Oral Answers to Questions

Margaret Greenwood Excerpts

Wednesday 16th March 2016 Commons Chamber

[Justine Greening]

My hon. Friend is right. In fact, in 2013 statistics showed that an adolescent girl gets infected with HIV every two minutes. We very much put the empowerment of girls and women at the heart of our development agenda. We are the second largest funder of HIV prevention, care and treatment, and we have pledged up to £1 billion to the global fund.

[Margaret Greenwood (Wirral West) (Lab)]

T8. At the weekend, we saw pictures of a new-born Syrian baby being washed with just a bottle of water outside a crowded a tent in the Idomeni refugee camp in Greece, where more than 14,000 people are trapped as a result of the latest border closures. Will the Government work with other European states to ensure that there are safe and legal routes for refugees to claim asylum?

[Justine Greening]

I assure the hon. Lady that, from an international development perspective, we are working to support people caught up in those situations, and we are, of course, playing our role in resettlement through our vulnerable persons relocation scheme.

Oral Answers to Questions

Margaret Greenwood Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd February 2016 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I know that my hon. Friend speaks on this issue with considerable expertise because of the career that he had before coming to this House, and that he brings a lot of knowledge about this sector. He is right that there are great costs related to pension tax relief, which is why the Chancellor published a consultation last summer to see whether the system should be reformed. As the saying goes, taxes are a matter for the Chancellor and his Budget.

[Margaret Greenwood (Wirral West) (Lab)]

I welcome the Government’s announcement last week, as far as it went, of further support for child refugees. A nine-year-old girl who lives in my constituency has recently asked me what we are doing to help refugee children. Of course what a child refugee needs the most is a home. When will we offer a home to 3,000 unaccompanied refugee children in Europe?

[The Prime Minister]

First of all, let me tell the hon. Lady what we have done so far. Obviously, she knows about the 20,000 relocation scheme, under which we got 1,000 people in by Christmas, including many vulnerable children. That is going well. Fewer people are aware of the fact that, through our normal asylum processes, we took around 2,500 unaccompanied children last year. Kent social services are looking after about 1,000 children and facing great pressures. Another point that people do not always recognise is that if unaccompanied children in Europe claim asylum in the country they are in, and if they have direct family in Britain, under the Dublin regulations they can come to Britain. We think that is the right approach—taking some more people from the region, but being very cautious because all the evidence shows that even an orphan child may well have some broader family that they are connected to and it is better to keep the child with them.

Oral Answers to Questions

Margaret Greenwood Excerpts

Monday 14th December 2015 Commons Chamber

[James Wharton]

Discussions are already under way. Officials met local representatives on 2 December and will continue to work through the plans to ensure that they are robust, that they deliver what is needed, that they meet the requirements that we place on such deals and that they have the support they need to continue. We wish to see them progress positively. That is the strongest assurance I can give the hon. Gentleman at this time, because of course those things need to be done properly and thoroughly before plans are taken forward.

[Margaret Greenwood (Wirral West) (Lab)]

14. What steps he is taking to ensure that the funding model for local government is fair.

[The Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (Greg Clark)]

I will shortly be presenting to the House the local government financial settlement for 2016-17. I will set out how we will deliver a sustainable settlement for that year and later years and pave the way for future reforms to fund vital services, promote growth and efficiency and devolve power and resources, just as local government has requested.

[Margaret Greenwood]

Research by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation shows that since 2010-11 the areas of greatest need in England have seen the largest cuts in local government funding, breaking the historic link between the amount that a local authority spends per head and local deprivation levels. Over the past five years, councils such as Wirral have had severe cuts to their funding, whereas other areas have seen an increase. Forecasts suggest that Wirral will lose at least £126 million by 2020. What will the Government do to ensure that funding for local authorities genuinely reflects the needs of the people who live in the area?

[Greg Clark]

The hon. Lady should wait to see what the settlement has in store, but she should know from the past few years that Wirral’s spending power, at £2,240 per dwelling, is 7% above the national average. Her council has reserves of £80 million, a third higher than they were in 2010. It is important that she bears that in mind.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Minister for Housing and Planning (Brandon Lewis)]

My hon. Friend has given a really good example of a local authority making good use of brownfield land to provide the housing that its local community needs. I congratulate him on thinking properly and locally in that way.

[Margaret Greenwood (Wirral West) (Lab)]

T7. In a hasty attempt to reverse the Office for National Statistics decision to reclassify housing associations as “public”, Ministers were recently reported to be considering the sale of £44 billion of Government grant on housing association balance sheets to private investors. Housing associations have made it clear that they would strongly oppose such a move and David Orr, the chief executive of the National Housing Federation, has called it an “unhelpful distraction”. Will the Secretary of State assure the House and the housing association sector that the sale of Government grant on housing association balance sheets to private investors is not under consideration?

[Greg Clark]

Yes.