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David Davis: I thank the hon. Gentleman for drawing that to my attention. I shall return to the question of local police funding in a few moments, and he will hear what I have to say on the matter then. However, so much for policing for the moment. How many other local services are under threat? Those services include local care homes, railway branch lines, community pharmacies and, of course, the post office network. In
recent weeks, my postbag—like the postbags of many other Opposition Members—has been filled with letters of concern about closures of local post offices. Across the country, hundreds of smaller post offices are threatened with closure because of the Government's decision to force people to have their benefit payments paid into their bank accounts.However, in the face of opposition from local people across the country, the Government have refused to help. When post offices close, communities lose not just a postal counter, but the hub of the community. Opposition Members will continue to fight to keep post offices open, without the Government's help.
The Minister for Local Government and the Regions (Mr. Nick Raynsford): Will the right hon. Gentleman reflect on the fact that, during his party's period in office, 3,500 post offices closed?
David Davis: I am more impressed by the size of the Minister's folder than by the dimensions of his comment. Let us put the matter exactly in context. In every year of the previous Parliament, the Government closed more post offices—548—than at any time in the Parliament before that, under the Conservative Government, when the figure was 100. The Minister's figures are nonsense.
Mrs. Angela Browning (Tiverton and Honiton): Will my right hon. Friend now reflect on the fact that the post offices that closed under the previous Conservative Government were mainly the result of demographics as people's shopping habits changed? They did not close because the Conservative Government deliberately withdrew the means of funding for the payment of benefits, as the Labour Government have done.
David Davis: My hon. Friend makes a very good point. Post offices are closing entirely because of the Government's actions and their unwillingness to deal with the consequences of those actions. The Government's heavy-handed actions are not confined to post offices.
Gregory Barker (Bexhill and Battle): Is my right hon. Friend aware of the case of the post office in Flimwell in my constituency? The postmistress was robbed twice in the past month. The Post Office is holding her responsible for half of the money taken in the more recent robbery. It has issued an ultimatum to the Cutmores, who run the office, to hand back more than £1,000. The way that they are being treated is obscene, and the people in Flimwell are certain that there is a hidden Labour agenda to close the rural post office network.
David Davis: My hon. Friend makes a good point about the treatment of one of his constituents. It is a serious point, and Labour Members should take it seriously. He also raises a point to which the Minister may wish to reply. At his last Question Time, I asked the Deputy Prime Minister about the behaviour of the Post Office and whether it was true that it had an incentive programme for its management to close more post offices. Surprisingly, he did not know, but he told me that he would write to me. Then he told me that the Secretary
of State for Trade and Industry would write to me, but nor did she know the answer. Then the Post Office sent me an answer full of such Orwellian, managerial gobbledegook that I can assume only that the answer was yes. May we have a proper answer today? Does the Post Office plan to close as many post offices as it can?I shall move on from that heavy-handed consequence of the Government's policy to the next one. Many of Britain's communities have relied for years on the willingness of local people to offer their services to help their neighbours and fellow residents. The Government are actively discouraging that. Sometimes it happens on a small scale. In Eastbourne, for example, a crèche that operated alongside the local swimming pool has closed because Government regulations have pushed costs up so far that it is no longer economic to run it. But the same applies in the draconian register of interests imposed on parish councillors, which has discouraged people across the country from undertaking an historic and important role. In one ward in Hambleton in Yorkshire, not far from my constituency, none of the parish councils has a full quota of candidates, and two do not have even the quorum necessary to form a council. I asked why that was so, and the answer was the heavy-handed and expensive new code of conduct and all its procedures. As a councillor from Herefordshire put it:
- "Parish councillors have done a superb job for nothing over the years. Now they simply won't come forward."
Community services are in decline and community involvement is being discouraged. All that is leading to the destruction of community life in both town and country. Let us consider the countryside. The farming industry on which we all rely is in the middle of the worst recession since the 1930s. In England alone, nearly 70,000 jobs have been lost from the farming sector since the Government came to power. Yet their only solution—their policy priority—was to focus on destroying another piece of the countryside's way of life by banning hunting. That is their answer.
In our towns and cities, any semblance of community life is being destroyed. Take Britain's second city, Birmingham.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Office of the Deputy Prime Minister (Mr. Tony McNulty) indicated dissent.
David Davis: The Minister says I should take it; perhaps we will.
After 19 years of Labour control, Birmingham is failing on housing, failing on social care for children, and failing on care for the elderly. Indeed, the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Mr. Davis)—a Labour Member—said that the elderly deserve better from that Labour council. By any test, Labour in Birmingham has failed.
Tony Cunningham (Workington): Might the right hon. Gentleman be interested in the following snippet from Susan Axford, a Conservative candidate, who said:
- "This is in spite of massive additional government grants to councils such as Birmingham."?
The Deputy Prime Minister has shown that he has no proposals to counter the problems. Instead, his sustainable communities plan—unsustainable communities plan, as it is more properly called—proposes 200,000 houses in four new dormitory towns in the south-east. What have the Government done to provide support for those new communities? There is not enough transport, not enough health care and, we discover today, not even enough water. The Government literally cannot run a bath, let alone a policy.
Meanwhile, the Deputy Prime Minister wants to knock down vast areas of empty housing in the north, not least in his home town of Hull. His plan is to bulldoze the north and concrete over the south, and it does nothing to address the root cause of the problems that we face.
Chris Grayling (Epsom and Ewell): The Minister for School Standards is sitting on the Government Front Bench, but my right hon. Friend has not mentioned the impact on areas that face substantial new housing of the funding crisis that is forcing many local schools to make teachers redundant. How will schools find places for people moving into the areas affected by the house building?
David Davis: That will clearly be a problem in the areas to which the communities plan applies, but it is a problem elsewhere, too, and I shall return to it.
Let me talk first about the Government's latest piece of financial gerrymandering. They have rigged the local government funding formula to reward badly run Labour councils with more money—the very point made for me by the hon. Member for Workington (Tony Cunningham).
Tony Cunningham: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
David Davis: I think that it would be a kindness not to.
David Davis: The hon. Gentleman had his chance.
Mr. Raynsford: As the right hon. Gentleman claims that the Government have rigged the grant system to reward inefficient Labour councils, will he tell us whether his local authority of the East Riding of Yorkshire is an inefficient Labour council, as it has received an increase in grant of more than 8 per cent. this year?
David Davis: It is in no overall control, I am sorry to say, but that may change. Since the Minister mentions my area, I shall ask him for an answer. Why do schools up and down the country face deficits between £100,000 and £240,000 because of the Government's settlement? Those words are not mine, but those of a leading headmaster in East Riding.
The Minister should answer another point, too. We have had the recent comprehensive performance assessments of councils. Leaving aside the corporation of London, which I accept differs from the rest, I note that five of the best-rated councils received the lowest settlement while one received the highest. Of the worst councils, five received the highest settlement, and one the lowest. Perhaps the Minister would explain how he rewards virtue under his new gerrymandered system. That system transfers £60 from every Conservative council tax payer to every Labour council tax payer in the country. It is greatly to the credit of Conservative councils that, in spite of that increase, the average Conservative council still manages to deliver better services for lower tax than those provided by councils controlled by any other party.
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