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Mr. Raynsford: My hon. Friend makes an absolutely correct and fair point about the significant impact of teachers pension provision. That is one of the key pressures that I identified.
Angela Watkinson (Upminster) rose—
Mr. Julian Brazier (Canterbury) rose—
Mr. Raynsford: I should now like to make some progress.
We have been clear that repairing the damage that we inherited in 1997 required both investment and reform, and we have been determined to deliver both. Across the swathe of public services, we have committed unprecedented levels of increased investment. Although the Tory party was able to achieve only a 3.1 per cent. annual growth rate on health, we have delivered increases of 6.3 per cent. over the past three years. From this April, we will increase investment by 7.5 per cent. a year for the next five years. That is not just the largest increase in funding that the national health service has ever received. By 2007–08, it will take the proportion of gross domestic product spent on health to 9.4 per cent., which is well above the European average.
Similarly, we have increased spending on education from 4.7 per cent. of GDP in 1997 to 5.3 per cent. Investment will increase further to 5.6 per cent. by 2005–06, which is once again above the European average. Real-terms funding per pupil has risen by more than £670 since 1997, and it will be more than £1,000 higher than when we came to power by 2005–06.
Increased funding also means that there are more skilled people to deliver our key public services. Compared with 1997, we now have nearly 40,000 more nurses, 5,000 more hospital consultants, 1,000 more general practitioners and 20,000 more teachers. An additional 4,000 police officers have been employed in the past 12 months alone, which is the largest 12-month increase in police numbers for 25 years. It was typical of the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden to focus on the closure of an individual police station in London and to ignore the fact that police numbers in London have increased by thousands due to our additional investment.
Additional investment has delivered new and improved schools and hospitals: no fewer than 64 major hospital developments, 121 new primary schools and 50 new secondary schools. It has made possible huge inroads into the massive backlog of sub-standard housing that we inherited from the Tory party. We have reduced the number of non-decent homes in the social sector by 700,000 since 1996, and we are on target to eliminate all such housing by 2010.
Of course, our policies are all about improving people's quality of life, whether they live in rural or urban areas. That is why we are so keen to continue to make progress on educational attainment. The proportion of 15-year-olds gaining five or more grades A to C at GCSE went up from 45 per cent. in 1997 to
51.5 per cent. in 2002. It is why we are so keen on shorter waiting times for hospital appointments. As my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister said yesterday:
- "every single waiting time and waiting list national indicator is more positive than in 1997."
The Government are committed to public services and believe in them. We are committed to increased funding and reform to ensure that the public get high-quality services delivered cost-effectively, and nowhere is that more evident than in respect of local government.
As in other areas, we have substantially increased Government funding. It has increased by 25 per cent. in real terms since we took office whereas there was a real-terms reduction of 7 per cent. in the last four years of the previous Conservative Government. However, not only additional funding is required. Increased investment must deliver an improvement to the quality of local services. That is why we introduced the comprehensive performance assessment for local councils. I am pleased to say that the first results, which were announced at the end of last year, demonstrate strong performance throughout local government, including examples of outstanding achievements.
To raise standards of service and to empower local authorities to deliver effectively for their communities, we are extending freedoms and flexibilities and devolving power. Last November, we announced a substantial package of freedoms for all authorities. Measures include: ring-fencing on revenue to fall to 10 per cent. by 2005–06; 60 per cent. of capital resources to be un-ring-fenced in 2003–04; up to a 75 per cent. reduction in the number of plans required of local authorities; the removal of 84 consent regimes, many of which dated back to the previous Conservative Government; more power to charge for discretionary services; more opportunities for local councils to trade; and more discretion on the use of civil penalties. We have an even more radical package on top of that for the very best authorities that achieve an "excellent" rating in the CPA.
Mr. Goodman: On the subject of local government settlements, will the right hon. Gentleman promise the House that he will hold an urgent meeting with Fiona Millar, a chairman of governors in London, who has complained about the fact that the local government settlement has moved money from the south-east to the north? If he does not know where to find her, I advise him to look in 10 Downing street, where she works as personal assistant to the Prime Minister's wife.
Mr. Raynsford: I am little surprised that the hon. Gentleman has not been paying attention to the needs of his constituency. He will know that Buckinghamshire county council is one of the southern Conservative councils that did extraordinarily well out of the settlement because it received a 6.4 per cent. funding increase. He and his colleagues continue to peddle the
myth that money is being transferred to the north despite the fact that many Conservative councils in the south of England are doing very well indeed. He would do rather better to acknowledge what is happening in his area.The Local Government Bill, which is currently in another place, will deliver many of those freedoms and create a new framework for capital finance. We are sweeping away the long-standing requirement that was put in place by the previous Government to require Government consent for all borrowing. In its place, we are establishing a prudential regime under which local authorities will have greater freedom to raise finance to buy, build and improve all kinds of property and infrastructure. The only constraint is the proper requirement that they must have the means to service the debt.
Labour councils are fully committed to that agenda. They deliver high-quality services cost-effectively. By contrast, we have seen the nasty face of the Tory party again this year in local government as Tory councils have imposed unreasonable council tax increases on their long-suffering residents. Wandsworth borough council, which is so often held up as an exemplar by the Tory party, has the unenviable record of imposing the highest percentage council tax increase of any council in England this year. It increased its council tax by 57.3 per cent. after cutting it by 25 per cent. last year, which—surprise, surprise—happened to be an election year. That was pretty transparent.
Sir Paul Beresford (Mole Valley): Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Raynsford: Of course I shall give way to the hon. Gentleman. He has a good connection with Wandsworth council and I hope that he will deplore the unreasonable council tax increase.
Sir Paul Beresford: One of the Minister's annual mistakes is to consider percentages rather than bills on the doorstep. The bills landing on the doorsteps of Wandsworth are the second lowest in the country and the council's services, by the standards of the Government and the local people, are among the best.
Mr. Raynsford: The hon. Gentleman makes a brave effort to conceal the fact that Wandsworth borough council has simply been up to a bit of crude electioneering by cutting the council tax in an election year and whacking it up the next year.
In case anyone should suggest that big increases in council tax this year are a result of a bad local government settlement, I remind the House that this year, for the first time ever, every authority in England received an above inflation increase, which never happened when the Conservatives were in power. Councils that complain that they got increases of only 3 or 4 per cent. this year should remember what happened in the years before 1997 when they often received no increase at all. In any case, it is simply not true that there is a direct correlation between large council tax increases and small grant rises.
For example, let us consider six neighbouring authorities in the west midlands: Birmingham, Coventry, Dudley, Sandwell, Solihull and
Wolverhampton. Opposition Members will understand why I do not mention Walsall metropolitan borough council. The authority has special difficulties and there has been an attempt to tackle its problems. Although it is technically controlled by the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats, I shall not bring it into the argument. The other six authorities all benefited from grant increases of just more than 8 per cent. this year, but their council tax increases vary greatly. Tory-controlled Solihull's council tax has increased by 10.5 per cent., which is almost double that of the other authorities. Those authorities just happen to be controlled by Labour—is that a coincidence?There is a similar story in the south-west. Bath and North East Somerset, Bristol City, North Somerset and South Gloucestershire unitary authorities have similar responsibilities and received similar grant increases of between 7.5 and 8.5 per cent.—so much for that nonsense that authorities in the south did not receive decent grant increases.
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