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Conservative and Unionist Party

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  1. ParliamentGraham Stuart

    Local Government Finance

    I will come to the hon. Gentleman, but I will make a little more progress first. I know the reality from talking to my constituents. Jenny in Cherry Burton says that she cannot really afford to shop for healthy food as half her money is gone before she even gets home, forcing her to make choices that no family should have to make simply to get through the week. Andrew in Beverley faces rising energy bills, which I have touched on, and rising food prices, all while supporting his two children, who are at university and cannot find part-time work; previously, they would have done, but now they cannot find part-time work because those jobs have tended to disappear. There are fewer and fewer opportunities for young people to get on the jobs ladder and, for those at university, to supplement their income while they pile on student debt, which will only go up even more as time goes on. These are not abstract pressures but lived realities, and this settlement will pour on yet more misery. The Prime Minister says that every minute not spent talking about the cost of living is a minute wasted, but warm words do not warm homes.

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  2. ParliamentGraham Stuart

    Local Government Finance

    I do not remember the specifics of that, but I can say that, whereas the last Labour Government doubled council tax despite it being regressive, that did not happen under the Conservatives, whatever introductions there were. Those taxes were held down, because that is what conservatives do. They recognise that it is better to leave money in the pockets of people to make their own decisions, not take it away from them. Families across the East Riding are now asking a very simple question, because they know that promises do not pay bills. How will this local government finance settlement, and the £200 council tax bombshell that follows it, help them cope? Let us be clear about what is happening: the Chancellor underfunds, councils are squeezed, council tax rises, and families pay. Council tax is, as many Labour Members have said, regressive. The lower the income, the heavier the burden. The smaller the home, the sharper the hit. At the very moment that household budgets are tightest, this Government tighten them further. Nowhere is that clearer than in social care. In the first Budget since Labour came into office, the Chancellor allocated over £20 billion to health. Why did they not recognise that so many of the problems in the NHS actually come from the failure of funding in social care? It could so easily within the same spending envelope have eased the pressure on the NHS by better funding social care so that to keep those who are ready to leave hospital from occupying the beds that they do—they have for the past few years, and they do today. The Government did not put sufficient additional money into social care, and in Beverley and Holderness, with an ageing population and rising adult care needs, that imbalance matters. Instead of funding care properly at source, Ministers shift the cost on to council tax payers—and then they claim that they have fixed it. I saw the real-world cost of squeezed council budgets when I visited Sunk Island last month. On Sunk Island Road and Brick Road, residents endure patch upon patch of repairs that are never truly repaired. They are paying more yet still waiting for lasting fixes. This is the pattern: more tax, less certainty, higher bills, patchwork results. Government should strengthen communities, not squeeze them, so I ask the Minister: when families are stretched to breaking point, why is this Government’s answer yet another bills hike? In Beverley and Holderness, the only change that this Government appear to deliver is the small change left in people’s pockets after the Chancellor has emptied them.

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  3. ParliamentGraham Stuart

    Local Government Finance

    I thank the hon. Lady, who always speaks passionately and with deep knowledge of her community. As she says, she does not make unnecessary party political points. The one thing that unites the House, including the Government Front Bench, is a recognition that the funding system is broken. I spent many years campaigning, across different funding pots, on the distribution. Everyone looks at the quantum, but they do not look at the distribution. It is easy to get into a world of complexity, and the number of people who turn up for meetings on distribution gets very small, but it is actually critical. We need a new funding settlement, and how we deliver that, given the political realities, is to go in early and hard. Unfortunately, this Government have not done that. They are delaying and delaying, and as their political potency weakens, it becomes harder and harder to deliver. It is a bit like the police reorganisation we touched on earlier today. It is unlikely to happen in the dribs and drabs of a Government who are struggling. We need a long-term settlement that is based on need. There is no perfect assessment of that, but what we have is complexity, as we heard in the brilliant speech from the hon. Member for North Norfolk (Steff Aquarone) on the Lib Dem Benches earlier. The system has elements about how many pubs there are and what some level of cost was in 1991 and all sorts of other things. The truth is that, in this most fundamental set of services—my hon. Friend the Member for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner (David Simmonds) rightly identified 800 of them—for the constituents in the deprived areas of the hon. Member for St Helens South and Whiston (Ms Rimmer) and in mine, nobody can see the transparency. Perhaps we should look on the Back Benches initially for a cross-party view on building a fairer funding system. There is one more thing, and I do not know why no one has talked about it very much in my 21 years in this place. The fact that a £200,000 house in Beverley pays a lot more council tax than a £2 million flat in central London is absurd, and very rarely does anybody mention it. We need to fix things, but if we cannot fix something as absolutely inexcusable as that—and, collectively, we have not—it is no wonder the public are looking at us so askance. I would be happy to talk to the hon. Members for St Helens South and Whiston and for Hartlepool (Mr Brash) and others to see where we can make some common ground on having a more rational system, because at the end of all this, the complexity and lack of transparency end up in social failure. As the hon. Lady rightly and passionately says, it is those who are the most vulnerable and the least able who pay the highest price, and whether that is in her part of the world or in mine, that is not acceptable. We have all come here to make it a better place, and one of the things we need to fix is this.

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  4. ParliamentGraham Stuart

  5. ParliamentEsther McVey

    Rural GPs: Funding

    I beg to move, That this House has considered GP funding in rural areas. I am pleased to have the opportunity to talk about this important topic. Statistics show that, as of 2024, 17% of England’s population, equating to 9.6 million people, live in rural areas. For these communities, accessing healthcare can be challenging. The challenges are well known: rural GP practices serve elderly and often isolated populations, and are tasked with delivering complex care in large and often sparse geographical areas. The demands have long been accounted for in our funding formula for GPs, the Carr-Hill formula. The model was introduced in 2004 and was designed to ensure that GP funding reflected variations in workload and local population characteristics, including a measure of rurality.

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  6. ParliamentEsther McVey

    Rural GPs: Funding

    The hon. Lady raises a very relevant point, and I agree wholeheartedly. People in lots of areas in my constituency cannot get to a GP and are bereft of a GP surgery. Until now, we have had a measure of rurality, but this Government have instructed the National Institute for Health and Care Research to review the funding model and examine how working-class areas could benefit under a new model based on deprivation rather than workload.

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  7. ParliamentEsther McVey

    Rural GPs: Funding

    It is always good to have my hon. Friend—and I do call him my hon. Friend—intervene on me. He makes very good points. It is also important that a local GP chooses, and can see what their local constituents require and what is best for their health outcomes. The move to a new model based on deprivation rather than workload is, at best, an act of ignorance that fails to acknowledge the significant challenges of running GP practices in rural areas; at worst, it represents yet another example of Labour’s assault on rural life. Measuring pressures on GPs solely through the lens of deprivation would ignore the complex, distinct demands faced by rural practices. Rural communities have older populations. In 2019, the House of Lords Rural Economy Select Committee found that the average age in rural areas was almost six years higher than in urban areas, and a quarter of the rural population were over the age of 65.

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  8. ParliamentEsther McVey

    Rural GPs: Funding

    The hon. Member raises a very good point indeed. I congratulate his constituents. The pressure that I know the farming community is under and the impact that the family farm tax has had on the mental health of the rural community and farmers has been significant. Life expectancy is longer in rural areas, placing greater demands on GP practices. Statistics published by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs suggest that people born in mainly rural areas in 2018 to 2020 were expected to live two and a half years longer than people born in urban areas. Older populations place greater demands on GP surgeries, presenting with complex healthcare needs and higher levels of chronic illness and frailty. The Rural Services Network analysis shows that GP-registered patients over the age of 75 account for 11% of rural GP patients, compared with just 7.5% in urban settings.

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  9. ParliamentEsther McVey

    Rural GPs: Funding

    I thank my hon. Friend and constituency neighbour for raising that point. She is absolutely right that the number of new homes that are going to be built in rural areas, putting more pressure on GP surgeries, is significant. Without new GP practices, I am not sure where our residents will go when they need a doctor and need to see somebody about their health.

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  10. ParliamentEsther McVey

    Rural GPs: Funding

    I agree with the hon. Member. I will come on to my surgeries that are indeed in Victorian buildings—spread across four—and need to be brought together and modernised. That is in Knutsford in my constituency. I know that there will be many other places like that across the country. The hon. Member raises a valid and pertinent point. We know that GP services in rural communities are spread across a large geographical area, and many elderly residents in Tatton live alone. Although such independence is cherished, travelling long distances to access healthcare is more difficult. Public transport is often limited or non-existent. Community transport schemes exist in Tatton, but they cannot always accommodate short-notice or urgent medical needs. Often, elderly residents do not drive, so they are left reliant on costly taxis or GP staff taking the time to travel to a patient’s home. That places additional pressures on already stretched services. In Lostock Gralam, despite a population of about 2,800 people, there is no GP practice. That forces patients to make a lengthy journey to Northwich, and without a direct bus service many are left to rely on taxis to make their appointment. For those communities, recruiting and retaining staff becomes more difficult and more expensive. The Rural Services Network reports that 59% of hard-to-recruit GP speciality training posts are located in rural areas. There is less access to specialists and consultants, which makes their services more expensive. Community services and provision are sparser in rural areas, too. Pharmacies, which help to relieve pressure on GPs in urban areas, are not as common in rural areas. When I secured this debate, I was contacted by the Dispensing Doctors’ Association, which provides an essential role in dispensing medicines to patients who live more than 1.6 kilometres from a pharmacy. It delivers to about 10 million patients across England, but is facing increasing challenges due to its reliance on manual delivery. In addition, while urban pharmacies move ahead with digital efficiency, rural pharmacies often struggle to keep pace because broadband coverage is often unreliable, rendering remote consultations near impossible and service delivery more difficult. The benefits of digitisation in healthcare are well understood across this House, but they rely entirely on having the right infrastructure in place. Without connectivity, rural practices are simply unable to access or benefit from Government investment in that area. There are lots of people from rural areas here, and we know how unreliable our broadband infrastructure is. In 2022, the all-party parliamentary group on rural health and care published an inquiry into healthcare in rural areas. It concluded: “Rurality and its infrastructure must be redefined to allow a better understanding of how it impinges on health outcomes”. No progress has been made on achieving that. Removing the rurality measure of GPs’ funding entirely would be a step backwards in understanding how settings impact GPs’ ability to provide healthcare. There is little transparency about who exactly will be consulted in the funding model review. In a written answer to a parliamentary question, the Government confirmed that the review “will draw on a range of evidence and advice from experts,” such as the Advisory Committee on Resource Allocation and the British Medical Association general practitioners committee, but there is little information beyond that. There are GPs in Tatton who are keen to contribute but, as of yet, have not been able to.

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  11. ParliamentEsther McVey

    Rural GPs: Funding

    I will indeed, although I am keeping an eye on the time.

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  12. ParliamentEsther McVey

    Rural GPs: Funding

    The hon. Member raises another good question, and we can ask the Minister to look into that. The logical conclusion of not having GPs from rural areas take part in this review is that the Government do not want to listen to them. They are intent on rewriting the formula without acknowledging the realities of delivering rural healthcare. A broadbrush measure such as deprivation cannot take into consideration the very close link between the ability to deliver healthcare and the rural or urban settings in which GPs exist. It comes as little surprise. Whether selling off our family farms or introducing a devolution agenda that pits rural against urban areas, time and again the Labour Government have shown that they are not willing to listen to rural areas, but are quick to sell out rural Britain at the first chance. As is typical, Labour’s response to pressure is to level down some areas, which serves only to create additional pressures elsewhere, rather than acting to fix them. The pressure faced by rural healthcare will not disappear soon. The NHS long-term workforce plan, published under the previous Government in 2023, recognised that the increased demand from an ageing population is not uniform in the UK. It estimated that “In 2037, a third of people aged over 85 will be living in rural communities” compared with just a quarter now. The Government must act to address that trend. I have been campaigning for a new medical centre in Knutsford, as was acknowledged before, where doctors desperately need more space and modernised facilities to meet patients’ needs. The current surgeries in Knutsford do not do that; they are all Victorian buildings and are not suitable. I have been pressing for that for a long time. I have met with the Minister—I thank her for that—and I would be grateful for an update on the progress of the practice in Knutsford. GP practices deliver community care and their ability to deliver is reliant on the environment in which they serve the patients. We must have a funding formula that acknowledges the challenges of delivering healthcare in rural areas. I would be grateful if the Minister could answer the following questions. Who is being consulted in the review, and will it include those with first-hand experience of delivering healthcare in rural settings, like my GPs in Tatton? What assurances can be provided that rurality will remain a factor in a new funding formula? Given the specific challenges they face, will the Department commit to publishing an assessment of the impact on rural communities ahead of any change to the funding formula?

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  13. ParliamentEsther McVey

    Police Grant Report

    I apologise for the fact that I cannot stay until the end of this debate, because I have a debate in Westminster Hall, but I need to ask the Minister a question. She talks about outcomes. Is she as shocked as I am that the Labour Cheshire police and crime commissioner has already spent £200,000 on two listening exercises, and is expected to spend another £400,000 on more listening exercises? The precept is going up by 6.7%, but the police force will have to make redundancies. Does she not agree that the money should go not on vanity projects, but on frontline policing?

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  14. ParliamentEsther McVey

    Police Grant Report

    Following on from the Minister’s point, I noticed today that the same Labour police and crime commissioner has put up an advert for a senior public relations officer on £45,000 to £55,000, and there are other vanity projects. Surely that money should be spent on PCSOs and police on the ground, not on the PCC himself.

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  15. ParliamentEsther McVey

  16. ParliamentEsther McVey

  17. ParliamentEsther McVey

  18. ParliamentEsther McVey

  19. ParliamentEsther McVey

  20. ParliamentEsther McVey

    Police Grant Report

    I thank the Minister for giving way; it is most generous of her. My chief constable has raised a point about Labour’s new Sentencing Act 2026, where criminals will not be sentenced for less than 12 months. My chief constable says that their force will now be man-marking criminals on the street, which will cost them approximately £1.6 million a year. Can the Minister explain how she plans to address that issue in costs and man hours?

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  21. ParliamentEsther McVey

    Police Grant Report

    Will my right hon. Friend give way before concluding?

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  22. ParliamentEsther McVey

    Police Grant Report

    At a time of great pressure on police budgets, my Cheshire police force is having to make redundancies. Was my right hon. Friend as concerned as I was that the Minister felt that our Labour police and crime commissioner could spend hundreds of thousands of pounds on vanity projects? She accepted it, rather than condemning it, and that money should go to frontline policing.

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  23. ParliamentEsther McVey

    Police Grant Report

    Is my hon. Friend concerned about not only that but increasing industrial-scale dumping in rural areas and the additional pressures on neighbourhood policing—whether from the increase in illegal immigrants going into hotels and houses of multiple occupancy, or from prisoners being let out of prisons, who neighbourhood police forces have to man-mark because of Labour’s Sentencing Bill?

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  24. ParliamentDr Caroline Johnson

    Hughes Report: Second Anniversary

    It is an honour to serve under your chairmanship, Dr Allin-Khan. On behalf of the Opposition, I thank the hon. Member for Chesham and Amersham (Sarah Green) for securing today’s debate. She has campaigned tirelessly on this issue, giving a voice to thousands of women who have been let down by the state. I also thank Henrietta Hughes for the Hughes report. Thousands of pregnant women were prescribed sodium valproate between 1973 and 2017 despite growing evidence of harm. In 1972, scientists found in animal studies that it was harmful to foetuses, and in 1984, foetal valproate syndrome entered the medical literature. Studies in the 2000s highlighted the link between valproate and birth defects. I remember, as perhaps you do, Dr Allin-Khan, learning about it at medical school. Yet it was only in 2018 that the valproate pregnancy prevention programme came into force, which was too late for more than 20,000 children with entirely preventable disability. Over 10,000 women in England were harmed by pelvic mesh. Mesh kits were issued in the 2000s to treat urinary incontinence and prolapse, despite a lack of long-term safety data. Women suffered hideous complications: mesh tearing through tissue, bleeding, infection and sexual dysfunction. Shockingly, it took until 2018 for NHS England to suspend the routine use of these implants. I want to raise the case of a lady, now in her 30s, who had a mesh implant put in to prevent a hernia in her abdominal wall, something that is often missed from the discussions about mesh. She describes how she is unable to leave her home because there is a hole in her stomach wall where the mesh has eroded. It cannot be removed. The surgeon described it as being stuck in there like chewing gum. She described her wish for a family. She described the smell of the constant infections. She described the fear of waiting for the next infection and wondering whether the sepsis from it will kill her. Yet there seems to be no way for her to get this mesh removed. The previous Government did not sit on their hands. The former Health Secretary, my right hon. Friend the Member for Godalming and Ash (Sir Jeremy Hunt), commissioned the independent medicines and medical devices safety review after hearing from over 700 affected people and medical stakeholders. The previous Government issued a formal apology to victims and appointed a Patient Safety Commissioner. They began to establish a network of centres to provide treatment, care and advice for those affected by the implanted mesh. I would be grateful for an update on that from the Minister, particularly in the light of the case that I described. In 2022, the previous Government asked the new commissioner to report on options for compensating victims. Dr Henrietta Hughes did so in February 2024, a full 24 months ago, and that report set out what justice should look like for victims: an interim redress scheme and a permanent one to follow. As my right hon. Friend the Member for New Forest East (Sir Julian Lewis) said, it was a package of clear, practical steps to right the wrongs done to so many women. Yet two years on, we are no further forward. After the 2024 election, the hon. Member for Chesham and Amersham asked the Government when they would respond to the Hughes report. The response was that the Government would consider the recommendations and meet with the commissioner. In January 2025, when asked by Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick, the Government said they were “carefully considering” report and would provide an update “at the earliest opportunity.” In March, in this very room, a Government Minister said that recommendations were being actively considered and that a report was coming “at the earliest opportunity.” In that debate, the Minister suggested that research by Dr Rebecca Bromley was material. Can the Minister update us on that research? In October, when the hon. Member for Rushcliffe (James Naish) asked whether funding had been allocated for redress, a Minister said that recommendations were being carefully considered and a response would come at the earliest opportunity. In December, when the shadow Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, my right hon. Friend the Member for Daventry (Stuart Andrew), asked whether financial support was forthcoming, the Government said that recommendations were—still—being carefully considered. Last month, when my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman) asked whether funding was forthcoming, a Minister said the Government were “carefully considering” the report and an update was coming “in due course”. What we have heard from Ministers is so frustrating. For 18 months, Members have asked what is being done, and time and again, this Labour Government have refused to give a clear answer. I note that the previous debate was responded to by the Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, the hon. Member for West Lancashire (Ashley Dalton), and both she and the Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, the hon. Member for Glasgow South West (Dr Ahmed), have answered questions on the matter. We have a different Minister today, and it is a delight to see her, but perhaps she can confirm which Minister takes responsibility for this issue in the Commons. I have some further questions for the Minister. On which date did work begin on a response to the Hughes report? How many civil servants are working on the response? Have there been any conversations with the Treasury about the costs of the redress scheme? If work has been taking place, why is it invisible? If, in fact, nothing has been done, why have the Government persisted in telling Members that a response is forthcoming? Why, despite Dr Hughes visiting the Department in December, has nothing materially changed? Will the Government, as my hon. Friend the Member for North West Norfolk (James Wild) asked, make an interim payment this calendar year? Over the weekend, the Patient Safety Commissioner told ITV: “This is a disgraceful way that patients and families are being treated by those in power.” She is absolutely right. The state’s No. 1 duty is to protect the public from harm, yet after inflicting harm, the state has failed to make things right. This is part of a pattern under Labour whereby systemic failings, particularly those affecting women, go unresolved. Every day that victims of mesh and valproate do not receive justice, confidence in health professionals is undermined. We know that the Chancellor is fast running out of other people’s money, but it is wrong to balance the books on the backs of those who are suffering. Justice is the state’s duty. It is not optional. It is not something just to be carefully considered for years on end, indefinitely, while women and children suffer. The Government can respect the victims and the work of the Patient Safety Commissioner today by answering our questions, or they can continue their parade of platitudes and evasions. I look forward to the Minister’s response.

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  25. ParliamentDavid Simmonds

    Local Government Finance

    The Secretary of State and I will have had long experience of working with Morgan McSweeney during the many days he spent as head of the Labour group at the Local Government Association. I think that influence is reflected in the very political speech we have just heard from the Secretary of State. Despite its political excellence, I am struggling to reconcile his speech with what is actually in the finance statement he has laid before the House to agree this afternoon. We have a high level of agreement that local government touches all our lives in our communities. We recognise its huge potential to develop our economy, improve public health and give children a great start in life, and we know that the average local authority in this country delivers over 800 different services. They are there for us literally from cradle to grave, and are led by democratically elected councillors who run budgets that are bigger than those of many Government Departments, in organisations that are more complex than many a FTSE 100 business. However, having served—like the Secretary of State—as a councillor under the last Labour Government, we see a swift reversion to type. Announcements of funding for social housing may arrive towards the end of the decade; funding for schools from VAT on fees for private education amounts to a real-terms cut in state school funding; and at the heart of what the Secretary of State has set out is a massive diversion of funding away from the legally enforceable statutory duties placed on councils by this Parliament and towards generalised poverty as a driver of those allocations.

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  26. ParliamentDavid Simmonds

    Local Government Finance

    My hon. Friend is absolutely spot on. The analysis produced by the County Councils Network makes a comparison between the funding pressure on statutory services facing the urban councils that are the beneficiaries of the Government’s largesse, which totals £180 million a year, and the budget gap facing rural areas as a result of this Government’s decision, which is a £2.7 billion black hole.

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  27. ParliamentDavid Simmonds

    Local Government Finance

    I hesitate to disagree with my right hon. Friend, but it was not ever thus. The rural services grant referred to by my hon. Friend the Member for Bridgwater (Sir Ashley Fox) was a measure to address those additional cost burdens, including direct costs arising from statutory duties. It was a funding stream that is being removed by this Labour Government.

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  28. ParliamentDavid Simmonds

    Local Government Finance

    I will give way to my constituency neighbour.

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  29. ParliamentDavid Simmonds

    Local Government Finance

    Without wishing to be parochial, I am sure the hon. Member would also like to join in the apologies for the appalling level of corruption that had taken place under Labour in the London borough of Harrow. As has been covered extensively in the local and national media, it left an astonishing legacy of cost overruns in the local authority’s highways department, which has taken a good deal to recover from. I am sure we would not want the House to be inadvertently misled about the impact of those cost overruns.

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  30. ParliamentDavid Simmonds

    Local Government Finance

    My right hon. Friend is absolutely correct. When Ministers talk about additional resources being provided to local government, we need to reflect on the fact that two thirds of the funding in this settlement comes from the maximum possible council tax rise across the country, and a large chunk of the rest comes from a huge rise in business rates.

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  31. ParliamentDavid Simmonds

    Local Government Finance

    Madam Deputy Speaker, I am sure that you will be pleased to know that that prompts me to move on to the next part of what we need to say. Let us recall for those who cry austerity at Conservative Members that the last Labour Government spent on average 10% more in every year of its final decade in office than they raised in taxes, which left a colossal legacy of debt that we have scarcely begun to repay. Millions were squandered on projects such as building schools for the future that were cancelled at the tail end of the last Labour Government by Alistair Darling, as they ran out of money. When we look at the reports of what this means at constituency level, councils such as Surrey, which embraced this Labour Government’s devolution agenda, have now lost the opportunity for the mayor that they were promised. They report that they have been left £60 million a year short. Members will be ill-served by the consequences of the Budget.

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  32. ParliamentDavid Simmonds

    Local Government Finance

    One of my tasks in the world of local government was to engage with that last Labour Government and the disastrous consequences of their overspending. They were completely clear with authorities such as mine that stopped work on BSF that they did not have the money to see through the promises that they were making to the public. We were told that by the Department for Education. I am very confident that my constituents understand the consequences that a Labour Government have on their politics.

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  33. ParliamentDavid Simmonds

    Local Government Finance

    I will give way to my constituency neighbour.

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  34. ParliamentDavid Simmonds

    Local Government Finance

    I appreciate that he knows rather more about Camden council than he does about Hillingdon council, but let us reflect a little further on the history. Our constituents last had a Labour council in 1998. I went to that budget meeting at which our constituents were faced with an 18.7% council tax rise—£60 million of unfunded efficiency savings by a Labour council. I think they understand where their political priorities lie and who has their interests at heart.

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  35. ParliamentDavid Simmonds

    Local Government Finance

    I will make a little progress, because I know that Madam Deputy Speaker will want others to have time. History is repeating itself. Let us not forget that this is a statement that leaves two thirds of councils in England worse off, from the analysis that has been done by the Local Government Association. That piles additional costs on top of things such as last year’s national insurance contributions rise, which left councils £1.5 billion net worse off. This settlement tightens ringfencing, removing the ability of local leaders to deploy homelessness funding flexibly to meet local needs, for example. It also comes at a time when this botched reorganisation of local government has created chaos across the sector, with a hokey-cokey of elections promised and then cancelled, sometimes within 24 hours, from that Dispatch Box.

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  36. ParliamentDavid Simmonds

    Local Government Finance

    My hon. Friend draws attention to another significant issue facing local authorities: the level of uncertainty. Money has been promised, then withdrawn. Budgets have been allocated, then reduced. In that context, I am sure that her constituents will be as concerned as I am that so much of this money is simply built into massive tax rises across the country. I will turn briefly to business rates. We know, including from the question that the hon. Member for Stourbridge (Cat Eccles) asked at Prime Minister’s questions, the pressure being felt acutely on our high streets, especially in hospitality and retail. A business owner in my constituency told me yesterday that across his food franchise, the business rates rise alone is an additional £100,000 a year. That is a lot of entry level jobs at risk. It means price rises for consumers, fuelling inflation. The rise is a barrier to investments in our high streets, and that situation is replicated across the country. Let us not forget that under the previous Government—this is one of the things of which we are most proud—an average of 800 new jobs were created every single day we were in office. Let us never cease to remind those on the Government Benches that unemployment has risen in every single month of this Labour Government. They are a Government who clearly do not respect our local colleagues. They refer to leaders as mere community convenors. They seek to reduce our councillors’ level of discretion. They create uncertainty through a lack of clarity on reorganisation, on special educational needs and disabilities deficits and on whether mayoral elections are going ahead. That comes at a time when thousands of voters are being denied a say by this Government through the cancelling of elections. That situation is caused solely by the Secretary of State’s abject failure to deliver the Government’s devolution plans to the proposed timetable. It is one thing to cancel elections in a council that is about to be abolished, so that voters can instead choose its replacement. It is very much another thing to defer elections indefinitely while we wait for the Secretary of State to get his act together. Our councils and our communities deserve a better settlement than this. I will conclude with some points that I hope the Minister will address in the summing up. One of the most striking things about this settlement is that the Secretary of State has come to the Chamber and said that the key priority for this Government is addressing poverty and deprivation. Poverty and deprivation do not feature in this local government funding settlement. They are not part of this formula that the Secretary of State is asking us to agree. What is striking is the things that he says are important. He talked about vulnerable children in education, but it is cash flat, same as last year. Virtual schools are cash flat. The revenue support grant for local authorities is cash flat. Personal advisers to care leavers are cash flat. Money for supporting local authorities with social care, which was specifically described as a priority, is cash flat. Buy one, get one free campaigns intended to reduce obesity in the public health environment have a 50% reduction. Even Awaab’s law, which was championed at the Dispatch Box just a short time ago by the Minister for Housing and Planning sees a cut of £26,000 from its paltry beginnings. Perhaps the Secretary of State will reflect that what he is announcing is essentially a massive shift of funding away from the statutory duties and obligations that this Parliament has placed on our local authorities to those favoured political areas that the Government see as their priorities for the future.

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  37. ParliamentDavid Simmonds

    Local Government Finance

    I just want to ask the hon. Gentleman whether he agrees with the Labour leader of Sheffield council, who says: “Cost pressures continue to outstrip increases in funding, both specific inflationary pressures in major service areas, particularly for care, accommodation and construction, and the increasing volume of demand in housing and care.” Is the Labour leader in Sheffield correct?

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  38. ParliamentDavid Simmonds

    Local Government Finance

    The Prime Minister said that there would be no tax rises on working people. I imagine that the working people who are about to receive a £500-a-year increase in their council tax, the working people in Westminster expecting an 82% rise in their council tax, and those in Wandsworth expecting an 87% rise in their council tax as a result of this settlement will wonder if “working people” was a phrase that applied to them. Those in our business community who heard the Prime Minister say to them that a Labour Government would introduce “permanently lower business rates” will wonder where the massive rise in their business rates bill has come from. There are things in the reports before us that give us the opportunity to make tweaks and changes, and make progress. I am grateful to the Minister for the interest that she has shown, for example, in the way that the local growth fund—the method of distribution of which is having a huge impact, particularly on colleagues in Northern Ireland—offers scope for some adjustment. However, it is very clear that the recovery grant that the Secretary of State spoke about still bears little or no relation to the pressures arising from the statutory duties on local authorities. As we have heard from Member from across the House, it leaves councils tens of millions of pounds short of the money that they need to do the minimum required of them by this Government, and that is before addressing some of the broader, more general issues. We have two motions before us. One of them is on the report on local government finance, and the other is on the report on the referendum limit. I am sure that we have all noted the complete absence of any Reform Members in the Chamber. I pay tribute to the champions of Worcestershire, my hon. Friends the Members for Bromsgrove (Bradley Thomas) and for Wyre Forest (Mark Garnier), who spoke up for residents against an authority that, having been part of a party that promised no rises in council tax and cuts in office, is now looking to top the league table with the largest council tax rises in the country this year. It should be ashamed of its misinformation to residents during election campaigns. Let me mention some of the things that I hope the Minister will address in her summing up. The first is what the measures in the report do to support housing delivery. We know from the recent report by Savills that 23 of London’s 33 boroughs report that the net figure for new homes being commenced this quarter is zero. Lambeth council has been very public about that, and has reported net zero new social homes. The Secretary of State and the Chair of the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee, the hon. Member for Vauxhall and Camberwell Green (Florence Eshalomi), are particularly familiar with that. It is clear that housing delivery is collapsing at a time when lofty ambitions are being set, and at a time when the grants for homelessness are cash-flat, as are care costs, and costs relating to vulnerable children and care leavers. It is clear that for all the bluster, the smoke is clearing, and the mirror is not particularly shiny. The impact of the relentless rises in national insurance contributions and business rates, as well as an additional £750 million of costs to local authorities from changes to the emissions trading scheme, will put huge pressure on the ability of local authorities to deliver. It having been said that the Secretary of State wanted to move away from a bidding process, we now hear that the funding that has been announced, without any detail, for special educational needs deficits will be the subject of a bidding process to the Department for Education, and there will be a requirement for a reform plan. It will be interesting to hear how that plan differs from the safety valve agreements that many authorities already have in place, which are reducing SEND deficits year on year. What is clear in this settlement is that the Government are not meeting even their own standards on local government. Local democracy is paying the price, with elections cancelled and taxes relentlessly rising. This statement must be seen for what it is: it is a council tax bombshell; it is a business rates bombshell; it is part of a picture of a Labour Government who simply cannot manage the money.

    Hansard source

  39. ParliamentDavid Davis

    Troubles-era Violence: IRA Accountability

    7. What steps he is taking to help ensure adequate accountability for troubles-era violence for members of the IRA.

    Hansard source

  40. ParliamentDavid Davis

    Troubles-era Violence: IRA Accountability

    Some 2,058 people died at the hands of republican paramilitaries during the troubles—2,058—but despite that fact, only 19 IRA members are currently in prison. The Secretary of State laughably claims there was no amnesty under the Good Friday agreement, and he gives us only the few he has just mentioned. Can he tell the House how many prosecutions of IRA members he expects to arise under his troubles Bill, and how many families of people murdered by the IRA will find out what happened to their relatives?

    Hansard source