Andy Slaughter
MP for Hammersmith and Chiswick · Labour · United Kingdom
“I welcome the Bill, and thank the Government for introducing it and bringing it back to the House before the summer recess. It is the result of years of committed campaigning, led by the families of the victims and survivors of Hillsborough.”
“I know that case means a huge amount to the hon. Lady as a constituency MP, and I thank her for all the work she does on the Justice Committee. I think we have only begun to scratch the surface. This Bill will be a transforming piece of legislation. I will make one final comment.”
“This would be a new, independent public body that collated, analysed and followed up on the conclusions and recommendations made after official investigations into deaths and state failings, in order to improve oversight and implementation of them.”
“I think I have taken enough time, but I thank the Member for that intervention. This afternoon, the Justice Committee signed off a new major report on legal aid, which will be published on Friday. Those who are interested can read more there.”
“In the time that I have, I will focus my remarks on clauses 1 to 16, which create a new appeals body for immigration and asylum cases known as the independent immigration appeals authority.”
“From that visit, our diagnosis was that these are operational problems. There are two key questions for the House: will the IIAA fix the problems with the current system, and will it be truly independent from the Home Office?”
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“I refer to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests; I visited the west bank last year as a guest of Medical Aid for Palestinians. I disagree with Members who have criticised the motion because it does not deal with issues other than settlements. A motion on settlements is perfectly appropriate. I believe that they are not the only issue, but they are the most important one. As the mover of the motion, the right hon. Member for New Forest West (Sir Desmond Swayne), said, it is a relatively anodyne motion in that sense, so I hope everyone can support it. I say that for two reasons. First, the tragedy of Palestine is the occupation. The length of the occupation and the fact that it has happened are what distinguishes this from many other conflicts around the world. The settlements are the embodiment of occupation.”
“Member for Newbury is asking for relatively modest sums by comparison, but they will have relatively modest results.”
“Friend the Member for Mitcham and Morden said, more than 40% of homelessness cases are principally caused by the eviction of people on assured shorthold tenancies, largely because of landlords simply wanting higher rents or not wanting to deal with people who are on benefits. Those are the real problems. There is also the problem of shared accommodation. In 2012, the shared accommodation rate for under-25s was extended to under-35s. In its briefing for this debate, Barnardo’s asked that those who are leaving care be protected from that at least until the age of 25. The Minister may respond to that request, but it will still not resolve the principal problem. The budget of the Supporting People programme for vulnerable people was cut by 45% between 2010 and 2015. These are huge sums. I appreciate that the hon.”
“Friend the Member for East Ham (Stephen Timms), and increasingly by other Members from around the country. Let us start by making it clear where the problem started. It started, to a large extent, with the Localism Act 2011 and the permanent discharge of homelessness responsibilities into the private rented sector, alongside lack of security for social housing and an almost complete cut of capital expenditure. Suddenly, the private rented sector was on the frontline, faced with problems that it was neither ready nor able to deal with. In an intervention, the hon. Member for Airdrie and Shotts (Neil Gray) mentioned housing benefit cuts. We could add the benefit cap or the freeze on the local housing allowance, which the hon. Member for Newbury himself acknowledged. Those are among the reasons why, as my hon.”
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship this afternoon, Sir Alan. I thank the hon. Member for Newbury (Richard Benyon) for raising this important subject. I will say a little more at the end of my speech about his specific proposals, which are worth while and which I commend to the Government—we will see what the Minister says about them. However, I hope the hon. Gentleman will not mind if I take my cue more from the contribution of my hon. Friend the Member for Mitcham and Morden (Siobhain McDonagh), who spoke with extraordinary passion and knowledge. I have known her long enough to know that she is one of the most assiduous constituency MPs in the House and that she speaks from absolute experience. I am sure that her experiences have been shared by all London Members, including my right hon.”
“I do not say that with any pleasure, because this is the biggest social problem of our age. It is a problem that has accumulated over time. It is extraordinarily difficult for everybody, but it is particularly difficult for vulnerable people, young people and people who are made homeless through no fault of their own. I hope that we are going to hear something from the Minister today. I welcome the engagement of all parties, including the landlord organisations. [ Interruption. ] I do not particularly want to be heckled; I am taking half of my time, which I am entitled to do. If the hon. Member for Newbury thinks that I am dealing with “frivolous” issues, as the Secretary of State does, he is welcome to say that, but let us have some home truths about what the real problems of the housing crisis in this country are.”
“It previously ran a scheme very much of this kind off its own bat. People went out and identified private sector accommodation, took vulnerable people and matched the landlord to the tenant. They gave that degree of support, as well as supporting people with deposits. That is an excellent thing to do and it is what the organisations do well, but it does need support and some funding. I fear that we are not going to address the key issues. It is not just I who think that. Yesterday, at the launch of the White Paper, I did media with the former housing Minster, the right hon. Member for Welwyn Hatfield (Grant Shapps). I never thought that I would agree with him on any matters in relation to housing, but his view did not differ much from mine, which is that the Government proposals are a sticking plaster and a missed opportunity.”
“The Homelessness Reduction Bill has the support of the Opposition, but we are waiting and taking our cue from local authorities, who know what they are talking about in this respect, on whether the funding will be adequate to the task. All the indications are that that will not be the case, despite the funding that the Minister announced. As my hon. Friend the Member for Mitcham and Morden said, we are just putting more burden on local authorities, which are already charged with the responsibility without having the resources to deal with the problem. This is a real housing crisis. I appreciate the intention of the debate and the specific measures. We are blessed with some extremely good, very sophisticated organisations now. I have a lot of facilities from what used to be Broadway and is now St Mungo’s Broadway in my constituency.”
“I thought that we were going to get something rather more quickly than that. The White Paper also states: “The Government will implement measures introduced in the Housing and Planning Act 2016, which will introduce banning orders to remove the worst landlords”. Again, that is good, but I heard the Secretary of State say in the House yesterday that looking for greater restrictions to deny houses unfit for human habitation was “frivolous”. I think that was the word he used. That does not show particularly good intentions. What on earth does it mean that we are simply going to encourage landlords to have longer tenancies? We need to legislate. We need longer tenancies if we are to stop the terrible curse of insecure accommodation.”
“Nobody denies that the majority of landlords are good landlords, but I ask the hon. Gentleman: why has rough sleeping more than doubled—it has gone up by 133% since 2010—and why is statutory homelessness increasing hugely? He mentioned that the White Paper might give some detail. I do not know whether he has had time to look at what the White Paper says about the private rented sector, but he will not get much detail from it. There are five paragraphs with three proposals, two of which are ideas pinched from us but watered down, and one of which the Secretary of State has already pooh-poohed. On letting fees, which are an important issue, the White Paper states: “We will consult early this year, ahead of bringing forward legislation as soon as Parliamentary time allows”.”
“The facility to charge money under the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984 was tested in the case of Attfield and Barnet, and the conclusion of the learned judge, Mrs Justice Lang, was that “the 1984 Act is not a fiscal measure and does not authorise the authority to use its powers to charge local residents for parking in order to raise surplus revenue for other transport purposes funded by the General Fund.” So although there are a variety of things connected to parking and other road traffic and transport matters that local authorities can use the funds for, I do not think that parking charges can simply be used as a revenue-raising measure.”
“Member for Torbay (Kevin Foster) was making his interesting and somewhat lengthy interventions earlier, he said two things that I mildly disagreed with and that the Minister may wish to comment on. One was that local authorities can fill their boots with parking charges and use the money for whatever they like.”
“It is a pleasure to be here for the Opposition to respond to the Bill. I wish the hon. Member for Bosworth (David Tredinnick) success with it. As my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham West and Royton (Jim McMahon) said on Second Reading, it has our support. Although it is modest in size, I am sure it will do what the hon. Gentleman says and bring pleasure around the country. It is also a pleasure to be opposite the Minister for the second week running, but I would just say this to the promoter of the Bill: check the new burdens money, and make sure it is all there at the appropriate time. Having said that, I do not—unlike last week, when we spent five hours on the concluding stages of the Homelessness Reduction Bill—want to prolong the debate. I will just make two short observations. When the hon.”
“I am also aware that slightly further down the list of private Members’ Bills—until this Bill and the next Bill came out of Committee, it would have been the first to be discussed—is the Bill introduced by my hon. Friend the Member for Barnsley Central (Dan Jarvis) on reducing child poverty. If I may humbly say so, from my own perspective as a Member with a great deal of child poverty in my constituency, I wish that we could get on to that Bill and give it a Second Reading, because that would make life even better for our constituents around the country.”
“I understand that its intention is to give flexibility to local authorities and to encourage them more towards lowering than raising charges. I do not think any of us are going to disagree with that. I make these points merely because these matters are often fraught for councils and for Members of Parliament. I hope that, on the whole, councils try to do a decent job in pleasing everybody. If they do not, they tend to get voted out. Having made those rather pettifogging remarks, I will not prolong my comments. The promoter of the Bill said that he wants it to make life better for people around the country, and I am sure that it will do that.”
“I am grateful to the Minister. I was interested to see that the Bill deals with both on-street and off-street parking. The hon. Member for Torbay said that he cannot envisage circumstances in which he would get letters from people asking for parking charges to go up. That may well be true as regards council-owned car parks and off-street parking, but it is often the case with on-street parking that is shared between residents and non-residents who wish to park there and pay and display, when charging is for the purposes of regulating access between residents and users of the visitors’ scheme, and residents ask for parking enforcement and for certain levels of charging. I do not think that that goes to the heart of this Bill.”
“I am listening to the hon. Lady, and I think she is pushing her luck. A lot of Opposition Members are very, very angry about the fact that the Bill promoted by my hon. Friend the Member for Barnsley Central (Dan Jarvis) is being talked out by her and her friends on the Government Back Benches today. If she wants to do that, she can play games, but will she please not criticise us?”
“The Secretary of State wants 250,000 extra flights over one of the most densely populated parts of Britain—2 million people live in the area—but he has no concrete proposals for dealing with congestion, noise or air quality. How is he going to deal with diesel and other emissions? What about increased freight, which will go by road, not rail? Does he not know that the increases in public transport are already needed to meet local demand? Is he not just passing the buck to somebody else to solve these problems, and not for the first time?”
“I am delighted that my hon. Friend secured a debate on this subject. She is right that we have sufficient information, because of the work of the Irish Chaplaincy and others, to know that discrimination is a serious problem, but it is shameful that the Government do not collect the statistics. Would she welcome the Minister telling us today that the Government will use up-to-date census data and will have a comprehensive investigation of this issue?”
“I am very glad about what the Minister has said, but to clarify that point, is he saying that that will happen and he is just going to give us a date, or that it might happen depending on the cost?”
“It is difficult to square the Minister’s claim that she is merging smaller jobcentres into larger ones with her plan to close Hammersmith, our busiest jobcentre in our main town centre. Coming on top of the closure of courts, post offices and police stations, is this not the hollowing out of vital public services from our towns and cities?”
“There must be a lot of confused pots and kettles out there, given that the Government have tabled 21 complicated amendments that no one would wish to consider on Report—they should have been taken in Committee. I am hopeful that we can deal with them, but the point is that it is not unreasonable or irrational for the Opposition to take a little time to debate important principles. In Committee, Government Members spoke for two and a half times as long as Opposition Members. I realise that there were one or two more of them, unfortunately—”
“Under the previous Labour Government, rough sleeping fell by three quarters, because of direct Government intervention and co-ordination with not only local authorities, but the many fine homelessness charities, which also stand behind the Bill. This crisis is solvable, but the fact that street homelessness has gone up by more than 130% since 2010—under the coalition Government and now under this Government—really should shame the Government. We are here to pass an important Bill, but that does not get them off the hook. I must strike one small note of discord: we do not want this to become a battle about who is more in favour of the Bill. The promoter’s article mentioned the danger of the Bill being delayed because of our new clauses.”
“To be fair to the promoter of the Bill, he has at all stages said that that that is the case, and he repeated it in his article that has been published on PoliticsHome.com this morning. I appreciate that, but we cannot look at the Bill in a vacuum; we have to look at the surrounding circumstances. Nothing illustrates that better than the figures on rough sleeping that were released two days ago, which revealed a shocking 16% increase year on year. More than 4,000 people are now sleeping rough on the streets of the UK. One rough sleeper is one too many, and what should alarm the House in particular is the fact this is a crisis that does not need to exist.”
“One interesting feature of the Bill has been that we have had constructive discussions about it—outside the Committee, of course; not in it, as that would not be at all appropriate. My last email to the Minister was sent at about 11 pm last night. I appreciate that that might have been past his bedtime and he has not had time to respond, but we are getting where we want to go. New clause 1 deals with perhaps the central unresolved issue, which relates not to the content of the Bill— we will come to that when we consider the Government’s amendments—but to its implementation and, in particular, whether the resources that the Government have set aside are sufficient. New clauses 2 and 3 are also important because they address what stands behind the Bill—the fact that legislation of itself will not tackle the homelessness crisis.”
“I also pay tribute to the promoter of the Bill, who now knows more about the intricacies of homelessness law than he perhaps ever wanted to. There are matters still to be resolved but—and I say this advisedly—I hope that, as far as this House is concerned, they can all be resolved this morning. For my part, I do not intend to go on at length. Although certain important matters need to be covered, I hope that in the time we have available today, the Bill will be able to complete all its stages. Let me be clear from the outset that I do not intend to press new clauses 2 and 3 to a Division. I am hopeful that when the Minister speaks, I will hear words that will encourage me not to press new clause 1.”
“It is a pleasure to open today’s proceedings on this important Bill that, if passed, will mark a sea change in the way in which homelessness is treated in this country. This is a rare creature—a private Member’s Bill with a hope of success. I should not tempt fate this early in proceedings, but I cannot see the usual suspects sitting behind the hon. Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman), the promoter of the Bill, so I am already encouraged. I think that the Bill has support from all parties. Importantly it has the support of the Government; otherwise, I suspect that we would not have got this far. We should not forget the good work that the Communities and Local Government Committee and its Chair have done in support of the Bill.”
“In a moment. We all—even I—must sometimes curb our prolixity, and we were very disciplined in Committee. We withdrew many new clauses and amendments before the Christmas break to speed the passage of the Bill. Even though my colleagues in Committee had huge expertise and a lot to say, we were very disciplined. I wish that I could say the same for the Minister and Government Back Benchers, including the hon. Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Michael Tomlinson).”
“However, that amount must be compared with the sensible estimates from individual local authorities and their collective bodies, such as the Local Government Association and London Councils. For example, while £37 million or £38 million has been set aside for the first year of the Bill’s implementation, London Councils estimates that the cost will be about £160 million. There is therefore a massive disparity in the figures.”
“I am not saying that we do not all play these tricks from time to time; I am just saying that we should not start pointing the finger over who is to blame for delaying the Bill, and instead get on with this now. I want to deal with the point about money. Right at the beginning of our Committee stage, the Minister said, “I hope to tell you before the end of Committee how much money there will be.” The Government gave a welcome commitment to fund the additional costs fully—there will be substantial additional costs on local authorities, and under the new burdens doctrine, the money has to come from central Government—but we waited week after week with bated breath to find out what money there would be. He kept his promise—just—and at the last moment, some money came forward. It was not a negligible sum: about £48 million over two years.”
“Excellent. I am sure that those rousing words will be followed by action. That might even be the last we hear from the hon. Gentleman today. I do not want to labour the point, but we should have been able to get through the Bill in less time, notwithstanding the fact that it is an important and, for a private Member’s Bill, quite long Bill. It is considerably longer than the Bill that we will debate next week, although I suspect our consideration of that one will take rather longer. It is regrettable that this Bill spent so long in Committee, but we know why it did: the Government were filibustering in order to keep the parliamentary boundaries Bill, which is promoted by my hon. Friend the Member for North West Durham (Pat Glass), out of Committee.”
“There are many figures floating around, but Newham Council knows what it is talking about, because it has one of the most pressing housing needs in the country, some of the poorest communities in the country, and, I am afraid, some of the worst housing in the country, especially in the private rented sector. These are matters of real concern. All we are asking for is a commitment from the Minister not just to a review, but to a review that will be undertaken at the right time and will be all-encompassing. As I said earlier, the Select Committee has played a key role—its Chair, my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts), is an acknowledged expert, and he has also benefited from the able assistance of Members on both sides—and it, as well as local authorities themselves, should be involved in any review process.”
“I am one of nature’s optimists. The Minister is such a reasonable fellow, and so kind-hearted, that I am sure that if he says he wishes to provide the full amount, he means it. Unfortunately, however, the record of the Government as a whole is not one of being particularly kind-hearted, particularly to local government. They have a habit of passing the buck by cutting the budget of the Department for Communities and Local Government, as is clear from the fact that local government cuts have been the biggest of all. My hon. Friend the Member for West Ham (Lyn Brown) is absolutely right to be sceptical. That is indeed what we want to hear.”
“I think the best thing to say is that there is a mixed economy among local authorities. Some do very well—some have to do very well because of the pressures on them—and others do less well. Part of the Bill’s purpose is to bring them all up to the same standard. However, the hon. Gentleman’s point cuts both ways. If it is true that Camden Council, for example, is already preventing 80% of those who present themselves from becoming homeless, the savings that are likely to be made—most of which, I understand, will result from an increase in prevention work, which will avoid the need to find alternative accommodation or fund the costs of homelessness in other ways—will be less. The Government rather piously hope that after two years there will be no need for funding, but I do not think anyone believes that, including the Government.”
“The inclusion of new clauses 2 and 3 would make a significant difference. This is a modest proposal. I am suggesting that if there were longer tenancies—three-year tenancies—and if, within the period of those tenancies, there were controls over the levels of rent increases, we would end the present chaotic market in evictions in which landlords bid against each other.”
“The first problem, as the new clauses make clear, is the crisis in the private rented sector. The huge inflation in rents over the past few years has meant that many private landlords take advantage of the “no fault” eviction process for which the Housing Act 1988 provides. They say to people, “You are on benefit, and I can get a higher rent from someone else”, or they simply say, “I want a different tenant and I do not have to give any reason, so off you go.” Provided that the payments are in order, the consequence of that swift process, with no argument to the contrary, is that many thousands of people present themselves to local authorities as homeless. I believe that more than 40% of homelessness cases are caused by private sector evictions, with all the misery that they bring. Again, however, the problem is not insoluble.”
“We are pleased with what has been done so far, but we must have that funding, because otherwise the Bill will fail, and local authorities will be in an even more parlous state. Let me now deal briefly with new clauses 2 and 3. We could have tabled a great many more new clauses illustrating the same point, which is that the Bill’s provisions cannot be seen in a vacuum. We all welcome the greater concentration on prevention to which the hon. Member for Enfield, Southgate (Mr Burrowes) referred, and we also welcome the new relief duties requiring local authorities to assist homeless people who are not in priority need. However, the pattern of homelessness is utterly bleak, and that is a perfect storm which, I am afraid, derives from the Government’s own actions or inactions.”
“We spent some time in Committee talking about the disgraceful attitude of Westminster Council, which is sending its homeless people quite literally to Coventry, and I fear that other boroughs are doing exactly the same. That is the difficulty with which we are grappling. I am not going to labour the point. We want assurances, which we believe new clause 1 would deliver, that the full funding of the Bill’s implementation by local authorities for which my hon. Friend the Member for Wirral West (Margaret Greenwood) has rightly asked will be provided. Yes, the Government have made a start, and, yes, I think that we shall hear more about money today, given that some of the Government amendments will involve additional costs.”
“My hon. Friend is absolutely right. However, the problem is clearly greater in some areas than in others. The precedent for the Bill is legislation passed by the Labour-run Government of Wales, which has already been successful: there have been substantial falls in homelessness. Of course there are parts of Wales where there is a real crisis, as there are in the rest of the United Kingdom, but there are also hotspots, and the big cities, particularly London, are hotspots. We cannot rely on the example of Wales. It is still possible in many Welsh authorities for accommodation to be made available to people including those who are not in priority need. In London boroughs—and, I suspect, in my hon. Friend’s constituency and many others—that opportunity disappeared years ago, and the reverse is now the case.”
“I appreciate that, given the time constraints, unless the Government suddenly decide to accept them this morning, it is unlikely that we are going to make progress on them in the course of this Bill, but we will return to this subject time and again until it is resolved.”
“Gentleman’s intervention illustrates is how modest and reasonable this proposal is. When the Minister replies, he might want to say what the Government’s thinking on this matter is at the moment. This is an issue in itself. It is not just an issue about homelessness, but these specific new clauses relate to the risk of homelessness and state that we would achieve the purposes of this Bill—put less pressure on local authorities, and have less need to prevent homelessness—if some landlords were not acting in the manner that they are. That is the purpose of the new clauses. I think they are quite reasonable.”
“I am not sure what the hon. Gentleman does when he is not passing over typos, but I am afraid his argument works both ways. If, as the Residential Landlords Association says—this is, I think, the point the hon. Gentleman is making—tenancies are already on average longer than three years, what is the problem with ensuring that that is the case? Good practice suggests that a good landlord wants to keep a tenant for a period of time; that gives stability and continuity, and there are no breaks in tenancy and no additional fees involved. But not all landlords are good landlords, and some are playing this lottery game where they think they can get more money. Unfortunately, we have even had the spectacle of local authorities outbidding each other for tenancies, so desperate are they in this regard. All the hon.”
“Alongside that is the issue of housing supply and the terrible record, I am afraid to say, that this Government have on genuinely affordable housing, on allowing councils to build and ensuring that there is specialist housing.”
“Absolutely, and I know that you, Madam Deputy Speaker, also care about homelessness in Tooting. What my hon. Friend illustrates is that we are in new territory. Even though there were big problems, particularly in the private rented sector, 20 or 30 years ago, I doubt that we would then have been talking about homelessness among people of pensionable age. It illustrates how deep this goes in society now that we are worried not just about groups that were at risk in the days of “Cathy Come Home”, but about people who are at a time in their life when they deserve, and should have, stability and security. I am not keeping to my promise, Madam Deputy Speaker, so I will conclude now, but let me just say this. Yes, new clauses 2 and 3 illustrate a clear point, but this is only part of the problem.”
“As the shadow London Minister, I welcome everything the London Mayor welcomes. I do not want us to go off on a tangent, but I will just say that we were beginning to make progress; we were beginning to make progress towards the end of the last Labour Government, and the best illustration of that is that under the coalition Government eight out of 10 council homes completed were started under the previous Labour Government. I do not mind the Minister taking credit and talking about the building of additional affordable and social homes, but his Government need to have their own record, not leach off ours.”
“That is why I would like to hear from the Minister, if not warm support and acceptance of the new clauses, at least what he intends to do in relation to them.”
“I pay tribute to the Minister for the work he has done on this Bill, as well as to the sponsor, the hon. Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman), and the sincere comments made by Conservative Back Benchers during the course of this Bill, but they cannot put their heads in the sand and look at this Bill in isolation from everything else that is happening—and when they have looked at that, they have to change their policy. I am sure we are going to get the housing White Paper, possibly even this year, but when it comes, we will be looking for those matters to be dealt with, and that is the purpose of these new clauses. Their purpose is to make sure that this Bill functions and that Government policy as a whole functions in relation to homelessness.”
“Absolutely, and when I mentioned the quality of members on the Committee from my side, I was of course particularly thinking of my hon. Friend—as well as the Chair of the Select Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield South East, and my other hon. Friends on the Committee. I am afraid that they put my feeble efforts to shame, but there it is. My hon. Friend the Member for Westminster North (Ms Buck) is absolutely right. We have a crisis in housing supply, we have a crisis in the private rented sector, and we also have—which the Government are directly responsible for through the benefit caps, the freezing of local housing allowance, and the cuts in Supporting People—a manufactured homelessness crisis which we are now seeing reflected in the figures I quoted earlier.”
“That is extremely helpful, especially given the time pressures we are under to get these matters sorted out here rather than in the other place. I am sure that the other place will be watching and listening to what the Minister and I have said. On that basis, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the new clause. Clause, by leave, withdrawn. Clause 4 Duty in cases of threatened homelessness”
“I was disappointed by the Minister’s rather wholesale rejection of that issue today, but I hope that we will return to it on a future occasion. On a more positive note, I said that I hoped not to press new clause 1 to a vote. I am greatly encouraged by what the Minister said, and I thank him both for entering into the spirit of the discussion and the specific words he used. He gave us the comfort that we were looking for in relation to a proper, timely and comprehensive review of the finances behind the Bill. I am particularly pleased that he said that the Chair of the Communities and Local Government Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts), and the Select Committee itself will be engaged in that process as well as local government.”