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.”
The complete record
Every one of 4,726 lines we hold for Mr Clive Betts, in date order, each linked to its source. Free to read, in full, without an account. Page 70 of 95.
“He basically said, “It doesn’t matter what the Minister says, I am in charge of this”, and I am sure that the Minister does not want to argue with Lord Heseltine on such points.”
“Now when they come to visit, I walk down the street with pride because of what has been done.” That is an awfully good testament to what happened. We ought to learn lessons from the failures. I am trying not to be party political, and the single regeneration budget had some successes but, very often, it was spread too thinly around the place, to give everyone a little bit but without achieving any long-term benefits. Let us learn from the problems of the past as well as from the successes achieved—that is a bit of common ground with the Minister at least. The regional growth fund was proposed as a possible solution, but Lord Heseltine has told the Committee, absolutely bluntly, “This is not about improvements for housing. There is no money here for those sorts of initiatives.” He told us that, in words of one syllable.”
“It is easy to get a few pounds and even a few stones off at first, but it gets harder and harder. You have got to keep working at it. If you don’t keep going at it for the long term, you clap the weight back on and all the hard work of the previous time has been lost.” That is a real worry now in some housing market renewal areas—that the investment has gone in but stopped halfway, so some of the benefits will be lost. That lady’s comments always stuck in my mind. She was so enthusiastic about her area because it had been about improvements to the school and to employment opportunities. I remember she said, “I used to be ashamed to bring visitors. In fact, I used to pretend that I didn’t live here.”
“Lessons were learnt from initial failures, but it was a 20-year programme with the public and private sectors working together; it was about not only buildings but skills, employment opportunities and the general environment of the area. It was also a lot about demolition of some really bad properties, and their replacement with new, attractive properties in the private as well as the public sector, as we saw on our visit. The issue of the long term is so important. The hon. Gentleman is right that we can have long-term projects that still go wrong, but if we do not do things for the long term we will not get some areas right at all. There was a lady in the community centre in Rochdale who said to us—she had not been briefed and she put it in her own way—“It is a bit like going on a weight-loss course.”
“The hon. Gentleman makes an interesting point. It has been said, in particular about helping with skills and improving people’s availability for employment, that what happened was that people in Newham who got that help then moved to other areas. There are clearly challenges to making regeneration successful. One of the criticisms we made in the Select Committee report was about learning lessons from the past. We should look at where money has been spent—the hon. Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman) was keen on that in the Committee—and at what was got right and wrong. We took evidence from Lord Heseltine and went to Hulme to look at the city challenge area which, in everyone’s view, was a success. It was, however, a 20-year project and, to begin with, did not go well.”
“Some schemes will affect HMR areas but, in terms of pure concentration on regeneration issues, Lord Heseltine was quite clear to us that the focus of his scheme was about jobs and not about improving homes in any shape or form.”
“If nine out of 10 houses are not occupied and we still have to deal with the one that is, the only logical conclusion is to demolish, and to create the area for future regeneration. Of course that is the logic. The Government should be supported in doing that and in working with councils on the problem—I certainly do so.”
“The challenge is ensuring that the funding is used and that it is used as constructively as possible in regeneration areas. We also very much welcome the extra transitional funding of £35 million that the Government found. That was helpful, because of the despair in some of those areas, where only one in 10 houses are lived in and people are struggling in desperate circumstances. To have the funding simply cut off was a real blow, so it was good to have a bit of money put back in the five worst areas, with matched funding from councils, to help people in such conditions. I am sorry about comments in the press in the past few days from some people, who do not live in those areas, complaining that the Government are funding demolition. Of course they are.”
“We certainly welcomed tax increment financing and local enterprise partnerships, but we wanted to be sure that LEPs were aware of the need to link into regeneration areas. If LEPs are creating jobs, how can they then help to benefit people in some of the poorest communities? That is a positive point. TIFs of themselves are not aimed in particular at regeneration schemes, but they can of course create projects that benefit people in regeneration areas, although how that funding can then be properly linked is a challenge. We were pleased by the Government commitment on the European regional development fund and their intention to spend all the ERDF budget. Indeed, the Committee will do a further report on that. That has potential for the gap funding to which I referred.”
“Most of the people that I have spoken to simply hope that some budget is available—that is our criticism about identifying what budgets were available. We had the Growing Places fund which seemed to be mainly about benefiting places that are growing, rather than places of market failure. I will make one aside, which is probably party political. Yes, of course there are reductions in public expenditure, but is it really fair to have a 19% overall cut in public expenditure in the current spending round, a 28% cut in local authority grants, a 50% cut in funding for social housing investment and a 100% cut in regeneration funding through the HMR scheme all at once? That is to put the situation in stark terms. Let me continue, however, by saying that the Select Committee recognised some really positive developments.”
“Hopefully, more powers will go down to the local level. If cities choose working together to target resources in particular ways to stimulate and to help regeneration, they will be free to do so. Those are a welcome response to the report and the issues we identified. To conclude, we are dealing with some of the poorest areas in the country—yes, some in the south, as well as in the north and the midlands. Such areas have already had years of decay and decline. If there is no recognition of that, no intervention and no public money made available, those areas will simply get worse, more areas will fall into similar decline and the cost of putting the problems right in the long term will be even greater. In the meantime, the cost in human misery will be substantial.”
“That is a worry and it is why intervention by public bodies, whether Government or local authority, is necessary. I am sure that Merseyside will be in there fighting its corner. We paid a visit to Greater Manchester and had an interesting briefing, not merely from the local authorities, cross-party and working together, as they do, on a strategic partnership basis, but from the private sector as well, arguing the case for the infrastructure and skills budgets for the city region to be brought together under local control. The Government have responded positively through the community budget “whole place” initiative, and the revolving infrastructure fund for the Greater Manchester area is another positive step forward. The city deals that the Government are trying to reach are also to be welcomed.”
“I hope that the Minister did not misunderstand the Committee’s comments. No one was denying the benefits of the schemes in the Government’s report, but he says that because a scheme such as HS2 will benefit areas that require regeneration, along with the rest of the country in terms of economic growth, it should therefore be counted as regeneration funding. That is in absence of a strategy for how that stream of funding will connect with other funding and benefit the poorest areas where market failure has occurred. That is the problem with the Government’s approach.”
“I want to say how fundamentally I disagree with the Minister. I just wish that he would make the visit that I made to Merseyside and talk to people about how the programmes there were developed in consultation with and with the agreement of the local community. The problem, of course, is that before we do the rebuilding that the Minister is talking about, we have to do the demolition. The rebuilding has been stopped to a large extent because the Government have now cut off the funding. That is the reality of the situation, is it not?”
“Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman) described it. They must certainly be localist, in that a different approach must be taken in different areas, but that does not mean that the Government cannot evaluate what has worked in the past, propose ideas from other areas to communities, promote good initiatives and determine where money can best be spent. The Select Committee might well return to the topic in two or three years’ time to review what progress has been made.”
“I echo the comments made by my hon. Friend the Member for Rochdale (Simon Danczuk) about Kevin Maddison and Committee staff for the excellent work that they did in producing our report. I thank all Members for contributing. We have certainly had a lively and stimulating debate. If Select Committee reports do nothing else, they clearly generate a bit of interest and contention among Members. Clearly, we differ about the nature of the funding streams to which the Government refer and whether, simply because some regeneration areas will benefit from national schemes, that can therefore be labelled regeneration funding. It certainly does not amount to a regeneration strategy. There is still a need for area approaches, as my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham East (Heidi Alexander) called them, or a wholesale approach, as the hon.”
“T2. I apologise for raising again the issue that I raised last month without getting an answer. Two years ago the Government inherited an in-principle agreement from the previous Government for the tram train pilot scheme in Sheffield. The scheme is not about rolling out multi-billion pound expansion across the country at this stage. A simple pilot could determine whether what works in other countries works here. When will we have a starting date?”
“I thank the Minister personally for the way in which he has dealt with the Communities and Local Government Committee and for what seems to be a generally favourable response to our report, although we are still to see the detail. I have two specific issues to raise. Will he confirm whether the proposal that the “default answer to development proposals is ‘yes’” is in the final document? If the “significantly and demonstrably” test remains in the document and an application for development meets that test but fails the sustainable development test, which test has priority?”
“I am sure that the Minister agrees that if we are to avoid the prospect of many people leaving the electoral register when IER is introduced, we need a significant and robust system of data swapping. If that cannot be achieved in time for the date when the Government plan to introduce IER, will the Minister delay that date or run the risk of millions of people falling off the electoral register?”
“I am sure that the Minister will be aware that his proposals on council tax benefits potentially affect Stretford and Urmston and other constituencies up and down the country. The Minister is aware that Capita wrote to local authorities on 12 January, saying it had real concerns about its ability to deliver IT systems in time to meet the changes proposed for April next year. Is the Minister not aware that authorities could end up with a real risk of system failure, affecting tens of thousands of low-income families? Is not the real answer to delay these measures for at least 12 months?”
“Perhaps the Secretary of State will agree that one of the best ways to improve efficiency on the railways is to make better use of under-used track? One of the best ways to do that in urban areas is to develop tram trains, which has been done successfully in other countries while we are still considering the possible introduction of a pilot. Can she say when the pilot for the tram train in South Yorkshire is due to start?”
“I congratulate my hon. Friend on obtaining the debate, and I hope that the Minister is listening to this part of it, as well as the part to which he responded earlier. The key issue seems to be that in the past we have received greater efficiency savings from the mets; and we have had bigger cuts in the first two years of the current spending review. The important thing now is to make sure that we do not get bigger cuts in the next two years. That preventive work must continue. There are high-risk steelworks in my constituency, as well as the deprivation that my hon. Friend has discussed. We cannot have a reduction in the number of fire engines and stations that cover those important responsibilities.”
“May I associate myself with the Prime Minister’s comments about our brave troops and the brave journalists who report their activities? The Prime Minister has said that one of his main priorities is to fight crime. Will he explain, therefore, why since the election there has been a cut of more than 4,000 in the number of front-line police officers? The South Yorkshire police helicopter, which last year was responsible for apprehending more than 700 criminals, will be scrapped by the Policing Minister against the advice of the chief constable. How can the Prime Minister explain these matters? They clearly indicate to the public that crime will rise. This is simply another broken promise from this Prime Minister.”
“(Sheffield South East): Let us get this absolutely right. Despite his justifications about the details, the Minister seems to be saying that, in the end, the authorities with the greatest needs tend to be those with the greatest amount of Government grant; that the biggest amount of their spending therefore comes from the grant; and that those authorities will therefore have the biggest cuts to their spending power. Is that what he is saying to us?”
“Is it not incredible that this nest egg of money has been trailed before councils, which are to put in bids for a scheme we are not sure about? No prudent council would formulate next year’s budget on the basis that there might be some money at some time coming from the Secretary of State. Also, it is completely wrong of the Deputy Prime Minister to criticise Sheffield council for not taking account of this possible money before setting its budget for next year.”
“One of the problems with outsourcing that many councils find, including mine in Sheffield, is that when they have to make cuts to a contract that was agreed some years ago, the cost of changing it can be considerable, and they have less flexibility to adjust services under the new financial constraints than if they had employed people directly, in-house.”
“I was in a bit of agreement with the hon. Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman), another member of the Select Committee, until he made his final comment, when we reached the point of complete disagreement. First, the issue to which we return today is very much the issue that we debated in the House a year ago. It is about funding for local government, whereby the Government have an overall policy of cutting public expenditure by 19% but have decided that local government expenditure can be cut by 28%. That is the reality. Local government has been singled out for much larger cuts than the rest of the public services, presumably because Ministers believe that the services that local government provides are less important. That must be the reality.”
“The Minister begins to shake his head, but, if he does not believe in that, why is he prepared to support the local authority grant reductions, which are so much larger than the reductions in other Government expenditure? That is the question to which Ministers have never really addressed themselves.”
“The third point—alongside bigger cuts for local councils, and the fact that they were front-loaded and there is now uncertainty in years three and four—is the unfairness, which my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn) amply demonstrated. The Minister could not argue when I intervened on him, because in reality the councils with the greatest need receive the greatest grant, and they are seeing the biggest cuts in Government funding. That is fundamentally unfair.”
“The advantages of front-loading, as initially sold, were that at least local councils would know the score for four years, but, now that the Chancellor has to find another £150 billion of borrowing, no doubt he will return to local government to make further cuts in years three and four. Ministers have not referred to that at all so far. We will then have the cuts that will follow the changes in the Local Government Finance Bill, which is going through Parliament, and the cuts in council tax benefit funding—another uncertainty for local councils. The pretended certainty of last year is, therefore, beginning to unravel in terms of years three and four, and the one good part of the settlement—that councils knew where they were for four years—is apparently no longer the case.”
“Local government itself argued that, if in the end the cuts were going to be made over a four-year period, they should not be front-loaded, because it would mean rushed cuts with a bigger impact on front-line services than if councils had the time to do more about shared services, an issue to which I shall turn in due course. That, too, is the reality. We are also told that there has been the certainty of a two-year settlement, but local government was given to understand that there would be the certainty of a four-year settlement—an indication of the cuts over a four-year period. It appears that that is not quite the case.”
“I thank the Minister for that reply. It is certainly true that there has been a substantial loss of civil servants in the Department for Communities and Local Government, but I did not say that local government expenditure had been cut more than the overheads in the DCLG; I said that it had been cut more than the overall cut in central Government expenditure. That is the reality, and Ministers ought to be prepared to defend it if they believe that local government services are less important. Secondly, the cuts were front-loaded.”
“My hon. Friend makes a good point. I certainly would not describe that as fair, although Ministers apparently would. My constituents certainly do not understand why Sheffield city council is having to cut its budget by more than 10% while other councils have to make cuts of only a tenth of that amount—in percentage terms, let alone in respect of the relative difference per head of population.”
“Sheffield city council is making cuts of 11% in its budget this year, and that is substantially more than many councils in more affluent parts of the country are making—much bigger in percentage terms, let alone in amounts per head.”
“I agree with that point without in any way saying that Sheffield city council spends a great deal of money on pot plants; of course it does not.”
“That may be a more efficient way of delivering fire cover, but it will result in slower response times to some of the large industrial plants in Sheffield that still operate in the steel industry and other related industries. People are worried that if that happens, it could create greater risks at a time when we hope to see great Sheffield firms such as Sheffield Forgemasters continue. We would not want them to be put at greater risk by reduced fire cover. We hope that Ministers will listen to those concerns. This settlement is unfair to many councils, and those in the greatest need are receiving the biggest cuts. In total, it demonstrates that the Government value the services provided by local councils less highly than other public expenditure, and I will certainly be in the Lobby with my right hon. and hon.”
“I conclude with one further point about the fire service. The other day, we went to see the Minister with responsibility for the fire service, who is responding to this debate. He kindly agreed to meet a delegation, and I hope that he listened carefully to the fact that the cuts to the fire service grants of the metropolitan fire authorities are twice the level of those for other fire authorities in the country. Fire chiefs are saying that if the cuts continue for a third and fourth year, they will not be able to deliver appropriate fire cover in their areas. In my constituency, three fire stations are being closed and will be replaced by just two.”
“More than 550 public sector employees in Sheffield city council will lose their jobs, or posts will be held vacant, as a result of the council’s budget proposals. Fortnightly bin collections, however, are outsourced to Veolia, so it will be not public sector workers who lose their jobs but those in the private sector who are employed by that company. We cannot divorce the public and private sectors. The cuts that have necessarily been made by councils up and down the country will affect private sector employment as well as public sector employment. Orders from councils will be reduced as they will have less money to spend, and private sector companies will suffer as a result. The idea that private sector companies will grow jobs on the back of the cuts is fallacious. That is why the economy is heading for recession.”
“One or two other points have been raised. Of course we want to see the voluntary sector contribute, whether to the big society or to the delivery of better services for their communities. Again, I congratulate Sheffield council because it is cutting money to the voluntary sector by just 5% this year, compared with the 11% cut to the total council budget. The voluntary sector depends on public sector employees working with it to deliver services. All the volunteers in my constituency who take part in environmental improvement schemes rely on two council officers, with a bit of seed money to provide training and materials. That is how it works. We cannot divorce the voluntary sector from the rest of the council services. Neither can we divorce private jobs from public jobs.”
“Councils have no idea whether they will get any money, what will be the criteria for the scheme, how much money there will be in the first, second and third years, and when the money will run out, leaving them to pick up the bill. Is it not a disgrace for Ministers to trail such a scheme, and then criticise councils—just as the Deputy Prime Minister criticised Sheffield council—for moving to a fortnightly refuse collection? Ministers say that councils should instead take advantage of Government money that has not yet been announced. That is a ridiculous way to run anything. If a parish council ran its affairs in such a way, Ministers would be on their feet, proclaiming that it was inefficient and incompetent. Labour Members can therefore say that this Government are inefficient and incompetent in their handling of this issue.”
“The idea is that having abolished the vast majority of ring-fenced grants—and I support the Government’s policy on that—we should suddenly invent a new ring-fenced grant for this one issue. It is not quite a new ring-fenced grant, however, because the grant is not in place. Perhaps we may call it a new ring-fenced idea. Local authorities now have to draw up budgets and decide what to do. They must be prudent, but when considering how their services will be delivered next year, they cannot take account of money that may arrive under a scheme that has not yet been announced. How on earth do Ministers expect local authorities to respond to their view of the world regarding refuse collection if they trail a grant in advance that will perhaps no longer be in place when councils start to formulate their budgets?”
“But do not let us pretend that legal services, IT and other such services can simply be cut with no eventual impact on front-line services. If we are to make all the changes to the public estate that I mentioned, we will need legal officers in the council. Back-room services are important for the delivery of an efficient front line. Sheffield council has decided to move to fortnightly refuse collections and to improve its recycling offer. That will save £2.5 million a year, and although it cannot simply exempt those services from the savings, it will try and improve its recycling. The Secretary of State has a view—presumably shared by Ministers—that such matters are all about localism until he has a particular policy or pet project that he wants to see implemented. He believes in weekly bin collection. That is up to him.”
“Sixty pence for a bus fare may not seem a lot, but when the Youth Parliament in Sheffield did an assessment of young people’s needs two or three years ago, buses came out as top of the list of things that are important to young people, as they mean mobility, independence and not having to rely on other people to get around. Of course, we are seeing cuts in care services for the elderly. Let us congratulate councils such as Sheffield, which is cutting those services by only 5%, when 11% is coming off its total budget, and it is trying to concentrate on administration, management and back-room services. The council is trying to prioritise cuts on back-room services—15% in human resources, 14% in legal services and 26% in IT.”
“The council cannot simply click its fingers and say that a certain number of millions of pounds in savings are coming next year. The process takes time. Many of us have been trying to argue that the savings can probably come about, but that they will take time. In the meantime, front-line services are being hit. Concessionary bus fares for young people in Sheffield increased from 40p to 50p this year and will go up to 60p next year. Young people always appear to be getting the brunt of the cuts—tuition fees, the education maintenance allowance and the cuts to youth and career services. The other day, people at a school that I was visiting said that work experience has now stopped because Government funding to assist it has stopped and employers are not responding. All those things are happening to young people.”
“Cuts to services cannot just be dreamed up overnight; they are often the product of complex negotiations between councils and other public bodies to make sure that the agreements are proper and genuinely deliver savings. I have just had information about what is going on in Sheffield. Together with Government Departments and other public agencies, Sheffield city council is embarking on a look at the whole public estate—the buildings that the public sector owns or leases, and operates. With central Government Departments and agencies, the council is trying to get better value for money from the whole public estate. That programme cannot be delivered overnight. There could be very large savings if it is carried out properly, but it must be done in a considered way, with everyone working together.”
“I am sure that the Minister will provide some figures in due course. We have heard from Ministers all the ways in which councils can save money. Of course there are many ways in which that can happen without front-line services being affected; the reality is that councils have been very good at that over the years. Through the period of the Labour Government, councils were forced to find about 2% in efficiency savings, year on year. Over the past 20 years, in fact, they have generally been much better at that than central Government. Councils have a good track record. If the cuts were not so front-loaded, councils would have had more time to prepare and consider efficiency savings.”
“Furthermore, if more people take up the benefit—or reduction—there is a cost in that that also fully falls on local authorities. That is a perverse impact of the Government’s proposal.”
“I should point out that earlier today the Minister defended the imposition of an unwanted referendum for local mayors in Sheffield by his Lib Dem colleagues on the city’s council, yet he will now extol the benefits of council tax. That is a somewhat different position from the one he would have adopted only a few months ago. Although there is general support for the Government’s proposed change, there is also a problem. If one of the aspirations of renaming the council tax benefit as the council tax reduction is to encourage more people to take it up, the consequences for local government are clear. Previously if councillors had gone out on a publicity drive to improve the take-up of what is currently known as this benefit, central Government would have paid for that.”
“In the previous Parliament, the Select Committee conducted an inquiry into the council tax benefit system and suggested that it should, perhaps, be renamed precisely because the word “benefit” discouraged some people—especially those who applied for nothing else and who were not entitled to anything else—from applying for it. After all, it has one of the lowest take-ups of any benefit, particularly among pensioners. Often, they are forgoing merely £2, £3 or £4 a week, but that can be a relatively important sum for people on relatively low incomes. As I have said, I support the introduction of this reduction scheme and its both being clearly outside universal credit and being linked to council tax in such a way that people pay a reduced amount of that tax.”
“I support the amendments of my right hon. Friend the Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Mr Raynsford), and I also agree with what he said. Amendment 85 stands in my name and seeks to achieve similar ends to my right hon. Friend’s amendment 79 and consequent amendments. My amendment seeks to localise council tax on the basis that local authorities will have the same amount of money in 2013 as in 2012-13, so that we have a consistent base from which to develop and implement the new scheme. I am in favour of localising council benefits and of not incorporating the reduction scheme into the universal credit scheme. I know that there are differences of view on that even within parties, but linking council tax benefits with the term “benefit” has discouraged many people from applying for something to which they are entitled.”