| Previous Section | Index | Home Page |
Mr. Curry: I shall not give way. I am emulating the hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras, who took only one intervention from my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State. I shall wait for a more substantial intervention.
Our package of measures recognises the problems of preserving a living countryside which people want to admire and visit, and in which they want to work. Those measures are devolution in practice. They follow our creation of national park authorities, which give a specific role to local people who live within the parks and know their problems.
There has been much talk of social cohesion and exclusion. Last week, I attended a Council of Ministers meeting in Dublin to examine those issues. It was interesting to note how many of our European partners, in pursuing their national policies, agreed that one had to approach social cohesion and exclusion from the viewpoint of the problems of the community--and that the time when national prescriptions could tell people what they wanted had passed. That is why it is so important that the integrated programmes that this Government have developed should work effectively--bringing the community effective choices and responsibilities in the cities.
One cannot solve a city's problems by focusing on education, training or housing alone. One must get a grip on the integrated difficulties. That means difficult choices,
because one must choose a small community. The regeneration budget is crucial, because it embraces local partnerships, local initiatives and local delivery. Education and training are overwhelmingly two of the great priorities of all the partnerships that are addressing social issues. They are the most common elements in the programmes. That was so in the two earlier rounds and will be so in the third round, which will be decided shortly.
The hon. Member for City of Durham (Mr. Steinberg) knows that that is true. He tried to be frightfully fierce today--a sort of Hemingway of the Back Benches, but it did not really suit him. He came to see me a little while ago to ask whether I could assist with the transfer of a housing estate in his constituency, because that was the way to achieve regeneration there. We were able to help. The transfer was agreed by a massive majority of the tenants. I pay tribute to the hon. Gentleman for his concerns for his constituency. We were able to work together to deliver something of benefit and effective regeneration. He is much better when he concentrates on those problems than when he tries to read diatribes from the back of the Chamber.
There will also be opportunities for local government in capital challenge; we shall announce those shortly. That is a chance for local government to create an integrated programme and for different parts of a council to talk to one another, which does not always happen. Once again, we are getting high-quality, well-integrated bids, and we find that education is a strong runner. Local government is being given new opportunities to choose its own priorities, and rightly it often chooses education as one of those priorities. It is local government making the choice, reflecting local people's views.
Mr. Andrew Rowe (Mid-Kent):
What advice would my right hon. Friend give the Liberal-Labour coalition that runs Kent, which has had the most generous settlement ever given to Kent county council, and which consistently complains that it has not enough money to run services to the necessary standard?
Mr. Curry:
I would advise it to study some of the most efficient authorities--those much more efficient than itself, which put less premium on simply employing more people--and find out what can be done if people set about the task of being an effective enabling authority. That is happening throughout the country, and it is a new road for local government.
The hon. Member for Bath (Mr. Foster) mentioned education funding and other issues. He gave us the Liberal litany of financial permissiveness: the ending of controls on local government expenditure, the abolition of competitive tendering, the local income tax and the education surtax. He did not mention--but, as he chided my hon. Friend the Member for Rugby and Kenilworth (Mr. Pawsey) for not mentioning something that he believed he should have mentioned, I shall do the same--the site valuation principle for the business rate, which means that if a large tower were built in the City of London, and Fred's diner was next door, occupants of the two would pay the same business rates.
The hon. Gentleman should consider where the opportunities lie for local government to assist education. They lie in local government addressing itself sensibly
to the opportunities of a private finance initiative. I have announced changes to that initiative that tackle the two issues about which local government was most worried. First, where councils sign a contract, they will no longer have to make credit provision up front for those sums. That was a major problem for local government. Secondly, those revenue payments that are made will no longer be caught by capping rules, and the Government will provide them through the standard spending assessment mechanism. Those were the two issues raised most consistently; we have addressed them.
Mr. Don Foster:
I thank the Minister for the changes that he made, which were desperately needed; unfortunately, as he will acknowledge, there is no monitoring in the Department for Education and Employment of the use of the private finance initiative, and the Government's own financial adviser cannot begin to say how much money will come in through the initiative for education, so we do not know what it will do.
Mr. Curry:
We have made an allocation for next year and the following year on the volume of capital schemes that will be financed under the private finance initiative. Allocations have been made of £50 million for next year and £200 million for the following year. We believe that those allocations will be adequate to meet demand. We, local authorities and the Department for Education and Employment are working extremely closely on that. There is an organisation, run by local authorities, called the 4Ps, which is promoting that through local government.
I shall be grateful if the hon. Member for Bath will proselytise and argue the case for the private finance initiative. All Governments are trying to find ways in which private finance can assist the public good, because we all live in the global economy.
Mr. Stevenson:
I want to help the Minister to drag out his speech until 10 o'clock; he seems to be running out of notes. Would he care to comment on the fact that, since the Government imposed business rates in my constituency, business rates have increased by nearly 40 per cent.?
Mr. Curry:
As the hon. Gentleman knows, the business rates reflect the assumed rental characteristics of an area and are subject to evaluation every five years. Where there have been changes, people in some parts of the United Kingdom have had their business rate cut and others have had their business rate increased. The system has to keep pace with the changing circumstances in the economy.
As the hon. Gentleman represents a part of the world that has benefited substantially from the Government's regeneration programmes, he would do well to realise the possibilities for local government in the combination of regeneration--
Mr. Blunkett:
Will the Minister tell the House when the commitment made by the Secretary of State for Education and Employment about placing the SCAA's values forum report in the Vote Office will be fulfilled? She gave that commitment to the House this afternoon under the procedures of the House and my hon. Friends are finding it difficult to locate the report even at this time of the evening.
Mr. Curry:
My right hon. Friend made it clear that she was quoting from newspaper reports and said that she
Mr. Blunkett:
A commitment was given and, as the Secretary of State is not here, may we presume that she is photocopying--[Interruption.] She is here--I apologise to the Secretary of State. I did not see her behind the--
Mr. Deputy Speaker:
Order. Mr. Curry has the Floor and may give way to whomever he likes. [Interruption.] Order. I must point out to the hon. Member for Brent, South (Mr. Boateng) that this is the Chamber of the House of Commons and he should respect that fact. I call Mr. Curry.
Mr. Curry:
On reflection, Mr. Deputy Speaker, I have decided to give way to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State.
Mrs. Shephard:
The documents will be available for hon. Members first thing in the morning.
Mr. Curry:
In one of the few moments when he mentioned local government, the hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras spoke about housing policies. He quoted, I assume, from the document that deals with the extension of the rough sleepers initiative outside London. I hope that he is not suggesting that that is an undesirable thing to do. We made it clear that the policy has been extremely successful in central London. We then made it clear that, where there was a significant problem outside London, we would seek to apply the same mechanisms to address it.
| Next Section
| Index | Home Page |