot make profit by providing a clean and safe place for people to live, they should exit the game completely.

[Ms Buck]

I totally agree with my hon. Friend on that. It is also fair to say that the majority of good landlords are happy to endorse that view, because their reputation is dragged down by the behaviour of the rogue minority.

The Bill is not intended as a replacement for the work of local authorities but is complementary to it, enabling tenants to take action where the council has not done so or cannot do so. For all new tenancies after the Bill comes into force, it would make it a right to have a home that did not create a risk to the health and safety of its occupants. As the excellent House of Commons Library briefing on the Bill says:

“The Grenfell Tower fire has focused attention on housing standards in the social rented stock and also in privately owned blocks of flats.”

So I am also pleased to say that the Bill was amended in Committee, with the support of the Government, to extend the fitness obligation to the building within which the dwelling forms part. So the tenant of a flat, a room or part of a shared house will be able to enforce against defects, including fire risks, that threaten their health or wellbeing in their home, even if the defect is in another part of the building.

It has been marvellous to have secured Government backing for this Bill, even to the point of strengthening it. We have had support from across the spectrum. It has come from bodies ranging from the National Landlords Association and the Residential Landlords Association, to the Chartered Institute of Environmental Health—CIEH—the Association of Residential Letting Agents, Shelter, Generation Rent, the Law Society, Mind, the National Housing Federation, the Local Government Association, Citizens Advice and others.

Draft Newcastle Upon Tyne, North Tyneside and Northumberland Combined Authority (Establishment and Functions) Order 2018

Jim McMahon Excerpts

Monday 22nd October 2018 General Committees

[Jim McMahon (Oldham West and Royton) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir David.

It is good to be here again talking about devolution. Hon. Members may expect me to rush straight into an attack on how superficial the Government’s devolution is, but before I go there, I congratulate the leaders of all seven local authorities in the area on what has been achieved, in what has been a very testing time for local relationships. The Government could have approached things differently. They could have been far more inclusive and created greater opportunities for further devolution to the existing local authorities, which are more than capable of delivering far more. They are tried and tested, delivering good value for money and good public services, and they should not have artificial requirements laid upon them.

When it was clear that a deal could not be done, some local authorities naturally took a pragmatic view of how best to attract more investment from Government. Let us not fool ourselves about what the order is and what it is not. At best, it is a light-touch mayoral devolution package. The type of powers being devolved do not even come close to the existing devolution deals across the country. The type of money being devolved down to local authorities in those areas pales into insignificance compared with the austerity cuts that they have faced since the coalition Government—cuts that continued with the majority Conservative Government.

Local leaders are sick of waiting for the Government to come to their aid with investment and an idea for the future economy. Instead, they are developing their own visions for their local identity. There are good examples of that right across the north-east from Labour-run local authorities, which are showing real leadership of their place. The Government, to be frank, have walked off the pitch entirely. Given the type of powers being devolved in this order, my question is: why stop there? Local authorities in those areas can deal with far more than is being given in the devolution settlement.

Powers are one thing, but we need serious money. Let us look at the amount of transport investment across the north-east. Compared with most other regions, bar Northern Ireland, it gets nowhere near its fair share of capital or revenue investment. We know how important transport is for boosting local economies, connecting people to jobs and attracting inward investment. If the Government are determined to see a golden era, as the Minister said, where is the cash? They cannot do that on the cheap. Despite the best endeavours of local politicians, their economies have been left for a very long period to fight for themselves while Government have turned a blind eye to underinvestment in those areas. I credit those councils for negotiating the devolution deal on offer, but where is the Government cheque book?

It strikes me that since George Osborne walked away—or was moved to one side—the Treasury has just not been committed to devolution. From a Conservative point of view, it was originally a Treasury-led expedition—perhaps for different reasons, but that is where it came from. At the time, I was negotiating as one of the leaders on the Greater Manchester combined authority. In those devolution deals that were being struck, I witnessed a real tension between the Treasury and other Departments about where powers sit and how power is to be wrestled away from Whitehall.

The construct of some of those deals was quite odd, but they were reflective of the struggles and the frustration in Government. I do not see any of that here; I see a Government desperate to show that devolution is still making progress, when actually it is fairly superficial. I see a Minister who, perhaps for the best reasons—although he hides it well—is trying to make progress. But I am not seeing any real power given away from central Government. I am certainly not seeing any significant money being given away from central Government. The Government have realised—we have known this all along—that those best placed to deliver decent public services and make the best of limited resources in public investment are people in their local communities.

The question still remains: given their track record of delivering good public services, why should councils that could not quite get over the line on a mayoral devolution deal be cast to one side, without any devolution proposed at all? Will the Minister explain why local authorities are not fit to take on more budget responsibilities in adult education, for instance? Why can they not take on more responsibilities for getting people into work? Why are they not capable of taking transport capital investment from the Government and using that as a catalyst to attract inward investment? Why can local authorities that are tried and tested, and trusted by the public not do those things?

It is great that councils have come together. Again, I pay tribute to the council leaders who have created the deal, but if the Government are clear that there has to be a devolution deal for the whole of England, they cannot be so prescriptive about what that devolution should look like. With all due respect, it is a bit hypocritical for a Minister who is not directly elected to say to local politicians that if they want a fraction of the power that is held by a Government Minister who is not directly elected, they must move to a directly elected model in return. We do not directly elect our Chancellor, our Minister for adult education or Ministers in the Department for Work and Pensions, and the Minister here today is not directly elected either. For a fraction of the power from this place, local communities are mandated by Government to have a mayoral model or they get zero. I do not think that is in the spirit of a balanced and equal relationship. For me, that is still central Government telling local authorities what they can and cannot do in a very old, tired and untrustworthy way.

If the Government are really determined to see power shifted and to give people back the control that we know they demanded during the referendum, at some point—and pretty quickly—they will have to introduce a devolution framework that covers the whole of England, so that every community is included without having one set against the other. We want to see not only powers and legislation passed in this place, but genuine resources devolved down.

It cannot escape the attention of anyone in this room that the region most affected by a hard Brexit—which is what some Government Members are looking for—will be the north-east. It will take a hit the likes of which it has not seen for decades. In that context, it is legitimate to ask whether the devolution on offer is sufficient to meet the challenges that lie ahead. It is progress and it is a step forward, but it cannot be the end. I say to the Minister: this is not “Game over”. This is not the end. The devolution on offer should be seen as minor progress—progress, by the way, that is mainly to the credit of local leaders in the local authority. The Minister needs to step up, get back round the table and ensure that further power and resources are devolved as soon as possible.