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Sir Rhodes Boyson (Brent, North) : On two issues I agree with the hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr. Straw), who opened the debate for the Opposition. The first is his support for Blackburn Rovers, which is highly commendable. The second is that for many years he has said that the solution to the problem of some of the lunatic councils in London is annual elections. I believe that we will have problems in London until we have annual elections. In the gap of four years between elections, those councils can get carried away and the response to the electorate is weakened. I commend to my right hon. and hon. Friends the introduction, at some stage, of annual elections in London. It would be good for all the party systems and for the response to the electorate.
Reference has been made to the £140 that was taken off the community charge and put on VAT. I would have liked the community charge to remain once that £140 had been taken off, because the objection to the community charge was basically its size, not the principle. I realise that that is water under the bridge, but I put it on record.
I am concerned particularly about London and the south-east--the area which includes the constituency that I now represent. The Conservative-controlled London Boroughs Association and other bodies in London considered, when the council tax was brought in, that it would be unfair to London and the south -east. That is because it is a modified property tax and houses in London and the south-east are very expensive, not because they are bigger than houses elsewhere or because people in the area are earning more, but simply because of land shortage. One does not buy a house ; one buys a plot of land on which the house is built.
The LBA thinks that London loses about £200 million and the rest of the south-east about £175 million because of this change to a property system. Similarly, it has been calculated that for people in London and the south-east to live at the same standard as people in other parts of the country, they must earn about £6,000 a year more because of travel and housing costs in the area. This is something that I have to remind my right hon. and hon. Friends about in connection with the difficult issue of sharing out the money that is available. That is why the London Boroughs Association--I and other London Members went along with it--pressed for a separate set of bands for London and the south-east, because the house price gap
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between London and the rest of the country was wider than it was between Wales and England and between England and Scotland, where separate bands were inserted.The recession in London is really a slump. I grew up in Lancashire during the depression when, at one stage, unemployment in the cotton industry in my own town was higher than unemployment in Jarrow. But although Lancashire was in a terrible state in the 1930s, London was prosperous. That is when all the houses were being built. One would have to go back more than a hundred years to encounter anything like the situation that we have now. It means that the depression is greater. Those of us who were born in the north knew that the good times would not last. We invested in the local Co- op, we bought saving certificates, and we put the rent money on one side. We hid our nuts against the bad times that were coming. But in London it had been assumed that the prosperity would continue.
Unemployment is now 10 to 12 per cent. in my constituency and the figure is rising faster than in practically any other constituency in the country. I am not against capping and I recognise the difficulty of sharing the money out, but a high council tax in London will increase the number of repossessions when people who are struggling to pay mortgages find that they have to pay more because of the introduction of council tax.
The greatest losers under the council tax are single people in three or four-bedroomed properties with limited resources, not the rich or those with no resources, but those in between who have saved. People say that they should sell their houses, but a widow who has lived in the house all her life and who wants her children and grandchildren to visit her at Christmas and other times will find her present life style disappearing if she has to sell the house. I know that there is transitional relief, but it is less overall, from what I have worked out, than it was with the community charge, and one wonders how long it will last. When the Minister replies to the debate, I would welcome a statement that it will be reconsidered each year according to the circumstances prevailing.
There are advantages with the council tax, I know. It is easier to collect. That is the great advantage of any form of property tax : one cannot hide a house when someone comes up the road. The history of window tax and similar taxes shows that people return to a property tax time and again because of ease of identification. Three million people on low incomes will get a rebate, 6 million will get a 25 per cent. discount, and I am glad that 600,000 students will also be exempt. It all helps.
One of the things that sank the community charge was the great increase in expenditure that went with it. On my statistics--and the Department will know them better than I do these days--it went up by about 31 per cent. in one year. But the new tax has been introduced in a way that will not break the bank, and I commend the Department on the way in which it has handled it.
Brent last year had £254 million. This year it had £258 million. Last week it got about £750,000 more, an increase which is still less than 2 per cent. The problem in Brent--and it is not the only London borough which has it--is the accuracy of its registers and of the census on which they are based. People just disappeared. Interestingly enough, there have been so many objections to the registers in Brent that people are now knocking on doors
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to find out who is there, which seems to me the right way to do it rather than sending questions out with junk mail which just disappears. In the past three or four weeks they have discovered many thousands more people. As far as I know, they have not come from outer space ; they must have been there for a long time and they have been identified. We know that people came off the registers because of the community charge : they feared a cross-check. There is something of a mystery as to how big a population some London boroughs have.Reference has been made by Conservative Members to the refugee problem, which is intense in London. I have large numbers of Somali refugees in my constituency, and the numbers increase all the time. It is not a question of small numbers ; they arrive in their hundreds.
The Secretary of State has worked hard to get the council tax right, and I pay tribute to him and the Minister of State for that, but it would be very good if Brent could bring them evidence to show that the real population is higher than the number which has been accepted in the past. I believe that there may be as many as 10,000, 20,000 or 30,000 people who live there but who have still not been identified. If we could also get accurate numbers of refugees, and if I could bring my council leader to the Minister to see what can be done-- Mr. Illsley rose --
Sir Rhodes Boyson : Let me finish this point and then I will give way.
I am warned by my council leader in Brent that, as things stand, the cuts will have to be made in education. It means that about 90 teachers will lose their jobs. That is why I am concerned to bridge the gap. I have always worried about education, and the one thing that will upset all families is a threat to their children's education through what they see as a change of system. So I would like to bring my council leader to the Secretary of State or to the Minister of State with more information. The more accurate we get the registers, the better it will be, for possible boundary changes and everything else. All the information is suspect at present.
Mr. Illsley : The point that the right hon. Gentleman makes about registers strikes a chord among Opposition Members. I have read of the work done by Brent to increase the numbers on the register, but will the right hon. Gentleman agree that more resources ought to be given to improve the electoral registers, in view of the shortfall identified not only by the right hon. Gentleman but also by my hon. Friend the Member for Derbyshire, North-East (Mr. Barnes), who is sponsoring a Bill on that point ? Surely it would be better for all local authorities to have adequate resources to improve the registers.
Sir Rhodes Boyson : I agree with the hon. Member Registration in Britain is supposed to be compulsory. In the United States it is still voluntary, but in certain parts of Brent registration has become voluntary. I do not know whether they go into the loft when one goes round, whether they have cellars or whether they go on to their allotments. I go out every second Sunday with people on the knocker to see what is happening. I take the registers with me and I find that the discrepancy is about 15 or 16 per cent. A house is supposed to have only two
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inhabitants, but when the door is opened I find a veritable feast going on inside--to which, of course, I am invited, as hon. Members would expect. But I cannot then ask who has registered or who has paid the poll tax. Far be it from me to do so. A little Christian charity is required on such occasions.Once upon a time registers were reliable, but I do not believe that they are reliable now. Despite my support for the community charge, I believe that if it had one disadvantage it was the fact that it put an end to the accuracy of the registers and encouraged people to stray into error, something that legislation ought not to do, as I am sure all hon. Members would agree. That temptation has now gone, and people are coming back on to the registers. The greater the pressure that the Department can bring to bear to put the registers right, the better, so that we know how many people there are in this country. It might be interesting to know how many people are living here and whether the whole country is sinking or coming up according to the total population.
Whatever anyone's views might have been at the beginning about the council tax, the council tax must now work. The battle between national Government and local government has done no good to either national Government or local government. I have always believed in the dispersal of power. The centre of power should not be in one area. There is a risk of centralising power, regardless of which party is in Government. Because the Government has the numbers, the Departments and so on, there is always a permanent risk to corrupt Ministers, to put it that way, to the idea that they can run local government better than anyone else.
The battle has run for the past 15 to 20 years. There has been a strong tendency for local government elections to go the other way, whatever the Government's colour. When the Labour party was in Government between 1966 and 1970, it almost disappeared in local town halls. I remember that Islington became Conservative controlled. Hackney came under Conservative control, although it had not had one Conservative councillor before.
As soon as we get a certain party in government--my hon. Friend the Minister of State has good experience of local government--local government goes the other way which tempts the Government to battle with local government. We must get the council tax right because the battle must not be allowed to continue. We must have a spread of power, otherwise it will be dangerous for everybody.
I shall vote with the Government tonight. I have had to wrestle with my conscience on the matter. I admit that I should have the habit of voting with the Government from time to time. After the Maastricht debate and so on, it will be exciting to go into the Aye Lobby. I told my wife that today will be a strange day.
I shall vote with the Government because they have done their best to clear up a difficult matter. At the same time, I remind the Minister that I should like him to help me to force my council to get it right and get the 60 councillors to knock on doors nightly to see who is there. He should then know that there are problems in Brent with under-registration and an increased number of refugees so that I can help the people in my constituency at the same time. The last thing I want is any cut in schools which would damage education in Brent.
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6.23 pmMr. Nigel Jones (Cheltenham) : We have had some vintage performances today. I especially enjoyed the performance of the hon. Member for Brent, North (Sir R. Boyson) who raised the important matter of the Government's tendency to centralise everything. I always complain that the Government's policy on local government control is based on the three Cs--centralise, centralise and centralise. That has certainly happened recently.
We had a vintage performance from the hon. Member for Harlow (Mr. Hayes). Madam Deputy Speaker, I am grateful that you did not call me immediately after his speech, because I was laughing so much internally that I got the hiccups, but I have recovered now. We also had a vintage performance from the Secretary of State. Like the hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr. Straw), I was astonished that the Secretary of State did not mention jobs.
What is the settlement all about? It is about jobs and cuts. We have all seen the Local Government Chronicle of 15 January, which reported that the number of non-teaching jobs to be lost is estimated at more than 32,000. I hope that that projection is wrong. I hope that 32,000 non-teaching jobs will not be lost. To get anywhere near the promise made by the Secretary of State in the debate on 26 November, local authorities will need to go through economic contortions to set budgets which are somewhere near the capping level. When the revenue support grant figures were originally announced in the debate on 26 November, the Secretary of State said :
"I am confident that this settlement will provide local authorities with the resources that they need to deliver the wide range of local services of the quality which people expect and deserve". When I pressed him about jobs, he replied :
"If local authorities manage their resources sensibly and adhere to the public sector pay policy guidelines there will be no need for job losses."- -[ Official Report, 26 November 1992 ; Vol. 214, c. 1011, 1015.]
I must declare an interest as an elected councillor in Gloucestershire. We will be setting our budget next week. One of the guidelines that we will be examining is our ability to set a budget without job losses. At this stage, it is unlikely that we will be able to come anywhere near the capping level if we adhere to the Secretary of State's advice.
What are the cuts which we are examining? Four out of five social services directors in England expect a reduction in their budget, despite having new community care responsibilities. The Association of Metropolitan Authorities estimates that the Government are underfunding the new community care responsibilities of local authorities by £135 million.
Much of the problem stems from inaccuracies in SSAs. Standard spending assessments are to accuracy what Evil Knievel is to road safety--not relevant. Standard spending assessments are not a mechanism to calculate the spending requirement or needs of an area ; they are a mechanism to divide a predetermined amount among authorities. That means that local councils are assumed to spend a certain amount on a certain service, when the reality is much different.
Standard spending assessments are the consequence of Whitehall bureaucrats pondering inadequate data, bogus statistical analyses and subjective judgments to devise a system which bears little relation to reality. How can the
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system be justified when, according to SSAs, children in Richmond upon Thames are classed as more in need than those in Barnsley? I am pleased that the Secretary of State will review the workings of SSAs. Pending that review, he might like to relieve councils of their caps, so that they can set the budgets which they would like to set this year.I shall give three examples of cases in which SSAs are causing difficulty. In Warwickshire, the fire and rescue budget for 1992-93 was £2.4 million over SSA. The Department of the Environment said that the amount was excessive, yet the Home Office said that it was insufficient to meet minimum standards.
On the Isle of Wight, the fire service budget for 1993-94 is £1 million over SSA. To get the SSA, the island would have to close stations or reduce staffing. Such factors are controlled by the Home Office, which sets SSAs, but it is saying that the island should spend £1.5 million more on fire.
In my own county of Gloucestershire, the chief constable has been asked what spending at SSA will mean to him. It will mean keeping 40 officer posts and 73 civilian posts vacant. I went out with the Gloucestershire police one Saturday evening a few weeks ago. They have a difficult job to do. They are undermanned and do not have enough facilities. There is a growing crime rate in the county. It is wrong that two Government Departments are saying different things. The Home Office is saying that the chief constable needs so many men and the Department of the Environment is saying that the SSA is the amount which can be spent.
According to the Association of County Councils, 69 out of 108 local education authorities spend above SSA. That is important, because education is a large proportion of the spending of local authorities. It is not merely local education authority schools that want standard spending assessments for education, but also grant-maintained schools. A joint delegation from Gloucestershire met the Minister to press the case for SSAs to be funded at a realistic level.
Even if the SSAs were accurate--I contend that they are not--they would not take into account the problems that the recession is causing local authorities. For instance, Harrogate, where Liberal Democrats recently took majority control, is facing an additional bill of £452,000 for housing benefit. Sutton is facing a loss of £547,000 in reduced income from car parking and increased spending on free school meals, due to the recession.
Bournemouth, like other seaside resorts, has suffered a drastic reduction in income, and has lost £1 million out of a total £19 million budget because of reduced trading income. Cornwall has had to add £750,000 to its free schools meals budget, which is at an all-time high. Richmond is facing a bill of £2.5 million extra because of the costs of homelessness due to repossessions and arrears. None of those costs has been reflected in the settlement, and they will all cause cuts in services and job losses.
The Secretary of State has said that, as long as local councils stick to the 1.5 per cent. pay policy, they will not have to make cuts. However, police and fire service pay are not subject to that limit.
I shall compare central and local government spending. The former is set to rise by 6.6 per cent. during the next financial year. The Secretary of State said today that local government spending is rising by only 3.1 per cent., which is less than half the amount that central Government are allowing themselves. With the latest cuts in interest rates
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and the devaluation of the pound--let alone the knock-on effect in the 1993-94 budget of the 1992-93 pay round there is every chance that inflation may well be higher than 3.1 per cent.In a letter to parents dated January 1993, Mr. Gardiner, the head teacher of a school attended by many children in my constituency, said :
"The amount of money that the County Council is allowed to spend is controlled by central government. This year the money that will be available to schools is well below what is required to run schools effectively.
I estimate that since 1991 our budget has been cut by about 10 per cent. in real terms. For the coming financial year the school budget is to be reduced by approximately 6 per cent. and the prediction for 1994-95 is equally gloomy A cut in our budget of 6 per cent. next year will mean that, in common with other schools in the County, class size, resources and staffing will all be affected." He urges parents to write
"to County Councillors, local Members of Parliament and the Secretary of State".
I know that many of them are doing so.
I do not get letters in my post bag asking me to keep the council tax low, but I receive bucketloads of letters asking me to protect services, education and social services, and to improve policing, in the face of the current crime wave.
Local authority spending should be based on need, and standard spending assessments do not reflect that. The settlements mean that local authorities are bearing the brunt of public spending cuts. Services are set to be hammered, and thousands of jobs will go. The responsibility for that will lie not with local councillors, who are jumping through hoops trying to find savings, but with the Secretary of State and the Government.
Capping is undemocratic. Even the Conservative-controlled London Boroughs Association has opposed universal capping. I repeat what the hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr. Straw) said when he quoted the Secretary of State as saying of capping, in 1988 :
"It is not a measure to be used as a matter of course." It is important to remember that, as it is being used as such. "The people of an area will be able to vote for a relatively high-spending authority if they so choose."-- [ Official Report, 25 April 1988 ; Vol. 132, c. 51.]
Many local authorities feel hard done by, including many that do not receive area cost adjustments. I asked the Secretary of State for Education for some figures on average teacher salaries in councils that have area cost adjustments compared with areas that do not. I was surprised to find that Dorset, which does not benefit, has a higher average teacher salary than Hampshire, which does benefit. My county has a higher teacher salary average than Hampshire, the Isle of Wight, West Sussex or the Isles of Scilly, which all receive area cost adjustments. I was pleased to hear the Secretary of State say that he would reconsider area cost adjustments, because they seem unjust.
I am in a difficult position over my local authority's budget. Hon. Members will know that in many cases the notional amount has been adjusted since the original estimate at the end of last year. The notional amount for Gloucestershire has increased by almost £5 million--I am grateful for that--because the Government have admitted that they made a few errors in their original calculations. It therefore came as some surprise last Friday to discover
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that, instead of being increased by £5 million, the Gloucestershire SSA has been reduced by £0.4 million, which will cause severe problems when we set our budget.Many councils will feel hard done by, and many will wish to appeal against their cap. Will the Secretary of State consider carefully before designating authorities for capping, and be open to persuasion by councils that decide to appeal against their cap?
Liberal Democrats believe that local people have the right to choose whatever local administration they see fit. If they choose an incompetent administration, they have the right to throw them out, and I support the right hon. Member for Brent, North (Sir R. Boyson) and others who have suggested that annual elections are one way to achieve that.
Fortunately, given the way the Government are going, there is every chance that the Conservatives will be thrown out of county halls throughout the country on 6 May, and that they will be thrown out of government in 1996, or perhaps even earlier. Frankly, when that happens, local government will breathe a huge sigh of relief. 6.37 pm
Mr. Eric Pickles (Brentwood and Ongar) : It is a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Cheltenham (Mr. Jones). He and I served on the Committee on the Housing and Urban Development Bill, and as he was not a frequent attender it is nice to remind ourselves of exactly what he looks like.
There can be no doubt that the settlement is tight and will challenge some authorities ; nor can there be any doubt that some authorities will be in difficulties. But the settlement certainly is not a surprise as it was well flagged in the local government press and is within the area of expectation. The level of settlement is considerably higher than was predicted in many quarters.
Prudent councils which care about their local communities would and should have been taking the necessary reforms already, and starting to reduce their expenditure gradually, to minimise the effects on services and to plan sensibly. After all, reductions in growth taken out over a long time minimise the effects on services.
Over the past few weeks we have seen a number of Labour councillors and Labour councils shroud-waving to the press, predicting thousands upon thousands of redundancies. The hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr. Straw) talked in terms of tens of thousands. The hon. Gentleman kindly allowed me to intervene, and I asked him to give me his estimate, as he said that this was central to the Labour party's programme. Sadly, he failed to give me any figures. I tried again to intervene, but without success. As the hon. Gentleman is a courteous person, he apologised to me outside the Chamber.
I have no doubt that this matter is central to the Labour party's strategy. I see on the Opposition Front Bench the amicable and urbane frame of the hon. Member for Leicester, East (Mr. Vaz) and the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne, North (Mr. Henderson). If either of them cares to tell us what redundancies they anticipate, I shall be happy to give way. After all, these figures are central to the case that they make. I am not surprised that neither hon. Gentleman wishes to intervene. We have already seen the considerable fall-out that Labour authorities have suffered from estimates.
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This morning we heard the figures from Birmingham city council, which has reduced the level of expected redundancies by about 70 per cent., to 1,000, all of which the council says can be taken care of without any compulsion. One does not expect estimates to be precise, but an error of 70 per cent. suggests to me that the council was trying to frighten the trade unions--a practice that I obviously deplore.Mr. Ainsworth : Does the hon. Gentleman know that between the November statement and the previous one there was a considerable increase in the spending allowance for Birmingham? Did not that increase give rise to the revised estimate?
Mr. Pickles : I am very pleased about the increase. It shows that the Government listen to sensible points put forward by political parties. Perhaps it gives the lie to the suggestion that the Government are conducting a vendetta against Labour councils. One cannot in one breath complain about a vendetta against Labour councils and in the next breath talk about an increase in the Government's notional amounts.
Local government takes care of about 25 per cent. of public expenditure. That being the case, it is not unreasonable that councils should play a part in ensuring that settlements are in line with what the public can afford. Central Government support has increased by about 3.7 per cent., and I am very pleased to say that the notional amounts have been increased by about £150 million. We are starting to move into a different kind of debate on the revenue support grant. I believe that the quality and spending options will be matters of the greatest concern in future debates, as they are in this one.
I come to what the hon. Member for Blackburn called a question of judgment. Because of the decisions on value added tax and on capping powers, but particularly because of the effects of gearing, the irresponsible rate and community charge increases of the latter part of the 1980s will no longer be possible. The differential will continue to exist.
I am grateful for figures produced recently by Tony Travers, which show that Tory propaganda was right all along : "Conservative councils cost you less"--nearly £100 less. However, because of the trends in the Audit Commission and the introduction of the citizens charter, councils will increasingly look to performance indicators, and electors will increasingly know the cost of refuse collection in one borough as against another and will start to ask difficult questions. Councillors will no longer be able to hide behind the mystique of local government finance ; they will be brought to account and will have to justify their spending arrangements. Let me give an example. There is no doubt that the good people of Hackney will want to know why their council decided to forgo savings of £2 million. I refer to a recent decision of the council to award its own direct labour organisation £2 million more in expenses. I expect that, right at this moment, the whole borough of Hackney is shaking its head in wonder. The awarding of this maintenance contract to the council's own workers goes against all ideas of normality in local government. This is a lot of money to be slushing around. There is no suggestion that Hackney pays its work force competitive rates ; I think that there is some suggestion that it pays slightly more.
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I should like to deal with a matter that has arisen in this debate and about which the House has heard before. I refer to corruption in local government. It must be said loudly that the majority of councillors in this country are honest, decent people who work hard for their local communities. That applies right across the political spectrum. Councillors put in long hours for virtually no pay. They put something back into their communities, and I believe that local government service is honourable service. But corruption allegations touch every councillor. They obviously touch the dishonest, but they also hurt and damage the honest. It is not good enough to produce tatty pieces of paper or to make suggestions about meetings at racecourses when, as the hon. Member for Blackburn said, there are people who have their hands in the till and their snouts in the trough.Mr. Keith Vaz (Leicester, East) : The hon. Gentleman is talking about the Government.
Mr. Pickles : Cheap remarks from a sedentary position are not good enough. Such comments let down Labour councillors, as well as councillors of all other political parties, throughout the land. We need to stand together to ensure that corruption is wiped out.
Mr. Betts : Will the hon. Gentleman condemn his colleagues who, in this Chamber last week, asked for investigations by the police and the Audit Commission into Labour local authorities in general? Was not that a slur on all the honest Labour members of those authorities who are doing an excellent job on behalf of their constituents?
Mr. Pickles : I understand the hon. Gentleman's remark. I know that he was bruised by the revelations about his office accommodation. However, it seems to me legitimate to have discussions about options--whether it is more desirable to provide offices for Members of Parliament or to provide lollipop ladies. In any case, any allegations of corruption must be investigated with the utmost rigour.
I should like to make a suggestion about how all this might be put behind us. A common thread runs through the incidents and allegations of corruption and maladministration, both of which are equally damaging to local authorities. That thread involves a blurring of the responsibilities of councillors and officers ; councillors start to take on responsibilities that properly belong to council officers. That problem has not suddenly occurred. The House was unwise not to heed the warning in the Redcliffe- Maud report many years ago, which referred to the role of the officer and the member.
The report stated that if we were to attract a higher calibre of officer and a better quality of member, there should be a clear demarcation of responsibility between the two. The member should concentrate on devising and monitoring the policy ; the officer should concentrate on implementing the policy and on general managerial issues. When one considers all the problems lately, one sees that the councillor has started to assume the role of the officer.
There is currently a working party in the Department of the Environment studying good practice. I hope that the Minister will be able to advise us on how that working party is progressing. It seems sensible that it should look specifically at the role of the officer and the role of the member.
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This country certainly deserves good local government which can respond to, and meet the needs of, the people. The role of the officer and the role of the member deserve serious consideration.Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Geoffrey Lofthouse) : A practice seems to be developing in the Chamber whereby hon. Members from both sides of the House are bringing in communication devices. On two occasions this week when I have been in the Chair, an hon. Member's speech has been disrupted by such a gadget. It would help our debates if people did not bring such gadgets into the Chamber.
6.52 pm
Mr. Eric Illsley (Barnsley, Central) : I agree with the right hon. Member for Brent, North (Sir R. Boyson), particularly about under- registration, which is a problem that affects every local authority district, and I am pleased that he has been able to tackle the problem of under-registration in Brent. However, I repeat the call that the Government should consider a nationwide system to improve registration for elections. All three constituencies in my region are well under-represented in the current electoral register. Having said that, I intend to speak about the standard spending assessments used to formulate revenue support grant, in particular as those assessments apply to my local authority, Barnsley metropolitan borough council. Barnsley's standing spending assessment has been set at a level well below the amount that the authority needs to spend to maintain its services. This is not the first time that I have complained about SSAs and the Government's ridiculous treatment of mining areas, particularly with regard to SSAs and determining grants. Three years ago I complained that Barnsley had been poll-capped--it was one of the 21 authorities to have been capped, one third of which were coal mining districts. That shows where the Government have targeted their cuts in local government expenditure. When we complained about the cuts that would have to be made in local government expenditure the predecessor of the present Secretary of State spoke of a parade of bleeding stumps. I have listened to the latest version, in which the Secretary of State spoke of ritual protests from the Opposition. The Government simply do not believe that the cuts are being made. I have no reason to believe that the present Secretary of State understands the position any better than his predecessors.
Three years ago the music centre in Barnsley, which taught music to a very high standard, was closed as a result of cuts. Such a high standard of music teaching has never returned to my district. Unfortunately, there are further cuts to come this year. However, it appears that some of the Opposition's arguments are perhaps beginning to register. Recent meetings with the Minister have achieved some results and there are signs that the SSAs will be reorganised in future. Perhaps we can look forward to a new regime. I hope that when the Minister winds up the debate he will say that the new regime will encompass not only new data from the 1991 census returns, but a new formula for SSAs.
I have complained about SSAs on a number of occasions, and before rehearsing the arguments again I
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shall make a few general remarks. In the 1994-95 financial year, a new system using up-to-date data may be introduced, but that still means that my authority will have three to four years on a low revenue support grant. I should hate to think that my authority will have to start from that position when the new regime is implemented. I hope that we shall look at the matter afresh and consider Barnsley's needs as a whole, rather than using the current financial year's budget as the starting point for any new system of calculation.We need a more accurate assessment of need. The Minister said that unemployment could be taken into account as a sign of need in a district. Perhaps he will confirm that in his winding-up speech. In my region, that factor is most apparent as Barnsley has a higher than average level of unemployment. It has been affected by the decision of the President of the Board of Trade to close more collieries. If those closures take place, my district will be badly affected. The Minister has heard from hon. Members on both sides of the House about the number of redundancies throughout the nation which could result from the cuts in local government finance.
This year, my authority will still be capped at an artificially low level. The standard spending assessment does not take account of my district's needs. Future restructuring will repeat the errors of the past as the lion's share of the funding will go to large conurbations such as Manchester, Liverpool and Merseyside, once again leaving the metropolitan districts at the bottom of the pile when funds are allocated. Future restrictions will also continue artificially to inflate the Conservative- controlled London areas, such as Wandsworth and Westminster.
For the past three years that I have spoken in these debates, I have asked why Barnsley--my authority--always figures at the bottom of the list for metropolitan districts. I have never received an adequate response. The last time I asked the President of the Board of Trade, who was then the Secretary of State for the Environment, he said that someone had to come bottom of the list. I appreciate that, but why is it my authority rather than anyone else's? The right hon. Gentleman could not see the problem with the formula for calculating SSAs, which counts against medium-sized and mining authorities, classing them as low-need authorities when they should be assessed as authorities with moderate needs, especially after the recent decisions affecting coal mining districts.
Every time I have spoken in these debates I have mentioned the research undertaken into the calculation of SSAs. Initially we commissioned research from Coopers and Lybrand ; then we commissioned more from Newcastle university. The latest research comes from Salford university. Each time, the research has been presented to the Department with a request that the Department consider it and its implications for the SSAs. The research shows clearly that the formula discriminates against some authorities. I refer particularly on this occasion to the so-called Webber-Craig authorities--seven authorities of similar size and make-up. I believe that Ministers are well aware of them.
Time and again the Government have ignored this research and have carried on using the same formula for the SSAs. One can only conclude that they are quite happy to discriminate against Labour-controlled mining authorities and quite happy that we should continue to receive levels of grant lower than those to which we feel that we are entitled.
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One of the problems is that the formula uses proxies as indicators of need. Ethnicity, for example, is one such proxy. The incidence of one-parent families is another. These are looked at instead of looking at actual need--at poor health, unemployment and economic need. The ethnicity factor used in the calculation appears in eight different blocks. That means that if a local authority has only a small number of ethnic inhabitants in its area--mine has only a small number--that fact is taken into account eight times over, and the SSA will register correspondingly low--despite the fact that this is a proxy indicator which bears no relation to the real need of an authority.I believe that the Secretary of State acknowledged my next point following my intervention earlier. I refer to the wide gap between the top authorities and the lower ones. The Secretary of State asked where we would find the extra money. I say that we do not need "extra" money. Manchester, Liverpool and Birmingham gain far more grant than metropolitan areas such as mine. On average, Manchester receives 70 per cent. more grant than Barnsley, as I have pointed out year after year. The gap is far too wide. Why are Manchester, Birmingham and Merseyside allowed 70 per cent. more money to provide a standard level of service? It is crazy.
Birmingham does not even spend up to its SSA. I understand that it spends £35 million per year on its publicity budget alone. That is equal to a quarter of Barnsley's entire budget. Something must be wrong with the calculations. SSAs should be based on indicators of need, to provide a standard level of service. I remind the Government what the then Secretary of State for Health said on 20 February 1990, when he pointed out that the standard spending assessment is not a target at which local authorities should aim, nor is it a level to which they are obliged to reduce if they want to spend above it : it is for local government to determine what it will spend on its services, and it will be answerable to the electorate for the resulting charges.
Fine words, but they have now been proved rubbish, as the Government will not allow local authorities to be answerable to their electorates for their charges. SSAs have become the method by which the Government cap local authority expenditure. So the Government determine what local authorities spend.
The Salford university research was the latest piece of research that my authority submitted to the Government. I confess that I do not understand it--its statistical language is beyond me--but I am assured by those who do understand it that it is cogent, logical and correct.
Mr. Christopher Gill (Ludlow) : I do not think that the hon. Gentleman should be shy or reticent about admitting that he does not understand all the figures. I am sure that many of our colleagues in the House feel exactly the same. I am sure, too, that the sentiment that he has just expressed will be echoed throughout the length and breadth of this country. We must therefore work to make the figures comprehensible. I hope that I may have the chance to say a few words on that subject later in the debate.
Mr. Illsley : If the hon. Gentleman would like a copy of the research from Salford, I should be happy to give him it. If he can find his way through it and understand it, perhaps he will drop me a line to explain it. I agree with him that the information is complicated, and the research
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submitted by Salford university to the Government is even more complicated than the SSA calculations. It is a highly detailed mathematical document which I do not confess to understand, any more than I understand everything about local government finance. I agree with the hon. Gentleman that some of the jargon in these reports should be clarified.I should like to offer one or two examples of how these calculations are arrived at. The additional needs calculation runs as follows :
"The sum of :
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