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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“Absolutely—that is precisely the point I was coming on to make. The money will come out of the housing revenue account, which is, of course, funded from rents. In the 2015 Budget, the Government decided that rents would not rise by CPI plus 1%, but would actually fall by 1% per year. It is estimated that that will have a massive effect, with many billions of pounds less—about £40 billion over 30 years—coming into housing revenue accounts. Councils can, of course, borrow money, but the amount is capped by the Government. When the Government cap rents and borrowing, where can local authorities go to find the money to show, in the Minister’s terms, that they can afford to do this work? All they can do is to cut other planned expenditure for the maintenance of social housing.”
“It has also put a 24-hour fire watch in the block. But in the end, the fire authority believes that the block is safe because of how the cladding works with the insulation, the firestops and everything else. I hope that Ministers will now look at extending the tests beyond cladding to whole fire prevention systems in blocks, and encouraging local authorities to do the same. Finally, will the Minister explain why there is to be a taskforce in Kensington and Chelsea and not commissioners? As I said the other day, I believe, as a localist, that commissioners should be used only in extremis, but this is an extreme example of a failure of governance.”
“Colleagues have made the point that cladding should not be fire-tested in isolation. The insulation, the firestops, the fire doors and all other aspects of tower blocks’ fire safety systems must be tested. Sheffield, working with the fire service, has so far found only one block where the cladding has failed—the Hanover tower block in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield Central (Paul Blomfield). However, the fire service has said that because of everything else that is in place in that block, it still believes its fire systems make it safe for people to live there. Sheffield City Council has done very well. It has written to the fire authority and all the tenants. It has held meetings with them and said that if anyone wants to move temporarily because they feel unsafe, they can do so.”
“I draw attention to the Select Committee hearing in 2013 at which Peter Holland, the new chief fire and rescue adviser, and the then Minister were questioned very strongly about the mandatory retrofitting of sprinklers. The then Minister said no to that, and one of the reasons given—it was also given in a Westminster Hall debate—was that we could not have a new regulation unless two old ones were taken off the statute book. What a nonsensical position! Regulations are either necessary or they are not. If regulations are necessary to keep people safe, they should be implemented without having to wait for two others to be cancelled. I hope Ministers will act rapidly, and I am pleased that my local authority in Sheffield has decided to retrofit sprinklers to all its tower blocks in advance of any Government statement.”
“My hon. Friend makes an extremely powerful point. Not merely should the Government fund the remedial work on tower blocks but, in the Grenfell case, they should fund the replacement of social housing to make sure people do not lose out. There has been a call for an immediate review of the fire regulations, and the Minister could announce today that the Government will get on with that. I hope that whoever is elected as Chair of the Communities and Local Government Committee today will take a lead, with its new elected members, by getting the Select Committee involved, just as we were in relation to regulations for gas and electrical safety in the home. Getting Ministers to agree to new regulations has, at times, been a bit like drawing teeth.”
“I think that the council itself and the Government have admitted that the response was not adequate. I ask the Minister why there are not to be commissioners. The explanation has been that the taskforce will report to the Secretary of State, but it will not have executive powers. I say to him that this is a recipe for another disaster. When there are mixed lines of accountability and no one is sure who has executive power, that is exactly when things go wrong, because no one is sure who is responsible, everyone leaves things to everyone else and, when something happens, everyone blames everyone else. I ask that we please learn the lessons. Can we have an explanation of why commissioners have not been put in place? It seems to me that the Minister could have acted quickly, but now we have confusion rather than clarity.”
“I raised that issue in the debate. I asked the Secretary of State in a written question to set out the criteria against which applications for additional funding will be assessed. The answer I got was “that it will not be possible to answer this question within the usual time period.” That is a rather empty answer, is it not, to a very pressing problem?”
“The Minister did say “finally”, but he has not yet come back to the issue of what funding will be available to other local authorities carrying out this essential work and what criteria will be used to assess any funding applications.”
“In March, the Select Committee on Communities and Local Government agreed a report on adult social care. We called for significant extra funds in the short and medium term, but we said that, in the long term, a lasting solution will be found only through cross-party working. The Minister seems to agree in principle, but will he confirm: that he will engage with Opposition Front Benchers and other parties on the consultation’s terms of reference; that he will fully involve them in the consultation; that he will approach the consultation with an open mind, and not rule out any alternatives; and that the Select Committee will be involved in the consultation?”
“Let us come back to the issue of the commissioners whom the Mayor of London, among others, has asked to be put into Kensington and Chelsea. Of course they need not be put in to manage the whole council, but just its social housing responsibilities. As a localist, I believe that commissioners should be put in only in extremis—in cases such as Rotherham or Tower Hamlets—but surely this is an extreme example of a failure of governance. What consideration has the Secretary of State given to this request and what factors has he taken into account? If he rejects it, does that mean that he has full confidence in Kensington and Chelsea’s ability to manage its social housing stock?”
“Does my hon. Friend agree that it is important to carry out a thorough and comprehensive check on the fire safety of every school building in the country? We cannot put too high a price on the safety of our children. In view of the likely costs, does my hon. Friend think that the Government should set up a contingency fund to cover all those costs, as a matter of urgency, so that local authorities do not have to consider cutting other already shredded budgets to find the money to pay for the necessary work?”
“What an awful position for us to get into. We are trying to deal with an urgent problem in tower blocks, and we end up cutting the maintenance for all the other social housing stock. For heaven’s sake, Government, come forward with a comprehensive funding arrangement to deal with this problem!”
“Will they come back to the idea, raised by the Select Committee before the election, of having a cross-party attempt to bring about an agreement that we can all sign up to, so that we can put a permanent solution in place for the future? I raised the issue of tower blocks yesterday. What are local authorities and housing associations supposed to do if they suddenly find themselves facing great new bills because of the need to carry out urgent and essential work on tower blocks? Local councils and housing associations cannot raise rents; they are restricted by the Government’s rules to control them. They cannot borrow more, because they are restricted by a Government cap. Local authorities facing new bills have no mythical reserves to turn to; all they can do is cut the maintenance programmes for other parts of their housing stock.”
“On Second Reading, the Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government—who is present—described it as a “revolutionary measure”. I always thought that he was an unlikely revolutionary, but he does seem to run away rather quickly at the first sound of electioneering gunfire. What has happened to the measure? Are the Government still committed to it, or have they given up on fiscal devolution as well? Let me return to the subject of social care funding. Before the election, the Government promised a Green Paper; now they are promising consultation. I think they have probably worked out now that quick fixes in the middle of an election do not work for social care funding.”
“There was also no mention of devolution in the Queen’s Speech. There was not a single word about it, although under the previous Chancellor it was a flagship policy, was it not? Are the Government committed to deepening the devolution arrangements that are already in place? Are they committed to extending arrangements to other areas? In that context, I am thinking particularly about the issue of Sheffield City Region. I accept that it is the region’s fault that we have not got further than we have so far, and the last Minister for the northern powerhouse was extremely helpful in that regard, but are the Government still open to new deals? I have to mention the 100% business rate retention scheme, which features in the Local Government Finance Bill.”
“During the election campaign, my constituents expressed concern to me about longer waits to see GPs, about cuts in school budgets, and about delays in police attendances because there are fewer police officers. They also expressed concern about highway safety schemes and improvements that cannot be enacted—there are now more than 500 on Sheffield City Council’s list—and about playground equipment that cannot be replaced because there is no money. They mentioned that about two thirds of the libraries in Sheffield are now run by volunteers; in many instances they are run very well, but the permanent staff are not there any more. Of course, they also expressed concern about the crisis in social care funding. The message that we are receiving appears to be “Austerity continues”—unless, of course, you live in Northern Ireland.”
“I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Oxford West and Abingdon (Layla Moran) for the eloquence of her maiden speech. I also pay tribute to my hon. Friends the Members for Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill (Hugh Gaffney) and for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Lesley Laird) for the enthusiasm and commitment that they will clearly bring to the task of representing their constituents, and I congratulate them on their success. The Queen’s Speech did not contain a single mention of local government or the services that it provides. Since 2010, local government has experienced bigger cuts than any other area of public service—in real terms, there has been a 40% cut in local government spending—but there was not a single mention of the issues.”
“Before the election there was a Bill before Parliament to introduce 100% retention of business rates by local councils. That was due to start in 2019. This is a two-year Queen’s Speech with no mention of that measure. Can the Minister therefore confirm that this measure will now not go ahead in 2019 as planned?”
“On funding, basically the Secretary of State has said that the Government will work with local authorities and housing associations to provide funding if they cannot afford to carry out the work. Will he explain precisely what that means and what criteria he will use? Is it not fundamentally wrong to expect other social housing tenants to pay for this work through either increased rents or less maintenance of their properties? Will the Government bring forward a comprehensive finance package that provides not merely increased borrowing for organisations, but the actual cash to pay for this work?”
“Order. We have got about 50 minutes before I need to start calling the Front Benchers. We have got six Members wishing to speak in the debate, so I think you can work it out for yourselves. It is about eight minutes each. If Members can keep to that without a formal time limit, that would be helpful.”
“Order. Speeches are overrunning. If we continue to overrun, that will cut the time down for other colleagues, so we will now have a seven-minute guideline time, please. I call Roberta Blackman-Woods.”
“The Secretary of State will be aware of the Select Committee inquiry into funding proposals for supported housing. Will he give me an assurance that he will reflect carefully on the overwhelming evidence that we have received, which shows that the local housing allowance rates are not an appropriate basis on which to devise a funding scheme for supported housing?”
“T4. The Secretary of State will be aware of the Select Committee’s two reports into social care. Rightly, a lot of attention was given to funding, but also to the situation of the care workers who provide this important service. The Committee heard that nearly half of workers leave within a year of getting a job, half are on zero-hours contracts, many do not get paid for travelling time, in contradiction to the minimum wage legislation, and 27% do not get any training in dementia before they go out to deal with people with that condition. Is there not now a case for developing a well-paid and well-trained workforce, utilising Unison’s ethical care charter as a basis?”
“May I press the Minister again on that point? When the franchise is let, the HSTs are going to be phased out, having reached the end of their very long lives, and will need to be replaced. Will they be replaced with hybrid trains that will not have to be changed again when the midland main line is eventually electrified?”
“8. What assessment his Department has made of the potential effect of the proposed closure of Jobcentre Plus offices on claimants’ travel times and costs.”
“I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Heeley (Louise Haigh) on the campaign that she has run with the Public and Commercial Services Union and local residents to keep open the Eastern Avenue jobcentre, which serves both our constituencies. Will the Minister confirm that the only reason for closing Eastern Avenue is to save money, and that if it closes, extra capacity will be needed at Cavendish Court and Woodhouse jobcentres? In the light of that need for extra capacity, will he produce figures showing whether there will actually be any net saving as a result of the closure of Eastern Avenue?”
“Recognising that that would not be a permanent solution for this Parliament, however, we asked for the National Audit Office to be given the responsibility to look at what is required for the rest of this Parliament—the further two years of the spending rounds—to address the issues in social care. Those issues are very real, with an increase by a third in the number of people in their 80s or 90s over a 10-year period, with local authority spending on social care down by 7% since 2010 in real terms, with the increase in the minimum wage, with the Care Act 2014 and with all these other pressures.”
“To begin in the here and now, the Committee welcomed the fact that the Government have allowed local authorities to increase the precept in the next two years and have encouraged local authorities to take up that offer, while still recognising that there are challenges around the fact that the precept raises very different amounts of money in different local authority areas. We asked for an immediate further injection of £1.5 billion, so it is welcome that the Chancellor announced an increase of £1 billion, even though £1.5 billion would have been more welcome—I think that is how the Committee will look at that.”
“It is a pleasure to follow the two Select Committee Chairs, my hon. Friend the Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Meg Hillier) and the hon. Member for Totnes (Dr Wollaston); we have worked very closely on these issues. It is also a great pleasure to see so many other colleagues in the Chamber today. It is obvious that social care and health issues are now coming very high up the agenda, which is absolutely right. I will refer to the report that the Communities and Local Government Committee has just produced, “Adult social care: a pre-Budget report”. In the next few weeks, we will produce a longer report about longer-term issues in social care.”
“The Communities and Local Government Committee went to Germany to have a look at its model. There are pros and cons to it, but we really need to put everything on the table and not rule out any possibilities. We need something that we can, in the end, reach cross-party agreement on, recognising that the social care system will probably be different in its funding from the health system. How they can fit together and be governed together will be absolutely crucial to the success of a long-term settlement, when we eventually reach one.”
“I am sorry that the Chancellor did this, because everything should be on the table, but he ruled out a different way of taxing or receiving contributions from people’s personal estates when they die: taking a percentage of everyone’s estate. Currently, people contribute their estate if they end up with dementia and go into a care home, but if they have a heart attack, they tend to contribute nothing. Is that system fair? Is that a challenge we must look at? Even with Dilnot, the £72,000 limit would take most of the estate from a small house sold when someone in my constituency dies, but it would be only a fraction of the value of a property sold in the more expensive parts of London. Is that fair either? Do we simply scrap the whole thing and go on to a German system of social insurance?”
“If we are considering the future for social care funding, we should bear in mind that currently we have a mixture of funding. We have some central Government funding, local authority funding and the personal contributions that come through people paying for their care, particularly in residential homes, and what happens to their estate when they die. Will that mean a bit extra from those different elements—a bit more from central Government, local Government and personal contributions—so that the total whole grows? However, the Government have said that they will introduce the Dilnot proposals in the next Parliament—that is what the Minister said to us—which will cap and reduce the contributions that may come in from people’s private estates when they die, so does that mean more money from somewhere else?”
“We should certainly look closely at what is happening in Manchester, to learn about the devolution deal there and how the two can work together within the same governance structure. Personally, I feel that losing the local accountability that the social care system currently has and simply centralising the whole system would be a mistake. That would take us in the wrong direction, so it is important to look at what is happening in Manchester. We have two very different funding systems. We have the health system, which is free at the point of use, but I do not think that anyone suggested in evidence that we could fund social care on exactly the same basis. We will have to consider something slightly different to fund social care, but how the two systems fit together will be a challenge.”
“We will return to the proper training, long-term commitment and pay of staff in the care sector in our Committee’s further report, but we certainly had evidence to that effect. We need another way of dealing with the funding gap for the rest of this Parliament. For the longer term, I very much welcome the announcement of the Green Paper, but I echo the comments of the two previous speakers. We need to get cross-party agreement on a sustainable, long-term settlement that will last not merely for the next Parliament, but for several Parliaments after that. There are major challenges. I agree that we should look at health and social care together, but there are fundamental differences in governance and accountability between the two systems, so how do we resolve that?”
“My hon. Friend is right: these measures may be welcome, but they are temporary. The Government have said that they will compensate local authorities for any loss of income resulting from the changes. Will the Public Accounts Committee try to ensure that the compensation does not last for only one year or two years, but is permanently built into the system?”
“It depends on whether someone ends up in social care because they have dementia, for example, or whether they die of a heart attack without having needed that kind of care at all. The way in which someone’s life ends can determine whether their house and other assets make a contribution to the Treasury.”
“We need the NAO to conduct an independent review. I am pleased that the Government are prepared to undertake a long-term review of spending for social care, but I am disappointed that the Chancellor has, at the beginning, effectively ruled out one of the options. There are clearly a limited number of ways to raise money to fund social care properly in the long term. The money could be raised from general taxation, from people’s direct contributions to the care they receive, from a new system of discrete taxation through increased national insurance contributions, as happens in Germany, or from an increase in the tax on people’s estates when they die. The Chancellor ruled out the last of those options, even though people might be taxed on their estate, depending on whether they end up in residential care. That is an arbitrary tax.”
“Age UK believes that more than 1 million people in this country should be receiving social care but are not. That range of forecasts led the Committee to say that we need £1.5 billion to bridge the gap next year. Although I welcome the fact that the Chancellor recognises that more needs to be done, I am disappointed that the more he has identified is not sufficient to deal with the problem. I am also disappointed that the Chancellor has not taken up another of our suggestions: that we ask the National Audit Office to undertake a review of the funding gap for the rest of this spending round. I do not believe that the extra £500 million that has been allocated for the next two years is sufficient, given that the Local Government Association says that the total gap in local government funding will be £5 billion by the end of this Parliament.”
“I want to address two issues, social care and business rates, which are related to inquiries undertaken by the Select Committee on Communities and Local Government. On social care, the Chancellor mentioned the rising number of elderly people in this country. People are living longer, which is obviously to be welcomed. What he did not say, of course, is that cuts to local council budgets mean that they have reduced spending on social care by 7%, despite prioritising it since 2010. He did not mention the extra costs of the minimum wage or the Care Act 2014, or the fact that councils are now, in the words of the Comptroller and Auditor General, Amyas Morse, moving from doing more for less to doing “less for less”. When our cross-party Committee looked at the issue, we had a range of forecasts for the gap in next year’s social care funding.”
“It is completely pot luck, as my hon. Friend says. The Chancellor should not rule out a more appropriate approach to assessing people’s estates when they die, and to determining what contribution should be made towards social care costs.”
“Seven years later, after an awful lot more austerity than most of us could possibly have imagined, another Conservative Chancellor is saying that there will be five more years of austerity, after which he will still not have balanced the budget. That is an awful lot of pain for my constituents for very little gain, and there is no sign at all that austerity will end while this Government are in power.”
“I have said to the Communities and Local Government Secretary that if the Government are looking for a fairer way of conducting valuations for business rates—to ensure that the digital services and online shopping sectors pay more, for example—we in the Select Committee will help with that review. It is also clear that there is something wrong with the proportion of payments being made by shops on the high street and by shops in out-of-town centres, and we need to look at that as well. In 2010, the Conservative Chancellor at the time said that after five years of austerity he would have balanced the budget.”
“The Select Committee agreed with the Government at the time, so let us have a commitment to more regular and more frequent revaluations. Will the Government give an absolute commitment that the extra money that they have brought in to help with the revaluation, which I welcome, will not cost local government a single penny, either next year or thereafter? The Treasury should pay for it all. I also agree with the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Rochdale (Simon Danczuk) that we need to know how the extra money that will be given to local government for discretionary reliefs is to be allocated between councils. Will it be allocated on a fair and transparent basis? When will we be given that information?”
“Friend the Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Meg Hillier), have requested a cross-party review before the publication of the Green Paper, or at least an element of cross-party scrutiny of its proposals. At some point, we have to look at this issue for the long term, assuming that the Conservatives will not be in office for ever. I also want to address the issue of business rates. The Government have brought this problem on themselves by extending the period between revaluations from five to seven years. That has made the problem worse, because the difference between what businesses were paying before the revaluation and the new rates is wider as a result of the period being longer. We need a commitment to more frequent revaluations. The Government mentioned that in 2015, but it seems to have fallen off the radar.”
“Absolutely. That is clearly a major problem with the system, and it needs to be addressed. I think my hon. Friend is referring to the Dilnot recommendation that people should pay no more than £72,000 in total for their care. When the Minister with responsibility for social care came to the Select Committee, he said that Dilnot would be implemented, but I am not sure how that fits in with this long-term review. I hope that the Government can explain that better in their Green Paper. There has been no commitment to a cross-party look at this issue. The Chair of the Health Committee, the hon. Member for Totnes (Dr Wollaston), and the Chair of the Public Accounts Committee, my hon.”
“One of the exemptions in the regulations where housing benefit can still be paid is if “in the opinion of the Secretary of State it is inappropriate for the renter to live with each of their parents”. Does the Secretary of State assume that this exemption will automatically apply where the parents refuse to have their child living with them?”
“In 1986, South Yorkshire had a renowned bus service. It was cheap, frequent and comprehensive and 268 million passenger journeys were made. Since deregulation, that figure has fallen by 62% to 102 million. I welcome the regulatory powers in the Bill, but if the Secretary of State does not extend them beyond mayoral combined authorities, what criteria will he use to judge other requests for franchising from areas that do not automatically get it under the Bill?”
“The Secretary of State derided what was happening before deregulation when, in fact, bus services were affordable and available. My hon. Friend makes a very good point. Under the current arrangements, we often see bus companies over-competing on the main routes, but providing no services at all to the wider-spread communities. With regulation, we can use the same resources and the same number of buses to provide a better service to those currently disenfranchised communities.”
“I thank the Minister for his continued efforts to keep the Sheffield city region devolution deal moving forward. I understand that the mayoral election will be postponed until next year but that it might be possible in the meantime for local authorities to access the £30 million on offer if they agree to appoint an interim mayor. Will he confirm that that is the case? If so, what criteria will he want to see in place for it to happen?”
“It might not be the right solution for this country—it is based on social insurance, because that is what the German health system, as well as its pensions system, is based on—but that is what they decided to do. It is interesting that it has stood the test of time for 20 years. They have recently decided, with cross-party agreement, to increase social insurance and there has been virtually no public opposition, because the system is seen to be reasonable and fair. The German system is not purely funded by the taxpayer—there are private contributions as well—but it is an example. For heaven’s sake, let us sit down on a cross-party basis, as the Chair of the Health Committee has said, and work out a solution that stands the test of time, whichever Government comes to power in the future.”