Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown
MP for North Cotswolds · Conservative · United Kingdom
“If we had to have change, I thank the Secretary of State for listening to the vast majority of people Gloucestershire and coming up with the best proposal that was on the table.”
“I thank the Prime Minister very much for making this appointment. As Chair of the Public Accounts Committee and the appointments panel, I warmly welcome the motion to appoint Michael Jary CBE as the next chair of the National Audit Office.”
“Michael has the skills and the leadership needed to ensure the NAO remains a high-performing, innovative and digitally-enabled organisation, supporting Parliament’s detailed scrutiny of public spending and helping to secure value for money for taxpayers. For these reasons, I am delighted to support this appointment.”
“It would appear that this defence investment plan is unaffordable, but the Public Accounts Committee will be examining that. Deep in the plan is an old accountant’s trick: a vast efficiency savings figure of £10.7 billion. Does the plan rely on that figure?”
“It is clear that the criminal justice system has considerable weaknesses. A central issue is the lack of usable integrated data. The police, courts and prisons operate on separate systems that do not effectively communicate with one another.”
“This has been a constructive debate, and everybody has aired the themes that I raised throughout the debate. The Minister has outlined one or two areas where things are going a little better, namely perhaps a reduction in some of the Crown court backlogs, but that is countervailed by increases in the backlog in magistrates courts.”
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“My hon. Friend, if I may call him that—I have known him so long in this place—makes a very good point. I will come to that issue towards the end of my speech, which I am working towards, something the Minister will be glad to know. The Palace needs to be upgraded to the highest possible digital and security standards, and if there are any changes to the working of Parliament, those will need to be accommodated. While I commend the adaptations made during the covid-19 period, especially for online working and digital voting, it should not have taken such an unprecedented crisis to push us to adapt those things for the 21st century. We need to be faster and more accommodating of change to meet the challenges of the modern world. Finally, the education services in Victoria Gardens were only ever given temporary permission.”
“I am wondering if by calling the first ever Joint Committee with the other House this week, my right hon. Friend—as I might call him—is envisaging an even longer career as Chair of the Finance Committee.”
“I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for giving way a second time—he is being very generous. Contrary to what I had understood, when the asbestos is removed, it is possible to seal individual areas. One area is sealed, the asbestos is removed, and then we move on to the next area. That is very time-consuming, whereas if we shut all of the Palace, or at least half of it, to do that work, it is much more cost-effective and takes much less time, so it might be better for us to decant for a little while, while that dangerous work is done, rather than try to do it piecemeal.”
“I am sorry to interrupt my right hon. Friend again, but it was in the early stages of the High Speed 2 project that the money got out of control. Once Parliament started getting quarterly reports based on an end cost, and once there were fixed dates for completion, it was able to see whether the trajectory was right. If we do that from the beginning with R and R, so that Parliament has control of the project, it has a much greater chance of being on time and on budget.”
“The situation is actually more serious than my hon. Friend suggests. Each one of those ventilation chimneys is surrounded by asbestos. Virtually every Committee Room in this House has asbestos in it. The experts need to tell us whether it needs to be removed.”
“I do not want to still be talking about this issue in three years’ time, should my constituents re-elect me. Let us hope that by then, we have a proper costed plan, with a timetable, and have actually started work. Question put and agreed to. Resolved, That this House has considered the Restoration and Renewal Programme in the House of Commons.”
“Mr Twigg, may I thank you again for the professional way you have chaired the debate? I also thank my hon. Friend the Member for Nuneaton (Mr Jones). As he said, when he got up this morning, he had no idea that he would be responding to this debate. He has gained a great deal of knowledge in a very short time. I thank all colleagues for participating in what I think has been a very consensual debate. It is almost universally agreed that we have to get on and do something. We may disagree on the emphasis here and there, but we have not disagreed about the need to do major work to preserve this excellent building for the next generations. I will support my hon. Friend the Member for Nuneaton in the vote next week, although I have thought very carefully about it. Let us make a vow that we will not be here in three years’ time.”
“The harvest in Ukraine is going to have to start in the next few weeks. The problem is that there are 25 million tonnes of old crop filling up all the stores, so there will be nowhere to put the new crop. It will have to be piled on the fields, and the Russians will seize it and use it as a weapon of war to buy influence around the world. What more can my right hon. Friend do to ensure that there is international passage for that grain out of Odesa and other ports?”
“My right hon. Friend has referred to the national development management policies. There is great concern that they will override local planning authorities, which spend a great deal of time preparing their local plans that are then approved by Government inspectors. It would be quite wrong if national Government overrode them, and it would destroy the careful balance that has existed since the Town and Country Planning Act 1947, in which planning was devolved to local authorities.”
“It is very important that we think carefully about them, because they set a dangerous precedent that begins to nationalise planning policy and upsets the delicate balance between national and local policy that has existed since the Town and Country Planning Act 1947, which largely decentralised planning.”
“Where better to start than by streaming and accelerating the local planning process, and concurrently introducing neighbourhood development orders in clause 89 to make the neighbourhood plan process easier? That is important, because those plans are where most people become involved in the planning process. They are a truly democratic part of that process. Unfortunately, the democratic theme applies with a vengeance to the national development management policies set out in clauses 83 and 84, which I referred to in an intervention on the Secretary of State.”
“I am grateful to have caught your eye in this very important debate, Madam Deputy Speaker, but I am not so grateful to have to follow the speech of the hon. Member for Wigan (Lisa Nandy). I cannot believe that in a speech that lasted more than half an hour, she could not find something to welcome in the Bill, which will help to level up some of our poorest communities in this country. I can only conclude that she and I have been reading different Bills. I declare my registered interest as a Fellow of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors; I have practised professionally in planning matters. I welcome the fact that earlier zonal planning proposals were dropped, and I welcome the abolition of the five-year land supply. It is right to try to speed up the planning process by better using data and digitalisation.”
“The construct of charging on the gross development value—I urge the Minister to listen to this—is interesting, but will deter any aspect of environmental design improvement unless it is statutorily required. A better construct might be to capture the increase in land value, which I have demonstrated is there. Finally, the increase in planning and enforcement fees is welcome. Most planning departments are poorly funded; they should be properly funded to determine applications rapidly and should employ good and well-qualified planners. Thank you for allowing me to speak in this debate, Madam Deputy Speaker.”
“I welcome the implementation of the Letwin review to speed up development with the introduction of a development commencement notice that sets out the annual rate of housing delivery within large developments and the consequent completion notice. I also welcome the new infrastructure levy in clause 113, to be set in conjunction with the retained section 106 powers. In the Cotswolds, agricultural land is worth between £10,000 and £15,000 per acre; with planning permission, that could increase to half a million pounds or more. With good tax advice, only 10% is paid on the gain. If the infrastructure levy is properly implemented, it could provide substantial infrastructure. It could end the endless argument about delays and viability, because the developer would know before purchasing the site what they would be expected to provide.”
“I will not, because I have only four minutes. Given the enabling power in the Bill to implement NDMPs, and the enormous centralising power, what will they contain and what will be the consultation process to create and amend them? That is a key question, and I hope that the Minister for Housing will provide some answers when he sums up. I was heavily involved in the Public Accounts Committee’s inquiry into local government finance; indeed, I secured an Adjournment debate on the subject on 27 April—it is printed at column 845 of the Official Report —to urge the Government to stop local authorities such as Cotswold District Council, which wants to borrow £76.5 million on an annual core spending budget of just £11.2 million. The Liberal Democrats running that council are financially illiterate.”
“I am grateful to the Minister for giving way. He will have heard what I said in my speech about the gross added value method of charging for the infrastructure levy, which will act as a disincentive to developers to put added value on environmental and design matters. Will he please discuss that matter with me to see whether we can use a better method by capturing the increase in land value?”
“The Georgians are a wonderful, hard-working and hospitable people who have endured so much over the years—not least because Stalin was born in the country and it was the location of some of the most brutal purges. The Georgians are determined to build it into a prosperous, modern and democratic country. Historically located at the crossroads of Europe and Asia, right at the heart of the old silk route between east and west, they have huge opportunities to trade. In closing, I pay tribute to the Georgian ambassador to London, who went to huge trouble to organise our trip. We learned a great deal on that trip, and I hope that relationships between Georgia and this country have been, and will continue to be, improved by similar exchanges of views.”
“That is what the Georgians hope—that somehow, in future negotiations, Russians can be pressured to leave the occupied territories, and that the people and families who lived there for so many generations can return to their homes. As a farmer, I hope that the west will take control of the supply routes through the Black sea, allowing grain to come out of Ukraine and into some of the poorest countries in the world that are most in need of it. Otherwise, various things will happen. Obviously, the people in those countries will suffer hugely. The Ukrainians will also suffer further, because their grain stores are currently full and, unless they can get the grain out of those stores, they will not be able to put into them whatever new harvest they have to prepare for next year. I left Georgia with a feeling of hope.”
“So, it is possible for people to exercise democratic power. For instance, demonstrations outside Parliament are a common feature, and they are allowed to go ahead unhindered by the Government. The war in Ukraine is worrying on a number of fronts, because of the human tragedies that have occurred, with the prospect of future trials for war crimes and even genocide. It is essential that we keep up all the pressure against President Putin through sanctions, disruption of the Russian banking system, trade, continual resupply of lethal equipment to the Ukrainian military and, finally, reinforcing the generous British offer to take in Ukrainians affected by war. No one yet knows how the war will end. It may even become a prolonged low-intensity war. One thing is certain: the military and political landscape of Europe has changed.”
“Although there is a free press, the majority of the press and media usually toe the Government line. In the Parliament, which we visited, the Government exercise control and the opposition do not have anything like the opportunities for criticism in holding the Government to account that we do. There were allegations, though we were provided with no proof, that the judiciary tends to find in the Government’s favour in the most serious cases. Having said all that, and to put it into perspective, it is considerable how far the country has come since it was occupied by the Soviet Union. There are free elections, and the former President Mikheil Saakashvili admitted defeat in the parliamentary elections in 2012, allowing the first peaceful transition of power since Georgian independence.”
“Standing on the line of control from Russian occupation, peering through binoculars into the mist and seeing no life at all—most, except some of the elderly, have been driven out—was a very eerie feeling. The only parallel I can draw is with standing on the demilitarised zone between North and South Korea, again peering into the mist through binoculars into the Kaesong joint industrial centre. The only difference in South Ossetia is that the Russians have purpose-built military forts about every 7 kilometres along the border. There is a direct link road through the Caucasus into the former Republic of North Ossetia, which has also been annexed by Russia. The democracy of Georgia, after years of occupation by the Soviet Union, is nowhere near as well embedded as ours.”
“They have all left their mark on the country, culturally enriching it. It is an incredibly beautiful country, with the Caucasus bordering the north, the Black sea to the west, and the wine regions of Kakheti to the east. One reason we were invited was to assess the current situation with Russia, which, as others have said, occupies 20% of Georgia’s internationally recognised territory. Unfortunately, as the Georgians reminded us many times during our visit, that occupation, which began in 2008, happened with hardly any protest from the rest of the world. Many would argue that that event, combined with Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014, led to Putin’s boldness in Ukraine today. We visited South Ossetia, which is one of the two occupied areas, the other being Abkhazia.”
“This month, further documentation was submitted, with the Georgian Government’s answers to a 2,600-point EU questionnaire on the country’s political, economic and institutional readiness to begin the process of joining the EU bloc. A response from the EU is expected in the next couple of months. During our visit to Georgia, as others have said, we visited a training and evaluation centre organised by NATO, where the level of military co-operation with Georgia is increasing. The Georgians seemed incredibly grateful to us as British Members of Parliament for visiting their country and showing our support. Georgia is at a crossroads, linking Europe and Asia. It has, over the centuries, been partially or completely conquered by many different powers, including the Persian, Ottoman, Mongol and Russian empires.”
“It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Mark. I pay great tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Huntingdon (Mr Djanogly), not only for the informed way he spoke, but for leading a successful all-party delegation to Georgia, as declared in my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. We found that the Georgian people are not only extremely hospitable, but very pro-European. In 2020, the chairman of the ruling Georgian Dream party announced plans for Georgia effectively to apply for EU membership in 2024, but the geopolitical situation changed. Russia invaded Ukraine on 24 February this year, and Georgia responded by expediting a full application and submitting it on 3 March for EU consideration.”
“The hon. Gentleman has not quite been saved by the bell. A point that was put to us several times throughout our visit was that one of the things that could facilitate greater trade between the United Kingdom and Georgia would be to establish a direct air link between the two countries. In intervening on the hon. Gentleman, may I press the Minister on what she can do to help in that respect?”
“At the very least, it will mortgage the council for the generation to come. I urge Liberal Democrat councillors, in the interest of Cotswolds council tax payers, to think again, and I urge the Government to use all their powers to stop councillors borrowing that unsustainably large amount of money. I thank the Minister for being here to answer my debate.”
“Delivering a financial plan on the scale that is proposed would require considerable financial expertise in the council, which could be lacking, as the competent long-term financial officer, head of finance and deputy CEO has recently resigned. The Liberal Democrat authority also proposes carrying out the programme before the local elections in May 2023. Even the biggest and best commercial banks would struggle to find suitable investments involving that amount of money, and to do the necessary due diligence on them, in just 12 months. The proposals by Cotswold District Council to borrow a breathtaking £76.5 million, as stated in the plan circulated to its capital programme investment board and cabinet, clearly demonstrate financial incompetence amounting to a recklessness that has the potential to bankrupt the council.”
“In fact, in recent years, central Government—the Minister’s Department—have given it significantly more money, as is laid out in the local government settlement, which includes £16.3 billion in settlement funding for local councils in England this financial year. With other grants and an estimate of council tax included, the core spending of councils across England will rise to £54.1 billion, which is an increase of 4.6% on the previous year. There is no pressure on the council to borrow all this money to increase its income. The settlement will partly help to reverse the trend of council tax accounting for an increasingly large proportion of any council’s spending power. There is no evidence that the council or councillors have the experience to successfully manage a long-term investment programme of this size and complexity.”
“Although the Government have set some achievable targets under the green agenda, such as bringing all greenhouse gas emissions to net zero by 2050, and securing global net zero by mid-century to limit global warming to 1.5°, there is evidence that, faced with the cost of living, people are asking the Government to help with the squeeze on bills by slowing down the increases in green levies. The same applies to the extreme borrowing that is proposed by Cotswold District Council for solar farms. Worryingly, I do not see any statements from the council that it is trying to live within its means. Instead, it continually says that the Government are cutting various grants.”
“Cotswold District Council has increased council tax by £5, which is a 3.6% increase in the tax bill for residents. That is above the official cap in England of 2.99%—the maximum allowed without a referendum of local council tax payers, and a cap that some 286 councils across England and Wales are exceeding. Given the cost of living squeeze, the council should not look to put up council tax by that much while planning this huge amount of borrowing. It should focus on increasing council tax as little as possible, in order to help people with the cost of living, and should focus on delivering its core strategic services of waste collection and planning, rather than spending our money on feasibility studies.”
“Another proposal mooted by the council is issuing green bonds to publicly finance these projects. Securities such as these are regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. Cotswold District Council anticipates that an issuance programme will be aimed at small investors, although no details are available at this time. Even if the council could begin to sell the bonds in the markets, can the Minister confirm that this form of finance would also come under the financial probity regulations, under which the section 151 officer would have to warn councillors of the effect on the council’s finances of such large borrowing? Furthermore, as a financial instrument, it would have to be authorised by the regulator, the Financial Conduct Authority.”
“However, as other councils doing the same thing have found to their cost, these schemes are highly risky and could make the finances worse, which would pose a considerable risk to the core finances of the whole council. No commercial bank would ever contemplate agreeing to such a loan. Could the Minister confirm that the PWLB will require a repayment schedule for the so-called MRP? Under the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy code, the council’s financial section 151 officer is required to give advice to councillors about the financial probity of such a large borrowing plan. The section 151 officer can ultimately give a section 114 notice, warning a council that, given the overall state of the council’s finances, the level of borrowing is not sustainable.”
“From that £11.2 million, which needs to pay for all services if there is to be a balanced budget without a deficit, it would need to deduct £3 million for the annual loan repayment. In the financial year 2021-22, the council forecast a budget of £12.55 million; £5.5 million is from council tax, £3.278 million is from business taxes, and the balance of around £4 million is from a variety of Government grants, which are not necessarily recurring. The council’s finances are fairly flimsy in any case. Will the Minister confirm that the size of this loan—£76.5 million—would be totally disproportionate and unaffordable, given the council’s current income, from which loan repayments and interest would have to be deducted? It seems that the motivation for taking on all this borrowing was the desire to invest in schemes to generate income.”
“Furthermore, any application to the PWLB must—this is critical to the whole debate—be accompanied by a repayment statement known as a minimum revenue provision, or MRP, setting out the repayment period and how the council will repay the loan on top of paying interest payments. As an illustration, the proposed loan by Cotswold District Council of £76.5 million, repayable over 25 years, would require annual payments of around £3 million per annum. That is purely to pay off the loan, without any interest payments. The plan does not say where the money borrowed will come from, the duration of the loan, nor how the borrowing will be repaid. I remind the House that the council’s annual core spending was only £11.2 million last year.”
“Cotswold District Council hopes to borrow the money from the Public Works Loan Board at 3.3%, making a profit on the loan by obtaining a return of 7.5% from the investment. The problem the council has with this proposal is that in order to curb excessive substantial, and risky, borrowing from the PWLB, I and others on the Public Accounts Committee have recommended to the Government that they prohibit loans in what I call exotic investments. Such projects include solar farms, and even commercial property investments, purely to make a return on the investment. Could the Minister please confirm that bodies would not, under the PWLB’s loan criteria, be eligible for a loan for an investment in a solar farm?”
“In 2020, Croydon Council effectively declared itself bankrupt with a £73 million shortfall. It borrowed £545 million during a three-year period to invest in commercial and housing properties. The council invested £30 million in the Croydon Park hotel in 2018-19. A central Government taskforce was sent to oversee an audit in 2020, following these risky property investments and the council ignoring repeated warnings on its dire financial situation, and last year the council had to have a £120 million bailout from the Government. Only today, my hon. Friend the Member for Eastleigh (Paul Holmes) raised during Prime Minister’s questions the shocking fact that by 2025 Liberal Democrat Eastleigh Borough Council will have a debt of £650 million following investment in property projects.”
“The Liberal Democrat administration says that these investments are green and follow economic growth priorities for the council. So what is wrong with that? Well, there is strict legal guidance that all local authorities must act with financial probity, including not borrowing excessively in a way that could put the council’s finances at risk. Please could the Minister confirm this in her reply? We have seen many recent examples of councils losing huge amounts of money in failed investment schemes. For example, Nottingham City Council ultimately lost £30 million of public money in 2015 after it set up and invested in Robin Hood Energy—a localised green energy company that ran into financial difficulties and could not pay its bills. By 2019, the council was forced to bail it out.”
“However, this is a comparatively small sum compared with the overall amount that the council proposes to borrow, despite its having tangible benefits for the people of the Cotswolds and the fact that it should be prioritised in the building of homes, especially social housing. I understand that councillors were originally advised that about half the borrowing was for social housing, only to later discover from the plans that only £1.8 million had been allocated. The total amount of this borrowing is spread over five years. However, according to the plans, it appears that some £50 million is scheduled to be spent next year, as they are showing an income for the following year. If this borrowing occurs, it is equivalent to mortgaging council tax payers in the Cotswolds for a generation.”
“There is more than sufficient finance in the market to fund these schemes without the council’s intervention. In addition, there are plans to borrow £25 million for investment in a variety of projects described as investments for economic development and asset usage, although further details on these schemes are currently not available. From the delivery plan setting out the substantial amount of money that the council intends to borrow overall, just one project so far has been approved in this entire programme—a £1.8 million housing loan to contribute to Cottsway Housing, which produces income below target. This is a good thing. Borrowing to invest in social housing would really benefit the people of the Cotswolds.”
“The problem is that if a local authority is ever put into special financial measures, for example as seen in 2018 when Northamptonshire County Council effectively declared itself bankrupt because it could not pay its bills, it is the taxpayer, via the Government, who always ends up paying for disastrous financial decisions made by local councillors. So what exactly are these proposals as laid out in the circulated tactical delivery plan? Well, page 66 states that the council wishes to borrow a total of £76.5 million to finance various projects, at the same time exhausting the council’s general reserve fund. The plan envisages that £49.7 million be borrowed to finance climate change and green energy investment projects. The largest of these projects is to buy five solar farm sites for a total of £46.5 million.”
“Mr Deputy Speaker, would you please thank Mr Speaker for granting me this opportunity to raise the matter of Cotswold District Council and funding for solar farms? The council’s Liberal Democrat administration proposes to borrow a staggering £76.5 million to fund various capital projects. The plans were laid out in a report presented to the council’s capital programme investment board on 24 March 2022 and during a subsequent cabinet meeting on 4 April 2022. The full public document pack is available on CDC’s website.”
“Will my hon. Friend confirm that the guidance to the Public Works Loan Board has recently been changed so that no investment that is made purely to increase return is allowed? Will she also confirm that any application to the PWLB will have to be accompanied by a statement including a minimum loan guarantee repayment, so that it is crystal clear to everybody in the Cotswold district how these loans will be repaid?”
“I am grateful to the Minister for giving way again; she has been generous. Considering that there is more than adequate private finance to fund these solar farms, is it right that a local authority should invest in such a risky venture?”
“I have heard the fulsome apology by the Prime Minister, but he is taking a lead in Ukraine and I suggest he needs to keep giving Ukraine defensive weapons so that we can eventually drag President Putin and the Russian Federation to a peace agreement. Will he then lead the world in gaining reparations so that the great country of Ukraine can be rebuilt?”
“The Leader of the House will be aware that the joint Commissions—the House of Lords Commission and the House of Commons Commission—in their meeting on 17 March on restoration and renewal, decided yet again to employ more consultants. Surely, whether one wants to decant or not, what we ought to do in this House is make up our mind what we want to do. It is costing us £100 million every year we delay and it is costing us £130 million every year in maintenance. Will the Leader of the House please provide for a debate in Government time, so that we can debate the whole matter of this huge project and try to find a sensible way forward?”
“I therefore ask the Government seriously to consider accepting my amendment as a sensible, fairly minor, but nevertheless important amendment to the remit of the committee, which recognises local customs, “religious rites, cultural traditions and regional heritage”. That seems to me a perfectly reasonable thing to do. With these few words, I strongly urge my hon. Friend the Minister to see whether she cannot, on behalf of the Government, accept my amendment.”
“I will speak to amendment 2, in my name and those of 30-odd colleagues. The problem with the Bill is that it goes beyond the commitment made by Ministers to recognise animal sentience in British law in the same way that it is recognised in European Union law. My amendment is designed to ensure that the safeguards of the EU law are duplicated in British law. Currently, those safeguards are not in the Bill, as was the original ask of the animal welfare lobby. It seems to me that we should have a bit of equivalence here. If this committee is set up by statute, its remit should also be defined by statute.”
“To the point that my hon. Friend has rightly made about the cross-cutting nature of the Bill across Government Departments, I quite like that. For example, the Department for Education might educate people on how to look after pets properly. There are many useful areas where the Bill could have a role.”
“I am very grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way. I use this intervention to inform the House that my constituent has brought 55 different databases to produce one horse database, with all the biological markings of horses on it. He is working—and I am working with him—with senior civil servants in DEFRA to produce a similar database for dogs and cats. As a further refinement, there are some rogues out there who remove microchips from dogs and put in a substitute microchip. I am working with the police to put the DNA that forces like my own collect into the database so that we can see when microchips have been removed and replaced.”
“I thank my hon. Friend for her careful consideration of my amendment. I think it is a sensible, proportionate amendment that will allow a committee with limited resources to focus on those really egregious areas where animal sentience is being abused, and not run into some of the less important areas. I thank her for accepting the amendment, and I thank all my hon. Friends who supported and signed it.”