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Michael Fabricant: Does my right hon. Friend agree that there ought to be greater transparency? Is he aware, for example, that Lichfield district council raised its council tax by only 3 per cent., while the Labour-controlled Staffordshire county council increased council tax by 18 per cent.? Because district councils collect the council tax, there is sometimes confusion. How can we make it clear that Conservative councils put council tax up by less than others but deliver more?
David Davis: My hon. Friend makes a good point on the general question of transparency. I predict that the Minister for Local Government and the Regions will tell us that everyone received an increase above inflation. That would be appropriate if the requirements on councils were the same every year and if they faced the same level of costs years on year, but that is precisely what is not happening.
The British public will understand only too well. They know that the blame for the 60 per cent. average English council tax rise since 1997 lies squarely with the Labour Government. All councils are forced to meet more and more Government targets, and to fund more and more Government projects from their own pockets. They take on more responsibilities and costs, from recycling fridges to implementing dozens of inspection regimes. Employer contributions to the local government pension scheme have increased by £300 million as a direct result of the £5 billion a year pension tax that the Government introduced early in the last Parliament.
It seems that £300 million is a recurring figure: it is also the cost to local authorities of the Chancellor's decision to raise employers' national insurance contributions. Good councils are being forced to push up council tax locally because the Government refuse to be honest about what they are doing. By palming extra responsibilities and costs on to local councils without giving them the resources, the Government seek to blame local councils for their tax increases, but local people know the truth.
Mr. Nigel Waterson (Eastbourne): Does my right hon. Friend recall, from his recent visit to Eastbourne, the palpable anger of people there who face a 38 per cent. rise in the local council element of council tax,
which is the fourth highest in the country? My constituents suffer from Labour meanness nationally and Liberal Democrat incompetence locally.
David Davis: My hon. Friend makes a good point. I am sorry that only two Liberal Democrat Members are in the Chamber to pay attention to it. If there were more of them, they might learn a lesson.
The issue involves not only direct local authority funding, but associated matters. For example, let us consider what has happened to the police precept. This relates to the question put by the hon. Member for Ogmore (Huw Irranca-Davies). Over the past six years, the average English shire authority has been forced to push up the precept by an amazing 127 per cent. In my area, which is also the Deputy Prime Minister's area, the precept has been forced up by nearly 150 per cent. since the Government came into office. While the Government like to say that they are increasing the number of police officers—albeit by only 3 per cent.—it is local police authorities that are actually doing it and local people shoulder the cost. Again, the Government are using local authorities as their covert tax collectors.
Nowhere is that more evident than in recent stories about the crisis in school funding that has developed over the past few weeks. Teachers and teaching unions have warned of job losses throughout the United Kingdom. In some counties, redundancy notices have already gone out.
The crisis is replicated across the country. In Plymouth, up to half the schools may be forced to set illegal budgets next year in an attempt to dig themselves out of the hole into which the Government put them. Heads have already warned that up to 100 teachers and 200 assistants face the axe in September. Pupils in secondary, primary and special schools may have to be sent home because of that situation.
Mrs. Anne Campbell (Cambridge): Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that Cambridgeshire county council, which is Conservative controlled, is very pleased with its education funding allocation? It is one of the authorities that has benefited enormously from the redistribution of funding, which is a much fairer system than the previous one.
David Davis: I am happy to hear that, but it is sad for the rest of the country. The issue is not confined to a single area. I referred to Plymouth, and earlier I mentioned my county, where there are good schools that have strong traditions and perform well but face possible redundancies as a result of shortfalls of between £100,000 and £240,000. That arises entirely from the Government's funding arrangements.
Mr. David Cameron (Witney): My right hon. Friend may want to contrast the situation in Cambridgeshire with that in Oxfordshire, where the average deficit for each secondary school is £114,000. Some schools have deficits of £250,000. One head teacher wrote to tell me:
- "I have been a teacher for 27 years . . . in all my years of experience I have never known such a critical situation in school budgets."
David Davis: My hon. Friend is entirely right. We have seen the unfortunate spectacle of the Secretary of State for Education and Skills attempting to persuade people that the funding shortage in local schools is nothing to do with the Government—the point made by the hon. Member for Cambridge (Mrs. Campbell)—but everything to do with local councils. It is like watching the Iraqi Information Minister putting on one of his more spectacular performances—and about as convincing.
Even the people closest to the Government do not believe them. One of the Government's special advisers, Fiona Millar, says that her child's school faces cuts because, first, the Government have changed the way that they allocate money to councils. Secondly, there has been a significant increase in the contribution that schools have to pay to national insurance contributions. Thirdly, there has been a significant increase in schools' contributions to the teachers' pensions fund, and fourthly, there has been a significant reduction in the grant that the school receives from the school standards fund. There we have it: at least one of the Government's special advisers is being straight with us. The fact is that councillors, teachers and governors know the truth, and so do pupils and parents.
Mr. Tom Harris (Glasgow, Cathcart): Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that, in at least one local education authority, 160 more teachers are employed than in 1998? That local education authority is the East Riding of Yorkshire council—in the right hon. Gentleman's constituency.
David Davis: No doubt that is why a leading spokesman for the area's head teachers said that the Government settlement was the worst that he had ever seen.
Rob Marris (Wolverhampton, South-West): Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
David Davis: No, I must make some progress.
People are paying more, but the money is being frittered away in the waste and bureaucracy created by the Government. The money is not getting to the pupils who need it most—yet one more example of people working hard but being taxed harder. People are paying more and more but they are getting less and less in return.
Mrs. Eleanor Laing (Epping Forest): It is nice to know how good things are in the East Riding of Yorkshire, but does my right hon. Friend realise that, in Essex, the Government are giving away less with one hand than they are taking away with the other through national insurance increases and other costs that they have imposed. There will be teacher shortages in Essex during the next year. In my constituency, almost every primary school—[Interruption.] The hon. Member for Plymouth, Sutton (Linda Gilroy) is shouting statistics. They do not matter. Next year, children in my constituency will not have enough teachers to teach them. That is a fact and it is the Government's fault.
David Davis: My hon. Friend is right. The sad thing about those statistics is that such figures have tragic
implications for the lives of young children and their education. The damage done will be impossible to recover.The result is that people feel disenchanted with politics and fed up with their local councils. People no longer think that local councils can make a difference to their lives because they are merely branch offices of central Government. The Government are presiding over the slow death of local government. The very institutions that could help to define a community are being broken down.
If we are to reverse the breakdown of our communities across Britain we must—and we will—reverse the destruction of local government. We must recognise that things are often done best when they are done locally. We need to push power down to local people and communities, allow them to take their own decisions and encourage them to be different. We must sweep away the red tape and bureaucracy that restrict local people, and empower local communities to improve their quality of life. That is the Conservative approach.
The death of local government under the Labour Administration is no accident, but a direct result of Labour's age-old belief in centralism. Nowhere is that displayed more clearly than in the Government's commitment to regional assemblies—a proposal to rip the last vestiges of life from our local communities. Masquerading as decentralisation, it is in fact precisely the opposite.
We still do not know what their powers will be because the Government will not tell us. We know that they will require abolition of county councils and the restructuring of district councils. We know that they will erase from our national life the shire counties, which are one of the oldest surviving tiers of self-government in western Europe, predating the Domesday Book. We know that they will cost £2 billion to establish and a further £300 million a year to run. People will pay more and get less. That money could pay for 30 new hospitals, 400 new schools, 6,000 more policemen or 12,000 extra teachers. Regional government will not deliver one more teacher, nurse or policeman but only take power away from the people.
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