Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Toby Perkins and Greg Clark(5 years, 9 months ago)
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Greg Clark
My hon. Friend knows that I am a great champion of devolution and decentralisation, and he makes an intriguing suggestion, which I would be very happy to take up in discussions with him.
Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)
Many small care agencies face bankruptcy in the light of the Treasury advice on the way in which sleep-ins are paid, which has now been changed by the courts. The Minister for Energy and Clean Growth, the right hon. Member for Devizes (Claire Perry), did not seem to know too much about this, but may I urge her to avail herself of the facts urgently, because many small agencies will go bust if we do not get this right?
Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation
Debate between Toby Perkins and Greg Clark(8 years, 1 month ago)
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Greg Clark
On page 84, line 15.
Let me turn to the subject of today’s debate, which is infrastructure and devolution. Those issues will still matter a year from now—indeed 10 years and 100 years from now. In “The Wealth of Nations”, Adam Smith spoke of three fundamental duties of Government: the defence of the realm, the maintenance of law and order, and a third duty that he described as follows:
“the duty of erecting and maintaining certain public works and certain public institutions, which it can never be for the interest of any individual, or small number of individuals, to erect and maintain; because the profit would never repay the expense to any individual or small number of individuals, though it may frequently do much more than repay it to a great society.”
We can therefore take it from the father of free market economics that there is no contradiction between faith in free markets and public investment in infrastructure. Indeed, they support one another and this Budget shows how.
The Budget announces new infrastructure investments in every part of the country—from Crossrail 2 in London to High Speed 3 for the northern powerhouse. There can be no more tangible demonstration of our belief in a one-nation economy.
Greg Clark
I will not give way.
Not for us the discredited model of a one-city economy, because much as we value London it is wrong to rely on a single centre of wealth creation. Instead, wealth must be created and retained in communities across our nation —hence our ongoing commitment to HS2, a north-south axis linking London to the midlands engine and to the northern powerhouse. Quite literally, we must go further. We must build the vital east-west links needed to unlock the full potential of our great cities beyond London.
The Pennines might be the backbone of England, but frankly they are not the Himalayas. Some of our nation’s greatest cities stretch like a string of pearls across the north—and they can and should be drawn together. That is why this Budget strikes out in a new direction with the key announcement on HS3.
Greg Clark
No, I am going to make some progress, given the time constraints.
This is a transformative project. In particular, it provides the prospect of a better, faster line between Leeds and Manchester.
Greg Clark
I can certainly confirm that. It is a welcome development that we are following the traditions of our Victorian predecessors with the great revival of railway building, which is so important for the south-west that my hon. Friend so ably represents.
Greg Clark
I am going to make some progress.
In order to make these investments, we need to continue to make savings. The failure to control current expenditure means not just more borrowing, but that less is available for capital expenditure—a double dose of debt for our children and grandchildren, with financial debt compounded by infrastructure debt. The decisions that we make must be for the long-term good of the nation. This Government are therefore determined to draw upon the very best advice available, including that of Lord Heseltine, who will chair the Thames Estuary 2050 Growth Commission, and that of Lord Adonis, the chair of the National Infrastructure Commission, whose excellent work has informed many of the decisions made in this Budget.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Toby Perkins and Greg Clark
Greg Clark
As my hon. Friend knows, a consultation is out at the moment looking at ways in which the blue-light services can co-ordinate with each other so that they can provide the best possible service to our residents.
Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)
2. What steps he is taking to ensure that proposals for an elected mayor in Sheffield city region include provisions for democratic oversight by people in Chesterfield.
The Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (Greg Clark)
Sheffield city region’s devolution deal with its elected mayor will enable the area to strengthen its position as a world-class centre for manufacturing and engineering. I am considering carefully the question of wider democratic oversight raised by the hon. Gentleman, as the Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton South (James Wharton), told the House during the recent Committee stage of the Cities and Local Government Devolution Bill.
Toby Perkins
I commend all those involved, including the Secretary of State, in attempting to achieve a political consensus, which has been difficult as this is a complicated situation. We are still left with the situation where people in Chesterfield will have a third tier of local government introduced, with a Sheffield city mayor that at the moment they would not be able to vote on and a Nottinghamshire-Derbyshire one that they probably would. Will the Secretary of State continue to work to achieve clarity on democratic accountability alongside the consensus he is rightly seeking?
Greg Clark
I certainly will, and I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman’s attendance to this issue; it is very important. No two places are identical, which is the very insight we are having—we are having bespoke deals in each place—but it is important for his and other Members’ constituents to feel they have enough say in the election of people who are going to provide leadership for them.
Local Growth Deals
Debate between Toby Perkins and Greg Clark(9 years, 9 months ago)
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Greg Clark
They certainly will. It is very important that our cities should prosper and succeed, but we have huge strengths in our counties and districts, which is why I am particularly pleased that we could extend city deals to all parts of England through what we have agreed in the programme today.
Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)
In Chesterfield, we are grateful that the Minister has approved two of the proposals brought forward by our local enterprise partnership. Does he not recognise, however, that real devolution is not about the Minister sitting in Whitehall and saying which proposals he agrees with? It is about devolving the funds and letting the responsibility lie with local authorities, precisely as Lord Adonis has proposed. Will the Minister acknowledge at the Dispatch Box that what he is proposing is a third of the size of the devolution proposed by Lord Adonis and does not put responsibility and powers truly in the hands of local authorities? Why does the Minister not follow Lord Adonis’s recommendations?
Greg Clark
No, the hon. Gentleman is not right. He is right that Chesterfield will have substantial investment in skills, which will be very important for his constituents, but he is wrong to say that there will no flexibilities. It will be open to the local enterprise partnership to bring forward projects, as it has done—it made those proposals—and to vary them if it thinks that that is in the local interest.
Banking Reform
Debate between Toby Perkins and Greg Clark(11 years, 2 months ago)
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Greg Clark
We agree with my hon. Friend, and that will form part of the Bill.
Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)
The Minister is absolutely right to say that the reputation of our banks has never been lower. We hope that we will start to see the important changes we need. One reason for that reputation is the experience that many small businesses had with interest rate swap agreements. While many welcome the FSA announcement on that, there are still some concerns about whether people will really consider that they have had justice at the end of the process. Will the Minister confirm what representations he has made to the FSA about what it should find during the deliberations, and will he give us any assurances that the interest rate swap problems we have had in the past will not reappear in future?
Greg Clark
The hon. Gentleman raises a very important point. I met the Federation of Small Businesses and the Bully-Banks organisation and I conveyed their concerns to the FSA, which the hon. Gentleman knows is set up to be the independent regulator. I think most people were relieved that the FSA proposals of last week will result in compensation for the affected businesses within a rapid time frame. What happened is totally unacceptable, and is another feature of the scandalous decline in reputation that the banks have suffered. Small businesses in particular have a right to regard their bank manager as someone who acts in their interests, rather than someone who flogs them dodgy products that they do not need in the first place. That is a breach of trust in banking. I am absolutely insistent that the FSA should conclude this process, giving full recompense to those who have been mis-sold products.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Toby Perkins and Greg Clark(11 years, 11 months ago)
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Greg Clark
I will indeed join my hon. Friend in congratulating that company. In fact, a record number of the recent Queen’s awards, announced last month on Her Majesty’s birthday, were for small businesses, which shows that this country’s small businesses have a huge amount to contribute to the future success of the nation.
Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)
Yesterday I met 35 small businesses that borrowed money to fuel growth but now feel that they were mis-sold interest rate swap products by their banks. There is a real urgency to investigate that issue before more otherwise healthy companies are brought down. Will the Minister join us in calling for banks, while they are investigating whether these products were mis-sold, not to foreclose on companies that are falling behind because of these products?
Greg Clark
If the allegations are correct, the companies will need assistance to cope. An investigation on that is about to conclude. I will take the matter forward with the hon. Gentleman and am happy to discuss it outside this place with his Front Benchers.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Toby Perkins and Greg Clark(12 years, 7 months ago)
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Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)
In response to the question from the shadow Secretary of State, my right hon. Friend the Member for Don Valley (Caroline Flint), the Minister of State, Department for Communities and Local Government, the right hon. Member for Tunbridge Wells (Greg Clark) said that we were facing a crisis of growth. What does it say about the policies of the present Government that after the abolition of the regional development agencies and six months after the budget for growth, a Minister has come to the House and admitted that there is a crisis of growth?
Greg Clark
The crisis of growth that I was referring to was that bequeathed to us by the previous Labour Government. We noticed that the right hon. Member for Don Valley (Caroline Flint) has decided not to say what she thinks of the reforms that we are enacting. She has spent six weeks failing to give a view on that. A few weeks ago, the leader of her party said that
“the promise of a better life for the next generation is under threat…How are they going to buy their first home?”
Does she support our simplified planning system or not? She did not answer.
Localism Bill
Debate between Toby Perkins and Greg Clark(13 years, 3 months ago)
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The Minister of State, Department for Communities and Local Government (Greg Clark)
You would not know it, Mr Deputy Speaker, but this is an historic day for the House. Opposition Members should have tuned into the TV this weekend to see the Leader of the Opposition say that he was abandoning the tradition of Fabianism in his party and adopting localism. There was precious little of that in the speeches of the hon. Member for Worsley and Eccles South (Barbara Keeley) and her hon. Friends.
The two parties in the coalition see the Bill for what it is—the first of many measures that will do something very different from those introduced by the previous Administration. We are using the powers of the Government and Parliament to give power away rather than to increase it for ourselves. That is the direction in which this Government will continue to go. We will give more and more power to the people.
Successive Governments have increased the power of the centre, which has led to Britain becoming one of the most centralised and rule-bound societies in the world. French local councillors would be astonished if we told them that local councillors here would be in breach of the rules if they passed a view on a local planning application—they would think that that is nuts. In America, they would think it ridiculous and barmy if a member of President Obama’s cabinet set the local taxation in a small American town; and in Australia, they would wonder what planet someone was on, if they told them that to judge a planning application one has to wade through planning guidance longer than the complete works of Shakespeare. This is the time to reform and bring us back in touch with the rest of the world.
The response from Labour Members made it clear that were it not for the election of this coalition, which is united in wanting to return power to the people, they would have continued in the direction they had previously taken us. That degree of centralisation did not work, of course, and we know why: there is something about the British people that means they do not like being told what to do; they have a quality that makes them want to push back when people try to boss and bully them, as the previous Administration did. It is costly, too. We can imagine the bureaucracy of enforcement that needs to be put in place to impose and send out the directives, to gather the statistics and to send in people to ensure that others comply. We cannot afford that in the circumstances left to us by the Labour party.
More than that, Government Members know in their hearts that the best way to improve society is to give people their heads, and to allow them to follow their vocation and use their initiative, rather than to suppress it with top-down impositions that merely demoralise people.
Toby Perkins
The right hon. Gentleman is telling us about how many powers the Secretary of State is giving away, but which of the 126 new powers that he is taking under the Bill does he think local people cannot look after for themselves?
Greg Clark
If the hon. Gentleman is under any illusion that this is not a Bill that transfers power to people, he should talk to the coalition of voluntary and community organisations that this very day launched a campaign to ensure that the Bill is not watered down by the amendments he would suggest.
If this is the occasion when the Labour party converts to the cause of localism, it has a long way to go. The right hon. Member for Don Valley (Caroline Flint) implied—breathtakingly—that when in government her party had tried to localise power. Even the Leader of the Opposition does not believe that. He said in his leadership campaign that the Labour Government looked down their nose at local government. So much for conversion! The hon. Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Jack Dromey) said that the Labour party downgraded the role of local government when in office. First base for the right hon. Lady is to admit that her party got it wrong in the past—I thought that was what her leader tried to do this weekend—in order then to point in the right direction.