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Mrs. Clwyd: Will the Minister give way?
Mr. Hague: I should finish my point.
It is 10 weeks since we published the proposals. It is hard to believe that the Opposition have not thought about what the settlement should be. If they have not thought about it, we are entitled to ask what they have been doing in the past 10 weeks. If they have thought about it, it is time that public were told their conclusions. Tonight, at7 o'clock, I expect that they will vote against the proposals. If they do that, they must prefer something else. If they prefer something else, we are entitled to ask what it is. Would council tax be higher or lower?
Mrs. Clwyd:
On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I wonder whether the Government intend to make a statement, and whether the Secretary of State knows that, in addition to increasing council tax, they will also tax those who are sick. The Government have sneaked through a answer saying that they intend to put 25p on the cost of prescriptions. That is disgraceful.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Janet Fookes):
It is quite clear to me that this is not a point of order. It is a point of information that the hon. Lady wishes to get over, and she has not been able to do it in any other way.
Mr. Hague:
I shall not be distracted from asking Members who are against the settlement whether they think it should be higher or lower. We do not necessarily need exact numbers. They could tell us whether it should be a bit higher or much higher.
Where would they find resources in the Welsh block? Would they come from the health budget that I have increased, the training budget, to which I have directed money, the Countryside Council for Wales, whose budget
I have increased, the Welsh Development Agency, which has received an increase in its grant in aid, or, as the local authorities have suggested, the Cardiff Bay development corporation, although that would stop the barrage halfway through its completion?
The problems of financing local government spending would be worse, not better, were we to introduce even a small number of the specific proposals to which Opposition Members have put their names.
Mr. Ainger:
Will the Minister give way?
Madam Deputy Speaker:
Order. It is quite clear the that Minister is not giving way; therefore, thehon. Gentleman must resume his seat quickly.
Mr. Hague:
I have given way many times. I want to provide time for Members to take part in the debate, and for the hon. Member for Caerphilly (Mr. Davies) to say what he thinks the settlement should be. I should point out that ending compulsory tendering, which is one Opposition policy, would worsen the problem of controlling local government spending. They could finance it by their other policy of ending capping, but that would undoubtedly mean that local authorities would choose to spend a great deal more, and council tax payers would have to pay for it.
Mr. Ian Bruce (South Dorset):
Will my righthon. Friend give way?
Mr. Hague:
In fairness to all Members, I must continue my speech.
Mr. Ron Davies (Caerphilly):
The Secretary of State has been getting in some much-needed practice for his next job in opposition. He is far more concerned to talk about Opposition policies than about his own financial settlement. It is instructive that, although we are discussing a financial settlement dealing with the distribution of some £3 billion of public money, according to the Secretary of State the most important point is the cost of civic regalia in Rhondda Cynon Taff. That reveals his priorities.
The Secretary of State has tried to convey the message that the settlement is reasonable, that it will not lead to service cuts and that any unreasonable council tax increases will be the fault of local councils, not central Government. On all those counts, the truth is the exact opposite.
In reality, it is an unreasonable settlement at a time of economic slump. Despite their new responsibilities and a major reorganisation, councils in Wales will face a reduction in Government support. The settlement increases aggregate external finance by 2.2 per cent.
Inflation for the year to December was 3.2 per cent.In real terms, therefore, authorities in Wales face a1 per cent. cut in their level of support.
Resources for the police increased last year and the Secretary of State took credit for it. Perhaps he will also take responsibility for the fact that the number of serving police officers has fallen by nearly 200 since 1992 and fell by nearly 100 last year, when he took direct responsibility for funding police authorities in Wales. Yet again, the reality falls far short of Tory manifesto commitments and it is clear that we cannot trust the Government on law and order.
Mr. Nigel Evans:
Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
I would have liked to welcome the extra money for community care, but that increase, for which the Secretary of State claims credit, comes entirely from the budget of the Department of Social Security. When the number of elderly people is dramatically increasing--there was a 17 per cent. increase in the number of people aged 65 and over between 1979 and 1994 and it is forecast to increase further--not a penny more is being spent on one of the most vulnerable sectors in our society. That is not the whole picture. Excluding the ring-fenced money for police and community care, Wales faces a 2.6 per cent. cut in real-terms provision for such basic services as education, housing and social services.
Mr. Evans:
Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Evans:
On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. The Secretary of State gave way more than20 times during his speech, yet the Opposition spokesman is not prepared to give way even once.
Madam Deputy Speaker:
It is entirely a matter for the hon. Member who has the Floor to decide whether to give way. It is not a point of order for the Chair, so that was a bogus point of order which has taken up time.
Mr. Davies:
Perhaps I should take this opportunity to explain to you, Madam Deputy Speaker, that a large number of my hon. Friends who represent Welsh constituencies want to represent the interests of their constituents today, so I shall make my speech as brief as possible to allow them to do that.
Education may be a matter of jest for the Secretary of State, because neither he nor his family nor his constituents have to live with the consequences of the cuts that he is imposing. Will he confirm that, as a result of the Government's decision today to increase teachers' salaries by 3.8 per cent., but not to make any more funding available for authorities in Wales, they will have to face additional burdens of the following order? The counties of Dyfed, Gwent and South Glamorgan, or their successor authorities, will have to find a further£4 million. The counties of Clwyd and West Glamorgan will have to find a further £3 million. The county ofMid Glamorgan will have to find a further £5 million. If the people whom the Secretary of State represents, orhis family, were being condemned to the squalor
and declining conditions that our children face in their education, I put it to him that he would not be as complacent about this further imposition on Welsh local authorities.
There will be service cuts in these vital areas, and hardly an authority in Wales will be able to fulfil its plans for investment in the social and economic infrastructure which are needed to face the challenge of the new millennium. The capital settlement this year includes a cash cut of 5 per cent.--more than £34 million--and a real terms cut of 8 per cent.; that is £50 million less than what is needed just to compensate for inflation.
I acknowledge that the damping down grant has been introduced, but all that does is put a temporary bandage over the structural and financial crisis facing the poorer Welsh authorities as a result of the per capita redistribution of the former counties' disaggregated budgets. Overall, the Welsh block grant has not been increased, so the £45 million allocated to damping down will have to come from other cuts in Welsh Office expenditure: from the health service and from economic development, for example. Local authorities which this year are benefiting from the damping down grant--especially the poorer counties of Rhondda Cynon Taff, Merthyr and Blaenau Gwent--will face enormous difficulties next year, because no provision has been made for the continuation of the assistance.
It is what I would call typical Tory economics--sacrificing long-term strategic interests for a short-term political fix. That it is a short-term fix, the Secretary of State made absolutely clear in his press release of30 January:
In other words, he intends to sack teachers, spend less on social workers and invest less in the future of our communities. As with so many other areas of Government activity, the problems of today's Tory Government will be left to tomorrow's Labour Government to sort out.
My hon. Friends will be interested to contrast the Secretary of State's press release entitled
"I envisage this additional assistance as a one-off, giving authorities time to adjust service expenditure and bring it more in line with their standard spending assessments".
"William Hague limits council tax increases"
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