| Previous Section | Index | Home Page |
Mr. Tony Banks (Newham, North-West): I was just passing through.
Mr. Deva: I note that the hon. Gentleman has now "passed through".
The letter continues:
Last year, the Government gave Hounslow £98.9 million in revenue support grant; next year, that will be increased to £102.7 million--a rise of £3.8 million. Each year, the Government gives every local authority a standard spending assessment, or SSA, which constitutes their assessment of how much it should cost a local authority to provide a standard level of service. That governs the distribution of revenue support grant to each council. In addition to the revenue support grant, local authorities receive money from the Government through business rates, and they also raise funds through the council tax.
SSAs are built up from various separate elements for various services--education, social services, police, fire, highway maintenance and other services. The different geographical and social characteristics of each area are taken into account, such as the number of children, the number of elderly people and the number who need care. SSAs are a means of calculating Government grant distribution to different local authorities. They constitute neither a limit nor a target for local authorities' actual expenditure, but, all being equal, a higher SSA leads to a higher level of grant from the Government.
It is interesting to note what the Government have been giving Hounslow council. For the past few years, the council has regularly received increases in its SSA. In 1990, the SSA was £124 million; by 1993, it was £165.6 million. That rose to £170.4 million in 1994, £178.7 million in 1995 and £185.6 million last year; and the figure will be a massive £188.9 million in 1997. Next year--after we have allowed for the increase in Government grant and the fact that the council will, as ever, increase its council tax--Hounslow will, for the first time in its history, have a budget of more than £200 million.
I thank the Government for their fair treatment of Hounslow in allocating resources. I think it worth placing on record additional sums given through the single regeneration grant: a further £13 million has been provided for the regeneration of Brentford, which is now well under way, and a grant of another £7.3 million has been announced just this week by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment for the regeneration of Isleworth, in particular its Ivybridge estate. Both those sums are in addition to the normal annual grant from the Government. How ironic it is that, in a week when the Government announce a grant of over £7 million for Isleworth, we must have this debate.
18 Dec 1996 : Column 1016
It is worth noting that Hounslow has done better than most local authorities in recent years. Its SSA has increased by 39.6 per cent. since 1991, in comparison with average increases of 36.3 per cent. for outer-London boroughs, and 33.6 per cent. for local government as a whole. The Government have been extremely generous to Hounslow, giving us about 6 per cent. more than they have given other local authorities.
How appalling it is that, in the midst of that extra funding, Hounslow's Labour council proposes to close the Isleworth day care centre and the Chiswick families centre, both of which are much-used and much-needed local facilities. They provide invaluable support for vulnerable elderly people in Isleworth, and for families in Chiswick.
The campaign to keep both centres open has been led by, among others, Mrs. Josephine Langton, a Conservative councillor in Chiswick. However, they face total closure for the sake of a mere £235,000 a year in the case of the Isleworth day care centre, and just £35,000 a year in the case of the Chiswick families centre. Given that Hounslow will have a budget of over £200 million next year, it is utterly callous of its Labour council to attack--inhumanely, cold-bloodedly and ruthlessly--the most vulnerable of my constituents.
That is why I wanted to initiate this debate, and why I wrote to the leader of the Labour party last week asking him to exert pressure on his councillors in Hounslow. I drew attention to the SSA settlement and the huge funds available to the council, and I now wait to discover how the Labour leader will respond to my letter--a letter that asked him to intervene to protect the elderly and vulnerable in my patch.
I place on record my admiration for two Labour councillors, Vanessa Smith and Pat Nicholas, who represent Isleworth's south ward. They want to keep the centres open--as I do--but what has been the reward for their efforts? Suspension from the Labour party.
Suspension from the Labour party for protecting the elderly, the infirm and the vulnerable? Punishment for caring? What sort of Labour party is this? What kind of uncaring monsters appear to be running the Labour party in Hounslow? Despite the SSA settlement, the revenue support grant and the additional Government funds for social services--£190,000 more was provided this year than last year--they are not listening. They are going to shut down those two centres.
More than 80 per cent. of my surgery cases now constitute complaints about the way in which Hounslow council spends its money: about how it cares not for its tenants, cares not for the quality of its housing stock and cares not for the homeless, given that 400 council homes are still unoccupied. We all know that the SSA is divided into a number of components. Within Hounslow's total SSA, the SSA for social services has been increased, as I have said. It is more than enough to keep those two centres open, but only if--it is a big if--Hounslow council decides that it wants to.
That is the nub of the problem. Despite massive public pressure locally, and although some 2,500 people have signed petitions in support of keeping the centres open--despite the extra funding announced by the Government, and despite pressure from their own councillors--those who run Hounslow council still say that they must close the centres. The problem is that Hounslow's Labour
18 Dec 1996 : Column 1017
In calculating the SSA, I am sure that the Minister has taken into account the protection of my most vulnerable constituents. I shall give two examples of how Hounslow council could have saved if it had wanted, these two centres within the SSA. First, the council accepted an in-house bid from its direct labour force for the removal of waste from the borough. That is an essential service, but, by refusing to accept the lowest bid and accepting instead the more expensive in-house higher bid, the council turned down savings of about £400,000 a year--more than enough to divert to the social services budget to keep the centres open. The council chose not to do that.
Even now, the council could take a simple action to keep the centres open. Councillor Paul Lynch, the excellent Conservative leader on Hounslow council, and Councillor Barbara Reed, the Conservative social services spokesman on the council, proposed at a council meeting that the authority's budget be altered to keep the two centres open. They were voted down by a huge Labour majority.
At the request of UNISON, the borough's trade union, Councillor Lynch also asked at the last council meeting for the council to institute a purchasing policy to effect savings. The council totally ignored that suggestion and swept it under the carpet. What a strange turn of events--a Conservative council group leader and a Conservative Member of this House supporting the trades unions and Labour councillors in seeking to maintain essential services for the most vulnerable people in my constituency.
At present, each council department orders its own stationery, office furniture, computers, photocopiers and even paper clips. I have asked how much the council spends on paper clips but no one knows. What a shambles! If the council instituted an overall purchasing policy it is estimated that an annual saving of £35,000 could be made on stationery alone.
That would be enough to keep the Chiswick families centre open, and if the same policy was followed for the council's office furniture, computers and photocopiers, it would be possible to generate savings of £235,000 a year, which would be enough to keep the Isleworth day care centre open. What is more important: office desks and chairs in the civic centre and super-duper photocopiers, or helping frail, infirm elderly people in Isleworth and young children at risk and their families in Chiswick?
Hounslow Labour council has discretion: there is huge leeway. Local councillors could have chosen to exercise that discretion, but they have not done so. If that is so-called new Labour, give us old Labour. Better still, we should let the people know that Hounslow's Labour council is closing two valuable local centres without just reason, to try to make a political point against the Government. It will not wash.
"Your Labour Council should get its priorities right and keep the Isleworth Day Care Centre and the Chiswick Families Centre OPEN. The two Labour Councillors should be re-instated and the closure plans cancelled forthwith."
That was nearly two weeks ago, but, as I said, I have received no reply, which speaks volumes in itself.
| Next Section
| Index | Home Page |