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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“The capital challenges on the northern estate and the restoration and renewal project are absolutely massive, and they will be a major focal point for the next Parliament. It is right that we should consider how we can improve not only our day-to-day working but our scrutiny of the Executive, which is an important role for Parliament. I therefore welcome the budget that has been made available for Select Committees when they can show that extra expenditure in a particular area would enable them to do a better job—whether by commissioning extra research or whatever—of holding the Executive to account. That is another small improvement that we are embarking on in the next Parliament, and I welcome it. I am delighted to associate myself with the motion on the Order Paper, and I am sure that it will go through unanimously.”
“I understand that discussions are now taking place and that there is a possibility that they might well be brought in house. That is certainly what they want; they make no secret of that. It would give them the certainty and security to enable them to carry on giving us that excellent service. My thanks are widened to include all the staff who work for us. They enable us to act as a Parliament in an efficient and effective way, as well as opening up the building to visitors. We have done reasonably well during this Parliament, but there will be major challenges in the next one. We have decided on a budget that simply keeps pace with inflation, but we are looking for continuous improvement.”
“I shall have a special word with our referee, Dermot Gallagher, to ensure that all our activities are conducted properly, and I shall pass on the right hon. Gentleman’s concerns. Perhaps he would like to come and increase the crowd numbers on that occasion? He would certainly be most welcome; his arrival would probably double the number standing on the touchline. My hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) has mentioned our security staff. They have experienced a lot of concerns in recent years, not least the uncertainty over their future employment. I am talking not about the police but about the other security staff here. They were unsure whether they were going to be outsourced, whether they were going to stay with the Met or whether they were going to be brought in house. They do an excellent job for us.”
“There is a chronic shortage of social housing in this country, not least in my constituency. Despite that and despite the cuts in the grants for building affordable homes, will the Minister confirm that £800 million of grants have not been bid for and are sitting, unused, in the coffers of the Homes and Communities Agency? Does he blame the providers for not putting in bids because they do not see the need for social housing, or does he blame Government policy, under which the amount of grant per unit has been cut to such a low level that providers no longer feel able to bid for the money?”
“Are there not serious questions to be asked about the role of the external auditors in this regard and about their value for money, or lack of it, in carrying out this work?”
“I welcome the actions and proposed actions of the Secretary of State and his comments about the general good conduct of local government and local councillors throughout the country. He referred to audit arrangements. There have been some changes, but there is nothing in them that means that throughout this period the auditor in Tower Hamlets did not have the ability and powers properly to audit these accounts. However, in December 2012 the overview and scrutiny committee, despite being quite weak in many respects, highlighted concerns about the grant process and asked for a referral to the district auditor. Despite that, the external auditor, KPMG, signed off these accounts without qualification for 2012-13, as it did for 2011-12.”
“I thank the Minister for that reply because, as she is aware, that is precisely the timetable. The trams are supposed to start running early in 2016. As I understand it, Network Rail’s timetable is now slipping substantially, and there are concerns that it might slip by as much as a year. In response to those concerns, Baroness Kramer has simply promised extra scrutiny and that officials would impress the importance of the project on Network Rail. Will the Minister now get a grip of Network Rail so that it gets a grip of this project and gives an absolute assurance that the trams will start to run early in 2016, as planned?”
“I do not know whether the Deputy Prime Minister has had a chance to look at the Select Committee on Communities and Local Government report “Devolution in England: the case for local government”. It argues that devolution should happen in England, that it should be based on local government and that initially it should happen in the major cities and the city regions, including Sheffield. Crucially, it argues that devolution has to involve tax-raising powers as well as spending powers. Does he personally agree with that way forward?”
“I thank the Leader of the House for giving way. He said that devolution within the United Kingdom would not be symmetrical, but asymmetrical. Is it not true that it is likely that devolution within England will be asymmetrical as well? It might well be that powers are given to the Mayor of London or the combined authority in Greater Manchester that will not be provided to all local authorities up and down England. Therefore, should MPs in London and Greater Manchester be prevented from voting in this House on matters that are devolved to their local authorities?”
“I have listened very carefully to the words that the hon. and learned Gentleman has used. He talked about “devolution” in England. Frankly, for my constituents in Sheffield it is not devolution if all that changes down here is that English MPs in this Chamber vote on English matters instead of UK Members voting on English matters. That is not devolution as far as Sheffield is concerned.”
“Q5. Last Thursday, I attended a public meeting at Beighton in my constituency, at which the doctors in the Beighton and Sothall practice were consulting their patients on how to deal with a budgetary cut of 22% to 24% by 2018. They have been officially notified of that cut by NHS England. Will the Leader of the House confirm that, if the Conservatives are in power after the general election, these are the cuts that my constituents can expect?”
“In its current inquiry into the national planning policy framework, the Communities and Local Government Committee has had dozens of complaints from local residents about local councils having to find more greenfield sites to build on because brownfield sites cannot be included in their local plans as they are deemed not to be viable. At the same time, more and more applications are being considered under the presumption in favour of sustainable developments and are being approved for building on greenfield sites. Given that the vast majority of those complaints come from the constituencies of Government Members, what is the Minister going to do to address them?”
“T4. Last week, in a statement on child exploitation in Rotherham, the Home Secretary said that the Secretary of State was “minded” to commission an independent investigation of what had happened there. Will the Secretary of State update the House on his thinking, and tell us whether it would be within the remit of those conducting such an investigation to look into the accountability of officers who work for Rotherham now or have done so in the past, and their responsibility for anything that happens in this regard?”
“Order. Before I call Marcus Jones, I thank him for the indication that he may have to leave this debate for PPS duties in the Chamber if the next debate there starts before we finish here.”
“Order. I say to the right hon. Member for Wokingham (Mr Redwood) that it is slightly unconventional to come into the Chamber halfway through the debate; as he is aware, other people have spoken and a debate is normally about exchanging views and listening to other people. On this occasion, however, we have plenty of time and I will still call him.”
“Ministers must be the only people who believe that the green deal has been a great success for either householders or small businesses—small businesses that are suffering cash-flow problems because of the Department’s delays in paying for vouchers; small businesses that lost out because they sold customers green deal assessments that could not be completed before the scheme was cancelled; small businesses being offered vouchers on the black market for up to £1,000 for solid wall insulation. When will the Government sort out the problems that they have created for small businesses?”
“The Home Secretary may be interested to know that the chief executive and the executive director of children’s services in Rotherham are coming before the Communities and Local Government Committee next week. It is right that officers as well as politicians in Rotherham are held accountable for what happened. Professor Jay specifically mentioned in her report several independent investigations and inspections of Rotherham children’s services over the years, a number of which were carried out by Ofsted. Virtually all of them offered general reassurance about what was happening in children’s services, and prior to 2009 talked about improvements. How can we be certain that Ofsted has the skills and abilities to conduct a much better inspection next time?”
“On the six-month period, I understand that Opposition Front Benchers have accepted the Government’s argument that the Bill will do no more than clarify the previous situation and will not extend the Government’s powers in any way. If we pass the legislation and subsequently have doubts about whether powers have been extended, will it be possible for the six-month review to look at the legislation, or are we stuck with it once we have it? What are Opposition Front Benchers trying to achieve?”
“The key issue is that the Home Secretary says this Bill does not extend powers beyond existing legislation, but I understand there is some doubt whether the Bill impacts differently from the current legislation on web-based e-mails. With regard to further scrutiny of these measures, as we have only limited time to discuss the Bill now, if we pass it and it subsequently becomes apparent that there are doubts whether it extends the powers of Government, what is the Home Secretary’s position? How can she come back to this House to get matters reassessed in that situation? That is a real concern for my constituents. If it is subsequently proved that powers are extended—despite her current assurances, which I accept—there must be some mechanism for dealing with that.”
“If the commissioner finds in the six-monthly review that there are concerns that the legislation is going beyond the current position, is there a mechanism for that to be reported back to this House for further discussion and action?”
“I have just done a quick tot-up of those who wish to speak. We have about 50 minutes before the Front-Bench spokesmen come in. So, just as a guide, that means about six minutes each for the eight Members who are standing. Can we take account of that, please? I will not impose a time limit at this stage, but I have given clear guidance to ensure that everyone can get in and have their say.”
“Let me ask the question in a different way. The Minister’s predecessor said that the Government’s target was to build more homes than were being built before the recession—not in 2010, but before the recession. Will the Minister explain in which year of this Parliament the Government have achieved that target?”
“Does the figure that the Minister has just given apply to the number of homes that will be in the Help to Buy scheme, or the number of extra homes that will be built as a result of it? The two figures are very different.”
“The planning inspector could come in at the last minute and say that they have got them wrong and that they should go back and start counting again. Although I am not generally in favour of heavy-handed centralism, should there not be a bit more guidance at the beginning of the process so that local authorities are clear about the numbers they are trying to address, and their local plans are not held up at the last stages? I hope that those are helpful points that will help to move this matter forward. We must all face up to the fact that over the past 30 years we have had a collective failure to build sufficient homes in this country. If we are to address that collective failure, we need some collective agreement across the House about how we will proceed to build those homes over the next 20 or 30 years.”
“There are a number of other issues that the Minister will look at in due course; perhaps he will do it when he appears before the Committee. Let us return to the viability of brownfield sites. Is that an issue that needs to be addressed? It is stopping some local plans being put in place, as authorities are being forced to go back and relook at greenfield sites. What about the duty to co-operate? Those authorities are trying to co-operate, but cannot get a local plan in place because their neighbours will not co-operate with them. How do we deal with that challenge? Finally, one issue that has come up time and again is the assessment of housing need. Many authorities are unclear about how they should do their sums.”
“We face that challenge if we are to get brownfield development going. We must also be honest with people. Even if we build on all the available brownfield sites, we will still have to build on some greenfield sites in this country. We must be honest about that and face up to it. Then we come on to the further challenge: how do we sign up local communities? The principle of the NPPF is to support sustainable development, which is consistent with the local plan, so putting in place local plans is absolutely vital. There may be some authorities that are dragging their feet, but there are some that are genuinely struggling to get local plans in place. That is what we are finding in our inquiry, and we will produce our findings on that in due course.”
“We may be slightly less harsh on him than some of his own colleagues were this morning in the Westminster Hall debate, which I chaired. If we have a brownfield-first policy, we will have to deal with the question why the proportion of houses built on brownfield sites appears to be declining. It is difficult to know because the figures are available only up to 2011. There is a gap in the figures, which is not helpful. Perhaps there has been decline because of the problem of paragraph 47 of the NPPF and developers claiming that brownfield sites are not viable. Perhaps it is because we have lost the grants that the regional development agencies used to put in to deal with contamination and other problems on brownfield sites that made them easier to develop. Perhaps it is a bit of both.”
“It is not what anyone wants to hear, but it is about true localism and recognising that there are particular circumstances and particular housing markets where the problems are so difficult that that is what we may have to do. That, again, is something that the Select Committee report addressed and the Government dismissed. It is a factor if we are to deal with the acute crisis faced by many people who cannot afford to buy and cannot afford to rent in the private sector. There are two other issues that I shall address. If we are to build sufficient homes, we all want to see a brownfield-first policy. The Select Committee is conducting an inquiry into the national planning policy framework and we look forward to the Minister coming before us.”
“It is uncomfortable at a time of stringency and constraint, but that is a reality and we all have to address it. Another uncomfortable issue is the right to buy. The Government’s policy envisages a one-for-one replacement. In many parts of the country, such as my constituency, there is no point selling a family home and offering to replace it with a one-bedroom flat. The demand is for family homes. Like-for-like replacement is what is needed, and even that is not sufficient in some areas. If there is an acute shortage of social housing in particular localities, or there is not the land to replace homes that are sold, we may have to give local authorities the powers to restrict the right to buy. Again, that is uncomfortable.”
“There are people who not only cannot afford to buy, but cannot afford market rents, so we need a social house building programme as part of the total number. Let me be clear to Front Benchers on both sides of the House. I support the campaigns of the Local Government Association and of the National Federation of ALMOs to lift the borrowing cap on local authorities. That could build us at least 60,000 new homes, but that does not go far enough. In this Parliament we have had a 60% cut in the funding for social housing. Some, if not all, of it will have to be restored if we are to build sufficient social homes in the future. Whether we are talking about local authority homes—council homes—or housing association homes, we will not get them built without more public money being put in. That is a fact of life.”
“If we are to get that long-term buy-in to building sufficient homes, it has to be through all-party agreement, because the construction industry cannot be turned on and off like a tap. Another challenge is to train and keep construction workers to deliver the homes we need. As the Select Committee report in 2012 said, there is no single silver bullet—we need a range of different measures to provide a range of different homes. We need the volume house builders to build more, of course. That is a challenge for them as well as for the Government. But we also need other forms of building, including building houses for social rent. We cannot simply build houses at 80% of market rent to help everyone in this country.”
“We need to build 250,000 new homes every year, probably for the next 20 or 30 years, if we are to address the housing crisis properly. That is the scale of the challenge that faces us collectively. In order to do that over that period, we probably need buy-in to such an approach from all political parties. That is a further challenge. I admitted in the Queen’s Speech debate that the Government whom I supported for 13 years did not build enough homes. The problem is that the present Government are building even fewer. On average, year by year, fewer homes are being built under this Government than were built under the previous Government. That is a fact, however the Minister tries to dress up the figures.”
“I have highlighted one or two areas where we have a slight difference of emphasis from the Government, and where we need a bit more clarification, as on the policy on EU directives. Essentially, procurement is a matter for a localist approach; it is about identifying best practice in local government and getting all local authorities to implement it, following the example of others. I very much look forward to going to the LGA conference next week and hearing from its members at the national procurement strategy launch, where I will be speaking. I also look forward to working with the LGA on developing many of the ideas the Committee recommended in its report.”
“I’m going to tell.” It is therefore important to have methods of enabling anonymous reporting. We said that councils should insist on a requirement in contracts that where whistleblowing is identified and information is made available to the contractor, the contractor must pass that information on to the council. In that way, the information will be available to the council, not just the contractor, who may cover it up because something is going wrong in their organisation. We await the Government’s proposals on strengthening the whistleblowing framework, but we welcome their approach; again, we are moving in the same direction. To summarise, Mr Amess—sorry, Mr Bayley; welcome to you—there is general agreement on the way forward.”
“It is a bit of a worry that private companies sometimes hide behind commercial confidentiality, saying, “We can’t let you know what’s going on because this is our information, not yours.” If they are being paid public money for delivering a service or providing goods, there is a public interest. Some councils are looking at extending the freedom of information provisions to contracts that they let. We concluded that that was for councils to decide on, but transparency is important. If there is corruption, it is likely that it will not be revealed by highly paid auditors searching through books. They will sometimes find evidence of fraud, but it is more likely to be found as a result of whistleblowing by people who see at first hand what is going on, and who say, “This is not right.”
“Clearly, there are examples, but nothing like those the Government have been grappling with in the Ministry of Justice recently involving contracts for monitoring prisoners and so on. We found very little fraud, but that does not mean that the Government should be complacent. We believe that there should be a proactive approach, particularly on transparency. Making information available to the public and councils is one of the best ways of ensuring that fraud does not happen. We welcome the fact that the LGA will produce guidance to councils, so that when they write contracts, they ensure that they have a right to data created under those contracts.”
“There is concern that social care contracts are outsourced not to improve the quality of service, but because the cost of paying the workers will be reduced. There are real issues about the future cost of social care. The Committee did not go into that, but raised it as an issue of concern. It is a challenge across the party spectrum to look into the future, when more people will require care, the population will get older, and we will encourage and help people to remain in their homes, instead of spending nights in hospital when they need not be there. There are challenges in how that social care is delivered, in paying the people who provide that care, in training and in other costs. We did not find much evidence of fraud in local government. We asked for information and evidence.”
“We did not come to the view that they had to do one thing or another, but they should at least consider issues such as the operation of zero-hours contracts. The Government have promised proposals, and we welcome that and look forward to seeing what they suggest. We discussed the living wage. Some councils insist not merely on paying the living wage, but that their contractors do so. When the Committee went to Sheffield, we saw some excellent procurement practices. The council was very honest with us, and said that it writes into contracts for construction and many other council services a requirement for contractors to pay the living wage. The one area where they are unable to do that is social care.”
“That is not so, and contracts should recognise that as far as the public are concerned, the service is a council one delivered in a different way. There must be a clear line of accountability when things go wrong, and the public must be clear about whom they complain to when that happens, and how their complaints will be dealt with. The same applies to employment. When services are outsourced, the council does not directly employ the workers, but it nevertheless has a responsibility. It puts the contract out and decides which contractor does the job. TUPE arrangements are in place when staff are transferred as part of the outsourcing, but we felt in general terms that there is a responsibility on councils.”
“There is general agreement on that. The Committee made it clear that outsourcing—changing the organisation that delivers a service—does not absolve the council of responsibility for delivering that service. As far as the public are concerned, it is a council service being provided by a different organisation, and they expect their councillors, whom they elect, to be accountable and responsible. Sometimes, it is not always clear in the contract and when the service is delivered how that accountability goes back to the council. That calls into question the front-line councillors who represent their constituents. If something goes wrong, how is that dealt with? Does the council simply say, “Well, that’s the contractor’s responsibility; it’s nothing to do with us any more”?”
“In addition, the local authority does not have to do quite as much work analysing lots of tenders that will not be successful. We welcome the LGA’s response, and thought the Government were perhaps not quite up to the game on that and should think about it again. There was a lot of agreement on the requirement to pay subcontractors on time. There has been a lot of pressure on local authorities to pay their contracts on time, and the evidence shows that they are generally pretty good at that. The problem is further down the chain. Small companies are probably most affected by cash-flow issues, and may be put out of business if a contractor does not pay them. We welcome the Government’s proposals to legislate in this area, which are positive; the Committee may return to scrutinise the legislation when we see it.”
“We received a lot of evidence about pre-qualification questionnaires, and we heard that for every tender, different authorities, or parts of the public sector, seem to devise different questionnaires. Businesses, particularly small businesses, are upset about that and about the cost. The Committee’s view was slightly different from that of the Government, and the LGA sided with us on this. We still think that pre-qualification questionnaires are useful in virtually every respect, because without them, even for fairly small contracts, it is open to anyone to put in a bid, and far too many firms end up wasting time and effort trying to bid for a contract. There may be dozens of firms tendering. If there is a questionnaire, at least the number can be thinned out and a reasonable number of tenders made, giving firms a reasonable chance.”
“The Government’s aspiration is to have 25% of their contracts with SMEs. Local government already has 47% of its contracts with SMEs. Central Government will probably never get anywhere near that, so full marks to local government, which is ahead of the game again. We should congratulate it on that. On the cost of procurement, there were quite a lot of complaints about EU rules and regulations, and suggestions that we sometimes over-apply them. We thought it was desirable to have a proportionate approach to the application of EU rules. We would like a clearer definition from the Minister of what the Government believe a proportionate approach might be. If he cannot give that today, it would be helpful if he would write to the Committee.”
“Sometimes, forcing collaboration could lead to extra bureaucracy and delay, but with a simple purchase of a fairly standardised product, such as energy, councils can gain a lot by collaborating and ensuring that they have market power and influence. Provided it is done in a considered way, collaboration can certainly produce benefits. Cost is important, but there are other issues to be considered, such as the impact on local companies, whether small and medium-sized enterprises really have access to the tenders, and whether tenders can be split up to allow more access by smaller companies. That is important for small businesses and for apprentices. It is not simply the council that should employ apprentices; the private sector can also do that, and it could be encouraged or be required to do so as part of a tender.”
“A simple proposal that we made—I do not think it has been made elsewhere—which the LGA endorsed, is that every year the whole council should provide an annual report on its procurement strategy, setting out what it is trying to achieve, rather than thinking of things after contracts have been let. [Hugh Bayley in the Chair ] Turning to the specific proposals, we argued strongly that a centralised approach should not be imposed, but we estimated that willing and voluntary collaboration by councils could deliver about £1.8 billion. I do not want to be held to every £100,000 of that, but it is a reasonable ballpark estimate of what might be achieved. We recognise that collaboration will sometimes not be appropriate, and that councils sometimes have specific local issues and intentions when making purchases.”
“Procurement is not only about getting tenders in and selecting the lowest price, the one with the best quality or a mixture of the two, but about seeing whether what is promised is delivered. That is crucial and involves not only procurement officers, but other council officials, councillors and members of the public. The third overarching message is political leadership. We welcome the fact that some authorities have appointed a cabinet member to be responsible for procurement, and that some involved front-line councillors in monitoring what happens when a contract is let.”
“Getting what we want delivered, how we want it delivered, right from the start is important. In councils, that involves councillors who are responsible for service delivery, as well as experts in procurement. Procurement is not just about cost. Cost is vital, particularly at the moment, but other issues must be looked at as well: the effect on local businesses, environmental issues, the possibility of getting training for apprentices as part of any procurement arrangements —they are all important, and need to be thought about by councils when procuring. There is no point complaining afterwards that no local businesses got any tenders, if the response is that perhaps the way that councils designed the contracts excluded those businesses. The delivery of services must be monitored.”
“The Cabinet Office, the DCLG, the LGA and local government can work together on this, as well as with business, listening to what it has to say about procurement and the ease with which it can engage with the process. There is also the third sector; we must not forget that a good percentage of local authority services are delivered not only by private businesses, but by the third sector. The second overarching message is that procurement is not only a job for specialists. There is the idea that some expert procurement officer in a local authority can be given a problem, if there is one, to sort out. First, however, we have to ensure that what we are procuring will result in the service that we want to see delivered. Procurement is simply another way of delivering a service to the residents of an area.”
“Returning to the localist theme, we were strongly of the view that the problem would not be solved by the imposition of centralised purchasing, or by the Department for Communities and Local Government coming up with new regulations to compel local authorities to behave in a certain way. This is about encouraging the local authority sector, with the LGA in a key role, to look at best performance and to replicate it in many more circumstances. Three overarching messages come out of the report. First, we welcome the LGA and local government in general taking a lead on procurement. It is for local government to sort out, but of course in partnership with central Government.”
“Indeed, 25% of local authority expenditure is involved in procuring goods and services from outside local government. In our inquiry, we found some really good examples of councils moving ahead and developing good or excellent practice, which in some instances central Government might learn from. We clearly identified that many councils are doing the right thing and getting better all the time at procurement, although some councils have not moved forward at all. Patchy performance was highlighted by our inquiry, and the obvious requirement is for those councils that have not addressed the issue seriously, or are not performing well, to get up to the standard of the authorities where there is first-class procurement. In that way, an awful lot could be achieved, an awful lot of money saved and better value delivered.”