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Fire Services (Essex)

9. Mr. Amess: To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will make a statement on the calculation of the element allowed for fire services in the standard spending assessments for Essex. [12509]

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Mr. Curry: As I announced last week, the fire element of the standard spending assessment for Essex is £35.1 million for 1997-98--an increase of 4.6 per cent. on the same element for 1996-97, and higher than the national average of 4.2 per cent.

Mr. Amess: Is my right hon. Friend aware that there is widespread concern throughout Essex at the way in which the Labour and Liberal-controlled Essex county council is trying to reorganise local fire services? Does he regret that some local politicians are unfairly trying to blame the Government for that? Does he recognise that local residents under no circumstances want Leigh-on-Sea fire station to be closed?

Mr. Curry: Essex county council has done very well over successive years from changes in SSAs. Indeed, it has had significant additional funds. The fact is that the county can increase its budget by £19.5 million. The fire element increase is £1.5 million. None of that is hypothecated. If it chooses to do so, it could give priority to its fire service. The decision not to do so would be entirely that of local councillors.

Mr. Olner: While the Minister is considering the problems in Essex, will he turn his mind to the problems in Warwickshire--

Madam Speaker: Order. Not today, thank you. Perhaps tomorrow.

Uniform Business Rate

11. Mr. Whittingdale: To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what assessment he has made of the impact of the uniform business rate on small businesses. [12511]

Mr. Gummer: Rates place a disproportionate burden on small businesses. For that reason, we have announced that rate bills for small business premises will not rise in 1997-98. We are looking at what other steps can be taken further to address this problem.

Mr. Whittingdale: Does my right hon. Friend accept that the burden of business rates bears particularly heavily not only on small businesses but on high-street retailers, who are trying to compete with out-of-town superstores? Is he aware that the Government's announcement that they are intending to redistribute the burden is particularly welcome to small shops such as those in Maldon high street? Will he assure us that he will introduce such measures as soon as possible after the general election?

Mr. Gummer: I can certainly give the assurance that, if we can find a more satisfactory and equitable way of doing these things, we shall do so as rapidly as possible. I am sure that my hon. Friend would like to extend what he said to the fact that village shops can now get the special mandatory relief--mandatory relief that Liberal Members voted against. They did not want local shops to get that relief as of right, but wanted to leave it in the hands of Liberal councils, which very often do not provide that relief.

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Mr. Pike: Does the Secretary of State accept that we all recognise the importance of small business, but that, when he says that about the part of the poll tax legislation which refers to non-domestic rates, it really shows how that flagship legislation was flawed in both sections--in respect of non-domestic rates and of the poll tax--and shows what a disaster the Government have been since 1987?

Mr. Gummer: I must point out that the hon. Gentleman represents a party that used to set enormously high business rates and drove businesses out of its areas. For example, he will remember that, before we changed the rules, shopkeepers in Newcastle upon Tyne paid three times as much per square foot as people in Westminster, in Oxford street. That is what it meant to have a Labour council and Labour rates in those days--thank goodness we put that right.

Mr. Dover: Does the Minister accept that, in fact, probably the large majority of small businesses pay no uniform business rates, because they operate from residential homes? Is it not time that the Government considered scrapping all business rating for small businesses, in view of the arbitrary lines that separate those who pay and those who do not?

Mr. Gummer: My hon. Friend must accept that, wherever one draws those lines, one has such difficulties. I have suggested that we need to get the proportional weight of the business rate correct, which is why we are looking carefully, particularly at small businesses, to ensure that we can do what is best.

Social Housing

12. Mr. Gunnell: To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what estimate he has made of the number of new lettings for social needs which will be available in (i) 1997-98, (ii) 1998-99 and (iii) 1999-2000. [12512]

Mr. Clappison: We estimate 148,000.

Mr. Gunnell: That is a rather higher figure than I had anticipated, but why is it that, when there is such a huge level of unmet social need, the Government have allowed social needs housing starts to fall to the lowest level since the second world war? I opened some of those units completed in Leeds only a week ago. Will the Minister ensure that creative partnerships, like that between Leeds city council and its five housing associations, can continue? Will he ensure that more money is made available for social housing, because we have the lowest number of social starts and it is time that the Government paid attention to it?

Mr. Clappison: I can tell the hon. Gentleman that we have our estimates of housing need, and that we are on target to create between 58,000 and 60,000 new lettings over the decade as a whole, which is in line with our estimate of need. We are doing so in a variety of ways and, as the hon. Gentleman acknowledged by his use of the example of Leeds, we are drawing in a great deal of private finance--we estimate £1.7 billion over the next three years. The hon. Gentleman asks for more money to meet needs over and beyond those that we have defined,

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so I regard his question as yet another plea for more public expenditure, which is in contradiction of Labour Front Benchers' apparently pre-ordained desire to stay within pre-ordained spending limits and breaches their spending commitments--once again, more public spending.

Mr. Dobson: The Minister's answer, in effect, only promises more of the same, which we all know is inadequate. Why will not the Government agree to the release of the takings from the right-to-buy sale of council houses, so that they can be invested in building new houses and improving old ones? That would create jobs in the building industry and provide new homes; and it would create new jobs in the building supply industry, whether they be for people making carpets in Halifax and Brighouse, people making electrical fittings in Basildon, or people making doors and windows in Keighley?

Mr. Clappison: The hon. Gentleman's policy will not work because, as he well knows, many of the areas with the greatest housing need, such as Birmingham, Newcastle, Hackney and Southwark, have no housing receipts to spend, whereas areas with less housing need, such as West Dorset and Malvern Hills, have the receipts. He has never explained how he will transfer the receipts from one to another.

The next problem that the hon. Gentleman faces is the fact that every pound spent from the capital receipts represents additional public spending.

Mr. Dobson indicated dissent.

Mr. Clappison: No amount of fudging can disguise that fact; the hon. Gentleman's proposal amounts to more public spending, which would have to be paid for, as the hon. Gentleman's Front-Bench colleague, the hon. Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Meacher), wants, through more taxation--taxation of allowances, and more and more taxation.

Local Government Finance (Kent)

13. Mr. Jacques Arnold: To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will make a statement on the 1997-98 financial settlement for Kent county council. [12513]

Sir Paul Beresford: Kent's overall standard spending assessment increased by 2.2 per cent.--just short of £22 million. Within that, the element relating to education increased by 3.5 per cent., and that relating to fire by 5 per cent. I think that my hon. Friend will agree that that is a very fair settlement.

Mr. Arnold: My hon. Friend will know that the people of Kent were delighted to receive an extra £22 million for this year--an increase that takes the spending of Kent county council beyond £1 billion. Does he share the dismay of people throughout Kent at the fact that the Labour-Liberal Democrat coalition proposes to cut massive sums from the budgets of our schools, our fire

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service and our social services, and to decimate adult education, the youth service and many other services in Kent?

Sir Paul Beresford: I should have thought that my hon. Friend would be used to that by now. It is what we call the bleeding stump syndrome--chop off something vital and wave it around to frighten the public.

Mr. Allen: Will the Minister point out to the outgoing hon. Member for Gravesham (Mr. Arnold), as well as to the hon. Members for Dartford (Mr. Dunn) and for Dover (Mr. Shaw), that all Kent's Tories trooped through the Lobby last night to impose the local government settlement on Kent? It is that settlement, not Kent county council, that will force council tax payers in Gravesham to find another 20 per cent. of the cost of their local services, and voters in Dartford to find another 30 per cent., while the Tories' cronies in Westminster pay only 10 per cent. Will the Minister urge Kent's Tory Members, in their few remaining weeks in this place, to do what Chris Pond will do in Gravesham, Howard Stoate will do in Dartford and Gwyn Prosser will do in Dover, and speak up for Kent in this place, instead of constantly denigrating it?

Sir Paul Beresford: That is a double-handed blow. On the one hand we have the bleeding stump, and on the other hand, the hon. Member is counting chickens long before they are hatched.

Sir Roger Moate: Does not the fact remain that Kent has received an extra £22 million, that Labour shadow Ministers are saying that there is no more money available anyway, and that it is Liberal and Labour councillors who are shutting our fire stations, cutting our library services and closing our youth services? The sooner we get them out on 1 May, the sooner we shall be able to ensure that those closures and cuts do not happen.

Sir Paul Beresford: My hon. Friend is absolutely right. If he had been in our shoes at the Department, he would have seen Labour authority after Labour authority coming to complain, wanting more central Government funding, more local funding and council tax, the transfer of the business rate into their hands, and the removal of the compulsory aspect of compulsory competitive tendering. This is not a new tax; it is the same council tax but many times greater.

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