I first need to draw the House’s attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests as a serving councillor.
I am sure that my hon. Friend the Minister would agree that the story of local government throughout this covid crisis, and for the past decade, has been one of extraordinary financial resilience. A number of Members have made reference to the NHS. We should ask ourselves whether the NHS could have managed a 60% reduction in the funding that it receives from central Government and still have seen the satisfaction of its users increase, as our local authorities have done over that period. How do we get more people into politics who come from business and professional backgrounds and who represent their communities? Clearly, if we look at the cabinets—the leadership—of our local authorities, that is exactly where we find those people. I pay particular tribute to my excellent colleague, Ray Puddifoot of Hillingdon Council, who has just entered his 21st year as leader of that authority, having spent a lifetime as a highly experienced and senior chartered accountant. He is one of the many local government people who have brought stability to the finances of our councils.
I want to pick up on three issues that I invite my hon. Friend to consider and that I think this House needs to pay particular attention to. The first concerns housing and planning. We hear a good deal about the impact that our planning system has, but we need to recognise that more than half a million consented developments are as yet uncommenced. Local authorities are doing an outstanding job in ensuring that housing opportunity is moving through the system, yet, all over the country, developers are playing off different parts of the system. Perhaps it is time to consider simply abolishing the Planning Inspectorate and Secretary of State call-ins, making sure that the local authority’s decision is final so that developers know who they have to negotiate with, the decision is made, and they can get their spades and shovels in the ground to develop the houses that we need.
The second issue that I would like my hon. Friend to consider is social care, which has been touched on extensively. Many of our constituents are astounded to
discover that social care accounts for about 70% of all the money that our local authorities spend. Indeed, children’s social care is the only area of council spending to have increased, on average, in the past decade, yet it is a service that touches barely one in five of our constituents. We need to make sure that we have a financial solution that opens this up to the widest possible group of people to get their support.
Finally, I would ask us to learn lessons from what we have done with delayed discharges, where we need to see that local authorities and the NHS work together. Local authorities brought about a massive improvement in delayed discharges; the NHS strolled. We know where the opportunity lies.
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