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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“If people do not get it in the early stages, that means that they are more likely to end up in hospital and cost the whole system much more. That is another thing that we learned. I was pleased to sign, along with the Chairs of the Health Committee and of the Public Accounts Committee, the letter to the Prime Minister saying that we need longer-term arrangements. It is right, however, that the Government should respond to the here and now, because that is important. To put it bluntly, if we do not deal with the here and now, some people will not be around to see the long-term arrangements being put in place. When the Communities and Local Government Committee went to Germany, we learned that it solved this problem 20 years ago. Those involved sat down on a cross-party basis and agreed a long-term solution.”
“Government officials, and sometimes Ministers, took decisions without any real understanding of what happened to the money at the end of the line, when local authorities faced with very difficult choices had to make decisions about the cuts that were being passed on to them. Those are just some of the issues on which we will reflect in our report. Clearly, the link between health and social care is very important. We ought to join them up better and it will be interesting to see what comes out of the Manchester example, given that both services have been devolved. There is a clear link between the two, and not just with regard to delayed discharging; there is now virtually no money in the system for preventive social care. The only social care funding available is that for people with the highest need.”
“There are problems, of course, with the fact that the council tax precept raises much more money for some local authorities than for others, and the better care fund, which is meant to stabilise the situation and help authorities that raise less, is back-end loaded. The new homes bonus cut and the additional grant are welcome for social care, but that causes real problems for some small district councils that are not social care providers and suddenly find that their budget position is fundamentally altered. In his article, Amyas Morse described how the Government simply were not thinking through what would happen in the long term. They moved money—it is often a lack of money—around between social care and health without giving any real thought to the end result.”
“There is a cross-subsidy in the system, which does not seem fair to many people. At the same time, the turnover rate for care staff is 27%, so they do not have long-term experience and are not being trained regularly over time to deliver care. Those are all problems that we learned about from the compelling evidence that our inquiry received. The Committee will reflect on its conclusion, and I am sure that eventually we will, as always, come to an unanimous view in our report. In the short term, of course the Government have done things, including the introduction of the council tax precept. I welcome the fact that, by and large, local authorities have taken that up, because the situation is so serious.”
“Although we cannot agree about the word “crisis”, I think we can at least agree that the stress is obvious for all to see. An estimated 1.2 million people do not receive the care they need. That figure is 40% higher than it was in 2010. We took evidence from people who were not getting the same amount of care as they had received in the past and others whose needs were increasing but whose care was not. We talked to care providers who were handing contracts back or pulling out of the service altogether, and to local authorities that are sacking care providers because the contracts were not being delivered properly. We also heard that people who pay for their care in care homes are subsidising local authorities because they cannot afford to keep increasing their fees.”
“Amyas Morse, who wrote a very good article and made a good speech the other day about the relationship between health and social care, said that for a long time local authorities had been very successful in doing more for less, but have now got to the point of doing less for less, which is impacting on the people who received the services. We should not blame local councils for failing to provide a certain standard of service. Simon Stevens told the Communities and Local Government Committee that even if every council did as well as the best, there would still be problems in the system. I challenged the Under-Secretary of State for Health, the hon. Member for Warrington South (David Mowat), to say whether there was a crisis in social care. He did not want to use the word “crisis”, but he did say that the system was “under stress”.”
“This is not surprising. The Chair of the Health Committee referred to the fact that we have had a 7% cut in real terms in spending on social care since 2010. Local authorities’ grants from central Government have been reduced by 37%. Councils have tried to prioritise social care—the evidence for that is absolutely clear—but they have not been able to protect it completely from the cuts. That is the reality. On top of that, not only has the money been going down but the number of elderly people requiring care is going up. We heard evidence that although the Care Act was great legislation in principle, all was not delivered in practice. The extra measures are welcome in trying to reward staff properly for the excellent work that many of them do in social care, but the increase in the minimum wage places additional costs on the system.”
“As a constituency MP, it is not terribly surprising to have heard what I have heard today. Unfortunately, as an MP, like everyone else here, I am sure, I see only the tip of the iceberg of problems. Cases about the nature, and number, of social care failings have undoubtedly been increasing in my surgery, my postbag and my emails in the past two or three years. Some of the cases are quite horrific. A council that has to cut its budget on social care does so by going out to the private sector, or agencies, and substituting their services for the service that the council used to provide through directly employed staff. The way in which those services are delivered—often the simple failure of people to turn up and provide the care when it is promised—causes real and increasing problems that I am certainly seeing as a constituency MP.”
“The Communities and Local Government Committee is currently undertaking an inquiry into the funding of social care. We have not produced our reports yet, so anything I say should be taken not as the Committee’s considered view but as some of my own reflections on the evidence we have heard so far. I hope it will not be too long before we can provide a report for Members to look at on the immediate issues of social care, and then, in due course, we will go on to look at the longer-term issues as well. We have taken evidence from a variety of different organisations, including councils, care providers, directors of social care, the Nuffield Trust, and the King’s Fund. Carers and care providers, as individuals, have related their personal experiences to the Committee.”
“Indeed, can we rely on local authority funding alone, particularly if it comes largely from business rates, which will not grow at the same rate as the number of people who want social care?”
“We heard quite a lot of evidence that, as a percentage of our national income, we do not spend as much as several others on health and social care combined. The Communities and Local Government Committee will reflect on that. Of course, it is not simply a question of asking for more public funding; I would not come to that conclusion, although I might personally believe it. There is, however, an issue with where we get the private funding from, because nobody has argued to us so far that the whole of social care can be publicly funded. There will be private contributions, so how do we raise that private money? Should it come from individuals who simply need care at that point in time, or should we ask people to pay more into an insurance system? How do we put in more money from the public sector?”
“I just want us to have a process that gets us to a similar position. Even if local authorities remain part of the funding solution, we cannot assume that the increase in business rates and council tax will keep pace with the level of demand. I know that you have encouraged us to keep to a time limit, Madam Deputy Speaker.”
“Member for North East Bedfordshire (Alistair Burt), gave to the Communities and Local Government Committee about his understanding of accountability in the Manchester system. It shows that the Government have not worked it out in such a way that they could flick a switch tomorrow and get it all operating smoothly. We have a lot of work to do. The Select Committee will consider all the evidence we have received and will produce reports on a range of issues.”
“Ultimately, however, we have to acknowledge that the process is going to take time and that it will need up-front funding to make it work. We also have to acknowledge that there are big differences between health and social care. There are not many differences in culture, but the funding arrangements are different. Health is provided free at the point of use, whereas social care is not and probably will not after any changes are made. There is also a fundamental difference between the two on accountability: social care is accountable to directly elected local councillors, whereas health is ultimately accountable to the Secretary of State. If Members want to see the problems that creates, they should read the evidence that the former Health Minister, the right hon.”
“I have gone two minutes over time, so I had better not stray too far. Of course, health and social care need to work closely together. It is going to be very interesting to see how Manchester develops. It is not, however, a panacea; it is not going to solve all the problems. I agree with the Chair of the Health Committee: the sustainability and transformation plans are an interesting way forward, but unfortunately they are seen as a way of making cuts. They will need some pump-priming to make them effective. They have not been done properly, with full co-operation, in every local authority area. If they are done properly and consider how we can better plan and pull together health and social care for the future, I think they will make an important contribution.”
“I think the STP approach is capable of being a good one. The problem is that when I go to the chief executive of the Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust, Sir Andrew Cash, who is respected in government as well, he tells me that the process of transferring resources to the community will not work unless there is some transitional upfront funding for the whole process. We cannot stop doing what is being done in the hospitals and simply transfer it to the community.”
“The Government have said that one of the benefits of HS2 will be how well it links into, and integrates with, other forms of transport. Why, then, in the alternatives for HS2’s route through Sheffield and south Yorkshire is there no reference to how HS2 connects to HS3?”
“I recognise what the Secretary of State says: the better care fund will be tailored to help authorities that raise less under the precept. However, the fund does not really kick in until the following financial year. Why have the Government not done anything to help councils with a lesser ability to raise the precept in the next financial year, 2017-18?”
“I have some sympathy with the Secretary of State’s points about revaluation. I accept that it is fiscally neutral and that it reflects the change in property prices, but perhaps the Government did not help themselves by delaying it for two years. He has referred to the difference between business rates for high street premises and those for out-of-town shopping centres. Is he therefore considering a more fundamental review of the whole basis on which valuations are made, to try to better reflect the proper cost to businesses on the high street and in out-of-town centres?”
“Is it not disappointing that attempts are now being made to blame local authorities for problems in social care funding that are clearly of central Government’s making? When Simon Stevens came to the Communities and Local Government Committee, he made it absolutely clear that there would be a funding problem for social care in this country—even if every local authority performed at the level of the best.”
“They may disagree by a few hundred thousand pounds, but essentially they all say there is currently a gap in the money local authorities have available for the provision of adult social care.”
“The LGA is saying that there will be a £2.6 billion deficit in social care funding by the end of this financial settlement in 2020, and that £1.3 billion of that is here and now. Despite the Government’s proposal to increase the precept by 3%, and the cut in the new homes bonus to allow for extra social care grant, the LGA is still saying there will be a £1.3 billion deficit next year. The Select Committee is currently conducting an inquiry into social care. We will be producing reports in due course, so it would be wrong of me to prejudge the outcome, but I can say that we have had evidence from the King’s Fund, the Nuffield Trust and the Institute for Fiscal Studies, and all gave similar figures about the current funding gap.”
“It will try to protect social care, but that means less money for other services, such as parks and open spaces, on which the Select Committee has just published a report that shows the stresses and strains on those services. Social care has rightly been given a lot of attention. Along with the Chairs of the Health Committee and the Public Accounts Committee, I wrote to the Prime Minister to ask for an all-party review of long-term social care funding needs. That still needs to be done; we have to reach a new settlement because the existing system clearly does not work. We have to make the best of it for the time being, but we need to reach a general agreement on something more substantial for the longer term that will stand the test of time, so that review still needs to be done. Let us look at the immediate situation.”
“The Committee is considering the needs assessment, and we have commissioned work on that, too, but it is no good getting the needs assessment right on the allocation of resources to individual authorities if, at the beginning of the process, we get it wrong on the overall needs of local government as a whole. That is why we need to take particular account of that demand. My local authority in Sheffield faces challenges next year. It is saying to me that there will be another £23 million cut in revenue support grant; that it will need to make £40 million of savings to meet inflation and the extra demands that it, like any other council, has to deal with, particularly those relating to social care; and that all that will mean reductions in the standard of service provision across the board.”
“All I ask of the Secretary of State and the Minister is that they please think carefully when the time comes to make decisions about the scheme for 100% business rate retention and about allocating the extra £11 billion to £13 billion. The Local Government Association is clearly saying that the first call on those resources should be the existing services that cannot be funded with local government’s existing money. That is a fundamental point. I hear what Conservative Members are saying about getting the needs assessment right. One of my Select Committee colleagues, the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton (Kevin Hollinrake), is nodding in agreement.”
“Furthermore, it is very clear that local government has received bigger cuts over a longer period than any other service provided by Government—far bigger than any service provided by any other central Government Department. The reality of the situation is that no other Department has had cuts on this scale, and that cannot be challenged because those are the facts. The Local Government Association has said that, by 2020, at the end of the spending review period, there will be a gap of £5.8 billion. That is the LGA’s figure, and I know that some people will say, “Well they would say that, wouldn’t they? They want extra money.” Those people might be right, but there may be demands on service provision that cannot be met by the agreed funding settlement.”
“This is a cash-flat settlement over a four-year period, which therefore means a continuation of cuts because cash buys less over a four-year period not merely because of inflationary pressures, but because of the additional pressures on services from the growing number of elderly people and the extra pressures of the Care Act 2014 and the Children and Families Act 2014. Local authorities are having to absorb all those pressures within the cash-flat settlement. The Comptroller and Auditor General, Amyas Morse, has figures showing that the spending power of local authorities, in real terms, reduced by 25% between 2010 and 2016. He has also said that there will be a further 6% reduction up to 2020. Amyas Morse says that the cuts are continuing.”
“The obvious point is that there is no change from the provisional settlement. We are talking about the same figures as the Government presented to us a few weeks ago. It is difficult to imagine that nothing any local council has said in that time has been relevant to its financial circumstances to the extent that Ministers feel the need to respond in some way. That is the case: no change whatever to the initial proposals. The settlement therefore represents a continuation of the cuts that began in 2010. I welcome, as I have previously, the four-year spending settlements being given to councils. The settlements are a helpful step forward that local government has also welcomed in general.”
“I welcome what the Secretary of State has said about looking again at how the money raised is balanced between, say, a shop in the high street and a business on an out-of-town retail park, or between a retail business that sells directly to the public and an online business that probably has far lower rates. It will be interesting to see what the Government propose. Although I disagree with many items in the funding settlement, I say to the Secretary of State that if the Select Committee can help to look at the issue of how business rates reform could take place to reflect more properly who should be paying what in the system, we will be more than happy to work with him.”
“Finally, all my sympathy goes to the Secretary of State on the issue of business rates. The revaluation is simply about re-allocating the total payment to different businesses. It reflects the changes in the prosperity of different parts of the United Kingdom since the last revaluation seven years ago: businesses in more prosperous areas with greater growth will find that their rates go up, while others will find that their rates go down. I understand the point that has been made: this is not a way of raising extra money but of reflecting the different changes in prosperity in different parts of the United Kingdom over the past few years.”
“The Comptroller and Auditor General goes on to say: “Central savings may have been secured, but significant damage has been done.” Again, that is from a senior official looking at the public accounts of this country. It is a damning indictment of what has happened with regards to cuts to social care—I am talking about the impact on users and the knock-on consequences and damage to the NHS, including bed-blocking, which is a horrible term that I do not like. Basically, this is about elderly people who need to come out of their bed in hospital and receive care in the community not getting that care because it simply is not available. There are also individuals who could, with earlier prevention, have avoided going into hospital in the first place, but that earlier prevention is not there either.”
“In my view, the policy objectives for local government and the local government statutory duties have not been properly weighted against potential efficiency savings.” He goes on to say that although local authorities have tried to protect social care, there has, nevertheless, been a 7% reduction in real terms, and that “Besides the direct effect on care service users, this reduction has a deleterious effect on the NHS... Costs are effectively being shunted from one part of the connected system to another.” He is blaming not local councils for that but central Government for having got it so badly wrong. He also says—Government Members may not be always willing to accept this—that areas with the greatest needs have lost the most. That comes from an independent review from the Comptroller and Auditor General.”
“It is a very interesting article, because Morse talks about local councils initially responding to those cuts with efficiency savings—I know that Government Members have called for more efficiency savings from local councils. Morse then goes on to say that that is okay at the beginning, but, over time, while councils could initially respond with “more for less”, we have now got to the point where it is “less for less.” He says that “during this progressive reduction in funding, I have not seen any evidence-based effort to reconcile funding to local needs.”
“I do not know whether Members have read his article in which he talks about social care, cuts in funding, and the NHS. He refers to a lack of “joined-up thinking”. He talks about central Government making decisions. It might be appropriate for me to read the words that he uses. He says that it is easy to allocate savings “to be made by those operating outside a department’s boundary or with a different mandate, without necessarily understanding their effect.” In other words, Government Departments are allocating savings for someone else to make without understanding their impact. It sounds horribly true when it is put like that. He talks about central Government being slow to adjust, often acting only when serious failure occurs.”
“The new homes bonus was not officially part of the four-year settlement, but for the smaller district councils, which had factored it into their future plans, it came as a considerable financial shock to the system to have a whole element of it removed, and it was a very difficult thing to address at short notice. I have a lot of sympathy for councillors and their officials in those small district councils who are struggling as a result of this change, as it creates the very uncertainty that the Government were trying to remove with the creation of a four-year settlement, and that is something on which we should all reflect. Let me reflect on one or two comments that have been made by Amyas Morse, the Comptroller and Auditor General.”
“In other words, the money has gone straight out the door in extra pay. It is absolutely right that it goes to low-paid workers who in most cases do a superb job—they are under great stress and strain to deliver that care, so it is absolutely right that they get more pay—but the reality is that the money raised by the precept is not even going to sustain the current level of social care, given the extra demands. Let me just mention the cut in the new homes bonus. Although I live in Sheffield, which is a unitary authority, I do reflect on the issues facing two-tier authorities. County councils, for example, are getting extra social care grant, but the money is coming from the budgets of the district councils and the cut in the new homes bonus.”
“The Government have given local authorities the right to increase the precept by 3% in the next financial year, and I welcome the fact that most have chosen to do that. There are problems with council tax—it is not the most progressive of taxes and we could make some reforms to improve it—but in the end, local authorities, faced with the prospect of not having enough money to pay for their elderly people, have explained to their council tax payers why an increase is necessary, and have then taken the difficult decision to do it. That is absolutely right, and they should be congratulated on that. Nevertheless, the £543 million that the LGA estimates is going to be raised by the precept will just about cover the cost of the increase to the minimum wage, or the national living wage, as the Government call it.”
“Absolutely. The system in Germany may not be one that we could immediately transfer over here, but the people there said to us that 20 years ago they sat down and dealt with this on a cross-party basis and got cross-party agreement. They are now having to put up their contribution rates, but they are doing so with cross-party agreement and with general public support because they have in place a system that is standing the test of time. That is an example of how to do it. Even if we end up coming up with a slightly different solution, we should at least look at the method they used to reach that agreement so that we can put in place a system that stands the test of time. The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right on that.”
“We could partly deal with it by swaps and land swaps. The Palestinian Authority does not rule out land swaps as part of eventual settlement, but the more settlements that are built, the harder an eventual peace agreement will be to formulate. That is the reality.”
“Nevertheless, while the settlements are there—certainly while they continue to be built—we are not going to get a peace agreement. That is the reality. The Israelis say they want talks to begin without preconditions, but they do not. They want the precondition that they can carry on building settlements while negotiations take place. That is absolutely fundamental. For the Israelis to say that they will stop building the settlements and negotiate while no settlements are being built would be an important step forward. The problem with the settlements being a barrier—this point has just been made—is that they fragment the land that Palestine will form as a state. It is impossible to form a geographical entity of the state while there are settlements dotted around it. That is the problem.”
“I would like to draw the attention of the House to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. Last year, I went to the west bank. My visit was paid for by Fatah UK and organised by Travel2Palestine. It is clear that the settlements are in breach of international law. The International Court of Justice and the UN resolution in December last year found that to be the case. There should not be any argument about that; we should just accept that the settlements are illegal and work from there. The hon. Member for Kettering (Mr Hollobone) is absolutely right. The motion before us is about the settlements and we should concentrate on that. That is what we are discussing today. No one is saying that they are the only barrier to peace, but they are a barrier. Removing the settlements would not create a peaceful agreement.”
“Go to the checkpoints and see the hatred that is formed between young Palestinians held up at gunpoint and strip-searched in the street, and the young Israeli soldiers who are the same age. The whole process brutalises both sides and sows the seeds of hatred for years to come. Look at the racism. I am sorry, but it is racism when, because of their race, people are treated differently on whether they can build on a piece of land, get through a checkpoint easily or have to go to a different checkpoint, or, most fundamentally, have access to water. Israeli settlements have access to water seven days a week in the summer. Palestinians have to put water tanks on their roof, because they do not have the same access. What could be more discriminatory than that? The Government supported the UN resolution in December.”
“Absolutely. There cannot be a peace agreement when one side does not recognise international law. That goes without saying. The impact of the settlements on the economy of Palestine has to be understood. Palestinian people describe their journeys to work, a distance of 6 or 7 miles, as taking two or three hours because of the checkpoints that exist by and large to protect the settlements and Israeli interests. That is the reality of everyday life for Palestinian citizens and it damages the economy. The mayor of Hebron explains that the city wants and needs to expand. It cannot expand because the area outside Hebron is in area C, which is controlled by the Israelis, who do not allow the Palestinians to build there. Hebron is constrained. It cannot expand and that destroys its economic base. There is hate and division.”
“The hon. Gentleman is making a really important point. This is not just about who sits on which boards, but where the money is and the power that it exercises. Does he think there is room for a further look at the whole issue of the power and money of the Premier League, and what governance changes could be brought in to get more control over it for the good of the game as a whole?”
“The FA is taking really good initiatives such as those, despite all the problems, but there has been too much delay in regard to its governance. In Greg Clarke, we have someone who wants to see reform and we ought to back him now. However, we must make it clear that if the FA and other footballing bodies do not back him, we will ask the Government to act instead.”
“It needs to do more on homophobia, but it has started to do so. Mr Speaker, you hosted a reception at which Graeme Le Saux spoke about what the FA was doing to tackle homophobia. It is also starting to address the issue of black and minority ethnic coaches, and the English Football league has taken important initiatives in that regard as well. We want the Premier League to do more. In Sheffield, we run the largest junior football league in Europe, under the banner of the Sheffield and Hallamshire County Football Association. The FA is now pioneering the Parklife project, which has two schemes in Sheffield, one of which is in my constituency at the Isobel Bowler sports ground. Spades are now in the ground and the scheme will be up and running in a few months’ time.”
“It is a magnificent global brand and it has done some good things, including introducing the £30 maximum charge for away fans, but in the end, we still have a situation in which an ordinary premier league player can earn more in two months than Sheffield City Council spends on its junior football pitches in a whole year. There is something wrong with that; it shows that the balance of money in the game is all wrong. A reformed board has to be able to divert more money into grassroots football and address the cliff edge between the premier league and the English Football League. Also, we should not belittle everything that the FA does. It has done some great things. For example, it has done really well on the women’s game at local and professional levels, and it has tackled racism.”
“The suggestion about having a fans’ representative on the board should be taken seriously. The problem with the FA board, of course, is that it does not really run football as a whole. There is so much power because of the money coming from the Premier League, and the professional game board still has powers that have been taken away from the FA board as a whole. If we are going to have a reformed FA board, it has to be responsible for the whole of football. It has to be the governing body for every aspect of the game. That is something that we absolutely want to see. I do not want to belittle the Premier League.”
“I should like to put on record, as chair of the all-party groups on football and on football clubs, the fact that both groups get administrative support from the Football Association. Back in 2005, we had the Burns report, and I met Lord Burns shortly after the report was published and had discussions with him. Over the years, I have also talked about these matters to my colleague, Richard Caborn, because the report was commissioned jointly by the Government and the Football Association. The tragedy is that it has taken an awfully long time to do very little over the years. The FA council is virtually unreformed since Lord Burns talked about it. Some progress has been made with the FA board, which now has an independent chair and two independent members, but more needs to be done.”
“I welcome the Government’s recognition that the housing need in this country cannot be met by building homes for sale alone, and that we also need homes that people can afford to rent. May I therefore seek two points of clarification? In the case of schemes that receive public money, will the Homes and Communities Agency, councils and housing associations be allowed to negotiate the right tenure mix for each scheme, including through funding being made available for social housing where that is appropriate? Secondly, on section 106 agreements, will councils now be free to negotiate with developers the right types of affordable housing in each scheme, and will the requirement to give preference to starter homes be dropped?”