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Mr. Gummer: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Cann: No, I shall not give way. I have only about 10 minutes and there is plenty of time for the Secretary of State to do his bit later.
We all fought to ensure that the Government figures would be changed, and they were. The only people in Suffolk who did not fight for Suffolk, for the county council, for the budget and for our services, were the five Conservative Members who represent Suffolk constituencies. The only time that they mention Suffolk is to have a go at Suffolk county council. The Secretary of State can snigger if he wishes; we in Suffolk are used to that.
The hon. Member for Bury St. Edmunds criticised Suffolk county council for its education service. Is he not aware that Suffolk is one of the few counties--indeed, I suspect, the only county in the country--not to have suffered even one opt-out school? I know that the Secretary of State knows that, because he has protested about it often enough.
Does the hon. Gentleman not know that there are more teachers and fewer administrators in Suffolk schools now than there were when Suffolk was Conservative-controlled in 1993? Clearly not. Is he aware that under local management of schools, Suffolk is one of the highest payers out to schools, because it is one of the authorities that keeps the least money in central education administration? Is he not proud of that record? He should be. Schools, parents and governors trust that council,
which gives out more money to schools than any other authority. Why is the hon. Gentleman not proud of it? Why does he criticise it?
Is the hon. Gentleman not aware that, since 1994, when Labour took control--and the Liberal Democrats, too; I apologise to the hon. Member for Newbury (Mr. Rendel) for not mentioning them--the money that the Government give to Suffolk county council has been reduced by 3 per cent. in real terms, whereas between 1990 and 1994, when it was Conservative-controlled, the sum given was increased by 12 per cent.? What a strange set of figures.
Does the hon. Gentleman not know that £39 million, in real terms, has been taken from Suffolk over the past four years? He certainly has not protested about it. Of that sum, £12 million has been made up by efficiency savings within the council, but the rest has had to be found by making economies in its services.
Is the hon. Gentleman not aware that, during that period class sizes have increased in our primary schools, and that elements of the fire service have had to be cut? Was he not here three years ago when I stood in the Chamber arguing about the police budget in Suffolk, and managed to get £3 million put quietly back the following year? He could not even be bothered to turn up, and neither could the Secretary of State.
The hon. Gentleman should be careful what he says about anti-poverty strategies. I know that the Government keep altering the way in which we count unemployment. The last I heard, they had altered it 29 times since 1979--and every time they do, the figure goes down. That is strange enough, but there is one statistic that the hon. Member for Bury St. Edmunds really ought to understand.
I do not know exactly where in Suffolk the hon. Gentleman lives, but in my constituency, and I suspect in those of Conservative Suffolk Members too, one in five households have no income other than benefit. The Government can alter the figures, cheat and make headline announcements about unemployment being 1.8 million, but the fact is that in one in five households of working age in my constituency, nobody has a job.
If people live somewhere nice and leafy in a little village, they can try to pretend that that is not happening, but it is. Fear and anxiety live out there. They are not promoted by the county council; they are out there among our people, along with the lack of a feel-good factor. Over the past 18 years, that is what the Government have reduced this country to: insecurity, anxiety and fear.
That fear is not fear of the county council, of Ipswich council or, I suspect, of the local council in Bury St. Edmunds. Fear and insecurity are promoted by the Government as a matter of policy.
The hon. Member for Bury St. Edmunds talked about transport. However, the county council's transport strategy was agreed by the Department of Transport, and with the Government office for the eastern region and the transport people in Bedford. The policy being carried out is the policy that the Government told the county council to carry out.
The hon. Gentleman said that Suffolk county council was run by people from urban areas who do not understand rural areas. However, only 16 of about 60 councillors are from Ipswich--and I think that there are four from Bury St. Edmunds. There is a great swathe of
people from the constituency of the hon. Member for South Suffolk (Mr. Yeo), although they are usually either Liberal or Labour, because there is hardly a Tory left. They all represent rural seats. Duncan MacPherson represents a rural seat. [Interruption.] Well, it is rural to me.
Suffolk is a rural county, so the people elected to the council come predominantly from rural areas. The fact that they are not all Tories now is another matter, and that is what Conservative Members should be concerned about, rather than criticising the council.
If the hon. Gentleman wants to talk about building, I can tell him that two nurseries are being built in Ipswich, one for the Britannia area and one for Sprites. Those nurseries are badly needed, and they will open in September. Well done, Suffolk county council. I have long held the view that the rural areas of Suffolk have been subsidised by the urban areas. Through his activities in the health service, the hon. Member for Bury St. Edmunds has tried to keep that subsidy going. I do not blame him for favouring his own constituency, but I know what he is up to.
For the first time in its history, Suffolk is now being run in the interests of the whole county, rather than in those of Conservative Members' constituencies. The hon. Gentleman will not know that in my constituency three primary schools that were built in 1935 as 10-year temporary structures are still being used as schools today. That is shameful, and it is one of the problems that the Labour and Liberal Democrat-controlled council is trying to put right.
Unfortunately, the Secretary of State--who, as I can see, is not interested in what I am saying--did not feel able to grant our capital challenge bid, which would have enabled the council to go ahead with a new school.
Four hon. Members applied for this Adjournment debate, but it was the hon. Member for Bury St. Edmunds who was successful. That was right, because he has been the most voluble critic of the county council. Yet he talks to us about dialogue. When Suffolk county council was Tory, I, as the Member for Ipswich, did not criticise the council in the press.
Mr. Tim Yeo (South Suffolk):
There was no need to.
Mr. Cann:
I did not criticise it because there was dialogue. I went and talked to the council. That does not mean that I talked to the people who chaired the committees, because it was clear that they did what the officers told them to. That was always true of Suffolk under Tory rule. I used to speak to the chief officers, so there was a dialogue and I, as the local Member of Parliament, could get things done in connection with Suffolk county council.
In contrast, for the hon. Member for Bury St. Edmunds, the idea of dialogue is to slag off the county council on the front page of the East Anglian Daily Times, and then expect things to change. Is that dialogue? When the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food is fired, the hon. Gentleman ought to be promoted into his place, because clearly he has the same diplomatic skills.
Mr. Tim Yeo (South Suffolk):
I listened in vain for any syllable of condemnation, or even of apology, from the hon. Member for Ipswich (Mr. Cann) for the appalling record of Suffolk county council, which my hon. Friend the Member for Bury St. Edmunds (Mr. Spring) outlined. In 15 minutes, the hon. Gentleman demonstrated clearly to the House and, I hope, to the voters of Ipswich, how completely unfit he is to represent those voters here in Parliament.
I dare say that we shall find the same absence of condemnation when the hon. Member for North-West Durham (Ms Armstrong) speaks. I hope that she will clarify Labour's position on spending commitments. We have heard on many occasions from Suffolk county council that it needs to spend more. As far as I could tell from what the hon. Member for Ipswich said, he endorses those claims; but we know from the shadow Chancellor that no more money will be spent next year or the year after in the event that a Labour Government are elected.
I hope that, when the hon. Member for North-West Durham speaks, she will make it clear whether she endorses the view of the Suffolk county council Labour leader or that of the shadow Chancellor. That is a vital question for the House and for the voters of Suffolk, but it is also important in terms of what happens outside Suffolk, because what we have seen in Suffolk in the past four years an example of what Labour administration means in practice. It is not only an example: it is a salutary warning.
The council was elected in 1993, and is therefore what people would describe as a new Labour administration. Like many others, it is a new Labour administration that is slavishly propped up by the Liberal Democrat party. Once again, the Liberal Democrats in Suffolk have demonstrated beyond any possible doubt that a vote for the Liberal Democrat party anywhere in Suffolk has precisely the same effect as a vote for the Labour party--a message that I am sure the voters have taken on board.
I warmly congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Bury St. Edmunds on securing the debate, and on his excellent and wide-ranging speech. His speech had only one shortcoming: he dealt far too gently and kindly with Suffolk county council; and his language had that moderation for which he has become famous in the county during the past few months, while he has so effectively exposed exactly what has been happening at county hall.
I entirely endorse everything that my hon. Friend said about education and especially about the appalling way in which Labour and its Liberal Democrat allies have, for entirely party political ends, played on the anxieties and fears of thousands of parents and children, and quite a number of teachers and staff, in my constituency.
I want to touch on three simple themes: first, how new Labour in Suffolk still means the old loony left in practice; secondly, how new Labour in Suffolk equals new sleaze, as the county council ruthlessly deprives rural areas of resources and pours huge subsidies into the
Labour urban strongholds; and thirdly, how new Labour in Suffolk equals incompetence on a new and breathtaking scale.
The debate is about the revenue support grant for Suffolk county council. The Labour party's thesis throughout has been that money is tight. Labour would have us believe that teachers' jobs are at risk, that social services for vulnerable families are about to be cut and that the fire service will be virtually closed down.
Against that background of shroud waving and alleged lack of resources, let me ask a few questions. Which council has decided in the past four years to employ a full-time equal opportunities officer? Which council thinks that its staff should have extra time off during working hours to carry out trade union duties? Which council has a full-time Unison trade union official? Which council believes that the best way in which to tackle poverty is to pay councillors to attend extra meetings to discuss the anti-poverty strategy? Which council insists on using its own employees for maintenance work and refuses to give outside contractors a fair chance to compete? Which council uses council tax payers' money to fund the appointment of someone called a "black sexual health project worker"? Is it Islington, Lambeth, Southwark, or perhaps Liverpool in the 1980s? No, it is Suffolk county council under a Labour and Liberal Democrat administration; the same council that claims that the resources given to it by central Government are so grossly inadequate.
Will the hon. Member for North-West Durham confirm that each of the points that I have mentioned represents the priorities of new Labour throughout the country, or will she for the first time issue a ringing condemnation from the House of what her party is doing to the people of Suffolk?
The tragedy is that Suffolk is under a political leadership that is so ruthless, doctrinaire and dogmatic that the councillors' attitudes are even starting to affect the officers. In a Suffolk county council education department publication, printed and circulated at council tax payers' expense, a Suffolk county council official--not an elected councillor, but an official--described the Government as
My second theme is the new Labour sleaze. Over the past three and a half years, Suffolk county council has systematically set out to starve rural areas of resources in order to reward its political allies in the towns with ever more expensive new toys. I reiterate that the county council's policies had the full and complete endorsement of the Liberal Democrat party in that matter.
"some manic stage manager"
who
"keeps changing the set and the scripts."
That officer went on to describe the local government review as "nonsense" and attacked privatisation as the cause of
"fragmentation at all levels of government".
My voters in South Suffolk who enjoy cheaper gas, a better telephone service and all the other improvements that privatisation has brought about, might think that it was worth a bit of "fragmentation". The council has so persuaded its senior officers to respond to its political agenda that they are using official publications, circulated at council tax payers' expense, to spout party political propaganda.
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