Robert Jenrick
MP for Newark · Reform UK · United Kingdom
“Robert Steele was a beautiful four-year-old boy who died three weeks ago in Newark when he was thrown from an off-road bike that was being driven by a 24-year-old man. This is the culmination of a number of incidents in my town, and many others across the country, involving off-road bikes, e-bikes and e-scooters.”
“The Minister said that Governments are elected to lead. Most people would assume that means that Ministers are elected to lead, because they are accountable to Parliament and to the people.”
“There is an air of total unreality hanging over this debate. Successive Governments have run down our Royal Navy to its present enfeebled state, they have conspired to surrender other British sovereign territory and we have a Government who procrastinate about signing off a new oil field in the North sea—let alone about one in the south A…”
“I welcome the right hon. Gentleman to his position. I have known him for a long time—I wish him well. He has a huge task ahead of him. Earlier in the summer, the Prime Minister said that walking the streets of Makerfield lodged in his mind that so many working people want to see the personal allowance raised.”
“Imagine that you are a worker at JLR worried about your future, and you have the misfortune of watching the Chancellor’s speech, which contains searing economic insights like, “I want to see businesses make a profit.” There was nothing about scrapping electric vehicle mandates, bringing down energy costs by getting rid of net zero targets…”
“The sight of the Government escorting illegal migrants into Portsmouth harbour, the home of the Royal Navy, was a national humiliation. Sometimes I wonder whether Members of this House have no appreciation of the level of anger there is in the country at the rapes, the murders and the billions being wasted that should be being spent on th…”
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Every one of 4,906 lines we hold for Robert Jenrick, in date order, each linked to its source. Free to read, in full, without an account. Page 54 of 99.
“We will establish a new £4 billion levelling-up fund, building on the success of our £3.6 billion towns and high streets funds. Any local area will be eligible to apply directly to this fund, which will finance the everyday infrastructure, town centre regeneration and culture that communities need and local people want. The UK shared prosperity fund will help to level up and create opportunity across the UK. A UK-wide investment framework for that will be published by my Department early next year. The Government are funding vital local infrastructure, with total capital spending at £100 billion.”
“In addition, we are providing £165 million of new funding to councils for the troubled families programme, underlining our continued commitment to the most vulnerable in society. Following the passage of the Domestic Abuse Bill, we will provide £125 million next year to enable councils to meet their duties in full to provide the support that victims of domestic abuse and their children undoubtedly deserve. Serious challenges remain, but the start of the vaccine roll-out last week offers us cause for optimism and allows us to at least begin to glimpse the world beyond the pandemic. We want to work with local councils to build a new country beyond covid—a country that is more prosperous, greener, safer and more neighbourly. Local government will be integral to the achievement of that shared vision.”
“Our measures insure against funding shortfalls, and I am particularly pleased to confirm today the scope of and approach to our very well received scheme to reimburse councils for 75% of irrecoverable lost tax income from 2020-21. As the cold weather sets in, the protection of those sleeping rough amid the pandemic continues to be one of my priorities. Our world-leading Everyone In initiative was and remains a powerful testament to what local and central Government can achieve together. We are building on that work to ensure that as few as possible of the 29,000 people who were helped off the streets under that scheme, and subsequently, return to life on the streets: we are spending over £750 million next year to tackle homelessness and rough sleeping—a 60% increase on the previous you spending review.”
“Our settlement also addresses the extra costs incurred by councils in rural areas, providing an extra £4 million to the rural services delivery grant—the highest contribution to date, at £85 million. We are also proposing a further £622 million of new homes bonus allocations, We will invite views on how we can reform the scheme next year to ensure that it is focused where homes are needed the most and where councils are ambitious to get on and deliver them. Despite the arrival of vaccines, we will continue to live with covid-19 for some months. That is why, alongside the core settlement, I am announcing comprehensive measures, including £1.55 billion of additional, un-ringfenced grant funding for covid expenditure.”
“Councils will, of course, want to take into account the financial circumstances of their residents and to protect households from excessive increases in bills. It is incumbent on them to balance these competing pressures and reach the right decision for their local areas. To help councils continue reducing council tax for those least able to pay, including households hit hard financially by the pandemic, I am making £670 million of new grant funding available outside the core settlement for local council tax support. Lower tier councils, including districts, will benefit from a new one-off £111 million lower tier services grant, and we are providing certainty and stability by confirming that the main funding allocations for the full range of council services will rise in line with inflation.”
“Within that, we are giving authorities access to an additional £1 billion for adult’s and children’s social care, made up of £300 million of social care grant and the flexibility of a 3% adult social care precept. On average, English councils will see a 4.5% cash-terms increase in core spending power, which is also an increase in real terms. That is testimony to the support that our local government deserves, and it comes off the back of three settlements in a row that have increased funding in real terms. The £1 billion grant announced at last year’s spending review will continue, along with all other existing social care funding. Balancing the contributions of national and local taxpayers, we are giving councils increased flexibility through a 2% council tax referendum limit, with an extra 3% for social care authorities.”
“We have ensured that they receive support to manage associated losses in income, including from sales, fees, charges, leisure centres and local taxes, and that is expected to amount to further billions of pounds of support. That commitment remains undimmed, and the settlement we are announcing today ensures that councils have the resources they need to continue that work next year, to play their part in the recovery of their communities and to deliver first-class public services. As we look ahead to 2021 and 2022, the annual settlement makes an extra £2.2 billion available to fund the provision of critical public services including adult and children’s social care.”
“Today I have written to all local authorities in England thanking their councillors, officers and employees for their exceptional service this year. From carers to teachers to social workers to refuse collectors to council officers, as well as the elected members, they have worked tirelessly over the course of this pandemic to keep us safe, to provide support to the most vulnerable, to assist local businesses and to deliver public services under immense pressure. I think I speak for the whole House in saying a sincere thank you and in wishing them and their families a happy and peaceful Christmas. From the start of the pandemic, we committed to ensuring that councils had the resources they needed to step up and support their communities. We have provided councils with more than £7.2 billion of additional funding for covid-19 expenditure.”
“We will continue to support local councils, the overwhelming majority of which, of all political persuasions, have done a sterling job this year, and we will ensure that they get the resources they need to continue that work into the new year.”
“The cabinet has been described as acting like some kind of wrecking ball, except that the wrecking ball was directed at its own council. Or, indeed, we could look at Nottingham’s Labour council, which was described recently by its auditors as having “institutional blindness” to its financial mismanagement and ineptitude, which included creating an energy company called Robin Hood. That is a rather unusual definition of Robin Hood’s activities—instead of taking from the rich, it robbed everyone. The truth is that under Labour councils, it is the public who lose out. The public will pay the price in Croydon in lost jobs, poorer services and, ultimately, higher council taxes.”
“He refers to council tax costs. Local councils are not under any obligation to increase council taxes. We only have to look back at the record of the last Labour Government to see what happens under Labour. Under Labour, council tax doubled. Under this Conservative Government, council tax is lower in real terms today than it was in 2010-11. It is difficult to see how the hon. Gentleman and his colleagues can pose as the guardians of taxpayer value. I appreciate that he is on what we might call a sticky wicket in this regard. We only have to look at his local Labour council in Croydon. It purchased a hotel above the asking price, which has now gone bankrupt. It created a housing company with a £200 million loan and it could not say whether it had built any houses.”
“I echo the hon. Gentleman’s thanks to local council workers across the country. He talks about our pledge to support local councils and to ensure that they are fully funded for the work that they have done during covid, and we have made good that promise. We have provided £7.2 billion already. Local councils to date have reported that they have spent £4 billion and are projecting that they will spend almost £6.2 billion to the end of the year, so we will have provided local councils with as much, if not more, funding than they have reported. The hon. Gentleman refers to funding for local council tax losses and for sales fees and charges. Our schemes are extremely generous in both regards, providing 75p in the pound of losses for local councils to ensure that they can weather the particular storm that they have been through this year.”
“The purpose of today’s settlement, in looking ahead to the likely covid expenditure that councils will face next year, is to ensure that in respect of both the month-by-month costs that councils are incurring, which have been about £500 million a month, and the losses they are incurring in sales, fees and charges, they at least have forward guidance to the middle point of the next calendar year. Of course we all hope that by Easter, and certainly by the summer, the position in the country and within councils will be dramatically different.”
“My hon. Friend makes an important point, and I share his desire to have a multi-year settlement for local government. Obviously, this year has proved a unique one, in which the kaleidoscope has been shaken in many respects and will take time to settle. I hope that when we come to do the settlement next year it will indeed be a multi-year one. I believe that that is the expectation of my right hon. Friend the Chancellor, but he will no doubt give confirmation in due course, as we see how 2021 turns out. On local councils in tier 3, we are providing further funding for both councils themselves and their local business community, on a month-by-month basis, if they are in tier 2 or tier 3.”
“Early in the pandemic, the Local Government Association came before the hon. Gentleman’s Committee and estimated that costs incurred by local councils would be around £10 billion. We are going to end this financial year having provided local councils with, I suspect, about £10 billion, and we are providing further billions of pounds into next year. So we can see the Government’s commitment and determination to support local councils.”
“I thank the Chair of the Select Committee for all his work and that of his Committee over the year. He is right to say that the figures we quote of an up to 4.5% real-terms cash increase in core spending power are dependent on the choices that local councils make in the weeks and months ahead, but one would expect that; local councils and the local democratic process will have to balance the competing interests of providing public services and ensuring that hard-working people are not facing excessive increases in local council tax, and those will be different judgments in different parts of the country. I will of course keep the covid costs being incurred by local councils under review. We have made good on our promises time and again since the start of the pandemic.”
“Friend supports yesterday’s announcement on the local housing need question, and hope that he will get on with building more homes on the Isle of Wight in the years ahead.”
“I would be happy to meet my hon. Friend and the leader of his local council, as would, I am sure, the Minister for Regional Growth and Local Government, my hon. Friend the Member for Thornbury and Yate (Luke Hall). I do not agree that the Isle of Wight has lacked the resources to respond to the pandemic; from what I have seen it has done a sterling job. The Isle of Wight has had significant amounts of additional support, and total covid-19 funding for the council so far has been £20.3 million. We have also provided support for the local business community amounting to £48 million, which has been brilliantly dispensed by my hon. Friend’s local council, supporting 4,500 small and medium-sized businesses on the Isle of Wight. I am pleased that my hon.”
“We have also secured £430 million for new move-on accommodation and asked every local council in the country to bid for that so that councils can invest in accommodation to help to support the people they have taken in off the streets. On no recourse to public funds, we have taken a number of steps this year. We have extended the derogation, not just to London but to the whole country, so that local councils can support European economic area nationals. There is of course, a cohort of people who are not EEA nationals, and we have allowed councils the discretion to support them when there is a risk to life. Many councils have chosen to do that throughout the pandemic and I am sure will do so this winter.”
“The right hon. Gentleman has a long-standing interest in this issue. It important that we set out long-term plans both to help the cohort of people who came in off the streets through Everybody In and to make further strides in our overall effort to reduce rough sleeping to the absolute minimum. In the summer we asked local councils, including the right hon. Gentleman’s, to draw up a plan for how they would assist those people who were in temporary accommodation into move-on accommodation, and then ultimately into either social housing or the private rental sector. We supported that with almost £100 million of funding. The settlement announced today provides further funding for the next financial year that is the same as or greater than the amount of money that was available in this financial year, and it will be £750 million in total.”
“The Getting Building fund has provided £15 million to the marches so that Shropshire and Herefordshire can get building and create and sustain jobs.”
“I am happy to reassure my hon. Friend’s constituents in Telford that there should be no reason why her local council, Telford and Wrekin, should endanger local people’s services. We have provided Telford and Wrekin Council with £22.5 million of covid-19 funding this year, and we have provided £30 million for local businesses, supporting 2,500 businesses in my hon. Friend’s constituency. Of course, Telford is in the running for the towns fund and I have been to see some of the fantastic proposals that my hon. Friend is championing in that respect. Earlier in the year we provided £1 million of accelerated funding, which I think has gone towards the brilliant bridge linking Telford railway station with the town centre and the new tech zone being created there, which will create good-quality, high-skilled jobs for the future.”
“We are investing that £433 million in new, good-quality move-on accommodation , including some in London, working with the GLA and local councils, including his own, as well as pan-London organisations such as Peabody to get that accommodation up and running by the end of this year. The right hon Gentleman asks about housing more generally, and I want to see more houses built in London as much as he does. He could go to his own council in Islington and ask it to do more. Its current local housing need is for 2,300 homes, and it is building on average 1,000, so less than half the number of homes needed. Charity starts at home, and I suggest he goes to Islington and gets the council building to support the local community.”
“I forgot to say in response to the shadow Minister that of course the first and most celebrated customer of Robin Hood Energy in Nottingham was the right hon. Gentleman, the former Leader of the Opposition. On his questions, I can absolutely answer that this Government are committed to ending rough sleeping, and he can see from the 60% increase in funding in this settlement versus the last spending review the degree of resources that we are willing to put into this issue. It is not solely about money; it is also a crisis of health. There are issues to do with ex-offenders, law enforcement and immigration. We are doing everything we can, and I am working with my Cabinet colleagues to progress this issue.”
“We all—certainly those of us on the Government Benches—would agree that we need an updated and fairer method of distributing public funds within local government. This year would have been the wrong time to bring that forward, I think. This is a one-year settlement in a period of almost unique instability in the sector. There might be an opportunity to do it next year, and my Department will work with the Treasury to review that. In the meantime, we have substantially increased the rural services delivery grant, taking it to £85 million, the highest amount to date, to support the delivery of public service in places such as Suffolk, where it is undoubtedly challenging and expensive.”
“As I have said in response to other questions, it would clearly be beneficial for the sector for there to be a multi-year settlement, but this was not the opportunity to do so. I do not think that this would have been the right time, when there is so much instability and uncertainty surrounding the delivery of public services by local councils. Perhaps next year—I will certainly be making representations to the Chancellor to encourage him to do so.”
“I am not able to confirm when we will bring that forward. As I have said, it will not be on this occasion, but we will have to make a judgment, based on the position of local government, on whether next year would be right for, as she says, an undoubtedly significant change.”
“I shall certainly take my hon. Friend’s representations forward. I know that Leicestershire colleagues, both in local government and in the House, have long advocated a fairer distribution of public funds in local government. As I have said in answer to other questions, we will undertake careful consideration of that next year.”
“It would not be right for me to provide in public the self-reported estimate of costs supplied to us by Bedford Borough Council because that was done in confidence. None the less, across the whole country, as I have said, the sum of money that we have provided to local councils well exceeds their self-reported covid-19 expenditure. With respect to Bedford, I can say that the total funding provided this year has been £20.9 million so far. For Bedford’s businesses, we have provided £27.8 million, supporting 2,300 businesses. Looking to the future and the recovery of Bedford’s economy, it is likely to be a recipient of the towns fund, and it has already received £1 million in accelerated funding to support new infrastructure, skills, culture and business development.”
“Cornwall Council will be able to rely on that to plan its future up to the summer of next year, and, of course, we all hope that people will be in Cornwall enjoying its beaches and attractions in the summer of 2021.”
“I appreciate that this will have been a particular challenge to Cornwall Council given its array of car parks and other attractions for the tourist sector. That is why we created the sales fees and charges scheme earlier in the year, which provides 75p in the pound to councils for losses in that regard. Already, we have paid out, I think, more than £500 million to local councils. I am sure that Cornwall Council has already benefited and will do so in the future, and it is expected that that scheme will provide over £1 billion, if not significantly more. It is without cap, and we have announced in the settlement today that we will be rolling that forward to the middle of next year.”
“However, under your auspices, Madam Deputy Speaker, may I wish her and, particularly, her mother—who has done a fantastic job leading her city over a very challenging year—a very happy Christmas?”
“The hon. Lady makes an interesting argument, because we on the Government Benches want to see more private sector investment going into the great cities of the midlands and the north. We want to see more homes, more urban regeneration, and more brilliant and inspired schemes coming to constituencies such as hers. That is exactly the approach we have taken with respect to the local housing need, and I respectfully ask her to show a little bit more ambition for her community. The three-year annual delivery of homes in Sheffield is 2,500 homes; the new local housing need that we have proposed is 2,800 homes, so if the hon. Lady truly believes that 300 extra homes could not be built in a great city such as Sheffield, I think she is talking it down, which I am sure is not her intention.”
“I would be delighted to join my hon. Friend in thanking the brilliant staff at his local councils. I have been consistently delighted and impressed by the fantastic work that staff at local councils have done across the country, including my own in Newark and Sherwood, Rushcliffe and Bassetlaw, and Nottinghamshire County Council. I am sure that all of us in the House want to join together to thank them and wish them a healthy and peaceful Christmas.”
“As Secretary of State for Local Government, I am familiar with people saying that there is not enough money; that, I think, is a refrain that all of my predecessors of all parties have known. However, I do not think it is fair with respect to Enfield this year. We have provided it with £43.6 million of covid-19 funding so far. We have provided it with £44 million for its local business community, and the settlement that we are setting out today provides a further £12.5 million, taking Enfield’s core spending power to a quarter of a billion pounds. That will be a 5.3% increase—a very substantial increase—for the benefit of the hon. Gentleman’s council and his constituents.”
“That will, I think, go in part to ensure that the Blackpool illuminations are back and brighter than ever next year.”
“My hon. Friend makes a very important point, and I am very happy to give him my full support. When providing public services, local councils will need to balance their individual financial positions with the needs of their own constituents and residents—hard-working people whose incomes will be under pressure. With respect to Blackpool Council, as my hon. Friend says, we provided it with an exceptional degree of support over the course of this year. Its core spending power is £148 million, so the sum that he quotes is very significant in that context. Some £26 billion has gone to pay for the council’s covid-19 expenditure, and it is also, of course, the recipient of our first towns fund town deal, amounting to £39.5 million of investment in Blackpool.”
“As I said in response to the shadow Minister’s remarks, the Government have seen a real-terms decrease in council tax compared with the position when we came to power in 2010. It was the last Labour Government who doubled council tax bills for residents throughout the country. Of course we are aware of the different tax bases of different local authorities, and that is why we have consistently provided grants to ensure that there is equalisation across the country. In this settlement, we are providing £270 million of equalisation grants to ensure that each part of the country, regardless of how wealthy or otherwise it may be, has the resources it needs to properly fund adult and children’s social care and all the other important public services.”
“Friend, today we have announced funding for waking watches, partly inspired by brilliant campaigners in his constituency.”
“My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care will bring forward proposals in due course. We will meet our manifesto commitment to introduce the long-term reforms that this country urgently needs on social care. I think today’s settlement provides local government with the sustainable finances it needs for social care. It has been widely praised by the sector as meeting the demographic changes that my right hon. Friend mentioned. We are also ensuring that councils such as his have the funding that they need. Bromley will have a 5.5% increase in core spending power from the previous year, in which there was a 4.7% increase. That is two successive years of increases in council funding for his local authority area. Briefly, in other news for my hon.”
“I join the right hon. Gentleman in thanking and praising the staff of his local council and wishing Mr Collins a happy retirement. With respect to the balance of funding across the country, I am afraid that the right hon. Gentleman is mistaken. This settlement will ensure that funding is there for all councils in all parts of the country. We have taken particular care to address the issue that he raises. In fact, County Durham will receive £5.2 million in equalisation payments. That will ensure that it has a 4.5% cash and real-terms increase in core spending power, which comes on top of a 7% increase last year—very substantial increases to ensure that his constituents get good-quality public services.”
“My hon. Friend makes a very important point. We all want to see councils have access to funding at low interest rates to fund housing and regeneration within their own boundaries. We do not expect local councils to indulge in risky financial ventures, either within their own areas or beyond. That is a mistake. Many local councils quite clearly do not have the financial management skills to do that. My hon. Friend highlights at least two egregious examples of that, in Nottingham and Croydon. Warrington may well be another; I will look it up myself after this statement. We need to bear down on councils that appear to be using taxpayers’ money as if it were Monopoly money and respect the individuals who actually pay the bills at the end of the day.”
“I will happily look into the issue that the hon. Gentleman raises, but £1 million is not a great deal of money in the context of the £39.8 million that the Government have provided for Cheshire West and Chester Council to meet its covid-19 expenditure. If that is correct, it rather suggests that we have made good our promise to ensure that that council, like every other, gets the resources it needs. In case the hon. Gentleman would like to know, the settlement for next year for Cheshire West and Chester ensures a 4.1% cash and real-terms increase in core spending power, which builds on a 6% increase last year.”
“I will happily write to my hon. Friend with the full details with respect to Blaby District Council. Across the country, we have announced today that we will be doing a further year of the new homes bonus, backed by over £600 million of Government money, but we will also be consulting on its future. The new homes bonus is an important part of the finances of many local councils, but it is widely perceived to be a poor incentive for councils to get on and build homes, so the consultation will ask how we can develop a new incentive that supports those councils that need to build homes and those that have high ambitions to get on and build. Fortunately for my hon. Friend, his council and those that surround it in Leicestershire are among the most ambitious councils in the country when it comes to house building.”
“Lady did not welcome the fact that Oldham is part of the towns fund—I look forward to seeing the proposals that it brings forward—or that we provided £1 million to Oldham earlier in the year, so that it can get on and take forward some of those exciting ideas as soon as possible.”
“As I said in answer to the hon. Member for Bedford (Mohammad Yasin), it would not be right for me to say publicly how much a local council has self-reported as having spent on covid-19 expenditure, but across the whole country, we have more than compensated local councils for the costs they have incurred. We have provided Oldham with £33.5 million so far. In addition, it will be making use of the sales, fees and charges scheme, which provides 75p in the pound, and the council tax and business rates scheme that we have announced today, which does the same thing, so I rather suspect that Oldham will receive as much money as it requires over the course of the year. The hon.”
“I join my hon. Friend in praising her local council, and in particular the excellent local council leader she is lucky to have, Elizabeth Campbell, whom it has been my pleasure to work with this year on many different issues. My hon. Friend is right to say that business rates are a challenge. Of course, this year the Chancellor has provided a business rates holiday, which so many businesses on our local high streets have benefited from. It will be for him to decide whether or in what form that should continue into the next financial year, and no doubt he will bring forward further details on that next year. There will be a fundamental review of the future of business rates, and I am sure she will contribute to that in due course.”
“She also mentions homelessness and rough sleeping, on which we have worked very closely with Newham Council—I visited a brilliant move-on accommodation site in her constituency earlier this year with the mayor—and we will be providing it with further funding next year, thanks to the £750 million that we are investing in our campaign to end rough sleeping.”
“I certainly can give the hon. Member that assurance, but equally, I would be more than happy to meet her and her right hon. Friend. She raises a number of different points. Her local council has received a great deal of money from the Government over the course of this year. It has received almost £50 million in covid-19 expenditure alone so far, in addition to the schemes I have already referred to, which will no doubt amount to many further millions of pounds. The Government have provided the council with £56 million to support 4,000 of her local businesses.”
“Can I thank my right hon. Friend for his hard work over the course of this year and for the campaigns we have worked on together? Not least of those is the decision he campaigned on for many years to institute national space standards for new homes built under permitted development rights, which I think will make a great deal of difference in Harlow, as across the country. He is right to highlight the many ways in which the Government are supporting Harlow—through the towns fund, which is bringing forward very exciting and welcome proposals, and also through the work of Homes England in my Department, which is putting £240 million towards the new garden village to provide much-needed housing and further town centre regeneration for his local community. I look forward to visiting Harlow, I am sure, next year and seeing the results.”