Mr Clive Betts
MP for Sheffield South East · Labour · United Kingdom
“I wholeheartedly welcome the Foreign Secretary’s statement, both its content and its tone. I would like to ask about his discussions with our colleagues and allies in other countries who are looking to implement similar sanctions.”
“I offer two congratulations: first, to my right hon. Friend and constituency neighbour, the First Secretary, on her well-deserved promotion—I am sure she will do an excellent job. Secondly, I congratulate her and the Prime Minister for their real commitment to devolution, which I have wanted to see for an awfully long time.”
“I apologise for the fact that—as I have explained to you, Madam Deputy Speaker—I will have to leave straight after my question to chair Westminster Hall. I thank my right hon. Friend for doing this very challenging piece of work. I think that the theme of fairness, for the people who need benefits and for taxpayers, is right.”
“On the other hand, so many constituents with really serious conditions get turned down for PIP, and can get it only if they struggle through the appeal system, sometimes without any help at all. So the system is not fair to anyone at present.”
“When the previous Government let the contract, we were in a situation in which procurement could not properly take account of the past record of companies, and I understand that the Government have now changed that.”
“I will dive very deeply into the question, Madam Deputy Speaker. The Chair of the Committee sends his apologies for his absence; he is presently in a Committee meeting.”
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“My understanding is that it will be a test of the licensing system. It is about ensuring sustainability, and not just when an owner comes along and says they want to buy a club. They need to show that they can actually sustain that ownership going forward. That is the difference between the current rules and the rules that are being proposed, which we can test further in Committee. Can the regulator really regulate sovereign wealth funds that own clubs? I have asked the Minister about that before, and it is something else that we have to look at, because it is a challenge to the system. I welcome the fact that fans will have a veto over their club changing its colours or name, but there is nothing in the Bill that says that fans have to be consulted about a change of grounds.”
“The Select Committee welcomed the more than £2 billion provided through the building safety fund to private leaseholders with regard to remediation due to fire safety works. On the other hand, social housing providers received only £200 million, which is about 10% of the amount going to private leaseholders. How can it possibly be fair that in a block of flats a private leaseholder gets their remediation costs paid, but in the same flat next door a social housing tenant has to pay for the total cost out of their rent? That simply is not fair. Ministers have accepted the unfairness in the past. When will they do something about it?”
“In answer to questions, I have heard the Minister repeatedly talk about pressure on Israel, encouraging Israel and hope that Israel will respond. When will he stand at the Dispatch Box and accept that for all the Government’s urging and encouraging, the situation is getting worse? In concrete terms, what will the Government do now to get aid through, to make sure that Israel lives up to the promises that it makes and does not deliver on? I ask the Minister not to give me an answer about the strength of our arms sales licence regime. How can it be morally right to provide arms to Israel that are being used in the killing of women and children and worsening the humanitarian crisis?”
“The First Reading of the Football Governance Bill last week was welcome, but when will we see Second Reading? There was no mention of it in today’s business statement. We want to get the Bill through in time before the general election so that it becomes law, as it has widespread support. One thing that was not mentioned at all was the Renters (Reform) Bill. Where has that got to? All we have read about are discussions, debates and arguments between Ministers and Tory Back Benchers over changes that might be made to the Bill. In the meantime, hundreds of people are being evicted through section 21 notices, and families and children are being made homeless. When will the Government bring back this important legislation, which has widespread cross-party support?”
“I am pleased that the Minister is in charge of that programme. Perhaps she can explain a little more about it. Local government currently has a deficit of about £4 billion. In the productivity plan for local government, the Government highlighted the need to reduce waste on equality, diversity and inclusion. I have found no Government figure showing how much that will save, but the TaxPayers’ Alliance says that it will save £50 million over three years, towards the £4 billion deficit. Has the Minister a figure that suggests that the saving in that part of the productivity plan will be greater?”
“Is it not therefore disappointing that while the Government have assumed 5% productivity increases in the Budget, they are also assuming that central funding from the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities will be cut by 2.3% a year in real terms for four years? Even if a 5% increase in productivity were achieved, it would fill only half the gap caused by the cuts in local government funding that are projected in the Budget. That is no way forward, is it? Moreover, the Budget made absolutely no mention of public health or integrated care.”
“The Select Committee recently produced a report on local government finance in which we said that the Government must act now if local authorities are to survive this severe crisis. What has the Secretary of State done? He has asked every local authority to produce a productivity plan. That sounds a bit like advising councils how to spend better the money they have not got. He has asked local authorities to identify “ways to reduce wasteful spend”. What does he think they have been doing for the last 13 years? In particular, he has asked them to identify waste on “discredited staff equality, diversity and inclusion programmes”. How much does he think that will save when it comes to avoiding section 114 notices?”
“The Minister might anticipate the question I am going to ask, because I have asked it before. It is fine giving leaseholders easier ways to buy their freehold, until we come across companies such as Coppen Estates, which we have debated before. It just does not reply to letters. I think that we are now on our third recorded delivery letter to the company about the residents on the Flockton estate, who have just been sent enhanced bills for their ground rent charges, with no justification. They face threats if they do not comply. Where in the Bill is there any measure to make sure that Coppen Estates and the like respond properly in future or face consequences if they do not?”
“The Minister is talking about the information on houses. Will it also apply to flats so that, before anyone buys a property, it must be explained to them that they are buying a lease and what that entails? I tabled new clause 38, which says that everyone buying a lease should be presented with a copy of the Government’s “How to Lease” document. Everyone in this situation should be given independent advice.”
“It would give leaseholders that right, and stop freeholders —we know that this happens—who want to evade the legislation, including the improvements the Government are bringing in, passing a property around from one organisation to a subsidiary to a third party, with a view to evading the legislation, so that leaseholders never know where to go to get the relevant freeholder to agree to the sale.”
“Leaseholders were told that they could, within a couple of years, buy the freehold at a fixed price from the same developer. The problem, of course, was that by the time a leaseholder came to inquire about purchasing the freehold, the freehold had been sold to another party. There are lots of examples of that, which is why I have an amendment—new clause 39—that I want to push to a vote, although I hope the Minister will accept it. It is a simple amendment to say that before the sale of a freehold, the right of first refusal has to go to the existing leaseholder. That right already exists for leaseholders in flats, but not for leaseholders in houses. Why is that? That really cannot be justified or even explained. Will the Minister accept just that one simple amendment?”
“When the Committee met, I remember going into a room with about 100 leaseholders from all over the country—the hon. Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman), who was in his place a few minutes ago, was there as well—and hearing horror stories of people being ripped off in the sale of leasehold homes by developers. They were told that there was no difference between a leasehold property and a freehold property. They were told that by the solicitors who worked for them, because the solicitors were recommended by the developers. That was together with the free carpets in the living room that came as a bribe—that is what it was. Leaseholders were not aware that they would have to pay £300 to get a doorbell fitted if they wanted one because they had to get permission, or £3,000 for a conservatory, or whatever fees the freeholder chose.”
“It is five years since we produced the Select Committee report on leasehold reform. It came after long years of campaigning by the all-party parliamentary group on leasehold and commonhold reform, and I particularly commend the efforts of the Father of the House, the hon. Member for Worthing West (Sir Peter Bottomley), who has just spoken; my hon. Friend the Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Justin Madders); and our good friend Jim Fitzpatrick, who is no longer in this House, but who certainly made a major contribution to that. To be fair to the Government, it is good that we have made progress on many of the items in the Select Committee report. The caveat, of course, is that we probably have not gone as far as we would have wanted or as quickly as we would have expected.”
“Indeed, some are put in place for that purpose: they are cheap, they do not have experience or qualifications, and they provide another way of avoiding the restrictions and rules that are rightly put on the management of property. They do not bother with proper service charge information or a proper list of charges for permission fees. I accept that the Government have tried to improve that, but in the end such improvements will only work if the individual or organisation managing the property does so in a proper way. Will the Minister look at those issues? What is the rationale? Why is there resistance to ensuring that people doing a serious and important job as property managers are qualified to do it and properly held to account through regulation?”
“The Government have legislated to say that the managers of social housing will need professional qualifications in future, but what is the difference between a manager of social housing and a property manager of leasehold blocks? In some ways, there may be greater complications in trying to manage a multitude of different leaseholders than people who have secure tenancies in a council or housing association block of flats. What is the difference? Why will the Government not recognise that there are some good property managers who are well qualified, experienced and can be held to account, but others who are not like that?”
“I know he is aware of it, because we share the same problem with Coppen Estates. There are others that are based overseas, but this one is based in a semi-boarded-up shopfront with a letterbox that never seems to be opened. That is the sort of company we are dealing with. They are small organisations that make a living out of charging ground rents from leaseholders, who cannot exercise their enfranchisement because of the attitude and evasion of the freeholders concerned. I hope that the Minister will have another look at that issue. The other amendments I have tabled are about having professional qualifications and some form of regulation of property managers.”
“Absolutely. I hope the Minister will have a look at the whole issue of freeholders who will not respond. That certainly applies to many who are overseas, with whom it is very difficult to get in touch. I will not press new clause 40 to the vote, but the purpose of it is to say to the Minister that the default answer cannot be that the leaseholder can always go to a tribunal. Most leaseholders are simply ordinary residents trying to get on with their lives, who think it ought to be fairly easy to put in a request, get a calculation done and buy their freehold. They are not ready for these organisations, with all their lawyers and surveyors, that want to evade this and try to hide away, in some cases overseas, so that they cannot be contacted. Can the Minister look at that issue?”
“Q3. It is now more than two years since the fan-led review on football governance was produced. Will the Prime Minister commit to setting up an independent regulator, with the up-front power to intervene to achieve a fairer distribution of football’s enormous riches, to ensure that no community in future loses its football club, as happened in Bury? Will he commit to bringing forward legislation urgently, or will he leave it for a future Labour Government to act on behalf of football fans?”
“We all want to see the fighting stopped. We cannot begin to imagine the horrors of what will happen if Israel goes into Rafah. The problem, as I think we can all imagine, is that Israel might ignore international opinion and do just that. Can we start to think about what action we will take—what sanctions we will propose—against Israel if it does that? There have to be consequences for Israel if it behaves in that way, completely contrary to all international opinion.”
“I thank the Minister for that response. There is clearly widespread support in this House and the country for helping Ukraine to resist Russian aggression, but there are concerns, given that President Zelensky has recently identified a shortage of arms and ammunition, particularly in the light of the impasse in the US Congress. What discussions has the Minister had with his counterparts in the EU and other European nations about helping to bridge the gap in the short term, and on how we will deal with it if, in the longer term, the election of President Trump reduces NATO spending in general, and its spending on Ukraine in particular?”
“T3. So far, Israel has ignored international appeals to not indiscriminately attack civilians and not take steps that are basically razing Gaza to the ground. It now looks as though it is going to ignore international opinion about entering Rafah, so has the time not now come for us to consider not selling to Israel arms that can be used in those totally unacceptable ways?”
“Taxis and private hire vehicles are a very personal service, and it is important for customers that both the vehicles and the drivers have proper safety checks, so that if things go wrong they can take a complaint to the licensing authority. The problem is that when that authority is 100 miles away in Wolverhampton, the system simply does not work. When will the Minister legislate to ensure that journeys can be made in a licensed vehicle only when they either take place or finish in the licensing authority area?”
“The Select Committee has written a report recently on local authority audit, which is a complete mess, with only 1% of accounts done on time. This is not a party political matter, as councils right across the country are struggling with this issue. One factor is low audit fees. Another is the complication of pension fund valuations, which is holding many accounts up. The likelihood is that the only way to get through that will be to agree accounts that are qualified because it has not been possible to confirm pension fund valuations. I hope that party political points are not made about councils and the qualification of accounts.”
“In my view, councils are engaged in providing proper, decent and needed services for their communities, and there are not enough of those services because of the spending cuts. I hope that in due course we can move forward to a better time for local government. Our councils deserve it and, even more importantly, our communities deserve it too.”
“I hope we can then move on. Finally, what on earth are the productivity plans? Does local government not have enough work to do without having to produce another set of plans for a purpose that only the Secretary of State seems to understand? I have read that councils apparently have to stop spending on “discredited” equality, diversity and inclusion programmes. Can anyone tell me what a discredited equality, diversity and inclusion programme is? Who is going to decide? Does the Minister have a little list of criteria and tick boxes? Is he going to review all these programmes, or is it just another attempt to say that councils obviously have plenty of money if they are engaged in these sorts of programmes? They have not.”
“The Minister said it will be for the next Parliament and, yes, it will. The Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities announced more than a year ago that he would ask a Minister to review council tax, and I understand that nothing has happened yet. Council tax has not been touched for 30 years, and we cannot explain to people moving into a new build home how their council tax is calculated. It is based on the value in 1991, before their home had not been built. We can all see that it is nonsense, so we need reform. The Minister suggested the other day, and I agree, that whoever wins the election has to make local government funding, and certainly social care funding, stick for the long term. We had cross-party agreement on pension reform, and it has stuck for the long term, so let us look at both those issues.”
“He probably cannot offer us any more than the £600 million today, but perhaps he could have a look at the household support fund, which our Select Committee has just written about. In Sheffield, the fund provides 32,000 children who have free school meals during term time with vouchers to compensate in the summer holidays. Have a look at that, as local authorities cannot compensate for it in the current crisis. It would not take a lot simply to keep the fund going from March, when it comes to an end. This is the last school holiday in which kids will get the funding. It is a small issue but, if the Minister adds his voice to those of the Select Committee and many others in this House, we might be able to get a bit of movement in the Chancellor’s upcoming statement. Things are bad, but they could get worse and probably will.”
“During covid, we should have used the expertise of the directors of public health for tracking and tracing, instead of the phone banks that were set up at national level at a cost of billions of pounds. The director of public health in Sheffield, Greg Fell, has sent me information about the cuts that he is dealing with. This is a fundamental issue of equality. Public health is about helping the poorest communities disproportionately, and that is now not happening because of those cuts. Yes, there is some welcome extra money for smoking cessation and for dealing with people with alcohol problems, but it does not fill the gap that has been created by the cuts. Perhaps the Minister could have a word with the Chancellor.”
“It really cannot be right that we are allocating money based on how many people lived in areas so many years ago that it now makes no sense because of the demographic changes that have taken place since. These are all issues that could have been addressed. They are big challenges but they could have been met. We have not mentioned the public health grant today. When public health went over to local government, it was pretty well funded because it was linked to NHS settlement increases. Public health is really important because it looks at prevention in our most deprived communities, but there has been a 27% real-terms cut since it went over to local government. We do not use it enough.”
“It is a challenge to the basis of democracy, which is that people feel they are paying for something and getting it. Here, they feel they are paying more and getting less. That is not sustainable in the long term, as I think we can all see. Another problem with the settlement is that it is for only one year. Local government has asked repeatedly for multi-year settlements, and we got there in 2016. Covid interfered with that, but there is no reason they could not have come back since then. We were also promised fair funding in 2016. What has happened to it? This settlement is based on data that goes back to the last century. That cannot be right either, can it?”
“Of course we have to give kids with special needs the education they deserve, but perhaps we ought to look at the system that is causing such a massive increase in the costs that are now occurring. At the other end of this is the fact that the overall budgets have been constrained as demand has gone up. What about ordinary council tax payers? They are paying 5% extra every year. For the most part, those council tax payers do not receive adult social care, do not have a kid with special needs and do not require homelessness services—another area of increasing demand—yet they are being asked to pay 5% extra. They are also seeing their libraries and bus services disappearing and their streets not being swept as often. They are saying, “But I’m paying more every year and I’m getting less.” The system cannot continue in the way it is.”
“The Select Committee looked at children with special needs, their education and the cost of transporting them, and there are things that can be done there that are not just about more money. It is about looking at the provision of care for children and looking at councils collectively providing that. We could get costs down in that way. This is also about looking again at education, health and care plans. There is a feeling that sometimes the more well-educated, knowledgeable and affluent parents see the benefit of demanding an almost unconstrained amount of money for certain educational provision for their children. The cost of that is going up exponentially, and those plans have to be reviewed.”
“Libraries have closed in my constituency, there has been less funding for tendered bus services, the grass is cut less often, and the planning department has fewer resources and wants more because of the number of planning applications being submitted for the redevelopment and regeneration of the city. Those are all consequences of the spending cuts. This is about the two things coming together: the cuts to resources and the pressure from all the things that everyone talks about, including social care. Adult social care was seen as a developing problem, and it is. Another way of looking at it is as a great benefit, because people are living longer and they are here to need the care, which is absolutely wonderful, but now children in care as a demand is rising faster even than adult social care.”
“Credit is due to councils and councillors throughout the country who have managed to keep themselves going, and managed to make efficiency savings on a scale of which any central Government Department would be proud. Local government has seen bigger cuts in its budgets than any other part of the public sector. The temptation for Ministers is always to pick on councils, because they can blame them from the Front Bench for the difficult choices that have been made, and do not have to claim responsibility for the cuts. My own city of Sheffield has experienced a 30% cut in its spending power, and of course it has cut services.”
“It is not only individual councils that are experiencing difficulties. The whole system is now broken. That is the evidence that we were given: the Committee did not pluck the information out of thin air. We heard from councils of every kind—county councils, district councils, metropolitan councils, unitary authorities and London councils—and the problem is now widespread across all of them. Yes, individual councils have made mistakes, some of which have caused them to get into difficulties, but as we look forward, we see that it is not only the councils that make mistakes that will get into difficulties. Many will simply run out of money, and they will have no leeway to deal with any adverse consequences because their reserves will have been run down. In fact, for the most part, councils have done brilliantly to survive this long.”
“Some councils have simply run out of money and have issued section 114 notices, while others are wary of what is coming. They can see things getting worse rather than better because that is what has happened year on year, and, rightly, they are not rushing to spend all their reserves at once. They are being prudent to a degree, but they can see those reserves running out in two or three years’ time, even if they are not facing section 114 notices immediately. We have heard from the LGA that about 20% of councils could be facing them in the next 12 months. It may not be as many as that, and everyone hopes it is not, but it could be a significant number. In the last six years eight councils have issued section 114 notices, effectively declaring bankruptcy, whereas in the previous 18 years, none did so.”
“In fact, the Institute for Fiscal Studies said the other day that the gap was £7 billion, but either way it is a much larger sum than the £600 million that the Minister has made available. I was a little disappointed when the Minister for Housing, Planning and Building Safety, the hon. Member for North East Derbyshire (Lee Rowley) —who opened the debate—began referring to reserves again. When local government finance gets into difficulties, Ministers always resort to saying, “Councils have all this money, so why don’t they spend it?” I remember that when Lord Pickles was Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, he was berating councils back then for not spending all their reserves. I think that most of them are quite grateful for not having done so, in view of what has happened subsequently.”
“Member for North Dorset (Simon Hoare), is sitting on the Front Bench. I want to thank him as well, not for providing enough money on this occasion—I would not go as far as that—but for being genuinely helpful and open in his willingness to be approached by Members on both sides of the House and to engage with local councils across the country. He has also been open to discussion and an exchange of views with me, in my capacity as Chair of the Select Committee, so I thank him for the way in which he has approached this matter on a personal basis. The difficulty for councils is that they are not just dealing with what is happening this year; they are also dealing with the problem of the year upon year of austerity that we have seen since 2010. There is now a funding gap of £4 billion, which £600 million goes nowhere near filling.”
“Let me begin by thanking a few people. The shadow Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham West and Royton (Jim McMahon), referred to the report “Financial distress in local authorities”, which the Select Committee published last week and on which I made a statement in the House last Thursday. I want to thank the staff of the Committee and our special advisers for all the work that they did in helping to put the report together: it was much appreciated. I also want to thank the Local Government Association—I declare my interest as a vice-president—for all that it does for local government throughout the year, and for helping us and advising us on the challenges that local government is facing, not least with regard to finances. The Under-Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, the hon.”
“I take the Minister back to the beginning of the debate, when the Minister for Housing, Planning and Building Safety talked about doing a long-term review of local government finance in the next Parliament. The difference, of course, is that the Government have been in power for the last 14 years and could have done something about it.”
“The Minister talks about tax cuts, but in April most households in this country will receive a 5% increase in their council tax. That is not because local councils have mismanaged their finances, but because after 13 years of austerity, the local government finance system is essentially broken and relies on a regressive and unfair council tax. Why in the autumn statement did the Chancellor freeze the budgets of the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities for the whole of the next Parliament, leading the Office for Budget Responsibility to forecast a further £13 billion rise in council tax? Does that not show that the Chancellor has no regard at all for councils and the services they provide, or is he simply deferring a problem that his Government has created for the next Government to sort out?”
“We have not gone into that in detail in this report, but I know we have had evidence to that effect in the past.”
“It is my hope that the need we have identified for additional funding will be properly reflected in the local government financial settlement we will debate next week, and that our other recommendations will be carefully considered by this Government and whoever form the Government after the next election. I commend this report to the House.”
“The next Government, regardless of their political persuasion, must embark on a fundamental review of the systems of local authority funding and local taxation, both council tax and business rates. In doing so, they must be clear about what local authorities are for and how they can best co-ordinate with delivery of the Government’s wider objectives. We have recommended that the next Government should consider many options, which may include land value taxes and others, and wider fiscal devolution. They must also explore all options for reforming the funding and delivery of social care services, to address the underlying causes of the acute funding and delivery pressures currently faced by local authorities.”
“A big cause of the increase has been the Government’s decision to freeze local housing allowance rates in April 2020, so our report welcomes the Government’s recent announcement that they will increase local housing allowance rates from April 2024. However, it also raises concerns about the Government’s decision to then re-freeze the rates in 2026. Instead, we recommend that local housing allowance should be retained at at least the 30th percentile of local market rents. In the longer term, the best solution, as the Committee has recommended repeatedly, is to build more social housing, which will always be cheaper than paying for temporary accommodation. These problems require a long-term solution. That is why the Committee has made recommendations in this report for whichever Government are elected after the next election.”
“In 2020, the Government introduced a “statutory override”, allowing local authorities to exclude any deficits on their DSG spending from their main revenue budgets. Local government faces a potential cliff edge of section 114 notices whenever the statutory override comes to an end. The question is: will the Treasury write off that extra borrowing when the time comes? Our report recommends, therefore, that in the short term the Government should provide additional funding for home-to-school transport. In the long term, there needs to be a fundamental reform of the EHCPs, based on a cross-Government review. Finally, our report makes it clear that rising homelessness has increased costs for councils.”
“Our inquiry also found that local authorities face significant financial pressures in providing services for children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities—SEND. The number of education, health and care plans has “skyrocketed” since they were introduced in 2014, which has significantly increased demand for more expensive forms of SEND provision and home-to-school transport. Funding is provided to local authorities through the dedicated schools grant, but it is not enough to meet the demand and does not cover home-to-school transport. The Government have already been forced to take temporary measures to prevent SEND costs from forcing a large number of councils into bankruptcy.”
“As the Committee recommended back in 2022, the Government need to recognise that local authorities will need several billion pounds of additional funding each year to continue to deliver and improve adult social care, and should plan a sustainable mechanism to deliver this funding that does not simply rely on increasing council tax. On children’s social care, our inquiry found that councils are facing rising demand for residential care placements and a poorly functioning market for providing them. That has driven significant cost increases. Our report recommends an urgent comprehensive reform of the children’s social care system. As part of that, the Government should help local authorities consider greater collaboration so that between them they can deliver more children’s care services directly, instead of through private suppliers.”
“Finally, we have once again called for the Government to implement the business rates reset and fair funding review, to which they committed themselves in 2016 but which they have yet to deliver, and to reintroduce multi-year settlements. Our inquiry asked witnesses what had caused the sharp rise in council expenditures. It identified three particular areas where costs have risen significantly: adults’ and children’s social care, special educational needs, and homelessness. On adults’ social care, the increasingly complex needs of a changing population continue to drive up costs, and long-term workforce shortages and inflationary pressures have made the position worse.”
“We have cautiously welcomed the fact that they are considering giving authorities additional capital flexibilities to fund day-to-day costs, but we have recommended that those additional flexibilities should be considered carefully and limited to extending flexibilities over invest-to-save activity. We do not want to store up problems for future years. Our report also recommends other ways in which the Government can improve funding for local authorities in the medium term. We have repeated the recommendation, which our Committee first made in 2021, that the Government must urgently reform council tax. This would involve undertaking a revaluation of properties and introducing additional council tax bands.”