Local Government Financing

Lord Harrington of Watford Excerpts

Tuesday 29th June 2010 Commons Chamber

[Alison McGovern (Wirral South) (Lab)]

I welcome you to the Chair, Madam Deputy Speaker.

I want to comment on two aspects of local government cuts that will affect the residents I represent in Wirral. I cannot claim to have as much experience of local government as some hon. Members, but I served as a local councillor for four years, which taught me a great deal about the impact that the cuts will have. I would like to bring that experience to the debate. I want to talk about employment in Wirral, our sense of place and the effect of the cuts on our localities.

In Merseyside, the future jobs fund helped 2,800 people find work. The impact of that cannot be underestimated. The employment picture in Merseyside, including Wirral, has historically been fragile. It was important that the Government stepped in during the downturn to help protect our position.

[Richard Harrington (Watford) (Con)]

Would the hon. Lady like to comment on my research in my constituency, which found that the future jobs fund provided many people with short-term activities, but few long-term jobs afterwards?

[Alison McGovern]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention, and I would like to comment on it. It is too early to say, but I can comment from my own experience of meeting people—young people, especially—who have gained work through the future jobs fund. They told me that it was vital to keep their CV consistent over time, and that, although the job might have been short term or perhaps not in the sector they wanted to go into eventually, it gave them good, work-based experience that they could put on their CV. That could help them to find work, perhaps in a different sector, once we came out of the downturn. I cannot emphasise enough how important that continuity is. It was so important in places such as Wirral, and in Merseyside and the north-west generally, that the Government stepped in and helped to protect our employment picture. I shall say more about that in a moment. If we also consider the cutting of the working neighbourhoods fund, which was doing a great deal to address the really deep-rooted problems of unemployment in my part of the world, protecting employment through local government in Wirral starts to look a lot more difficult.

In a wider sense, we shall feel the impact of the regional development agencies being abolished in the emergency Budget. It is interesting to note that the Government seem to be all over the shop when it comes to RDAs. Perhaps the Minister would like to comment on the observations that have been made about listening to the views of local business, local authorities and perhaps local Members of Parliament on the importance of RDAs. The Budget has abolished them, however, and that will cause great difficulty in my area.

The local authority serving my constituents in Wirral has done important work on apprenticeships. The Government have said that they are keen to support apprenticeships, and that is fantastic. We all agree—brilliant! Let us get on with it! I do not see, however, how the local government cuts are going to help Wirral. We were at the forefront in providing the Wirral apprenticeships scheme, which worked alongside the private sector to increase the number of apprenticeships. The cuts will cast a shadow over the local authority officers who were working on that programme. I do not believe that the cuts will help to reduce the deficit over this economic cycle. I think that they will put people on the dole, which will increase the burden on the state. That is incredibly unfortunate.

--- Later in debate ---

[Alison McGovern]

I could not agree more. If Conservative and Liberal Democrat Members do not agree with my hon. Friend and me, they are welcome to come and meet any of my constituents who run small businesses that have been helped by Invest Wirral or the regional development agency, or who have found apprentices through the Wirral apprenticeships scheme, and to ask them their views on working with the local authority, and on working alongside the public sector so that the public and private sectors can work together to address unemployment. That is the reality that we have seen over the past 13 years.

[Richard Harrington]

What should we cut, then?

[Alison McGovern]

I am glad that the hon. Gentleman asked me that, because there has been a misapprehension that Labour had no plans when we were in government, and that we did not set any of them out. That is all very convenient, but the proposals were in our March Budget. There was a great deal of discussion about efficiencies, about what we would have done with the future jobs fund and the working neighbourhoods fund, and about how we would have looked at those funding programmes. All the detail is in our March Budget. My problem with the proposals in last week’s Budget is not that we have to make cuts or that we have to reduce the deficit; it is the timing.

I want to talk about place shaping, and about the things that make Wirral a great place to live. I have spoken before about the importance of sport, the arts and culture to who we are in Wirral. The cutting of the free swimming programme will not help the Oval sports centre in my constituency to be successful. The cutting of free school meals will not help Grove Street primary school to carry on its great work on increasing food sustainability and nutrition. Getting rid of the libraries modernisation fund will certainly not help Wirral to bring our libraries up to the standard that my constituents expect.

The cuts could, of course, help to reduce the deficit—I do not disagree with that at all—and there are certain efficiencies that we might need to look at. My argument is that we are talking about marginal amounts. Cutting the libraries modernisation fund will not have a massive impact on reducing the deficit. The thing that will reduce the deficit is getting people back into employment. If we cut the deficit at the expense of all the things that people have come to rely on, we shall see a hollowing-out of town centres, and the retreat of the Government from supporting people in the things that they want to do in their lives. I do not think that that would be worth while. The impact of the cuts on employment and on the things in our communities that we hold dear will be very grave in Wirral.

It is worth mentioning the differential impact of the cuts. Wirral will be hit a lot harder than those in nearby Cheshire, or in Oxfordshire, who will not feel the same impact at all. For the past 13 years, the Labour Government made great strides towards resetting the economy. People no longer had to leave Merseyside to get a job. We have done great work on that, and it needed to continue. I fear that this withdrawal of the state from our area will result in our sliding back into the problems we had before. The Government’s proposals represent a withdrawal of activist government.

The Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, the hon. Member for Hazel Grove (Andrew Stunell), has spoken about removing layers of government, as though it were possible simply to cut away pieces of the work being done by regional development agencies or local authorities, and to hand the money over to someone else, in the expectation that the work would still be done. My experience of local authorities might be limited, but I believe that to be unrealistic. The regeneration practices that local authorities have developed should be prized and used, and their proactive work with RDAs should not be overturned overnight in order to remove a layer of government. That is phraseology for the sake of it, and I do not think that it will help our country to develop economically.