Hilary Benn
MP for Leeds South · Labour · United Kingdom
“As the right hon. Gentleman knows, the Irish Government published on 8 June their legislative outline, entitled “The General Scheme of the Legacy of the Troubles Bill 2026”. That is intended to fulfil the commitment that the Irish Government gave in the joint framework to co-operate to the fullest extent possible with the commission.”
“Northern Ireland is a society, as the hon. Gentleman knows better than most, that has been undergoing profound change since the signing of the Good Friday agreement 28 years ago. As the famous lines go, we have a shared history, but not necessarily a shared memory.”
“The right hon. Gentleman raises a really important point, and I am grateful to him for his question. We all have a responsibility—political leaders have a responsibility to call out what was witnessed for what it is and not mince our words, and as I have already indicated, social media companies have a responsibility to ensure that such m…”
“I hope the hon. Lady will recognise that the common travel area, which is more than a century old, is of great benefit to the citizens of the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland. Many people in Northern Ireland live their lives across that border every single day.”
“I do agree with my hon. Friend. The attack on Mr Ogilvie was truly shocking, and there was no justification whatsoever for the racist thuggery we witnessed on the streets of Belfast in the days following.”
“That was, of course, an awful feature of what we saw. One of the things I learned in my discussions was that those from the far right had taken a list of houses in multiple occupation in Belfast—a list that, in the interests of openness, was properly available on the Belfast city council website; the council has now taken it down—and used…”
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Every one of 6,304 lines we hold for Hilary Benn, in date order, each linked to its source. Free to read, in full, without an account. Page 68 of 127.
“Members: “Why?”] Apparently it was something to do with commercial confidentiality, but are we as Members of the House not entitled to see the evidence base on which the policy is allegedly founded? Perhaps that is why, when the planning Minister was sensibly asked by the Select Committee how many of these sites were stalled because of section 106 requirements, he came over all vague. He said: “It is very difficult to say. It is quite hard to say why nothing is happening.” Let us look at what others have to say about section 106. The chief executive of the Homes and Communities Agency stated in a letter to my hon.”
“Morris) pointed out, the National Housing Federation tells us that 35,000 affordable homes are provided each year because of section 106 agreements, yet the Secretary of State failed to make the case that the lack of house building is because of the affordable housing element. Where is the evidence? This will be a familiar theme in this debate. We are told that there are 1,200 sites and 75,000 homes that are stalled. Apparently the figure comes from something called the Glenigan database. When I asked the planning Minister if he would publish it so that we could see for ourselves the information on which the statement is based, he refused to do so. So we cannot see—[Hon.”
“I can only say to my hon. Friend that I do not know whether there is any connection between the two things, but it is quite an interesting pair of clauses. What are they for? Why do Ministers apparently want to make it easier for the Planning Inspectorate to fine councils for the decisions that they have made? Clause 5 proposes significantly to weaken the contribution that section 106 agreements make to the much needed provision of affordable housing. If section 106 really was the cause of stalled housing developments, why does the clause focus only on the affordable housing requirements, rather than other section 106 requirements—for example, contributing to transport, other infrastructure or new schools? I ask because, as my hon. Friend the Member for Easington (Grahame M.”
“Of course, and the fact that local authorities have been willing to renegotiate the section 106 affordable housing requirements is proof of that— [ Interruption. ] Well, lots of them have done so, and no doubt the planning Minister will tell us about those that have not.”
“How will the Planning Inspectorate cope with the additional work load? It is a mess.”
“Instead, the Government seem to have decided to make greater use of their call-in powers, as the planning Minister set out in his statement last week, but that will have the same effect—Ministers, not local people, will decide what happens in their community. The Bill Committee will no doubt explore the extent to which the Government intend to use that call-in power to deal with applications for residential developments. If they call them in, Government and Opposition Members will suddenly find that, as a result of the change in policy, their local councils are not taking the decisions. Given that call-in powers have existed for a very long time, will the Minister who responds to the debate explain what the clause gives Ministers that they do not have already under existing planning law?”
“I will happily take in intervention. Any takers? No? It is interesting that we have not received an answer. Do the Government intend to develop national policy statements for the new categories? The Secretary of State floundered when my right hon. Friend the Member for Wentworth and Dearne (John Healey) asked that question earlier. What is this change for? The press notice issued by the Department on 6 September states: “Thousands of big commercial and residential applications to be directed to a major infrastructure fast track”. It only took about a month for that policy to change—another example of the Government making it up as they go along—because residential applications appeared to be pulled from it, as clause 21 now makes clear.”
“The hon. Gentleman says “so many”, but the Government have not given us the evidence. The whole Bill is based on supposition, what was whispered in someone’s ear, what was in the newspapers and what the Prime Minister fulminated against. We are legislating, and we should do so on the basis of evidence. I look forward to seeing that evidence. The third leg of the Secretary of State’s assault on local democracy is clause 21. It, too, gives him wide powers to take planning applications away from local communities. It significantly extends the lists set out in the Planning Act 2008 by including business and commercial projects, as we have heard. We have seen the lists the planning Minister gave the Select Committee, but can he or the Secretary of State clarify whether that would include major retail or leisure developments?”
“First, the Secretary of State told us earlier not to worry and that that applies only to broadband, but could he please point to where in clause 7 it says that that is the case? It does not.”
“I say gently to the hon. Gentleman that we made changes to the system and that one of the groups that we brought into the new national set-up was, indeed, energy. The Government’s provision does not change how decisions are taken—it adds big commercial applications. We await an answer on whether that will include leisure and retail. The hon. Gentleman needs to consider that carefully. A number of other clauses give rise to concern and will be scrutinised carefully in Committee. Clause 7 seems to propose to scrap the special protection enjoyed by our national parks and areas of outstanding natural beauty, and to allow telecoms companies to install cabinets and masts wherever they want.”
“The Secretary of State used to boast that he was protecting village greens, but his proposals will make it much more difficult for people to register them. For instance, there is the positively Kafkaesque proposal that the moment a planning application is published, someone can no longer seek to register a green. Since the first that most people will hear of an application is when it is published, this seems to be a pretty clever way of stopping people exercising their rights, unless they happen to be mind readers. In a very small number of cases there is a problem—that is why we published the consultation paper when we were in government—but this is a heavy-handed, disproportionate and clumsy measure, and we will table amendments in Committee to create a more balanced way forward.”
“I can give him lots of examples of national parks authorities that are taking precisely this approach, but here is just one: in the past five years, North York Moors national parks authority has approved 94% of planning applications and notifications for telecoms equipment. Where is the problem and where is the evidence? In the light of this, I can entirely see why the English National Park Authorities Association and the Campaign for National Parks want the clause removed. The current protection to which the Secretary of State must have regard—conserving the beauty of our national parks and AONBs—cannot be allowed to be undermined by the Government’s desire to look as though they are doing something about growth.”
“The notice then goes on to say, in paragraph 5(c), that “overhead broadband lines can be installed in any area without the need for planning or other permission”. No wonder there is great confusion and concern about this clause, because it is not clear what the Government’s policy really is. Section 109 of the Communications Act 2003 refers to the use of “electronic communications apparatus”, not “broadband boxes and cabinets”. I listened carefully to the Secretary of State, and he did not give one single example—again, there was no evidence—of the problem specifically in relation to national parks and areas of outstanding natural beauty. As he should know, the national parks want broadband to be rolled out, but they want it to be done in the right way.”
“My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and that is why those who care passionately about the national parks are so concerned about the clause. Secondly, the Secretary of State said that the clause would make no change to the power of planning authorities to object. I draw his attention, however, to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport press notice of 7 September, which says that the Government will legislate to do a number of things, one of which is to ensure that “broadband street cabinets can be installed in any location other than a SSSI”— in other words, in national parks and areas of outstanding natural beauty— “without the need for prior approval from the local council”.”
“It would be extremely helpful—I put this to him in all sincerity—to see his and the Department’s assessment of who would gain and who would not, because a lot of businesses are saying that an earlier revaluation would help them. It would also be of assistance if he could set out the impact of a change on the finances of local authorities now that the Local Government Finance Act 2012 is on the statute book.”
“Having looked at this when I was Secretary of State, I recognise that there are some such cases, but there are also lots of others where the provision in the Commons Act 2006 is used quite properly to protect in perpetuity the public’s use of green space—village greens and so on—which they have had the right to enjoy for many years. Like lots of things, it is about getting the balance right, and this clause, as formulated, has not got it right; that is certainly the view of the Open Spaces Society. I listened very carefully to what the Secretary of State said about delaying business rates revaluation. We all want to support measures that will help businesses at a difficult time, but we will want to scrutinise this in Committee to understand the balance of the argument.”
“Member for Grantham and Stamford, shouts from a sedentary position that it is a choice, but one feature of this Bill seems to be that those who are sponsoring it have not actually read it. A Treasury background note published at the same time as the Bill states that “new start-ups can choose to offer only this new type of contract for new hires.” The English is a bit dodgy, but I think it refers to new workers whom a company is taking on— [ Interruption. ] The Under-Secretary says it is a choice, but—”
“Given the wording of the clause, some might say that such a change could happen only if the company and the individual agreed on it. That, however, is true only for existing employees at the time the legislation comes into force. Their choice will be quite simple: take the cash and lose the rights, or lose the cash and keep the rights. Many of them will ask, “How lucky do I feel today and when I think about the future of the company?” The Government have made it crystal clear that in future employers will not have to get an agreement and will be able to offer only contracts involving shares. It means that the only way someone will be able to get a job with that company is if they give up their rights— [ Interruption. ] The Under-Secretary, the hon.”
“We do not, however, need the Bill for that because companies are already perfectly free to give shares to their workers. The clause does something completely different, and, for the first time that I can recall, employers will be allowed to buy their way out of legislation that protects their workers. The legislation is explicit and there is a tariff— [ Interruption. ] I hear the cry of “voluntary”, and we shall come on to whether that is the case. The fact is that for between £2,000 and £50,000, a company can pay to strip its workers of their rights. That is what the clause does. Never mind cash for questions; this is cash for repeal. What on earth is the connection between giving an employee shares, and taking away their fundamental rights in the workplace?”
“That is extremely helpful, and we look forward to seeing those documents. Amid all the centralisation, there are some clauses that seem sensible and that we will support—the Secretary of State smiles—such as those on the energy industry, on removing the anomaly on disposal of land for less than best consideration, on the review of minerals permissions, and on allowing the process for stopping up or diverting highways and public paths to run alongside the planning process— which is perfectly sensible recommendation of the Penfold review. Overall, however, the bad in the Bill far outweighs the good. That brings me to clause 23, which is an absolutely astonishing proposal. Labour Members are in favour of businesses giving shares to employees and think it a jolly good thing.”
“I was trying to encourage the Under-Secretary to provide clarity to the House, Madam Deputy Speaker, but I take your strictures. If someone wants to take a job but finds that it is offered only on the basis that they give up their employment rights, that is not a choice. If that is all an employer offers to someone who is unemployed and wants to do the right thing and contribute to the economy, that is no choice whatsoever. As for shares, what if the company is not listed on the stock exchange? Who will assess the value of those shares? They could be worthless. Who will buy them? Will they carry voting rights? The Secretary of State said nothing about any those points this afternoon, and the House must ask why holding shares should mean that someone loses the right to protection against unfair dismissal. What is the argument for that?”
“When the Minister winds up the debate, will he give me a very simple assurance on process? The Government are currently consulting on the employer-owner idea. Will he therefore promise the House that they will make any amendments to the clause either in Committee or in remaining stages in the Commons? In conclusion, the Bill is not a growth Bill. It will not get the economy moving and will not build infrastructure. It is a “must be seen to be doing something” Bill. The tragedy is that the only thing it does is take power from local people and locally elected councillors and give it to developers and the Secretary of State. Today marks the halfway point of this Parliament, and all we have to mark the occasion is a shoddy, clumsily cobbled together, half-baked Bill. That really shows, and I urge the House to reject it.”
“The director general of the CBI described, in very polite terms, this provision as a “niche idea”—a pretty underwhelming endorsement. The clause will, however, be a lawyers’ paradise, because one of the consequences of it—if it passes into law—is that dismissed employees who find themselves in the position of being employee owners will try to shoehorn their unfair dismissal claims into the rights that are still left to them. That is exactly what will happen—the clause will not even work in the way the Government intend. One might think that the Employee Ownership Association would sing the praises of the Bill, but, of the clause, it has stated: “There is no need to dilute the rights of workers in order to grow employee ownership”. The clause is Beecroft by the back door, and Labour Members oppose it.”
“My hon. Friend is absolutely right; the Bill has nothing to do with that report at all and is about something else entirely. Why should holding shares mean that someone has to give up their right to redundancy payment? What is the argument for that? Why should they give up their right to apply to undertake study or training? The Government rightly remind us how important it is to have the right skills for the future. Without a hint of irony, however, the background note published at the same time as the Bill tries to claim that this measure is particularly aimed at small and medium-sized companies “that benefit from a flexible workforce”. In clause 23 we find that one right workers will lose is the right to request flexible working. You could not make it up, Madam Deputy Speaker, except that that is exactly what the Government are doing.”
“I echo other Members’ compliments about the force of the hon. Gentleman’s case. The review, if it is about anything, must be about the right clinical outcomes for children. That is why we are all here. We are all so passionate about the Leeds children’s heart surgery unit, which I have the privilege to represent. Will he confirm that despite the impression that is being given in some quarters, no assessment of the relative clinical effectiveness of the units considered in the review has been undertaken? Does he agree that the independent review must do that, as we all believe that it would lead to the decision being overturned?”
“May I join others in welcoming the new ministerial team to their positions? Local decisions about planning have been the foundation of our system for at least two generations, but on 6 September the Secretary of State, the only survivor of the reshuffle, astonished everyone when he announced legislation to hand over this power to the Planning Inspectorate in cases where he thinks local councils’ decisions are not up to scratch. We all want speed, but when it comes to quality why does he think that he should decide what good decisions are, rather than locally elected councillors?”
“That was, if I may say so, not an example of muscular localism, but rather a lot of waffle. The truth is that the Secretary of State cannot explain how this legislation will work—I suspect that that is because No. 10 has only just thought about it; he has not yet clarified whether it will apply to planning applications for housing, and Government Members might like to ask that question. His Conservative colleague, the Local Government Association leader, Sir Merrick Cockell has called the plans “a blow to local democracy”. Is it not the case that the Secretary of State is no longer in control of planning policy? Are not a lot of local communities up and down the country going to be very angry when they discover that he has taken away from them the power to decide on planning applications locally?”
“Having completed the biggest change in planning policy for a generation earlier this year and trumpeted its success, the Secretary of State, in an extraordinary spectacle, has stood up before the House and, in effect, told us that his planning system is not fit for purpose. When will Ministers stop casting around for somebody and something else to blame, finally admit that it is the Chancellor’s failed economic policy has led to a collapse in house building and change course?”
“If he does not, planning power will be taken out of the hands of local people. So much for localism. Does he not realise that that will cause alarm up and down the country, including among those on both sides of the House? We have read a great deal about the Chancellor’s wish to undermine the green belt, which is much valued by all of us. Will the Secretary of State clarify what is happening? The Chancellor says that it will change, but the Secretary of State says that it will not. Who is right? Why is this shambles occurring? When does the Secretary of State plan to publish more details on the relaxation of permitted development rights? Will the current height restrictions be maintained? Will he confirm that that will not apply to conservation areas and that where article 4 directions are in place they will remain in place?”
“This morning, the Secretary of State has also just announced in his written statement—I notice that he did not refer to it in his oral statement—a bombshell that threatens local decision making on planning decisions. The written statement laid before the House this morning states that if an authority “has a track record of consistently poor performance in the speed or quality of its decisions”— we must ask who will judge that quality—the Government propose “to legislate to allow applications to be decided by the Planning Inspectorate”. Can he explain why, having consistently denounced centralised decision making, he is now proposing a fundamental change? This is not a technical detail, but a fundamental change in which he proposes to take the power in future to decide whether he thinks that local planning decisions are up to scratch.”
“The Deputy Prime Minister suggested on the radio this morning that at present developers have to wait five years before they can renegotiate section 106 agreements. Will the Secretary of State confirm that those agreements can in fact be renegotiated at any time if the parties agree and that a number of local authorities have been doing exactly that because of the current economic circumstances? What evidence will developers be required to produce to show that a scheme is not viable? Will he clarify whether the proposed changes apply only to existing section 106 agreements or also to new ones, given that only last month he announced that for “all planning obligations agreed after 6 April 2010, the period will remain at five years”?”
“The fundamental problem is not the planning system and not section 106 agreements, which are very important in providing much-needed affordable housing. The Local Government Association reports that planning permission is already in the system for 400,000 homes—it is the Chancellor’s failed economic plan that is preventing them from being built. On section 106, how many affordable homes does he anticipate will now not be built because of his proposed changes, given that the National Housing Federation said this morning that section 106 provides 35,000 affordable homes a year? Will any replacement homes that manage to be built be built on the same development sites so that we can have mixed communities?”
“The Chancellor has put the economy back into double-dip recession, those who are looking to buy are finding it hard to get mortgages or to raise the deposits needed, and house builders who already have planning permission are not progressing those developments because they do not think that people will buy the houses. We support measures that will help growth and build more houses—including the debt guarantee—and help first-time buyers. Indeed, we have been urging the Government to bring forward investment in housing. Will the Secretary of State tell the House when he expects that the number of affordable housing starts, which was only 15,000 last year, will match the 54,000 starts achieved in 2009-10 by the last Labour Government? Will he also tell us how many families have benefited to date from the NewBuy scheme?”
“I thank the Secretary of State for advance sight of his oral statement and for the fact that he graciously offered one after my urgent question had been granted. But, once again, Mr Deputy Speaker, we have major changes in policy being announced first to the media and not to the House. We also notice that the Secretary of State has been uncharacteristically silent in recent weeks, while the Prime Minister, the Deputy Prime Minister and the Chancellor have all been busy changing policy that we all thought he was responsible for. The Government know that we have a housing crisis, but it is a crisis of their own making. Housing starts fell by 10% last year and affordable housing starts fell by a catastrophic 68%—that was a direct result of the cut in Government funding for affordable housing, which the Secretary of State allowed to happen.”
“I am not surprised that the Housing Minister has chosen not to answer these questions, given that the House knows he has a bit of a problem when it comes to statistics. Will the Under-Secretary explain how his right hon. Friend came to conclude that the huge decline in affordable housing starts this year—that is what the figures from his own Department show—were in his words “impressive” and “rapid and dramatic progress”?”
“I am not surprised that the Minister is unable to answer the question, but the House should be keen to assist his right hon. Friend the Housing Minister in his difficulty. He has already had to be put straight by the UK Statistics Authority, and I suggest that he seeks the help of the Education Secretary and offers to take one of the new mathematics O-levels. I have a question: “If 49,363 affordable houses were started last year and only 15,698 affordable houses were started this year, should Grant describe this as: a) ‘a massive increase’; or b) ‘a 68% decline’? Please show your detailed workings.” Does the Under-Secretary not understand that every time his right hon. Friend does that, it is not just affordable house building that declines, but his credibility? When is the Secretary of State going to get a grip?”
“I understand the point that the Minister is making about requiring organisations such as DWP to offer information relating to individuals, but section 14A(1)(b) refers to “powers to require a person to enter into arrangements under which access is permitted to the person’s electronic records.” I find it hard to see that that is to do with the Department for Work and Pensions. Can the hon. Gentleman assure the House that this does not relate to individual council tax payers and any electronic records that they have—for example, held on personal computers?”
“In both those respects, the Bill reminds us of what this coalition Government are all about: they are unfair, out of touch and do not work—and nor, I fear, will the Bill.”
“Instead of Ministers having the courage of their convictions and applying the 10% cut across the board, they have ducked that, and are expecting everyone else to show the courage they themselves have refused to demonstrate. In conclusion, whichever way we look at it, this part of the Bill is unfair and wrong, and no amount of trying to describe it as something else is going to alter what the changes in council tax benefit will do to our constituents on low incomes who need that support. We urge other Members to join us and vote against the Bill on Third Reading because it fails to meet the test on business rates that the Secretary of State set out when moving it on Second Reading and, as we have discovered in our discussions, it is even harsher in respect of cutting council tax benefit than appeared to be the case at first sight.”
“Indeed, all our constituents are likely to face additional cuts, because the forecast baseline for council tax benefit expenditure that is being used for the Bill is expected, miraculously—from my point of view and that of my hon. Friend the Member for Warrington North—to fall. Do Members really believe that demand for council tax benefit will decline in the next two years, in the light of the current state of the economy and the fact that we are now back in recession thanks to the Chancellor’s economic policy? When we come to the default scheme to be applied if local authorities do not come up with their own scheme, what do we find? We find that the Government’s courage fails completely in following through the 10% reduction, because the default scheme in effect replicates the current scheme.”
“The list is like a roll call of seats represented by Government Members, but it seems that Government Members—with, I think, only two honourable exceptions during Second Reading and Committee—are either completely unaware that their constituents who are currently receiving council tax benefit will face higher council tax bills than elsewhere, because their areas contain a higher proportion of protected pensioners than others, or are not too bothered about it. Let me say this, very gently, to Back-Bench members of the coalition parties. When their constituents turn up at their surgeries in a year’s time, waving a bit of paper and saying, “Why have you done this to me?”, they will be very, very bothered about what the Bill actually does.”
“As we pointed out on Second Reading, and as has been said today, cutting council tax benefit by 10% while—rightly—protecting pensioners means an average 16% cut for everyone else, but the impact will not be felt evenly. In one of the other documents that were published last week, the Government said, “We considered whether we should even things out to take account of the different proportions of pensioners in different local authority areas, but we rejected the idea.” As I have said, the impact will not be felt evenly, because some areas contain much higher percentages of pensioners than others.”
“Friend the Member for Warrington North (Helen Jones) for the forensic analysis to which she has subjected the Bill during its passage through this House. I am sure that her cogent arguments will be considered very carefully by those in the other place. I also pay tribute to other colleagues, including my right hon. Friend the Member for Greenwich and Woolwich—who chairs the Select Committee—and my right hon. Friend the Member for Wentworth and Dearne (John Healey). I am genuinely surprised that so few coalition Back Benchers have twigged what is going on in the Bill in relation to council tax. They do not seem to know what they are about to troop through the Lobbies to vote for.”
“As if to flaunt just how out of touch they are, the Government had the nerve to say, in one of the documents published last week, that the aims of the council tax benefit cut included “reducing poverty”. This is a strange way of going about it. The Government are saying to people with not a lot of money, “You know what? We are going to cut your income to make you work harder”, which is the precise opposite of the policy that they have pursued when it comes to millionaires and the tax cut that was announced in the Budget. They also claim that they do not want to affect work incentives, but, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Mr Raynsford) pointed out, that is nonsense. I pay tribute to my hon.”
“Rank inconsistency is plain for all to see. Only a few weeks ago, the Secretary of State was touring the country denouncing those who were planning a modest increase in council tax, including a number of Tory-controlled authorities. He said that he was “determined to protect hard-working families”, but here we have a Bill that will end up doing exactly what he was denouncing. We have legislation that will, from next year, impose council tax increases on many unsuspecting people. And whom has the Secretary of State chosen as his target for those higher council tax bills? In keeping with the Government’s philosophy, he has chosen people on low incomes—people who do not have a lot of money—because that is why they get council tax benefit in the first place; and on that, he is strangely silent.”
“We discover that the Government like the idea of business rate income growth so much that they are going to take half of it for themselves. That is what was announced last week. It is no wonder that the Local Government Association has described this as a “tax on local authorities”, which it strongly opposes. What is more, the Government seem to intend that set-aside will continue beyond 2015. Why? Because they want to be able to continue to impose cuts on local government after the end of the current spending review period. Having heard the Minister’s argument that this was the be-all and end-all of localism, the Local Government Association said that it was “not a localising policy and goes against the Government's stated commitment to localism.” That deals with the first part of the Bill. What about council tax benefit?”
“That is hardly reassuring, because it means that local authorities could lose a lot of money under this Bill before help arrives. To put it another way, councils are going to have to fall quite a long way before they hit the net. The Bill was also supposed to be about trying to get rid of a complex system for funding local government—we heard the argument a few moments ago. Frankly, however, all the Bill does is to replace one version of complexity with, in the words of London Councils, another “fiendishly complex system”. If anything, on the basis of the documents produced last week, the Bill has grown even more complex during its passage through the House. As for enabling local authorities to receive the benefits of business rate income and its growth, what do we discover?”
“As the House knows, some authorities are very heavily dependent on the business rate income they get from a particular factory or a big employer. At the moment, it does not matter because it all goes into the central pot and is then divided and comes back, but under this Bill, it really will matter, and the consequences of losing that income—if the business were to close or relocate elsewhere, for instance—would be devastating. In those circumstances, what those local authorities want to know is whether the Government will be there to help. What we find when we look at the papers published last Thursday is that the safety net will kick in only when authorities meet a threshold for the decline in their business rate income, and we are advised that the threshold will be set between 7.5% and 10%.”
“That matters because when local authorities look at the way in which this Government have chosen to exercise the powers they already have, particularly in relation to spending, they have found, as we know, a pattern of cuts that is utterly unfair and the very opposite of “We are all in this together”. It also matters because, as the Minister will know, although he did not refer to it, one of the real concerns about the Bill that we have heard from colleagues in local government is that it will end up accentuating the gap between more prosperous and less well-off local authorities. That is a real concern. The Government’s only reply has been to say, “Don’t worry about it, because at least you will not be worse off in year one.” That is why the arrangements surrounding the safety net are so important.”
“The Secretary of State argued that the current system gives central Government too much power and that he wanted to change that. We would take him at face value if that is what the Bill did, but it does not. What the Bill does and what the Secretary of State has created is a system that gives all the power to himself—the power to determine the central top-slice; the power to set the baseline; and the power to decide the extent of the tariff for the top-up and when the safety-net should kick in. It is a whole list of powers. If this really is localism—the argument that the Minister tried to advance—why are there all these central powers? It does not sound much like localisation to me, and it does not feel much like that to local government.”